hello from maine...

Greetings from Southern Maine and Sister Mary Catherine's Internet Cafe (www.sistermary.com).

We arrived on Thursday in plenty of time for a good run, followed by a dip in the ocean, and clam chowder for dinner--great way to begin the trip. Besides a day of rain on Sunday, the weather has been beautiful. It's been warm enough during the day to go kayaking or sit on the beach and cool enough at night to sleep with the windows open and under a pile of blankets. Perfect weather.

No real adventures to report of late, just good times with my parents and my grandmother in a very relaxed and entertaining atmosphere. We always get good stories about the neighbors up here, but this year took the cake with a story of a cat-napping the local police are investigating. It seems that a neighbor who rents her home out during the summer was involved in a bit of a disagreement with people in her local area. Some of these people may have hired someone to 'scare' her. Scaring her turned into stealing her cat...but, it wasn't her cat, it was the renter's cat. Now police from two different states are involved and questioning all sorts of people. It's never dull here--though the 'excitement' in southern Maine is the entertaining excitement not the heart-stopping excitement associated with my previous positions.

A good friend who lives in Boston is hopefully coming up this weekend. I'm very much looking forward to showing Maine to her, and hopefully getting her out kayaking on the marsh or in the ocean. It will be good to see a kind and familiar face before I leave on Monday. (Yikes!)

I've been reminded again and again over the past few months how lucky I am to be in a place to take this leap. One of my cousins had a great thought for me the other day. She wrote, "when things really get hard and you can't believe you signed up voluntarily for such misery i'd do 2 things--think of an old job and look back at the mountain behind you. that'll help with perspective". Sage advice, I'm certain.

The sun in shining and there's a warm land breeze, so it's time to get off the computer and head to the beach. I'll post probably one more time this week, and then turn it over to the blog-sitter.