I guess after the whole daily blogging thing, I deserved a little break, but a month seems excessive. I have been really busy, and today I have about fifteen minutes to breathe before more "busy" and I thought, "hey, why don't I update the old blog?"
Aside from being so busy that my head is about to explode (no, truly--this was a real concern), I have been doing things like: knitting (during my lunch hour, so clearly this counts as mental fitness), quilting (and by "quilting" I mean sneaking in a block here, cutting a stack of squares there, nothing substantial, which anyone will tell you is no way to finish a quilt), and embroidery (nothing to add here, just stating the fact).
Usually the summer means a little bit of calm at work and time to get things done at home; but, this summer seems to be the exception to that rule. I am not complaining, I am merely mentioning it because, like I said, I have been busy. But everyone needs a break from busy, and to kick off my summer I took a break. I hung out, ate, drank, and knit with some bloggy-knitty friends in Grayling, Michigan (geographically, it sounds random, because it kinda is).
We get together at least once a year, sometimes twice. We meet somewhere fun. It's a pretty great weekend, really. I highly recommend this venture to anyone so inclined. The key ingredient here though, are the people involved. Let me say up front that I totally borrowed the following shot from Minty, but it was made possible with my tripod, so, yeah...)...
This group of friends (we call ourselves KBC) is probably not unique to the blogosphere. I am sure that there are tons of groups like us. But this group is special to me...why yes, they do warm the cockles of my heart, in case you were wondering. The KBC women are the first people that I followed on blogs when I became a blogger (actually, before I became a blogger for some of them). Some of these fabulous women and I formed friendships over comments left on each others blogs that had nothing to do with knitting or crafting. But mostly, we all just mesh really well. There is no animosity, no side-wheedling and backstabbing (which I have found is fairly common in relationships with other women, which is sad--also, this is probably why I don't have a lot of women friends locally outside of my book group, I don't have time for such shenanigans; and, really, I have even less patience for it). We all support each other and celebrate each others successes and happy events, and we rally when someone is down. We don't have to work at our friendship, the friendship just works. If you don't have a group of friends like this, I encourage you to work on developing friendships of this nature. It's a healthy thing.
Aside from all the fun and culinary delights of the weekend, we also do some sort of "knitted thing" swap. This year the thing was a hat. I made a hat for Minty. I don't think it was much of a surprise since I asked her what she wanted, for the most part (Pasha by Jane Richmond, if you were wondering--very quick, very easy).
And yes, there was knitting. I managed to finish a sock in two days. I know, right? Honestly, I feel like I deserve some sort of reward or prize. A sock in two days? A sock in two days! Seriously, people, this never happens.
And when I got home, my family was happy to see me, which is always a good thing.