It’s been a year since I’ve been anywhere that’s not work or home (or twice, my friend Ben’s house, to be completely honest). My roommate, also a nurse, moved back to Reno in August so I haven’t seen her in months! We decided that since we both finished our vaccines in January and covid is waaaay down at our respective hospitals, we would try to rent a house on the Sonoma Coast to enjoy the ocean air.

The house was a very ’90s tri-level with some leftover ’90s nostalgia. But the sunrise and sunset from the deck was beautiful. We mostly hung out on the level with the kitchen/dining room.

We baked some bourbon brown butter blondies (delicious), ate all the best carbs (creamy sausage and broccoli pasta, bread with cheese), did a puzzle & drank a little bourbon. Well, I drank just a tiny bit of bourbon. She prefers wine. We did, however, drink one beer for good measure. We decided to finally see what all the hullaballoo about Pliny the Elder is all about. Turns out, it is really good beer.

After two nights, my friend left, and I spent one day/night gloriously alone. Just me & the birds in the redwoods surrounding the house. I ate our leftovers, enjoyed the warm sun through the giant windows overlooking the dining room table, wrote a new poem, and tried my hand at some watercolor landscapes and redwoods (below).

Three days isn’t that long, but it’s just enough when you need to get away and feel like you’ve been gone just long enough. All the driving also gave me the chance to finish 2 audiobooks, both of which I enjoyed immensely– Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix.

I took the titles from the reading list for Jenny Lawson’s Fantastic Strangling’s Book Club, which she runs though her website The Bloggess and her store Nowhere Bookshop. Of note, I’m not a member of the book club but I am a card carrying fan of Jenny Lawson. I just didn’t know if I’d love the type of books her book club reads, ie horror or horror-adjacent. I’m still not 100% convinced on the genre fiction, but I can recommend these 2 books. A little supernatural fun always adds to a vacation.

The one thing I couldn’t do on vacation was play with clay. So since I’m back two nights before I have to work, I’m going to take advantage. I’m going to work on my sculpting skills. Next up: a whale?