And! Breathe.....

Wow, the past 3 months were crazy busy. School, work, and some personal matters meant that I had no free time in which to luxuriate, be creative, or express myself. No dancing, no blogging, no movie-watching, no pendant-making, and very little music listening. I've been boogie boarding twice in the past week and a half, so I'll liken it to that metaphor: It's like I've been underwater, being tumbled by the waves, with just enough time to pop up for air before another wave overtook me. Extending the metaphor, I feel like I've finally had time to go home, take a shower, take a nap, and now I'm waking up a bit refreshed.

So. The meantime. I bought a new camera that I was SUPERDUPER excited about, and about the 3rd time I took it outside, I slipped on a rock and even though I tried to keep it up in the air away from the rocks (my funny bone got smashed instead of my camera), the lanyard on it was long enough to ricochet from my attempts to keep it safe and it hit a rock anyway. The lens wouldn't go back into the body, and it kept giving me a "lens error" message and shutting down. SUPER SAD FACE. And then I lost it, too. So I couldn't even send it off to be fixed. Lotsamoneydownthetubes.

.....or was it? Ben came to the rescue the other day and spent some dedicated searching time and found the camera (thank you!!), and when I charged up the battery, it magically had enough hutzpah to retract the lens all the way back into the camera! Knock on wood, but I think it's fixed. *sigh of gratitude and relief to the camera gnomes at my house*

Anyway. Now that it's back, I was able to download the pictures that were on it, take some new ones, and finally I can catch you back up to speed. Here goes. Thanks for being patient.