More From Michigan

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  It was a bit steamy for my liking.  In fact, since it was so hot yesterday and I refused (for as long as I could) to turn on the A/C Antoine and I spent most of our Memorial day watching tv and napping.  It was kind of pathetic, but what with the heat and our busy weekend it was nice just to relax and do nothing!

I'm still working my way through my pictures from Michigan.  Needless to say I took far too many pictures while we were on vacation (as usual) and about 70% of them were of Cheese.  I'm obsessed, what can I say! 

Anyway, we had left very early Friday morning for Michigan.  It was about five and a half hours to South Haven/Covert Michigan and we planned for frequent stops (what with the Cheese-man in tow).  We made good time, checked into our KOA (finding it relatively empty) and started setting up our tent.  We still had a good portion of the day left so we decided to drive about a half hour south to Grand Mere State Park.  While most beaches in Michigan do not allow dogs (a fact we discovered, sadly, after we arrived) I knew ahead of time that Grand Mere did allow dogs, through my research. Since we were on vacation prior to Memorial day, any parking at state parks like Grand Mere was free! 

The path leading to the beach was quite pretty.  Surrounded by bright green trees on both sides.  Unfortunately, getting to the beach wasn't the piece of cake we hoped for...instead we had to climb several INSANE sand dunes!  But, in the end, it was well worth it.

 The beach was a little foggy and chilly that day, but it was completely deserted!

 Poor Cheese was not a fan of the waves!  I guess that's a good thing, since Basset Hounds can't swim.

But, while he hated the waves he couldn't resist the allure of a good stick.  Even a massive one like this!

 This is what bliss must look like for a dog.

We enjoyed a nice 2 hour stroll on the beach before we decided to head back to our campground to make dinner and rest for the night.  Unfortunately, when it came to sleeping that night...things didn't go so well.  Our pump for our air mattress refused to charge, so we were left to sleep on the very cold, hard ground.  No worries though, on Day 2 we made a trip to the store and bought a manual pump that did the trick.

 

It was a long day of sleeping in the car, chewing on sticks and running away from waves for Cheese.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more Michigan goodness (aka more pictures of a cute basset).

Dancing Fire

 Because it's Friday and my brain feels a bit mushy...here's some pictures of our campfire from Michigan.  Antoine was trying to get a fire going so we could make dinner, but was having some trouble because the firewood was damp.  So, he started pouring lighter fluid onto the fire and it just looked so darn pretty that I had to take some pictures.
  

 

A Dog and His Stick(s)

 Over the weekend Antoine, Cheese and I went on a little road trip to southwestern Michigan and did some camping.  This was our first time taking the Cheese-man on vacation with us, but we figured since he very recently turned one we just had to take him with us.  So, how was traveling with a basset hound in tow?  Pretty relaxed actually!  Cheese was on his best behavior...thanks to his new harness that keeps him from pulling our arms off and choking himself (thanks again to Amanda for picking that up for us, you're a life-saver).  He was a perfect angel in the 5 hour car ride to and from South Haven, MI.  He was his natural attention-hoggy-self when it came to walking down the sidewalk and people stopping to pet him.  It was a great vacation for us and him...well, accept for the fact that most of the beaches in Michigan don't allow dogs (but that's a different story for another time).

One of the things we learned while we were camping was that as long as nature supplies Cheese with a stick or two to play with the dog is happy.  Dude LOVES sticks.  Big sticks.  Little sticks.  Sticks in the woods.  Sticks on the beach.  It's a fact...

To Chicago, From Cincinnati

 

Happy anniversary Antoine! These have been the best three years of my life.  

I love you.

To Etsy or Not to Etsy

That is the question.  Lately I've been contemplating selling my books on Etsy.  Mainly, one of our students and one of our volunteers have been insisting that I sell my books.  I just finished making three new books/journals/sketchbooks with my own marbled paper on the covers.  I think they're pretty awesome, I gotta say.  Here's some crappy iPhone pictures of them to give you an idea:

 Each of these is roughly 8" x 8".

 

Should I sell them?  I've got about 18 blank journals/books that I've made that are just sitting at home, so I technically have enough to start a store on Etsy.  Most of them are quarter bindings like these above (cloth on the spine with paper making up most of the cover), however some are covered solely in cloth that I've hand dyed.  The textblocks are sewn by yours truly and everything is acid free (boards, paper, cloth).  Each book has anywhere from 60 to 150 pages (roughly) with colored endpaper to match the cover and spine.  Each page is blank and either white or cream colored (depending on the color of the cover). 

Thoughts?!