Watching my dog run along the shore line at the lake, my mind flashes images of Bo Derek in the movie “10″. You know which one I’m talking about. Even though things are flopping around and a certain amount of concentration is required not to trip and fall, there still remains nothing other than pure bliss on her face.

And I’ve never seen a dog so fun loving or carefree to stop in mid swim and pee right in the lake. Despite my calling at her and yelling “no, no, NO!”, she just kept right on peeing then went straight back to running and playing.

After an entire day of playing and fun, the poor girl desperately needed to rest her heavy head. Apparently being blonde and beautiful is a tough job.

But I must say it was kind of awesome out in the field picking berries by myself. I was there relatively early so there weren’t many other ‘pickers’ either. It was nice and quiet. I just sat in the shade beneath a big blueberry bush and picked berries for a couple of hours. I ate quite a few berries too. I didn’t realize how much work it actually was. I had sweat droplets running down my face. But even though I was alone, and it was hotter than h-e-double hockey sticks outside I had a great time. Now I just have to figure out what to bake with my berries. Got any good blueberry pie recipes?

Also, more big news this summer, I am now a blogger for Conceive. If you remember a few weeks back I needed your help with naming a new blog. Well the new blog is titled “It Takes a Village“, and it’s where I chronicle our journey with infertility. Thanks for your help with naming the blog and I hope you follow.

I’m currently enjoying a stay-cation. I’ve come to realize that taking a couple of days off from work and enjoying some of the fun tourist things that are close to your own home is highly under-rated.

Today I went to the beach. I live 30-45 minutes from the beach and the last time I’ve been to the beach during the summer was about three years ago. So I made a conscience decision this year that I would go to the beach more, or at least once. I bought a beach chair, a beach towel, and let’s not forget the sunscreen. I got some spiffy new 90 SPF. It’s like full body armor in lotion form. It’s freakin awesome!

So this morning, I loaded up with all my beach gear and headed out. And it was great! The sun was shining. There was a gentle breeze coming off the water, and the water was a refreshing 60 degrees (by “refreshing” I mean your limbs grown numb after a few minutes).

I also took a walk around and looked at the beach houses and day dreamed about how one day I’ll rent a beach house and invite my family and friends to come stay with me. Some people may think that’s crazy. Why would anyone want to spend their summer in the same home with your extended family? I swear I’m not crazy. It’s just that growing up my Granddad had a lake house. And during the summer, my entire family, immediate and extended, would stay in the house together. Some of my best childhood memories are from that lake house. Riding my bike for hours in the circle drive, playing “kick-the-can” with my cousins, skipping rocks at the point, camping out in the front yard. These are all things that made up some of the best summers of my life. As a an adult, I realize that those summers helped develop a close bond among my entire family.

During my  visit to the beach today I continued to think about all my childhood summers spent at the lake house and how much I want to continue those traditions so that hopefully my children will be able to have fond memories of summers at a beach house with their family.

Even though I’m not a mom, I have a mom and have had one for over 25 years. So that makes me an authority in Mother’s Day gifts. Mother’s Day gift ideas

For the gardener mom:

Potting Shed Creations – All of the flowers, herbs, fruits, and veggies they offer can be grown indoors, in the container they come in.

Decorating with Flowers – A beautiful book that provides insight on how to create beautiful flower arrangements.

For the sentimental mom:

Charm Bracelet – this gift would be good for a new Mom. That way each year, special occasion, and milestone you could get a charm for her to add to her bracelet.

For the dramatic mom:

If your mom loves movies here are a few she might like to own.

The Blind Side

Pride & Prejudice

It’s Complicated

Julie & Julia

For the granola mom:

Homemade brown sugar body scrub – It’s the gift that’s good for the environment and good for the body. Here is the recipe for it:

1 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp honey

Mix together and use

If you have some other gift ideas, please feel free to share them.

I’ve been sadly neglected my little piece of the Internet and feel horrible about it. But I’ve been really busy with graduate school, work, and other stuff. I have 9 more weeks of grad school until I will force myself to take a break. I was loving grad school until these nine weeks. I loved going to class at night and challenging my mind. Most of all, I loved keeping busy. But for some reason I’m done with being busy right now.

This may have something to do with the fact that I can’t say “no”. I’m always agreeing to participate with this group, help with that activity, or volunteer my time for a good cause. And nine times out of ten there are no problems. But then I’ve reached the point where I’ve spread myself way too thin and my brain and body physically hurt. I guess it’s my mind is trying to tell me, “Hey girl, slow down. You’re at max capacity. Cool your jets or I’ll cool ‘em for you”.  (Yeah, my mind is kind of bossy and doesn’t take any guff.) But I think I’m getting to that point.

Or maybe the real issue is that I have a ‘wicked’ case of spring fever. Oh the beautiful weather we have been getting has been amazing. I’ve been able to go running and biking and lounging outside. It is amazing. After being couped up for several  months in the winter, the last thing I want to be doing is homework. I’d rather be playing.

I have so many plans for this spring/summer. I have a week long vacation coming up, lots of day trips planned, and lots of road races to participate in. I just don’t have time this summer to be messing with homework.

Do you have any big plans this summer?

Okay, don’t go thinking I heart myself cause there’s a lot of pictures of me. Okay, okay, let me explain myself. My husband leaves really early for work and we normally don’t see each other in the morning. So each morning I send him a picture of me to say hi. And often times I will send my mom pictures of me cause she is always asking to see pictures of me cause she loves my face. Hey, she’s my mom. She’s supposed to.

What gadget/device are you addicted to?

When I lived in Oklahoma I ate my pancakes or waffles with peanut butter. I never really liked syrup so if I did eat syrup, I only ate very little. Then I moved to The Great White North (TGWN) and my world got turned upside down.

When my husband and I were first dating we visited his home town here in TGWN and he took me to get the “best hot dog around”. Well the fact that this hot dog establishment was actually a truck located on a gas station parking lot in the middle of Back Woods, NH I should have know what to expect. But I was naive and I ordered chili on my dog. When I took that first bite into my dog, I was anticipating the strong, smokey flavor of spicy chili. But that’s not what I got. Of course not.  My taste buds were assaulted with a sweet, sticky chili that I could only assume was made with maple syrup. The same senario happened when I tried my husbands favorite barbecue sauce. Oh Lordy, I should have known better.

So these experiences with maple syrup lead me to believe that it was the devil’s snot (a.k.a. the grossest stuff on the planet).

But one day I was introduced to snow with maple syrup on it and my opinion started to change. So I decided to visit a maple sugar house this past weekend to see if I had this stuff pegged all wrong. But I didn’t really get a chance to become familiar with the art of maple syrup production because I was too busy making sure I didn’t get eaten by a vicious chickens. Yeah, the maple sugar house just happened to be on a chicken farm.

Oh and by the way, I’m deathly afraid of birds. So this maple sugar shack was like my bermuda triangle; birds, maple syrup, and more birds all in one place. Awesome!

So I was hoping that this post was going to be all informative on how maple syrup is made. But I can’t remember a thing the tour guy said cause I was way to busy covering all my soft parts that birds tend to peck at first. But if you are into all that educational stuff, here is the maple syrup ‘how to’ guide.

Step one: Drain the stuff from the tree

Step two: boil it down till you get syrup

So no, I’m not saying that me and maple syrup are all BFF now. But, yes, we are on far better terms than me and birds.

If you enjoy looking at photos from someone else’s vacation then you are going to love the next few post. You can hardly contain the glee from anticipation, right?

So, you may have be one of the kabillion people I told but if not, me and the husband traveled to Canada, the “REAL” Great White North, for Christmas. We were lucky enough to stay in a beautiful hotel called The Chateau Frontenac. I don’t have enough good words in my vocabulary to express the beauty of this hotel. I think when you travel anywhere there are a few key bits of criteria that make a location worth visiting. The below list is how Quebec measures up:

• Locals: Super friendly and always willing to make me feel comfortable by speaking English
• Food: Delectable
• Cost: A bit pricey but we were in a popular tourist area
• Scenery: Definite French influence, sound structural engineering, continual up keep resulted in clean lines, clean city, and safe atmosphere
• Weather: Cold – But it was December…in Canada

One thing I found interesting about Quebec is that every shop, restaurant, or hotel we entered was heated to to what had to be 70-75 degrees. Every time I would come in from outside I had to start ripping off my layers because it was incredibly warm indoors. Maybe that’s the only way to make it through the long Canadian winters. But then when I was headed outside, I had to pile on the hat, glove liners, mittens, scarves, coats, etc.

Well anyways, Canada rocked. It was a well needed vacation after a very long year of this, this, and this. Thanks again Canada for being super cool.

If you want to see more picture from my vacation click on the thumbnail. These are just from our first night there. I’ll post pictures from day 2 tomorrow. It’s like Christmas all over again!!!