I’m back from two fabulous weeks off. We spent the first week in Maine, at my most favorite house by the coast, and the second week was spent at home, at my most favorite house that I own. (spoiler alert, it’s the only house that I own.) It was the perfect combination of away time and at home time, full of lots of my favorite things: reading and relaxing, delicious food and cocktails and wine, beautiful scenery and my favorite person.

I have photos . . .

This porch is my favorite place to be, all week long. Coffee in the morning, cocktails and snacks in the early evening.

Gigantic donuts! This one was called The Homer. The frosting was very very sweet but oh boy was it yummy.

Back on the porch, this is the view to the right. We usually see a rainbow here at least once but not this year. I missed the rainbow but I didn’t miss the rain.

We cooked hot boiled lobsters twice, once for Dale’s birthday and once because Maine. We made lobster rolls from the leftovers for lunch one day and we also had lobster rolls at our favorite roadside restaurant twice. I think, between all of that, we managed to have lobster every day but Friday.

Dale found his look-a-like in the form of a rock covered with seaweed. I told you he always makes me laugh.

We ate out more this year than we have the last couple of years and it was such a treat. We had oysters and beer at a local pub, ceviche and crispy chicken wontons and cocktails at a rooftop bar, a really great and pretty authentic Mexican dinner at a restaurant right up the street, and this delicious fried seafood platter at a waterfront restaurant. It was all fantastic.

The morning sky from the porch. I would wake up just about every morning between 4:30 and 5 and I would get out of bed and look out at this gorgeous pink and orange sky. And then I’d get back in bed and sleep until 8, which is pretty late for me.

My week at home was far less . . . photogenic but still pretty wonderful. The kids came over for a cook out on the 4th of July, we had our first Pergola Thursday gathering with friends from our community, I made pizza in the Ooni and Jackie helped, I did a lot (a lot a lot) of rage weeding, we went out to breakfast, and I read a total of 7 books in two weeks.

One final thing you might be interested in: Fred and George. This was the first time we have left the for more than 2 nights and, while they were well cared for, they were still pretty pissed at us when we came home. Fred, who is the snuggliest of the two, wouldn’t let me pick him up when we came home, he actually ran away from me. And George, who is more reticent in general, gave me the cold shoulder for a few hours. I knew all was well, though, when I woke up in the night on our first night home and found them both asleep on the bed between our pillows.

They have settled right back into their regular routine, as you can see.

And that’s a wrap and now it’s re-entry time but memories of this perfectly wonderful and absolutely restorative vacation will help me power through.

If someone could explain to me how a week on vacation goes by at warp speed while a week at work just drags I sure would appreciate it. If someone could actually reverse those two actions and make the vacation week be the slow one and the work week be the fast one, well, they’d be a millionaire. Seriously, I always feel like the week stretches before us in one glorious unplanned span of days on the first day. And then, inexplicably, it’s time to go home and it feels like it’s been about 10 minutes since we arrived.

Anyway. Not complaining. Just observing.

We had a great week. I have a bunch of photos that have mostly already been shared on Instagram but I’m sharing them here, too, in case you missed them. And because recapping our vacations on the blog is something I always do.

There was lobster. Lots of lobster, despite the fact that prices are rather high this year. We had lobster rolls 4 different times and hot lobster with butter twice.

There was a brewery. We took ourselves for a walk over a foot bridge and back and then wandered up the waterfront to drink some beer. It was late afternoon and we sat outside and the weather was perfect. As the place filled up it all just felt so normal. It was great.

There was plenty of time for porch sitting. I never get tired of the view or watching for changes in the sky. There was a rainbow on our first night and a full moon later in the week.

There was time indoors, too, as the nights were a bit chilly. We even had a fire on our last night and ate dinner (lobsters again) by the fire while watching Broadchurch.

There was a birthday! It was the day we had to leave, which was a bit of a bummer, but still, Dale turned 70 and we managed to celebrate in Maine with lobster rolls on our way home and in Massachusetts with cocktails on our own deck after we unpacked.

It was a truly wonderful week.