getting away

I just booked Cricket care for 2 mini-vacations in the upcoming. Crick is a high maintenance dog, what with the aggression issues and general neediness. I use a paid service, with confident sitters who love him, and are unfazed by his tendency toward hysteria.

Caring for one dog, however, is far less expensive than caring for 2. Ella required 3 visits per day, due to medication issues, and while I never begrudged it; this is why I work, I was pleasantly surprised the first time I traveled and got care for just the one dog...of course Ella was an easy dog, who would cheerfully go to live in the homes of friends, loving their dogs, cats, and children...Cricket, not so much. 

I'm going to the DC area to visit P one last time, before he retires and moves back here. It's a little bittersweet...my last forseeable mid-Atlantic spring, to a city whose spring is spectacular. Luckily, I'm hitting town around cherry blossom time, and so will take full advantage of that spectacle. Hoping to get some good pictures, and fully drink in the incredible loveliness of that place, in that time. I'll see some old friends, as well, and visit the usual hangouts. P and I will also take a mini vacation (work for him, vacay for me) to a rural conference center in West VA, for a couple of days. Time for me to hike, sip wine on the porch, and knit to my heart's content. 

The second getaway is heading out to the Florida panhandle and Alabama beaches with my cousins. Oh yeah. My crazy West VA cousins are renting a condo on the beautiful, blue-sea'd, white-sanded beaches of 'Bama for a few days this spring. A 5 hour drive for me, and I am delirious with excitement. For seriously sure. I've always been a huge beach lover, and post Hawaii, the beach has been a rare luxury. My cousins and I usually only see each other at funerals, so to go somewhere together, during a time (knock wood) when we all are healthy, all employed, in stable relationships or happily single, is a glorious joy. There will be wine. There will be stories. There will be swimming in blue water. There will be seafood. There will be all manner of crazy, uplifting fun. They are departing the condo 2 days before I have to be back at work, so I'm taking the rest of the time for a leisurely backroads wander up through Alabama and south Georgia. Looking forward to that, too. 

I need a getaway. Not to put too much emphasis on the harshness of the winter, as I did indeed embrace the cold for much of it, but I am much in need of warmer good times. 

This is me, last month, embracing the cold, in Highland, NC. A retreat with the knitting guild, an unplanned snow-in, and a beautiful hike.