August

I'm back. I had another vacation this past week and I do try to remain somewhat unplugged during vacation. I say "somewhat" because I will always have my phone with me, but I try not to post too much. I don't feel like I need a vacation from the interwebz (after all, what kind of hobby would all my online fun be if I needed a vacation from it?), but I find it helps me zone out from work. 100% of my job is done on a computer and the less I see and deal with computers, the more I can think about anything else. However, that was my last planned week off this year, so there will be no more unexplained week long absences. Aren't you happy?

I haven't changed the picture yet - my bad. I had hoped to take a nice picture this week that captured August, but wasn't a flower. I failed miserably in that regard. I'm going to take a look through the archives and see what I can find; hopefully have something new up this week. If I can't find anything, fear not - I took about 67 trillion flower pictures this week.

I celebrated a very good friend's 30th birthday this week. We went to Martha's Vineyard for the night, and not only did it commemorate a 30th birthday, but it also marked my first night away from my baby. I did remarkably well - which I think is pretty healthy. It's been 13 months and not a single sleep away from each other, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but I loved it. I bet she did too - Andrew left her with my mother and went golfing with my dad, so she got lots of Nana time. She has to share Nana with The First Granddaughter - who is my only niece and my goddaughter and I love her to pieces - but she is still the First Granddaughter and that can be hard to compete with. And now we have the First And Only Grandson - and while his age can still be counted in days, he happens to share a name with my father so there is just no competing with that - plus he's adorable (what new baby isn't?). My point being - there's not a ton of Nana time for my baby, so I'm pretty sure she loved all the attention she got. I'm really glad I was able to take advantage of the opportunity to leave her for the night. I got to spend some time with some really great ladies and an old friend, and everyone survived without me. Yay.

Unfortunately I have to go back to work tomorrow. We did not win the lottery in my time away, so I still must work. 529s and 401(k)s and IRAs and savings accounts do not fund themselves, so back to the grind I go.