Escape and Recapture

I've been totally MIA, huh? After school was over, I needed to break from everything - well, at least everything that I could. You can only ignore work and laundry so long.

Mom & I spent half of last week in Gatlinburg. A few years ago, we made a trip to a CKC (Creating Keepsakes Convention), and we enjoyed it so much that we began taking a trip together every year. We've been to 2 CKCs and 1 CKU. This year we had the chance to go to a CKU, but I didn't feel like it, and with their format change, I didn't think we'd enjoy it as much. So instead we went to Gatlinburg. We got a little cabin in between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg; it sat high on a steep, winding road, and was in the perfect spot - close enough to town to be accessible and far enough away to be quiet and peaceful.

We shopped like mad women. I absolutely despise clothes shopping - besides the fact that I hate the way I look, I'm so cheap that I have a terrible time justifying spending more than $20 on jeans and $10 on a shirt. (Maybe "cheap" isn't the right word.) But Mom took me shopping, and I came home with an armload of stuff - new underwear, three pair of capris, two pair of the comfiest workout pants I've ever owned, some shirts, and even a skirt, which I haven't bought in years. This was a huge addition to my pitiful closet, which consisted of one pair of capris, one pair of jeans, and maybe four shirts decent enough to wear anywhere besides a grocery trip to Wal-Mart at midnight. I also came home with goodies for Bebo - a new "big boy" Bible, t-shirts, pajamas, and Thomas the Tank Engine stickers.

When Mom & I get together, two things inevitably happen: first, we hit every craft store in a hundred-mile radius, looking for scrapbook stuff that neither of us need but think we can't live without. (I was good this time; I came home with a minimal addition to my stash, and only things I actually needed.) Second, we talk. A lot. I adore my parents, and Mom and I can gab for hours - which is precisely what we did, and it was oh-so-nice. Since she & Dad took on my sister's kids, time for us to talk has been scarce at best. We still phone each other at least once a day, but it's harder to have much of a conversation. Catching up is a great thing.

We also ate delish food - the Pancake Pantry in downtown Gatlinburg is the business! - rode the skylift (which I hadn't done in years), and watched some movies that I'd been wanting to see since they hit the DVD shelves.

We had a fantastic weekend, but I wasn't done escaping. I came home and watched seasons 1-3 of Heroes on Netflix. Great show, but now it's time for me to be recaptured and thrown back into my everyday life. There is work to be done, and nobody but me can do it.

Time to re-enter the real world.