This weekend marked our new tradition of Eseme visiting me for a long weekend each year.  

(Last year was mid-July; the visit before that was several years before and I don’t remember quite when)

It was an awesome visit, of course!  Es and T and I went to Thai Thursday night in Watkins Glen because it was first day of classes for the Uni I work at and, well, that’s not a great day to be downtown in MY town, so we went the other way.   Then we hit one of my favorite ice cream places (also in Watkins Glen) and headed home to decompress (me) and not be driving (Eseme).

(Eseme lives nine hours away from me.  I cannot even IMAGINE driving nine hours on my own.  I don’t even really like driving FOUR hours on my own to see my friends in Troy.)

Friday, we went to the Outlet Mall and… almost entirely failed to get everything on my list!  But Eseme got some nice stuff, so that’s awesome (lots of purple).  

We had dinner at home, courtesy T’s cooking, my baking, and a whole bunch of really tasty produce brought by Eseme, who has discovered the awesome produce stand in Triangle (I think I told her about it last year) and brought us giant onions and amazing ripe plums and really good sweet corn. 

(Risotto with a side of sweet corn and a dessert of plum crumble)

And we talked about bujos!  I got Es started on the whole bujo (BUllet JOurnal) thing a couple… couple? Maybe a little over a year ago and now she returned the favor by reinvigorating my interest in all things bujo – including a couple ideas for remembering things better!

And, of course, stickers and washi tape. 

All the washi tape. 

SO MUCH washi tape

(Saturday night, we made samplers of each other’s washi tape collection to take home, which is, I think, the only way one ever actually uses up a whole roll of washi tape.  Samplers and sharing.)

(Here’s a good link on a washi tape sampler – http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/2018/06/how-to-make-a-washi-tape-sampler/ .  I used a Chinese take-out container like thus – https://www.restaurantware.com/disposables/take-out/take-out-boxes/asporto-24-oz-rectangle-black-plastic-to-go-box-with-clear-lid-microwavable-8-x-5-1-4-x-1-3-4-100-count-box/ only white and cut 5 pieces out of it (would’ve been six but it’s sort of shattery plastic.), two for me of Eseme’s washis and 2 for her of mine.)

We had a great day Saturday of wineries, shopping (did I mention washi tape and stickers?), Indian food, and then bujo work and the washi tape swapping and then we fell into bed. 

It was an awesome visit, and I’m super glad she made the drive.  Such a drive…

Sunday, after a nap, I opened up my oldest bujo and started looking through for things I’d forgotten.  So far, I’ve gotten through two of my bujos, moving over tasks that have been long, long forgotten and making an index of “collections” (in Bullet Journals, a collection can be anything from a list of movies you want to see to a gratitude log to an exercise tracker – see here https://diaryofajournalplanner.com/bullet-journal-collections/ ) that I didn’t want to lose but might only want once/year or less, and marking stuff I really DO want in my new bujo to photocopy tomorrow. 

So not only was it a great visit, but it had productive end results. 

Also, I ALMOST have a fully functional bathroom door.  More to follow on that.