Linking up with Kelly!

I.

Today is the Feast Day of St. Rose of Lima, a Dominican Tertiary! She is an excellent saint for our times.

II.

You may have noticed some blog silence round these parts—I tend to blog less in the summer. But we’ll be revving back up again, especially as book news comes out. If you want to know all the book goodness first, then sign up for my mailing list! (No spam. Only fun things. Pinky promise.)

III.

“OK, Emily, enough, tell me about staycation!”

OK.

So, we went to Colorado for my sister’s wedding in June, but, as you know if you’ve had a family wedding lately, they’re fun, but they’re work too—you have to make sure your clothing gets to the place unmolested, that your shoes fit, that the priest shows up, etc. etc. etc. And that you didn’t forget anything two thousand miles away. And I’d just finished the first draft of the manuscript. So yeah, I was beat when June was over!

I finally decided that I wanted to take a ‘staycation’ in August. I’d never done it, but it sounded like fun.

I made this a really cheap staycation. I did not have a masseuse come to my house, I didn’t hire a cleaning service to clean my house, and I didn’t get a room in a hotel (all of these are actual staycation suggestions I found on the internet. OK, folks. The hotel one was the only one I didn’t think was really out there. If you want someone to clean your house, fine, and that’s legit, but….as a staycation? I guess….anyway, I digress!)

I set a limited budget, and made a plan. That budget would encompass everything I wanted to do, just like a real vacation, except I was staying in town. Columbus has a lot of fun things! When my family goes on vacation to the beach, we normally eat out for one meal, and have the others at our beach house; I have a nice tea/coffee break in the afternoon; and I do a lot of reading. So all those things were incorporated as well.

IV.

Monday was sort of the planning day. Tuesday was when I ventured forth!

The first place I went was Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. They had several exhibits I wanted to see—a Chihuly installation (above and beyond what the conservatory already has, which is a lot), Blooms and Butterflies (where they release hundreds of butterflies into the Pacific Island Room), and a bonsai exhibit. It would also be a great time to sketch! So I packed up my sketching stuff and headed off to the conservatory.

(To see the gallery photos, swipe or use your arrow keys!)

I’ll have to take photos of my sketchbook pages so I can show you what I did.

It’s always a lot of fun going here. There are different “biomes”—Himalayan Mountains, Rainforest, Desert, and the Pacific Island Water Garden. The Bonsai exhibit was held in a different gallery, where it was very hot, because, glasshouse and it was 90 degrees. But it was still fun. I ate lunch here and grabbed a butterfly shaped silicone tea infuser to replace my tea balls that keep BREAKING!

After I had lunch and finished sketching, I went home, made some tea, read a bit, and then went swimming after dinner.

V.

Wednesday I took a trip to German Village. German Village is, as the name suggests, an area of town that was founded by German Immigrants in the 19th century. Many of the streets are still paved with bricks, and the houses showcase the original architecture. It’s also home to some of the city’s best eating!

I went to Schmidt’s, which was founded in 1886 and serves some pretty epic sausage. The thing about Schmidt’s is they don’t take reservations. So you either get here right when it opens at 11, you eat at off-times, or you just wait. OR, you come alone, like I did, and you eat at the bar, where there is usually no wait! Yay!

After Schmidt’s, I headed to a local coffee shop and then to The Book Loft, which is an incredible independent bookstore built into an old house (or several!). It’s amazing. You could spend hours here, and you get all your steps in wandering around! :) Before cell phones it was interesting to go here with a group—you just sort of had to hope you’d find each other again. I think every book is 5% off, and some are really marked down, like more than half, or even 75%, so you can always find good deals here, and books that other places won’t have. It’s a little bit addictive. I sketched the fountain in their courtyard, and came home with some awesome Wizard of Oz magnets.

(If, somehow, you have missed my addiction to The Wizard of Oz— I have one.)

VI.

Yesterday I had tea with my friend Mary before she goes off to graduate school, and that was delicious, as always. (Cambridge Tea House is the best!)

I also watched To Kill A Mockingbird and started watching Wizard, because it’s turning 80 on Sunday!

VI.

So that was my ‘staycation’. Today is the last day, and I’m having lunch with my dad this afternoon, which we do just about every week and I enjoy. (Last week it was lunch and shopping with mom, which was equally enjoyable!) This afternoon I’ll probably sketch a bit and knit and…do laundry. Which is part of a week-long vacation, anyway. :)

So that’s how I staycationed! Have you ever done this? Any questions about how I did it? Really, once I made a list of all the things I could do in town, it was hard to choose! (I might do one more thing tomorrow before Mass. We’ll see!