I started writing this post on Friday the 20th of February. It was the day after my friend Vivian had some pretty major back surgery. 8 hours of surgery. We had dinner with her and her husband Steve the night before. She went in to the ordeal with the most positive attitude and incredible determination. I think I would have been terrified. And oh my god, so organized, she even made her own hospital gowns. This woman is crazy impressive! Fun, kind and always looks amazing. I can’t believe how much I missed being able to text or talk to her. I patiently, or actually not so patiently waited for the word that she was ready to see visitors.

It was great to finally start visiting with her and doing what I could do to help, which just didn’t feel like nearly enough. Anyway, to make a long story short, tomorrow is 5 weeks since the surgery and her recovery is nothing short of miraculous! She has worked her butt off. Today was our first outing to La Encantada, where we like to check out the J.Crew sales, and today was a spectacular one! J.Crew is always followed by a visit to North for happy hour, where we always get the Sangria, Zucca chips and cheese board. Predictable, but in a comforting way. Sometimes we mix it up and stop in at a couple of other stores or follow with a trip to Frost for some gelato.  Today we concentrated on the two important destinations. Vivian walked all the way from the car to J.Crew, up to North and back again with her cane and wearing her full body brace. I can’t begin to convey how happy this outing made me!

Between the surgery and today’s outing we managed to squeeze in a couple of little trips. Naturally. On March third, Benco sent us to Cancun for 4 days. We added on a fifth, because it sounded like a good idea…..it kind of wasn’t. But that’s a long story. The short version is this: the resort, Moon Palace, was a sprawling, beautiful resort sort of far from town, which by the way, we never saw. Not our kind of place, but I can understand how some people would love it. It’s an all-inclusive, so that’s kind of nice. So, now we can say we’ve been to Cancun, but we haven’t really-lol! The best part was spending some quality time with the Benco friends we have made over the years. Benco honored the recent retirees and we all had a very nice dinner with Larry and Sally Cohen. I think the highlight of the trip was this really fun activity where they had us all make pinatas with local children who were either handicapped in some way or disadvantaged.

After Cancun, Rick came back and worked a couple of days, I unpacked and immediately re-packed for a trip to Texas to visit Jenna. She is in the middle of decorating her home, and it was fun to be a part of it. As usual, we had a great time. We went to some wonderful restaurants, and I got to participate in Jenna’s book club. Rick and I took a side-trip to Fredericksburg in Hill Country, wandered around some antique stores, wineries and LBJ’s Texas White House. We found some great Texas wines and managed to bring some home…..I LOVE this area! We really enjoyed LBJ’s Ranch. It was 2800 acres, but the Johnson’s gave 600 acres to the State and Federal government to turn it in to a Park with all the main buildings included. What a fascinating man! After this we went to Austin for a few days where the South by Southwest music festival was in full swing. We checked out some music and went to the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library. This was my first presidential library and I loved it. No, we did not go to the Bush library. Someone asked me that…….

I just got a notice that the first year on the blog is up and I think I will keep it up for another year, although sometimes it feels like I’m really just publishing my diary……