>VCCA: Birthday

>What a great place to spend your birthday! In the morning I worked well again and managed to come to the end of the current draft of the story I wanted to finish today and for the rest of the day I’ve been planning the story that I’ll begin tomorrow (and live with for the next three days). I had arranged with two other fellows to go hiking in the afternoon so right after lunch we headed up to the Appalachian Trail and had a fantastic afternoon walking through the woods. The leaves are suddenly all down (piled on the trail); wind howled up there, too. It was fantastic, but very tiring, in an exhilirating kind of way.

At dinner everyone toasted me and the chef brought out a piece of cheesecake with a candle in it and they sang, which I hate and always find embarrassing, but it was very nice of everyone.

After dinner we had two fantastic presentations: Sherri Wood showed a DVD of her various projects, including amazing quilts and her new project the Mantra Trailer; and Leslie Awender showed slides of some of her photographs.

And now my mid-residency break is over. Time to get back to work!