Taking a Breath

Our life has been more than a little bit whirlwind-ish for the past few months. Between a long trip in August to help my parents move (out of a home they've lived in for 23 years) to traveling for a work trip to booking quick visits up to Boston to be with Seth's family while his dad recovers from a serious accident, we've been booking a lot of miles since August. Throw in getting dengue fever before all this began, dealing with the hottest humidest stickiest part of the island year in between trips, and the closing and opening of our fiscal year at work (the reports! the spreadsheets! the annual goals!) and we've been lucky to have any food in the fridge or laundry done over the past two months. Poor Finn gets more excited these days when our house-sitter shows up than he does when we get back from a trip. She's his normal. I bought him a new squeaky ball in an attempt to buy his affection back.

But...it...all...slows...down...now...

The big crunch is over. Other than a quick one-night trip I'm trying to make happen in a few weeks for my sitto's 90th birthday party (you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get from St Thomas to Jacksonville) we have no more trips planned until the end of this month. The fiscal year closing is over and behind us. The fridge has fresh produce for eating. We both have enough clean undies to get us through another few days without worrying about laundry. A break. That's what I get this week. It all started on Saturday. This past weekend we had no plans. None. All I did was watch Netflix. (Valentino: The Last Emperor, Melancholia, and 1970s version of The Great Gatsby with a young Robert Redford and that dude from Law & Order). And tear "keep pages" out of a very tall stack of magazines that has been gathering dust on the counter for about three months.

And watched the day recede from our back porch. It was such a clear weekend. You can even see St. Croix way off on the horizon (on the left side of photo).

We also popped over again to Home Again in Redhook to buy some new coasters. Which they were out of. But we also discovered they're closing at the end of the month. Which means you only have a few weeks to go buy this antique French steamer trunk at 30% off. If I had $600 just lying around, this lady would become the prettiest dust-free storage in my home. Way better than just piling stuff up in the corner, wouldn't you say?

Or this vintage Italian purse. Which I can't believe I'm showing you instead of buying myself. I think it was on store-closing sale for only around $20ish but I've already got a cape on hold at Nola's (yes. a cape. trust me.) and these days lots of our spare change is going to plane tickets. And if I can't buy this purse someone else should. (Even thought I'm still sort of cringing at the idea of it belonging to someone other than me.)

We both have a lighter workload this week. I see making use of a sunset sail gift certificate and possibly a day on St. John in our near future. And definitely some more magazine ripping while watching Netflix. Jiro Dreams of Sushi and W.E. are all lined up and ready to go in my instant watch queue. It's going to be a good week.