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!)