My turn

Hi everybody,
I think my last post was in May! I've had a ton going on in the past few months, but now that I've entered into a relatively calm (and desperately lonely) stretch, it seems like a good time to get off my hiney and indulge in some news-sharing with my buds. Calm because the main source of uncertainty and unrest has devastatingly resolved itself, and lonely because my housemate has abandoned me for Europe. Well, my human housemate. The cats are sweet company, but I find them somewhat lacking in the arena of conversation. Not that a furry headbutt, or hopeful chirp, now and then isn't comforting.
So, where to start? From June to October, I have spent 1-2 weeks out of every month in New England. No, I haven't been entertaining the thought of walking out on Andrew, we've just had a lot of family goings-on in the past few months. In June, it was my cousin Robbie's graduation party, which Andrew & I stretched into 5 days with both of our families. It was on this trip that our request for a get-together with Andrew's mom's family was misconstrued as a desire to announce to the whole family all at once that we were going to have a baby. I guess it didn't seem plausible that we just wanted to visit with them.
In July, I accompanied my great-aunt Nanette (actual name: Antoinette) to Islesford for 2 weeks. She's my father's father's sister, lives in Kentucky, is 87 years old, and needed a companion (and chauffeur) to make the trip. We had a fantastic time, and of course being on the Island is always wonderful for me.
I spent a week in August working at my aunt & uncle's B&B in Maine while their assistant innkeeper took a vacation. This week proved unbelievably precious and well-timed because a week after I left to go back to Virginia, my dearest uncle Nat passed away. One week to the day after I had pointed my car south, we were pointing ours north to spend the weekend mourning and celebrating with family. This kind of grief is confusing. Nat was such an unbelievably GOOD person, and we all feel so lucky to have been in his life, and so sad that he is gone. Those of you who were at our wedding will remember that he and my aunt Lynn spoke at our ceremony.
September was a hard month, but brightened in the middle by a visit from Elisabeth, Rick, & Penny, and at the end by another trip home, where, like in June, we were able to sneak in visits to all the family and some friends. And unlike our June trip to New England, nobody voiced (to us) their disappointment that we had not yet announced our impending parenthood. Sorry, Andrew has not yet knocked me up, I am not up the spout, and there is no bun in my oven.
So now I'm back in Virginia, until Thanksgiving anyway. I'm job-searching right now, and am actually happy about having a month or so to hang around my new-ish home with my not-so-new husband. He gets back in just a few days :)
You can see pictures of my recent adventures at: http://jessie-lynn.smugmug.com. Look in the 2008 gallery (it's organized chronologically).
Take care,
Jessie