Pause

I've been trying to find the pause button the past week or two. It's not that things are necessarily moving too quickly, but there are a few big stress sources interacting. There's the thing up north (I'm hoping for the best, but it's a long road), there's the house, and the increasingly terrible working conditions at the office.

I did get up north for Memorial Day weekend (different north) and stayed with my sister. Staying up until 2:00–4:00 am every night was tiring, but we did get some quality sister time and it was nice.

The family usually heads up to the ridge to maintain the family graveyard and make additions whenever necessary. The ridge is great-grandma and great-grandpa's original homestead. And we'll usually follow that up with a mini-family reunion/cookout at the ridge house.

This year there was an extra treat—one of the cousins has been running cattle at the ridge and the herd had a few calves this spring. And Memorial Weekend just happened to be when the calves were getting branded and the male calves were being..."fixed."

The ridge house from the cemetery.

Critter at the graveyard.

I liked these morning glories clustered near the wagon wheel.

You can't catch me.

"You're going to do WHAT?"

Ridge house front porch.

I just liked this old horse shoe hanging on the front door.

It looks like people just up and left. These letters are dated 1958.
It's not the best subject, but the light inside the house was gorgeous.

The house is still used occasionally, usually during hunting season.
It seems like someone should be sitting in this chair.

Dad got a flat tire on the drive back from the ridge somewhere between Kettempom and Alderpoint. So while he was fixing the tire, I was taking pictures.

Heading back to Raleigh on Sunday by myself and I just don't like it. It's not the going or being there or being alone that I don't like, it's the lying—I've been telling my boss and co-workers I'm going to Oregon to see my mom. I'm really looking forward to September when I can come clean with everyone.

In the meantime, I hope nothing happens while I'm there, because it'll be hard to explain if something bad happened (tornado, accident, etc.) to me in Raleigh when I was supposed to be in Oregon.