Well, to say the least, it has been a busy few months! I met up with a client from California, in Seattle for three days and we had a wonderful time. Work and play, great food, perfect weather and of course outstanding company. Was a nice treat to be able to work together in person instead of on the phone.

Mid-September was our 11th annual women’s weekend at our house. There were eight of us this year and we had our usual fabulous time: Friday night traditional dinner of my home-made pasta sauce, wine sipping...and sipping and a full evening of catch-up on everyone’s lives, kids and grandkids with a later bedtime than we usually have. Saturday was a full day of various activities, including the farmers market, lunch, and a hike for some, shopping for others and a very fine fondue for dinner complete with Belgian chocolate. And to bed much earlier! The house is amazingly quiet on Sunday afternoon after the women head home. The house goes from a constant buzz to total silence in just five minutes. I gather the sheets and towels for laundering and reflect on the beauty of this weekend and the depth of the friendships we have. The older I get, the more my women friends hold a bigger place in my heart. I am looking forward to next year already.

David, Misty and I headed off on a road trip to Calgary at the end of September to visit our good friends Simon & Georgina. We celebrated the arrival of their new puppy that Misty quite loved (along with her toys) and Georgina’s 1st anniversary post breast cancer surgery. A very happy time for sure.

We spent a lot of family time in September and beginning of October with kids and grandkids and had such wonderful and meaningful visits with everyone. It was a great treat and we can’t wait to do it all again. With everyone’s busy schedules it is so difficult to arrange a time when we can be together. These visits were priceless for me.

I have been quite surprised with the amount of time involved in my role as Chamber President. We have a very large and growing Chamber, which is a good thing and along with that comes the increased visibility, which equates to more meetings, more invitations and more to do, including writing a monthly column for the newspaper. Between this, my business, the Village Hideaway vacation rental, holidays, visits and Rotary there have been a few times I have felt totally overwhelmed and exhausted these past two months. We had a big Italian dinner Rotary fund-raiser mid-October (more in Cumberland Chronicles) for which I was the Chair and that has successfully been completed so life seems to be getting back on track. David and I are also going to take a weekend away without Misty (no responsibility except to ourselves) by the end of the month and that will be a great time to re-juvenate, relax, walk, read and eat some great food somewhere else.

Oh yes, just wanted to comment on the clutter article by the 11 year olds, Kody and Jessie. These two are absolute “best friends” and do everything together. I smile every time I think of those two and their friendship. Kody’s mom told me that after they wrote the article, the girls did an interpretive dance about clutter that was “very frantic and scary”. What a cool way to interpret something. I will be seeing them this week and I hope they will do their dance for me. How creative and I can only imagine the impact! Very cool indeed.

The absolute best news to report is that our 3-month guests from the summer, Woody and Arianna, arrived back at the Village Hideaway two weeks ago and on Saturday, November 3rd had a beautiful little girl, Isabella Rose! They arrived back at their “home away from home” on the 5th and we are thrilled to have them here. I plan to take a picture of the happy threesome for our next newsletter. David and I are delighted when we hear that little cry. A true little miracle, Isabella is.