Weeknotes #8: I’m an auntie!
My niece was born within the past week, making me a first-time auntie! I might be biased 😇, but she’s an especially adorable tiny person and I can’t wait to meet her in person when I visit my sister in a few weeks. Moments like these make it hard to live far away from family, but I’m looking forward to spending quality time with my new niece and her parents as the initial crush of visitors recedes a bit.
Cabin weekend in Packwood, WA
Over the weekend a few friends and I stayed at a cabin near-ish to Mt. Rainier. This was one of those magical couple of days where all of nature conspires to please you with its immense beauty, everyone’s mood is relaxed and easy, and all is well in life.
It was too early in the season to actually hike on Rainier, but we got the chance to stretch our legs on the trail to Packwood Lake and were rewarded by beautiful aqua waters.
There were also these odd Seussical clustered flowers at a certain point along the trail. Deleted text I’m still trying to ID them, so let me know if you happen to be savvy with Washington wildflowers: Inserted text Based on Amelia Bellamy-Royds’s sleuthing, these seem to be Xerophyllum tenax aka Common Beargrass.End inserted text
In wildlife this weekend, we spotted: two very sturdy-looking deer on the drive into Packwood (blessedly they decided to stay on their side of the highway); electric-blue dragonflies zipping along at Packwood Lake; and a tiny hummingbird hovering overhead of the backyard hammock.
On Sunday after checkout, my S.O. and I squeezed in an extra hike. We intended to head to Kelly Butte, but the GPS led us to a dead-end road where some dude was just trying to shoot a couple targets in peace. He sent us over to Green Lake trailhead where we indulged a bit of spontaneous hiking. I’m still not clear if the body of water we saw was the actual advertised lake, but this was a peaceful, forested trail and a great end to our time in the national forests before driving back to Seattle.
Catching up on lit highlights
When not tromping throught the woods, I updated my highlights collection with a couple more books: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mindset by Carol Dweck, and Upstream by Mary Oliver.
Reading
Design and development
- The Crushing Weight of the Facepile: stealing this for when I implement Webmentions on my blog.
- What if we got aspect-ratio sized images by doing almost nothing?: assuming those attributes are present. ☺