Back from the beach. Whew--was it ever a stormy weekend! Friday night, I went to sleep half expecting to wake up in Oz. The wind was gusting up to 70 mph and it was rattling and shaking the whole house giving me a very subtle vertigo feeling. The lights of town reflected off the low clouds making it possible to see the ocean from our house. The waves were huge and crashed loudly on the shore while the seaspray shot horizontally over the oncoming waves. When we went out on Saturday, the sideways rain blasted on in the face or in the ear with a refreshing (!) shock of cold water. I've never seen such violent weather at the Oregon coast. Then again, I don't usually plan my trips for wicked weather weekends. I brought my camera but didn't get a chance to use it because the rain was just too intense.

Only a few of us were there--3 the first night, 4 the next night. Alison was suppose to come on Saturday but she never showed up. I tried to get ahold of her but she and her husband were staying at her parent's house and I didn't have their number or ability to get the number. I will call her tomorrow and find out what the deal was. We decided that from now on, people will be paying a $50 deposit to secure their spot at the beach. That way if they bogue out, it doesn't end up costing us more money.

My favorite part about our beach retreats is the loose, stress-free nature of the weekend. No one wants anything from you, no one demands anything from you. If you want to go read, you can. If you want to take a nap, you can. There are people to play games with or talk to or you can watch TV or scrapbook or play your gameboy or whatever. And there are factory outlet stores to shop at, if you feel like venturing out. I just like being able to do nothing if that's what strikes my fancy. That, and staying in my jammies until 2pm. We played lots of games and talked a lot (a fat lot, actually!) and ate chocolate and drank Dr Pepper and ate more chocolate and watched A Christmas Story on video. Last night, we talked until almost 4am! It was wunnerful wunnerful. Just what I needed to refresh my batteries for a busy week ahead.

I didn't overeat this weekend, though, which I was happy about. Even though I mentioned the chocolate twice, it wasn't as bad as in retreats past where we just ate with reckless abandon. I think we've tired of the 2-3 day recovery after a weekend of eating debauchery. Jaimie always brings a pan of brownies and they are usually gone by the middle of the second day but this time we actually brought back enough for 2 decent-sized brownies. Jeff was happy about that.

And Ed did laundry (even put it away) while I was gone. Isn't that just the best? There are clean underwear in my drawer and I didn't even have to do it! Ed and Joey practiced some Christmas carols for me and sang them (while she played the piano) for me when I got home. It was a really great reception.

Tomorrow is my last early morning for school. I've got lots of printing to do--I hope I can get it done tomorrow and Friday so I don't have to come in on Saturday. I can't believe the semester is over already! Man, this term just flew by. How nice to approach finals without a test to take, though.

Later...

--L