Monday Miscellany - 25Jul16

It's been 3 weeks since I blogged - I could have sworn I blogged the 11th, but apparently not.

However, I did not blog last week because we took a family vacation to Toronto! We had a great time, a good mix of seeing/doing and relaxation. We even did an escape room one day.

DD is relatively recently vegan (though DH and I are not), and she had a list of vegan restaurants to visit. We did make it it all but one of them, and other than a rather disappointing exception, all were pretty good. We even found a few places (both vegan and vegan-friendly) that weren't on the list that were worth the trip. Toronto was lovely, and at least at the beginning of the week, the weather was nice. There was a bit of a heat wave toward the end, but it was still cooler than back here in Florida.

Some highlights of the trip:

• Doomie's - vegan 'junk food'. So good we went there twice, and still haven't figured out what wizardry they used to create an amazing vegan creme brulee.
• Gardens! We visited the Toronto Botanical Garden, the Toronto Music Garden, and especially the Royal Botanical Gardens. All beautiful, and the RBG was quite extensive - we didn't see everything because it was just too hot outside, but greatly enjoyed what we did see.
• Taste Bistro in St. Catharine's. Not a vegan place, but very vegan-friendly in that menu items that were vegan or could be veganized were very clearly indicated. DD had some very tasty dishes so done, DH had an arctic char and I had an Alberta beef tenderloin. We all enjoyed it very much, and it was an excellent surprise - we had driven to St. Catharine's to visit a vegan place that we weren't able to get into because they were packed. But as long as we were planning to visit St. Catharine's anyway, we signed up for...
• The Hour - an escape room venue. The three of us did one of the harder rooms (since she'd done an escape room before), and we nearly solved it in time, and had a blast doing it.

No matter how good a vacation is, it is still good to be back home, so back to business at hand. With a bit of catch-up, of course.

What I've been reading... I finished _As You Wish_, read two Doctor Who themed short story collections (_Legends of Ashildr_ and _Time Lord Fairy Tales_), _Jane Eyre_ by Charlotte Bronte (one of DD's summer reading assignments), and I'm 2/3 through _Great Expectations_ by Charles Dickens (DD's other summer reading assignment). I've actually enjoyed the summer reading more than I expected that I would.

What I've been stitching... I've done a few more hours on Ink Circles "Tapestry", but that's it. I took Tapestry on vacation with me, but didn't stitch at all.

Fumbling toward fitness... I only made it to Curves 3 times in the two weeks before vacation, mostly due to trip preparations. I did 389 minutes for 20.27 miles on the treadmill, and about 14 miles walking around in Toronto over the past week (not counting airports). So I've not been a total slacker, but I need to get back into routine this week.

One Little Victory A fun family vacation and a safe homecoming.

I go back to work tomorrow, and hopefully will be able to get back into the groove readily enough.