Last Friday after work, Josh (my fingers still go to type “The Boy” all the time) and his parents and I went out to dinner, and then over to Populuxe to check out my paintings. Josh and his father had a beer, Fleeta had a cider, and I had cherry passion tic tacs from my purse.

I swear I don’t wear the same thing all the time. I haven’t sold any paintings YET, but they’ll be up for another month so I’m not too concerned. Later Josh told me that he may have convinced a drunk guy standing in line behind him to buy the “Woman with Hat” diptych, but I haven’t received any text message confirming the sale! If I sold one painting I’d be stoked. Such is the way with selling art. I ain’t no spring chicken to this bizz.

I was intrigued by the “Cycle Saloon” as we were walking back to the car. I would have asked about it, but it was covered with little kids firing questions at the guy running it, so I just snapped a few (blurry) photos and walked away. Ah, Ballard! You’re so quirky!

The next day we spent allllll dayyyyyy moving everything out of our living room/dining room area to the back patio to clean the carpets. That was a lot of work. I mildly threw my lower back out later that evening, and it didn’t resolve itself until we were at PAX the next day. I had to follow Josh’s instructions on how to fix it (counterstrain, stretching, and icing), and it worked! Bless him.

Around 4 o’clock, after the moving and vacuuming and steam cleaning, we had to get out of the house. We hadn’t been to the Edmonds dog park in two years (!), so that seemed like the best idea. Might as well make the most of this last little blast of summer weather, eh?

Ahhhhhh. Instant Zen. Nothing like the sound of the waves, smell of the ocean, and sunny skies to make one relax.

Not to mention all the DOGS! I love this dog park.

I was dressed for comfort, not to impress. A few girls at the park had on cute little sundresses and sun hats and I was jealous. Heigh ho! I had to take my shoes off and tromp around in the Sound a little…it felt really good.

Maggie has mostly recovered from her limping incident a few weeks ago. She ran and swam and didn’t limp the next day, so we were relieved. Twice a day we’ve been giving her glucosamine tablets and incontinence medicine–and I haven’t noticed a single pee puddle since. We’re better about giving our dogs medicine than we are remembering our own vitamins! I guess that makes us good pet parents.

So pretty. I’m already missing summer, and we’re still in it, kind of. Although this morning the rain is pouring down so it feels like typical Seattle. A good day to get some painting done.

After the dog park, we leashed the pets and took a long, slow walk all around the pier, something I had never done before. Usually when I go to Edmonds I just head straight for the dog park. It was nice.

Happy faces! Too bad we had to go back to the house and move all the furniture back in, BLEGH. Well, in the long run, I’m happy we’re steam cleaning the carpets. We’ve lived in the current house for nearly 4 years (!), and the carpet was DISGUSTING. Dogs, you know. I totally blame the dogs.

Tomorrow I’m going to blog about the Nerd Convention to end all Nerd Conventions, PAX! Today I am going to slog my rear end to the gym and maaaaaaaybe bring the big huge donation box we filled to the Goodwill. I like getting rid of things, sometimes. Although the clothes are certainly hard to let go of. Siiiiigh.