Yes, I am Still Alive

I thought that maybe I should clarify that fact, since I haven’t posted in well over a month. I can hardly believe that time has gone by that quickly, to be honest.

It’s been miserably hot here on the east coast, with heat indexes soaring well into the triple digits and even raw temperatures up there, as well. Today is particularly bad, as there is absolutely no air flow and the humidity is oppressive. I haven’t left the house since we returned from Maine. Which is a whole other topic, but I’ll allow myself to digress.

We went to Terry’s dad’s house in Maine for a week for a supposed vacation. Epic fail. Terry and I both had to log in at least once a day for the first several days that we were there to deal with work issues. Add to that temperatures in the high 80s with no air conditioning and you get misery. We couldn’t even get to sleep one night, it was so bad. Windows open, ceiling fan on high and barely any clothes on and we still couldn’t get even remotely comfortable. There were a couple of highlights, though. On Friday, we drove up to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada (only about 1.5 hours away) to see Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam. It was truly excellent and I really enjoyed it. Next time I’ll splurge for better seats so that we can see more of the details, but since we were buying 5 tickets as birthday gifts, it was already a little bit pricey and would have been exorbitant for better seats. We then spent most of Sunday in Machias with my good friend Barbara. I really was able to relax and enjoy myself, which was wonderful. Her menagerie is really impressive and I had a lot of fun meeting everyone. It’s hard to believe that when I was last there in August of last year she only had about a dozen chickens. 😆 What a difference 11 months makes! I think my favorites are the spunky small goat, Eve, and Rowen’s adorable little rooster, Mr. Doodles. He reminded me so much of Lily in personality, it’s not even funny. He’s tiny, but he struts around like he is the king of all that he surveys and the best thing since sliced bread. He’s quite handsome, too.

Here’s a photo of Eve:

And one of Mr. Doodles:

Barbara is just such an amazing woman. She is a truly wonderful mother, a fabulous baker and a great designer, to boot! I got to see her latest design that she’s stitching up right now and it’s quite lovely. She made fresh baguettes for us to indulge in for lunch and they were delicious. She always makes me feel so welcome and relaxed in her home and I truly appreciate that. Thanks so much, Barbara!

I was testing out my new DSLR camera (a Sony NEX-7) for the first time while we were in Maine and I really gave it a thorough workout. I took over 1000 pictures, with over 700 of those on the first night we were there. You can see them in my July 2011 – Maine album, if you feel up to perusing through so many. I’ll give you the highlights, though.

July 12th was the day of our 12-hour drive up and I took a few pictures of the clouds once we hit Maine because they were so amazing. These were taken on my BlackBerry, so they aren’t as nice as they could be, but it’s easier to take pictures on the fly with something easily accessible. Here’s one of my favorites from that day:

July 13th was the evening that I took over 700 pictures as the sun was starting to set. We were down on the dock (Terry’s dad lives on a beautiful lake) and a small family of ducks (a mama and two babies) came in for a visit. My favorite photo is one that I took when one of the little babies came in for a closeup:

The next day I went out to take some pictures near the dock in the daytime.

The day after that was our trip up to Saint John and I snapped a couple of cloud pictures with my BlackBerry:

The night after that, we made s’mores over a campfire, but the mosquitoes are brutal once the sun goes down, so I didn’t last long. The darned things were biting through my jeans! There was a full moon, so I set my camera on a window sill in the one bedroom and snapped some photos. This one is using a special time lapse night time setting. It looks like it’s blurry, but it’s just the effect of the clouds moving through the sky.

Then, our last night there, I braved the mosquitoes in order to snap a couple shots of a really beautifully colored sunset:

well, I think that’s enough for one post. I think I’ve only completed one stitched piece since I last posted, so that can wait. With any luck, I will have another tiny finish to show in the next couple of days anyway, if I take some time to work on it.

I hope that you are all surviving the extreme heat (or cold, depending on what hemisphere you live in) wherever you are. Be safe, happy and healthy!