Wishful Slacker

The Cottage

We spent last week at my parents' cottage near East Tawas, Michigan.  Their cottage is a warm and cozy home along Bass Lake, which is nestled among a cluster of lakes about a 15 minute drive inland from Tawas and Lake Huron.  The drive between Chicago and Bass Lake, after stopping to allow the baby to stretch her legs, took a lengthy 10 hours (and on the way back that kid would not nap and then threw a temper tantrum in the back seat of our car that literally lasted about 3 hours!).  We had a great time being away from the city and our busy lives, and every hour on the road took us further and further from it all.  We soaked up our time with the baby and consciously noted the hours when we normally would have been driving to work in busy, noisy Chicago.  Ellie learned what a blast it is to shove fistfuls of sand into her mouth the second her parents look away and we learned that, even during vacations, keeping a baby on a schedule is a very worthwhile endeavor.  My dad lit a bonfire during two of our evenings, and we roasted marshmallows for smores and stared at a gazillion stars that are so easily forgotten beyond city lights. 

Despite the fact that week-long getaways always pass by quickly, we still managed to get in a lot of visiting with my parents, sisters, mother-in-law, and my wonderful friend Liz, her husband, and her two babies.  Jim and I made it out to a movie at the fantastic East Tawas movie theater, which really deserves its own blog post because of its awesomeness. 

Here are some pictures from the week.  They are mostly of the baby, because, well, that's the way it goes now!





 

The pier on the "Big Lake" in East Tawas

And finally, I love the set of photos that this one came from.  To have grown up with such a kindred spirit of a friend and then suddenly to see your daughters playing side-by-side is really something else :-)


As you can see, we had a great week.  It is nice to be home, but it was wonderful to have our lovely getaway.  I forget sometimes how lucky we are to have that cottage and Bass Lake in our lives!

The last of the cottage memorabilia

It is Friday, and I am running around like a crazy person right now.  We've had a very busy week- busy during the work days, busy during the evenings, thoughts about work during the evenings, and thoughts about the evenings during work.  So argh- I haven't been able to post any of the nonsensical jargon that I usually enjoy spewing out during the week.  But, hopefully life will settle and I can get back to it!

I'll leave you with a few last images from our week in East Tawas.  First, I took this picture of a box I found in my parents' storage room in their cottage in Michigan.  The label my mom wrote on it just cracked me up.  Couldn't we just get rid of some of the extra straws???

 

 

And here are a few other touches around my parents' cottage that I love:

I wonder if these guys have names?

 

 

 

And last but not least, we have this handsome guy, who also was able to enjoy the Michigan wilderness with his parents.

 

 

Michigan back roads

We made our trip to Tawas, Michigan using our Garmin, and it ended up taking us up and across some incredibly remote and fantastic roads.  I wish I had my camera out the whole time, because I missed a lot of good shots of old abandoned buildings and fields.  It is a long drive, about 7 hours from Chicago (which is why we rarely make it up here), but listening to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" definitely helped to pass the time!

 

 
 

City? What's a city?

 

 

 
 

Website of the Week- Part 1

I've been busy and am late in posting my website of the week!  This is going to be a two part website of the week.  Part 1 features Etsy, an ebay-type site that features craft items for sale.   I have yet to buy something from Etsy, but have been tempted and honestly haven't perused its offerings in as much detail as I would like (probably not the worst thing!).  Part 2 will be posted next week :-)

Blog posts will be light next week, because my husband and I are actually LEAVING CHICAGOLAND.  AND THE INTERNET.  AND BASEBOARD HEATING.  For the first time in a year, we are taking more than 2 consecutive days off of work, and for the first time since MAY we are leaving this area.  We will be heading up to my parents' version of Golden Pond, their cottage outside of East Tawas, Michigan, which we haven't visited in 2 years!  So, as you can see, this adventure is very overdue for us, and it still seems strange to think that we're going...

Oh, and with regards to the heating comment, not to worry.  There is a big ole furnace and  a couple space heaters.  You think I'd go somewhere in this weather with no heat?!  It's not even November and I've already worn my heavy North Face coat twice (people have looked at me oddly because of it too).  I like my warmth.