At Long Last

After the month of September became a black hole of awful where fun goes to die (or, you know, something like that), I fell WAY behind. On everything. Paperwork, laundry, photo uploads, blogging, schoolwork, coffee dates with friends...everything. Now that I'm beginning to fall back into myself, my routine is falling back into place as well, and can I just say Thank the Goodness. This means that not only do Preston and I FINALLY have clean clothes AND clean towels AND clean sheets all at once (such cleanliness is not always the case, I'm embarrassed to say), but also, this week, I have stamped letters, paid bills, and acted like a Real Live Adult who FILES THINGS. Most importantly, however, are the photos.

My God. The photos. I did not realize I took quite so many in Scotland. Over the last week I've been gradually uploading all of them to Flickr, and tonight, at long last, I finally finished. The set is here, so if you would like to follow in my footsteps and procrastinate YOUR thesis (or project, or paper, or laundry, whatever), please check it out.

This trip, for those of you don't know, is one that Preston and I took with his family - his mother and father, his aunt and uncle, and his brother Tom and Tom's girlfriend. We spent ten days over there in August, and it was really lovely. It was a trip I resisted for a long time because after all the CRAZY of last year, all I really wanted to do was stay home. And yes, I really did just say that I resisted a heavily subsidized trip to Europe. But hear me out. I love my in-laws, but I also really love the home that Preston and I have created here in Bryn Mawr, and I wanted to have some time alone that was just ours. Plus, you know, they're my in-laws, and well, it's not exactly a perfect relationship. I love them, and I know they love me, but after last Christmas (my first one away from home), when Preston was seated at the adult's table and I was seated at the kid's table for Christmas dinner, I decided that ALL BETS WERE OFF, and that family time for the foreseeable future was just going to be a crap shoot from my perspective. [Please take that supremely inelegant sentence as proof that I have been itching to get that story out of my system out for TEN MONTHS...and that is all the rant I'm allowing myself to have...ahem.]

In the end, however, I decided to take the gamble on the condition that Preston would support me unconditionally in front of his family. And he did. He stood up for me every time I was questioned, and for that I cannot thank him enough. I don't know that we'll return in the near future (I think I'm strong enough to say "no" this year), but for now, I'm enjoying the gobs of pictures, and if I close my eyes tightly, I can feel wind in my hair and salt on my cheeks. And that is pretty spectacular.