Yesterday I made 2 passes through the stack of mail.  In the first one, I merely sorted  the mountain of mail into a junk pile and a should-open-and-at-least-look-at pile.  (Guess which pile was the larger?)  On the second pass, I opened the keeper mail... and today I plan to actually deal with much of it.  

At least there was some fun stuff in the stack: Row-by-Row patterns had arrived from Butch (in TN), Kathy (in Alberta, Canada), Marcela (in SoCal), and Emily (in MD, who had also contacted friends in Alaska and Phily and thus included some patterns from those places.)  

There was also a packet of clippings from Mom (which I haven't yet opened because I knew I would get distracted reading all the great articles.) 

Today I have a long list of phone calls to make, some to friends and others in response to messages left on the answering machine during our absence.  Unpacking could happen (so far the suitcase has merely made it as far as the bedroom) but I'm not holding my breath!

Yesterday afternoon/evening the monsoon hit heavily in many areas around the Valley - in fact that was all that was on the local news last night - but all that precipitation missed us.  Which was a true surprise, because we got irrigation last night so it would have been the perfect <g> time to pour here.