Catch up time

Well, I finished out Rohatsu without too much trouble. I didn't accomplish everything I wanted too, but I did pretty good. I wasn't too naughty on the 8th with my celebrating; guess I felt a little guilty because Rohatsu was so easy. It's really difficult to do something like that with the current societal roles I have. I think I'm going to try again in a few weeks for just a weekend. While Rohatsu only comes once a year, sesshins are held multiple times throughout the year. Rohatsu is the sesshin to end all sesshins, but they are all the same thing. Focus and train really hard for some period of time. I think I'm going to do a few weekend sesshins the first six months of the year, and then a 5 day one at the end of the summer. Finally, I will observe Rohatsu again next year.

In other news, this past weekend was Evie's birthday. We took a trip to Ocean Isle Beach and spent the night there. It was a nice little getaway vacation for a day. We saw some cool sights (see pics below). Also, I got her an Opera Torte from Starbucks, which is perfect because she loves music(plays the flute for those of you who don't know). And finally, I made her a piece of art which was very difficult and time consuming. The end result looks like it would be easy to make, but trust me, it wasn't. I had fun though, it was a good exercise in mindfulness. So check out all the pics below and I'll talk to you all later. Don't forget to click on the pictures to see the larger versions. Some of the pictures, especially the ones of the sunset, look much better in the larger version.