It’s Sunday evening, and I’m back at my August home-away-from-home here in northeastern MD quickly making a trip to celebrate the kid’s birthday a few days early. Colleen went all-out putting together a Harry Potter-themed party, with floating candles hanging from the ceiling, turning the front door into Platform 9¾ picking out wands, sorting into Houses, all the good stuff you do at a Potter-themed party for a soon-to-be-eleven year old and her friends.

Also, there was cake.

Getting home took almost five hours, starting with the first of four exams (I got an 85% on the first one; I kind of wish I split the difference on two related questions I wasn’t sure about instead of going all-or-nothing; I could’ve had a 90% Oh well; I’m in fine shape to pass the course, and that’s what matters).

It was a whirlwind round trip, though I stopped at a nearby state park to stretch my legs and catch some Eevees for Community Day, and to knock out some grocery shopping so I can feed myself for the week.

After that quick trip, I revised some plans in consultation with my lovely wife; I was going to make another quick trip, (a friend is playing a show within an hour or two of home, and I’d be seeing the kid off to college for the fall semester), though the thought of having to put something like fourteen total hours of wheel time in (and Colleen’s thought of having to deal with me after having to put in fourteen hours behind the wheel) changed out minds; I’m going to stay in my current region for this weekend and maybe take in some of the local sites within spitting distance, and not rack up another 500 miles on the Scion, and save my gas pedal leg some strain.

I also have a dinner date later this week with friends who relocated up this way from Richmond a year or two back; having a nice home-cooked meal and some quality socializing and catching up should be nice.

Oh, and I finally finished the audiobook of Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer today! It’s been months – running the book at 1.5x speed, it was still over 40 hours long. Great book, though!

Anyway, enjoy your week, dear reader. I’m going to try not to wear out too much from all the studying and group projects.