Weekending- Abby and I are back!

Over the weekend, Abby and I got back from a month long stay in New Jersey. Abby had an internship with a film studio in a town in northern Jersey that's close to NYC. I tagged along mostly to drive her places.  Abby has never liked driving and has successfully avoided doing too much of it up until now. (She didn't get her license until just before her senior year of high school, which she did all remotely; the only part time job she's had is at Donnie's law firm and so she catches rides with Donnie on the days that she works there; her friends know that she doesn't like to drive so they pick her up when they do things together; she hasn't needed a car in college and we live close enough to her school that it's not a big deal to pick her up from it.)

With the internship, there was no way to avoid needing to get from point A to point B without driving and we thought the area would be congested (it WAS!) and with Abby not liking to drive and quite frankly, not having done a whole lot of it, we figured that it would be best if she had a driver which also enabled her to have a companion. It worked out well since I don't work in the summer. Of course we knew we would both miss family and friends back home but thought (kinda hoped...) that the month would go by quickly. And it did!!

When Abby was gone at the studio, the hours passed plenty quickly. Enjoying solitude, walking/ running, and reading led to the pleasant passing of the hours from when I dropped Abby off to when I picked her up. We rented Airbnb style (though not through Airbnb) a basement of a house in Teaneck, New Jersey. 

While I didn't mind being myself during the day when Abby was at her internship, a visit from my sister was extra special and most welcome. We live almost seven hours apart and in different countries so there have been international complexities that have kept us apart (eg the pandemic and hypocritical/ terrible political decisions that arose from that) in addition to the hundreds of miles separating us. I don't take spending time with her for granted. When my sister realized how close we were to NYC, she decided to come for a visit and for us to do some gallivanting around the big city together. Done and done! We had a great time together. 

I have numerous thoughts and pictures about/ of our time in New Jersey. I will share some of them ;). I plan to write several posts including ones about where we stayed, what we did for fun when Abby wasn't working, what places we saw and things like that. I have a few of the posts started and just need to add photos.

In Jersey, we made good memories, had many laughs, a few tears (mine, when driving) and many new experiences. Being away for a month brought one truth "home" to Abby and me (pardon the pun). There is no place like home. We were sooooooooooooo excited to come back to Ohio and be reunited with Donnie and Alyssa and Jacob (though Jacob no longer lives at home so seeing him isn't a constant).

After an "unfun" trip home (I may write about it someday. It was almost comically bad.), we were HOME by 11:30 pm Friday. WOOHOO!!

GPS set to HOME after a month of being away:

Ten hours, yeah, right! Cute thought though. 

Saturday dawned and I didn't leave the house for so much as a run until we had plans later in the afternoon. I spent the day before we went to our friends' house for a cook out doing laundry, putting items away, making a dessert tray to take to the cook-out, running on the tready and enjoying the luxury of things like... light and large spaces!! Jacob came home briefly to see Abby and me and to pick up something from home that he needed. He didn't stay long. He wanted to get back to 'Nati before traffic and whatnot was crazy. The Reds had a home game late Saturday afternoon, FC Cincinnati had a home game and Taylor Swift performed at Paycor Stadium (where the Bengals play).

I made toffee crunch (some refer to this as "crack") with M&M's and white chocolate pretzels with sprinkles.

Our good friends Clint and Kristine hosted  a 4th of July cook out. It was the perfect way to see our best friends after I hadn't seen anyone for such a long time. Donnie's friends, including Clint and Kristine did spend time with Donnie in my absence- especially the first week that Abby and I were in New Jersey, Alyssa was in South Carolina at the beach with a friend. 

Who needs a dog when your friends have four of them?

Everything was so good!

Bad weather was predicted but held off until close to midnight when we had severe storms.  We got quite a bit of rain which was needed.

Sunday morning, I slept in until almost 8:30. Wut?? Well, no complaints here. I forewent running right away once again. Instead, I went outside to check up on the garden. Donnie had watered the veggie plants (just tomatoes at this point) when we didn't have rain. I didn't ask him or Alyssa to weed in my absence and wow, the weeds were abundant and had grown proficiently. The ground was soft from the rain so it was easy to pull the weeds. I didn't get it all weeded but I made a good dent in the weeding and I admired my tiny green tomatoes that were growing on the vine.

We went to church later in the morning. The service was good and I enjoyed seeing friends there whom I had not seen in a month! Right after church, there was a church wide picnic that was not only fun but staved off making a decision about what to do about lunch. Win-win-win. 

Weather probs! It was the perfect excuse to stay indoors the rest of the day. Alyssa and Abby volunteered to go to the grocery store which worked for me ("volunteer" isn't exactly the most accurate verb as there was a quid pro quo deal regarding Starbucks and going to the store).