TWTW - the one with just one dog

This weekend was just me and Bruce at the shore. Having had two dogs for like 10 years and three for at least five but probably more like six or seven, it was so weird to just have the one with me. Weird and extremely easy. 

Bruce and I got to the shore Thursday night around 9 after packing, running the dishwasher, washing a load of towels, etc. I worked from there Friday which meant lunch was a beach walk. 

After work I applied an initial coat to one of the dressers upstairs (Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue). Bruce supervised which made me nervous as fuck but he was really good and stayed away from the paint. 

To reward both of us, we headed down to Corson's Inlet and hiked through the trail to the beach where we came upon the mother lode of shells high up in the sand and not a soul in sight. I was not paying attention to where we were going but Bruce, born in Sea Isle, led the way back around to the car. He is a shore dog through and through. We hung out and watched the sunset - that's the sun glowing red going down reflected on me, not a red face - then went home and cleaned shells and read. 

Saturday sunrise + a 45 minute beach wog down to the Music Pier. The erosion from the numerous N'oreasters is just incredible on some beaches - there's quite a drop off as you can sort of see in the puddle photo. 

After a short rest I was back at the Music Pier to register for the beach clean up, then I spent some time on my beach doing that. The plastic is literally killing us.

Another coat of paint on the dresser, then a three hour tour down Asbury Avenue to get Bruce used to people and noise. It took so long because he stops and stares at shit and won't move. We also paused in front of The Chatterbox for a long time. Under new ownership this season, the old girl is being lovingly restored to her former glory. Aside from a quick run to Bennie's for scalded milk cake during which I realized I looked like a giant blueberry, we stayed in and I read most of the afternoon.

Another jaunt down to the beach followed by my favorite picky dinner and Legally Blonde. 

Sunday sunrise - often behind the sunrise is as pretty or prettier as the sunrise itself.

Coffee, relaxing, cleaning our apartment, finding storage for my new shells, 

taking everything out of the kitchen closet and priming it with spray primer due to laziness, then cleaning up the dust that kicked up, a clear coat on the dresser - I let it pull through white on purpose, and a last jaunt to the beach. We were supposed to come home Monday, but we didn't. 

We should have, because when I got home the house was a disaster, the dishes I ran in the dishwasher Thursday night were still freaking in there, I spent a zillion minutes on the phone with Comcast on MFD's behalf, and the ants are back, hence the borax sugar water appetizer. At least dinner was good and no one did any murdering? And by no one I mean me. 

Weekly food prep: scrambled eggs with spinach for breakfast, hummus/veggies/pita for lunch, dinner is probably going to be ham and potato soup and leftovers from the grilling. Cantaloupe for a snack.

This was the first Sunday night in forever that I've purposefully gone to bed without TWTW queued up for the next day. I can only recall doing that one other time and it involved me still being in my bathing suit in a bar at the shore at like midnight.  The other times I've missed Mondays I knew ahead of time that I would. No real reason for mentioning this except to note that while I do love to recap weekends this way for my own memories - what did I use? where did I go? was that that weekend? - it felt freeing to not do that on the time table I usually do. Also to say that if photos and collages sized the way I wanted them to on my phone, I'd never have a thought about doing that again - I've done this so many times, it's second nature.