The elements of a really good tea break include a warm piece of soda bread, strong cup of tea, extremely tired dog from weekend of hikes and camping, and the entire third season of Battlestar Galactica waiting to be watched. (I mean, not right now, but its something to look forward to.) Oh, and some light reading. Ahh.

We did a one night trip to French Beach in the Trillium (our 1973 lime green fiberglass trailer) to open the season. We were away almost exactly 24 hours, but it felt like a vacation. Yesterday friends of ours met us at the campsite and we went up to China Beach for a hike. Sam the dog had an Outward Bound wilderness trust experience, making his way over a metal-grate suspension bridge over a ravine, paws spread out and cautiously stepping paw by paw across the bridge. My brave dog! Back when we first got him, he was about a year and a half old, and he was afraid of a lot of things, including the hardwood floors at my mom’s house. We used to have to line up all the area rugs and floor mats so he could make his way from one end of the room to the other. Now he’s a west coast adventure dog!

I did a little playing with furniture finishes over the last couple of weeks, trying to pick up some new skills. This was sort of a distressed/aged finish, though its probably the kind of thing you’d apply to a door to make it look old and weathered, more than a chair. But I loved working with the layers of glaze. If you haven’t used it, glaze is this gooey, non-colored medium that you mix with other paint colors to get a translucent color. It stays workable for a long time, and you can texture it, or wipe it off, leaving traces of the color in the recesses of the grain. Or you can add subtle layers of color, making some areas of the finish look a bit darkened with age. Its pretty sweet.