A New Muumuu Destination

You:  "Hey Rachel, what have you been up to?"
Me: "Oh, you know. Not writing."

You guys, for six months I haven't written a thing! Not on this blog, no short stories, no emotional rants scrawled on any random notebook while sitting in the Target parking lot (I have done this, I will admit, more than once.) Sure I've written in my journal like any good Mormon girl but that's about it. And here's the thing, I need to write. When I joke that writing is my one talent I kind of mean it. Because it's the one thing I've always known I was good at from a really young age and not doing it makes me feel like I'm not living up to my potential. No one actually lives up to their potential. That thing is limitless. But I still like to give it the old college try. Although that's not a great turn of phrase in this instance considering that, even though I wrote constantly in college, it was mostly analyses on the Romantic poets or a comparison of the book and film of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I got an A on even though what I really wanted to write was, "Both were awful.The End." I don't think I mentioned Prince a single time in any of my college papers.

So I'm writing again. We'll have a party to celebrate. You eat a piece a cake and I'll eat a piece of cake and we'll both, at a designated time, thrown confetti in the air. And then I'll get back to writing. I'm not making promises people (all 3 of you) but maybe from time to time I'll put some little nugget up here, mostly to remind myself that I love it.

Speaking of cake I had the best, hands down, no competition, piece of cake I've ever had in my entire life. Purchased at a place called Rosine's in Monterey, CA. Eaten, primarily, on the road out of the plastic container it came in. I find most cake to be just okay. It's not moist enough or there's too much frosting. But this was a giant, chocolate piece of perfection.

Also on the perfection list: Monterey. Have you been? Gosh it's pretty. I went for the first time this weekend after a disappointing several hours in Santa Cruz (which will forever be known as NotMonterey, CA) The dramatic beaches! The abundance of funky looking cypress trees! The frolicking baby seals and otters! The proximity to Doris Day's house over the hill in Carmel! I mean, it's really the best. I've always thought I would spend my golden muu-muu years in Palm Springs but now I'm reconsidering. I would have to learn how to golf, of course, but I'd have to do that in the desert too. The level of Elegant Leisure is on par (see, I'm using golf lingo already!) with Newport RI but this is West Coast Elegant Leisure, which allows for flip flops and tacos.

Monterey came at the end of a two week blitz of travel. I was in Zion National Park for girls camp (hot, hot, more hot, and fun) then a week later I was in Oregon for a Knecht-fest that deserves its own post (21 Knechts, one house). And then a long drive down the coast through the Redwoods, loads of vineyards, the Bay Area, NotMonterey and Monterey (I used the bathrooms at Pebble Beach. Deluxe!) a quick stop off in Salinas to pay homage to John Steinbeck even though he hated the place, then home. I have been luxuriating in my own bed every night since. The joys of sleeping in your own bed after many nights of things that are not your bed, and things that couldn't even be considered a bed, cannot be overstated. I will say though that buying the World's Largest Cot and lugging it all the way to Utah for girls camp because I flat-out refuse to ever sleep on an air mattress again was one of my better decisions.

Here's a picture of me as Frodo Baggins leaving the Shire.

And here is the freakiest tree knot you've ever seen.

And here's Clark. Because what the world needs now, more than ever, is Clark.