We took our annual beach-house vacation in Destin, Florida. There is a wonderful little cottage rental in Crystal Beach called the “Sea Belle” it has 3 bedrooms (2 up stairs, master downstairs) and a pool outside, and even better, an alert/alarm that beeps anytime one of the pool doors is opened, so if you have little ones you know they have gone outside, but there is another non-beepy door if you don’t want to be annoyed by the beep. It’s easily 2 blocks from the beach, and very close to a wonderful little coffee joint. It’s also only 10 miles from “Unwind with Yarn” which is in Fort Walton just a short drive down the road, and they now carry a bunch of my patterns! It’s one of my favorite yarn shops to visit, it has loads of Blue Sky Alpaca (even that cotton-multi that I adore right now) and Dreams in Color (I snagged 3 skeins for a proper February Lady) and lots of wonderful samples knit up and the friendly staff you have ever met. I sat and knit again with the same ladies I knit with just last year.

I was a bit embarrassed when they caught a spelling error in the materials section of one of my patterns, or rather more of a Typo, this whole being in business for yourself can be crazy like that sometimes, I strive so hard to make sure everything is perfect before I show it to people, and alas sometimes small things creep in. I will say I have the best Tech Editor ever (Joan of Petite Purls!) she does a fantastic job, so that is always re-assuring. I added the typo in AFTER she had tech edited, a reminder to all indie designers, anytime you edit something in your pattern, have it looked at again no matter how minimal the change is! It’s also sad when you have to throw the old copies away and take a loss on the printing, because I really must have everything fixed when I come across stuff like that. The life of an indie designer, indeed!

The trip was great, of course it was at times exhausting, and BG who is such a wonderful, beutiful, clever creature had her fair share of tantrums, to me though it wasn’t nearly as bas as last year, we managed to WALK AWAY from the beach once or twice with out her crying. The little one was like a little crab digging in the sand, I remember when we first took BG she didn’t like to even touch the sand, and there was the baby digging in it and shoving it into her face, hah! She even took a face plant right down in the sand and didn’t even cry about it being all over her face and eyes. BG went from last year were she would try to drown herself by jumping into the water and refusing to be held, to being fairly reserved about the water, much to my blood pressures relief. We popped a swimming vest on her and she mostly just walked around the pool throwing balls in or fishing them out, and asking to be held when we swam. I might be able to venture to the neighborhood pool alone with both girls now that I know she’s not all kamikaze!

BG got to pet an Alligator (maybe it was a crocodile?) at Fudpuckers and we ate some seriously good food, AJ’s, Black Pearl, Mcalisters, Crab Trap and other’s I can’t remember. Everyone was talking about the oil spill but I was happy it did not hit the shores, everything is so beautiful in the gulf with the often emerald colored water. I hope it doesn’t hit there, I hope it doesn’t hit anywhere. It’s just wait and see now I guess. So happy they stopped spraying the “dispersants”, everyone seems to think the burning works best. I don’t really know, I just hope things get better before they get worse.

We had a lot of fun, I knit a bit but was not happy with my knitting (what’s new!) and no one got sunburned. I found a super cute bathing suite that I felt comfortable in (score!) and was happy sitting on the beach the last evening, as the sun went down while the girls played in the sand. Vacations are a wonderful thing.