I'd forgotten all about submitting an article to Outdoor Writers Association of California. So when I received a rather cryptic email saying, "Most of you know that your submission(s) won an award, but you may not know for which category(ies)" of course I was intrigued. But I had to wait...as the promised, attached excel sheet showing winners was not attached. Then when it arrived, I was absolutely thrilled to see I won Best Outdoor Magazine Feature! This is the article, Civilization in the Distance, that I wrote for Sailing Magazine about the trip I did to Haida Gwaii last July.

I am very grateful for Betsy's encouragement to enter the article in the contest as it's not something I do much! In fact, I have only entered one contest before and nothing came of it. So this was quite a thrill.

It made up for an otherwise rather "blah" week! It's the start of a long stretch of house sits and it's taking a bit of settling in to. 

There are a lot of good things about house sitting: changing scenery, new animals to love and take care of, interesting houses and people. But there are also the down sides; packing up and moving a lot, no base to come home to, uncertainty and loneliness (you can only talk to a dog so much!) Oh, and getting SO tired of the same clothes.

But the lifestyle definitely serves its purpose. I help people who want someone reliable and who they can trust to take care of their animals and home. They in turn, provide a place for me to stay and new locations to explore. 

It just gets some getting used to, when the sits are back to back. In the past, I've had somewhere to go back to after sitting for a couple of weeks, and then weeks or months in between. So it's a challenge, juggling dates and transportation to fit the house sits. But I am pretty much booked through September, so will look at beyond that closer to the time as I haven't decided where to go from there.

Stay tuned. Maybe there'll be another exciting assignment that fits and gives me a reason to go somewhere else!