Monica’s visit

I’m a little behind on my blog posts, but I can’t omit mentioning that Monica came and spent a very nice two weeks with us last month.

The weather was perfect. September is the best month in so many places in this country, including here! September is when I want to be in 10 different places at once…the Sierras, the Cascades, the Pacific Coast, Boston…and it’s also just about perfect right here in New Mexico.

While Monica was here, John took some partial days off and we went on a variety of local outings.

I’ve blogged before about globalquerque; we go every year. It’s always great. I didn’t get very good pictures this year, but these will give you an idea. It starts in the early evening and goes quite late. There are two outdoor stages and one indoor theater.

They bring high quality musicians from around the world. It’s a great time to discover new and different music.

Another day we went to the botanical garden, which I always enjoy.

Here’s a bunch of photos from the butterfly enclosure (where visitors can go inside the enclosure with the butterflies). The butterflies were being very cooperative for their photos.

This is a local wild roadrunner. He/she is not caged, there’s just a fence in the background and it’s reflecting on the rock

We also went to the zoo, but I didn’t take any pictures there. I’m not very fond of zoos. I hadn’t been for a long time, and now I remember why. Don’t like the zoo. I love the botanic garden though.

Monica and I also went furniture shopping, which was fun. We went to a couple of stores that didn’t have anything remotely of the style I was looking for, before we ended up at an enormous store that had pretty much any style anyone could want.

I really enjoyed Monica’s visit. It’s nice to have someone around. I’m used to having an office job with coworkers every day, and I really miss them. John’s not home a lot of the time, so it gets to just be me and the dogs wandering around this house.

The dogs appreciated having her here too!

Monica and I made a deal – she should visit New Mexico more in the summer when it’s hot and humid and miserable in Houston (although it’s pretty hot in the summer here too, but at least it’s dry), and I should visit Houston more when it’s icy cold here in the winter. In particular I struggle with the early spring, when it’s brown, dry, and we have bitter cold, high winds and dust storms. So Monica is going to have a housemate this spring. Sweet green grass and bluebells, here I come!