This weekend I've been all alone because Jake and his parents took the kids up north on Friday afternoon when I was still flying back from DC. And yes, it has been awesome. I saw one friend for coffee but that was it; I wasn't motivated to get together with people because the one thing I don't have any of in my normal life is time alone. I'm pretty much never alone, and I'm a person who likes being alone. So I spent most of the weekend alone, doing some chores and work but also going for a long run, baking and cooking, reading a book (for pleasure, not for work!), and watching original Star Trek episodes.

Jake is a pie person much more than a cake person, so I made some handheld pies for him for Father's Day. I made blueberry, strawberry, and peach bourbon pies:

I also did some weeding and then tried to take some photos of our deck and patio in the event that we ever try to sell our house. It wasn't easy, though.

Maybe I should lay out the outdoor rug on the patio before photographing it, but getting that rug out is more of a 2-person job. (We generally bring it out for parties and stuff.) Also, the giant chicken wire cage around our planter isn't attractive, but there's no way in hell I'm messing with that thing after the effort that went into getting it into place!

I went to an open house Jake wanted me to check out, and another one that was near the one Jake was interested in. Both were a bust. The more time passes the harder it is to try to think about moving. There are so many kids Nora & Milo's age on this block. One thing about our neighborhood with the old houses is that the houses have a lot of character but most of them also have weird flaws. And if we're going to deal with weird flaws, we might as well deal with our own house's weird flaws.

Time is behaving so strangely for me now. As I get older, elapsed time feels like it has condensed so that the 8 years here in my house and in this town (almost exactly 8 years - I moved here near the end of June) feels about as long as the 4 years I spent in grad school. And with the house quiet and empty, it sure does remind me of the very first summer when I first moved into this house, sitting in the same spot I'm sitting now, boxes scattered about the floor. It could almost be then. I was alone a lot then, in my happy little house that felt huge.