August, and well into it

I took a break from blogging for a month or so, also taking a break from work and from the thrift store.  My sister was here in America for almost 3 weeks and I wanted to spend time with her and be unfettered.  That happened and was wonderful.  We had a lovely time together.  The beginning of her visit was spent with many relatives in camp because it was the weekend of the family meeting.  Too many people for me but we stayed in the boat house and kept mostly to ourselves.  We're good at that.

We went to RI for a week with my mother that included some beach days, good seafood and lots of down time spent reading and relaxing.  When we first got there it was too hot to go to the beach and it was very humid and unpleasant but then it cooled a bit and we had great beach weather.  Her town has 2 town beaches, one with lifeguards, radios and children and the other part of a federal natural area which very few people visit.

This is taken standing with the ocean at my back, looking toward the road and parking area.  There's a pond there and a lovely long mostly deserted beach.

The dogs got to go to RI and my sister was wonderful about walking them on leashes.  Bear has had some "unfortunate" incidents involving the neighbors here so he's leashbound nearly all the time.  He visited a friend's camp and helped himself to the dog food in their kitchen.  Well I can't help it if they don't latch their screen door!  That was extremely embarrassing and was followed by a visit to another friend's camp, tromping through the very-important-to-my-friend-nasturiums.  Oh Bear, why, oh why?

So we spent a week at my mother's house, wallowing in the prettiness that is southern RI before coming back to the North Country.  We had camp to ourselves (unheard of! what a treat!) and had a lovely time reading and visiting.  My sister swam but I didn't, we don't have a dock at the boat house this year and I didn't relish walking through the mucky bottom or climbing over the rocks to get in the water.  I've been swimming at my friend's since my sister left--we have dock time together and swim and float with swimming noodles when we're not looking at neighbors and loons with binoculars.

I'm back into my usual routines now, I worked in the Archives and volunteered at the thrift store for the last 2 weeks.  I had a wonderful lunch with a friend in Saranac Lake, someone I enjoy visiting with, from my past in Library Land.  I've been walking with my morning friends, we mostly do the bog so Bear can stretch his legs off-leash in the early morning, followed by coffee on the boat house porch.  Nice, very nice.

This morning I met up with a friend, her daughter and grandchildren at the bog and had a very nice time seeing them.  That was followed by a lovely dock sit and swim, then a trip to the laundromat to catch up on laundry.

I have a wonderful WONDERFUL friend who saw that I was overwhelmed by the sad condition of my house when I was having company come for a few days--she helped me purge and clean nearly the entire downstairs.  Wow has that been fantastic.  She vacuumed, washed floors, helped me sort through decades worth of stuff and then took a load to the dump with me.  The Big Dump, not just the transfer station we usually hit.  I have the best organized pantry in the North Country now.  How long it will stay that way is yet to be determined but it's been a week and so far the spices are still in alphabetical order.

My visitor was a friend from childhood times in Rockford, a family friend who has been in my life for more than 50 years.  She currently lives in DC and was traveling this way.  She's been here before and we talk and talk about my family and our lives in Rockford as well as what our lives are now like.  Her visit was a big success.  It's very nice to talk with someone who remembers my distant past and the people I grew up with.  She remembers my father well, one of the few people I have to talk about him with.  Oh he was a colorful character all right.

This is a tubby 65-year-old woman with her dog.  Man oh man do I need to lose weight!  I'm seeing my doctor next week and he'll gently remind me that I should "find a diet and stick to it."  Wt Watchers is effective for me but the sticking to it part seems to be nearly impossible.

My sister took this sunrise shot from the boat house.  It's Silver Lake Mtn., heavily photographed over the years.

A pensive Bear sporting his new purple collar.  It was a major (MAJOR) change to get them both new collars.  Little did I realize how dependent friends and I were on the "Bear has the blue collar, Treasure's is green" of my life.

New collars.  Not different enough.