Back from Hiatus

I know. I'm sorry. It's been a month.

But I have pictures!

Look at Danny, he's all cute and graduated! After a week of residency, presenting his project and hearing about others, they handed him a diploma, one with his name on it and everything.

After that, we drove through seven states to see this:

It's the National Cathedral, and it's breathtaking.

After a whirlwind trip through DC, we went to Roanoke, Va, before backtracking to Monticello, before driving to Pfafftown, NC, before driving to Spartanburg, SC to see this:

A BMW Airplane engine at the BMW museum, which is adjacent to where they keep the big giant robots.

I'm very sorry that I don't have big giant robot pictures to post. Truly. They took my camera(s). Just know that they were huge, they twirled pieces of BMW X5 undercarriage like a q-tip, and sparks flew when they welded the pieces together.

I came to two conclusions very quickly:

1. If there was a tornado, the BMW factory is not where you'd want to be.

2. If the robots suddenly developed independent wills, these are the ones that would take over the world.

In other news...

1. Simply Sara is 100% done, edits, galleys, acknowledgements, discussion questions, dedication, back cover copy, author bio and all.

2. Danny's hooding ceremony was the night of the Glee finale, but we got to watch it a week later when we had access to reliable internet again. Oh. My. Goodness. It ended just right, I loved "To Sir, With Love,"and I can't wait till next season. Congrats to their writing team for landing the plane! I just hope we see more of Idina Menzel...

3. I picked up Elizabeth Aston's Writing Jane Austen from the library today. It looks like fun.

4. I discovered this in North Carolina -

It's a chocolate-dipped waffle bowl. An innovative concept if I've ever seen one. While it is messy to eat, it does eliminate the drip-through-the-bottom problem.

Well, the bowl at the bottom does that. But it's the functionality of the bowl with the deliciousness (and carbs) of the cone. So everyone wins, if you're willing to get your fingers chocolately.

There are worse things.

5. It's funny being back. When we left, the kids were still in school and it was dark and drizzly. Now school's out and the skies are blue and sunny. I'm not complaining, just stating that it's weird. We were only gone two weeks, but it feels more like a month!

6. We have groceries again, though. My new favorite thing that I discovered at an airport Starbucks, and I don't remember which, is Greek Yogurt. It is thick, creamy, rich in taste while being the same calorie count as fat free Nancy's (if you don't have Nancy's yogurt in your neck of the woods, it's the local premium organic yogurt).

I think I need to go stretch my legs soon, so more later. I promise it won't be a month later! I've got a pizza I need, desperately, to recreate, so if there's success, there will be a recipe to follow...

I saw Amish people

See that? In the window? See that Amish head? Total accident. I actually took four shots of this parked buggy, and in the last one I got a little happy surprise. I didn't want to actually try to take a picture of an Amish person because one of the premises of my book is treating Amish people like normal people and not circus freaks, and while the urge to snap is very strong when faced with the strangely bearded, I resisted and, in my opinion, was given a little present for my moral fortitude.

Ha ha. Anyway.

After we purchased our plane tickets for my grandmother's memorial service, I posted something about our trip East on Facebook. My editor then asked if we were headed to Amish country...and it got me to thinking.

Were there Amish in North Carolina?

I knew Grandma wouldn't mind. She would have rolled her eyes and drawled, "Honey, if you need to go see the Amish, go see the Amish." And that would have been that.

Technically, there is only supposed to be one settlement, in Union Grove, but the settlement we visited was in the much-closer town of Hamptonville. Goes to show that the Amish settlment censuses (censi?) aren't wildly accurate. We also saw...


A buggy sign...




...and a traveling buggy with real people in it...

...and Amish kittens.

The last two shots are brough to you by my cousin Melissa, seeing as how I shot a slew of photos without my memory card inside my camera. I have grieved the loss and moved on, although the shot I'm saddest about loosing is the black kitten walking through an Amish-carved spindle-thingy.

Grieved. Moved on.

Anyway, we stopped at the Shiloh General Store, where we ate Amish ice cream (good stuff), bought fudge and Strawberry-Rhubarb butter. The store was run by an Amishman; a young lady served us the ice cream. We chatted with the older gentleman for a little while - once he found out we were from Oregon, he asked if we'd ever been to Sisters. Aparently there's a farming periodical that's published out of Sisters, and it was the only connection he had with Oregon.

He also told us about his son-in-law who ran a woodshop down the street, so we hiked down a bit - that's where we found the kittens.

All in all, a great trip. I didn't work up the nerve to ask anyone any questions, although in hindsight there were several things I could have asked and sounded intelligent about. I mean, it's not like I haven't researched these people for the last several months.

For a change of pace, we went to the fair that evening. We watched pig races (winning piglet gets an oreo), and I got to pet a camel :

Also fed it a carrot round and nearly lost a finger (more user error than camel violence).

We had a wonderful trip. I got to see my grandpa, as well as aunts, uncles, and cousins I don't get to see very often. And we really want to go back, although the next trip will likely involve fewer Amish and more of the BMW factory tour...