I have been laid low by a bad cold since last Monday. For seven days I had no voice. Today is the first day I had a little bit of a voice, I’m hoping by tomorrow to be back on full strength. I found by Friday I had forgotten what my voice sounded like! An interesting and humbling time indeed. I taught the dogs I was caring for to come when I would clap. Dogs are pretty smart as it only took them a very short time to learn that my clapping meant let’s go or come inside.

On Thursday a coworker came and got me from my office to show me a hot air balloon going over our building. It was fairly high as you can see in the top photo. My coworker pointed out to me the flame helping keep the balloon aloft I meanwhile was entranced with the rainbow of colors of the balloon. I was rather surprised that the balloon was where it was as it was kind of in the landing and take off pattern of one of the airport’s runways. Perhaps it took off from the airport I don’t know. It was lovely to see. I’m glad my coworker came and got me to see the balloon.

Yesterday I went to the Sugarloaf Craft Festival with my friend Jenn. We left around 9:30 and headed over the bridge. I sort of had a voice but not really. We chatted about horses she is looking at. We also caught up on her writing conference and our respective jobs. We got to the Festival at about 11:00. We both had specific artists we wanted to see in addition to just checking out all the artists to see what everyone had. I was looking for an artist whose paintings I had bought before. I enjoy chatting with him and his wife and he makes everyone feel special whether you buy one piece or twenty. Some artists will look by you if they think they can get a better sale from someone who will buy more. I understand everyone is trying to make a living but a little bit of common courtesy goes a long way in my book. I have four of the artist’s works and hope to purchase more next year. My friend Jenn had to get some jewelry worked on. She had a beautiful custom piece made for her at the fall show. The jeweler was a hoot and had gorgeous rings, necklaces and bracelets. It’s a tough call for me sometimes artwork or jewelry but usually artwork wins. We saw lots of different arts and crafts-jewelry, paintings, woodwork, scarves, clothes, bronzeworks, pottery and my favorite was a spinner spinning wool. I did buy one other piece of art, a cool picture of eight different pairs of wolves eyes, all lined up vertically. I love wolves. Jenn and I had lots of fun at one artist’s booth who did funny paintings with great sayings on them. We found out he and his wife run a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania. I wonder if people think it odd if a single person visited a bed and breakfast. I may check it out next spring.

Coming home I took a bunch of pictures as we drove over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Jenn was driving so I was snapping away with my camera. Sadly it was so gray out in some of my pictures you can barely tell where the water ends and the sky and clouds start. I love the bridge’s eastbound left hand arc as you head up the span. Obviously it is to the right as you come westbound. It has to be that way to meet the shipping channel underneath at a ninety degree angle I believe. I got that from memory but my angle could be off. It’s a short quick climb on the eastbound side with a long downhill slope back to land. On the westbound side it seems like the climb takes forever to get to the top of the bridge but then it’s a quick downhill ride. Heaven help you if you are on the bridge on a windy day or in a storm. It can be a white knuckled ride.

I took the bottom picture at a pet sitting job. I thought it was very colorful. I love color which is kind of funny for someone who is partially color blind. I’m looking forward to finally being able to see the art show that I showed up fifteen days too early for at the beginning of April. I’m going to the show on Wednesday with my Mom. I’ve gone to some great art shows with my Mom. We have seen Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Chihuly,Matisse, Norman Rockwell and lots of local artists. I’m hoping Mom likes the show as I think it’s a little outside of her art comfort zone. I hope I like it as I’ve been looking forward to it since I showed up while the painters were painting the galleries in prep for the show.

I hope your weekend went well and that you challenge yourself to step out of your comfort zone in a small way or a grand one this week! I’m going to try to step outside of mine each day and see how it goes.