Taking a Break from Vacations!

I am sure that my post title may have caught your attention and seem rather strange.  Yet, it is true!  I have had two back to back vacations and I need a break.  Two weeks ago, I was walking up and down the streets of New York City.  I sat in the grass at Central Park, visited the campus of Columbia University, went to a broadway musical, and spent time with my son, John, and his girlfriend, Salome. I did not let any grass, or should I say pavement, grow under my feet.  It was a fabulous trip.

I arrived home on a Thursday, long enough to wash clothes and repack for a road trip with my husband, Ron, and our dog, Alex, to Hot Springs, Arkansas.  This was a completely different setting. We stayed in a condo on beautiful Lake Hamilton.  There were floor to ceiling windows overlooking the lake, and a perfect balcony for early morning coffee, devotional time, writing, and even feeding ducks!  And, yes, there was more walking!  The pace was much slower and the beauty of the Hot Springs National Park took my breath away.  I celebrated my birthday during the middle part of the week and it could not have been more special than it was.  It began with a beautiful card from Ron. We then went downtown to see the historic bath houses and walk the promenade behind them.  My celebrating was capped off by the surprise that my good friend, Mary Ann Yantis, was in Hot Springs to teach nursing classes!  We connected on Face Book of all things!  After work, she brought over fresh shrimp and a bottle of Kendall-Jackson chardonay.  We had so much fun and laughed until we cried! Yes, this was another great trip.

Today is my first full day back and I am trying to refocus on things that I want to get done before I begin a Writing Workshop in June.  One of the assignments is to create my own blog, so I called in two of the smartest tech gurus I know, Tom and Whitney Kilgore, for some help.  Not only are they smart, but I absolutely adore both of them.  Tom was my student at UNT and is now setting the field of education on fire.  Whitney travels all over the world doing what she calls "teaching people to teach online", but I know it is much more complicated than that!  She is just being nice because she probably knows I don't have what it takes to really understand what she does.  I will say, though, that she is a great teacher. While helping me with this blog, she would not "give me answers" as to what I needed to do next.  She "made me" figure it out for myself.  So, if this blog actually gets posted, it will be due to the fact that I had a great teacher. Thanks, Whit, as her husband calls her!

In closing, I am going to quit while I am ahead but with an attempt to "add a picture"!  Oh, my gosh, I am so nervous but am going to give it a try!  Here goes..............

Rosie