Ten on Tuesday

Ten Things You Think People Don't Like About You.

These are things that I think people don't like about me--there are probably other things that people don't like about me that I don't know about (yet).

1. I am usually late. I can plan and plan, but there is always something, and I arrive late for nearly all my appointments. Sometimes, I must admit it's because I don't really want to go to whatever the appointment is, but most of the time, it really is because of some unforseen occurence that I am unable to control. My dh hates this about me.

2. I am disorganized. My mind is cluttered and so is my home. I'm working on that one, though.

3. My facial appearance. 'nough said.

4. My need to be needed. I always volunteer to help in the kitchen, with the kids, whatever, at special events, and I don't realize, sometimes, that my help is really not wanted.

5. I don't communicate with friends and family enough. I get tired of it and just want to be in my home, my corner, and not have to talk to anyone. It takes too much energy to say anything sometimes. This is a problem relating to #6.

6. I don't respond to emails often enough. When I do, I realize it's going to be long, take a long time, and will probably make me late for something (see #1), so I put if off. I put it off for such a long time, that when I do finally have the energy/mindset to answer, the issue is too old to discuss.

7. My hair. I imagine that even people I don't know have ideas about how to improve my hair.

8. My memory. I can be talking to one of my closest, kindest, bestest friends, and will try to say her name in conversation, and I won't remember it. It makes me look like I stutter. Even I don't like this one.

9. I, unlike another poster, love 1st class. I scheme, and plan in order to be able to afford nice hotels, 1st or business class seats, expensive baubles, etc. I think my friends perceive me as snobbish. However, since having kids, my most visited retail establishment is Target. What I'd give for a nice day at Bloomingdales, Macys, or Nordstrom (and the money to spend with it)!

10. My apparent intelligence. I have the impression that some of my friends think I talk "over" them--use vocabulary that they would not use in normal conversation. I just happen to like the English language, and there are words that fit the subject better than others. If I know those words, I need to use them, or #8 will take over my vocabulary, too.

Next week: 10 of my favorite childhood characters.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Hi everyone--

Just a note to say I'm home, unpacked and the 100's of loads of laundry have been started. I took the girls camping at Big Sur, with two other families...I slept in a tent for a week, started my own campfires, and even assembled my cooking grill! I was pretty proud of myself.

We came home stinky and tired, but very happy. It was a gorgeous trip and the girls had fun with their friends. Scott did not go since he had to work...but we made the best of it.

Came home to a messy house, lots of laundry, dishes, yada yada, and don't feel too well...may write about all that later.

I need to have a neuropsych test done, and maybe some scans of some sort. Plus, I just feel yucky a lot lately. I thought the gall bladder thing would make it all better, but somehow things got even worse.

Not to worry, the tests are just confirmation that nothing's wrong...I think some of my emotions are catching up with my mind, and it's made me not feel too much like communicating with my bestest of friends--this list, even.

Sorry, and I've read the school stuff going on with the stink-face teachers, and the kidlets starting school. I feel for you, and I get to start in on it next Tuesday. Yippee for me. I wonder where they will put my children, and how much fun it will be knowing I have no say in which classes my daughters attend.

But then, I'm catering the teachers' breakfast this Friday, so if I do that well, the teachers will like me and be good to my children. I can hope, right?

We have other ills in the family, my friend Dianne's son Kelsey still is not out of the woods after being accidentally kicked in the face--five fractures plus his nose is broken, and his parents are having a lot of difficulty finding a team of docs to help him recovery adequately. He's starting to heal, and needs some treatment, because he's not healing well. He'll need plastic surgery, too.

Scott's two aunties are now ill...one was in heart surgery and stroked out during surgery. She's now at home and getting physical therapy, but she's got a long way to go. The other, closer to us, had trouble breathing, ended up in ER, had some tests, has two spots of lung cancer and a type of pleurisy. She's very weak, and the docs and family don't expect her to live very long. I don't know, though, we visited with her yesterday, and though she is truly unwell and weak, she still had clarity in her eyes, and her great sense of humor. She was the first one in Scott's family to make me feel welcome into their "clan."

It sure sucks to face losing so many family members at one time again.

So you may or may not hear from me...but know that I think of all of you very often. I'm just caught up in my own little circle of dust and trying to sweep/crawl/scratch my way out so I can see daylight.

Thanks for reading if you did. Things will get better soon. I'll have mornings to myself for awhile!

The rest of the Trip story

We got back from our vacation three days before the terroristic ordeal at the airports. We felt very fortunate to have come home when we did. We were supposed to come home Wednesday, and that would have been awfully stressful.

We did the tourist thing in WDC and in PA--saw friends in Hershey, road rollercoasters, ate PA Dutch food--so um, thick! We visited family in Pittsburgh, who cooked for us, took us to the community swimming pool, and cooked for us some more. We truly thoroughly enjoyed our visit with them (Scott's cousins).

We visited Hershey, and reunited with some of the "December Moms"--we had fun, and took a group trip to Lancaster (funny that there it's pronounced "lan-custr" instead of "land cas ter"), where we went on a buggy ride with an Amish tour guide, and had a snack made by a Mennonite girl. After that, we drove on to a little town named "Intercourse." It's right next to Paradise, and not too far from "Blue Balls." I kid you not, these were real names of towns. Don't ask me, we didn't learn there reasons for these names. Except for "Intercourse"--that used to be a term for "conversation." Just like some other words, it has evolved (or de-volved) into a word people can't say without a snicker. I spent some Christmas $ I was saving, to get a few Christmas gifts, and one or two little things for me, just before the shop closed.

One night at dinner in Hershey, we had a 1-hr wait time for a table (well, there were 18 of us together out of the 30 who came on the trip). Oh, we were so lucky, since the restaurant was the end anchor for a strip of outlet shops. There was a Children's Place, and I got most of Sarah & Em's school clothing shopping done! It was great to come home and not need to add that To-Do item to the piles of dirty clothes coming out of the suitcase. The meal was way delicious, and the servers, hearing our story, gave the kids an impromptu 10th B'day party. It was great fun.

When we left Pittsburgh, we drove to Gettysburg and virtually relived the battle there during the Civil War--I learned a lot of history that day! God that was a bloody massacre. Four days long, too, before it ended and some of those very young boys and men were related to each other but on the side of the fighting lines.

After Gettysburg, we drove back to WDC, checked into our hotel, which turned out to be a 2 bedroom apartment--it was great!--and returned the rental car. Well, Scott returned the rental car the next morning, because I demanded the girls get a day of rest, to swim or sleep or eat, whatever they wanted.

WDC was very expensive. Not just meals, and not the museums at all; they were free; living there is exorbitant. A 3-br townhouse sold for $700,000!! Yes, that's five zeroes. I thought California was the most expensive place to live!

We saw the Smithsonian collection of museums, but even a five day trip is not enough to see them all, or even glance inside all the museums. I did, however, get to go into Julia Child's kitchen, which was re-assembled/replicated at the American History Museum, and also watched several clips from her shows in the 60's and 70's. I learned how to make great garlic mashed potatoes! I also found out that I think Ms. Childs taught my mother to cook. Several of her techniques were what my mom taught me.

The girls had a great time; they got to pull the DNA from some cow cells in a "hands-on" science center. Scott had a blast with the Air and Space museums--so much to see that there were two of them, and yes, we had got to go to both! It was great to see the Apollo 11, plus some of the Saturn rockets that propelled the Apollo crafts, and see a DC 3 hanging from the ceiling, plus the B117 (the Stealth bomber) on display.

Food was good, but by the last couple of days, I wanted home cooked food from my own kitchen, and to sleep in my own lumpy bed. We lost a few items--a comb, an electric toothbrush, my entire makeup kit--My face, my face, where is my face!!?? So we left a part of ourselves everywhere. Scott left his debit card at a restaurant in Gettysburg, and I think it especially frustrated him that then I had control of the money because I had the only debit card. He had a few rough moments, but all in all, it was a peaceful, happy trip.

When we got home, I told him I'd left a very important item in DC. He got kind of stern-looking and said, "What." I replied, "the Housekeepers!!" Our house looked as if a couple of gremlins in each room had turned everything over or inside-out. Oh well, "Welcome Home."

The laundry from the trip is finally done, just in time to start last week's laundry. Which I ought to start now, so there won't be so much to do tomorrow or the next day. There is also the dusting, vacuuming, straightening, yada yada--the exciting daily living of the stay-at-home-mom.

Of course, this isn't the whole story with all the gory details, but it's what I have time to write. So there it is, the 3-in-1 vacation.

3-in-1 Trip

We just returned home from three trips in one. First to Hershey, PA, then to Pittsburgh, PA, and off to Washington, D.C. It was hot and muggy, but we really enjoyed ourselves.

Hershey

We just love Jet Blue Airlines. That’s all I can say. TV’s in the back of each seat, nearly guaranteeing peace and quiet from our girls, because Nickelodeon and Disney are both shown, nice comfy leather seats, and fun mystery snacks. But you don’t want to hear about the flight, do you.

We rented the car and drove off…through the center of WDC. I became very excited when we saw the Capitol building and Washington’s Memorial from a distance. It very nearly felt surreal—as if we were in someone else’s dream. It overwhelmed me that little old me was in this monumentally—literally—historically significant place.

The drive to PA brought us some beautiful sights—not since the Carolinas have I seen so much green! We stopped at one of the great rest stops. I am serious—the rest stops in PA have Starbucks! Burger Kings! They have all kinds of small little kiosk restaurants and ice cream stores. Plus this one had an active Farmer’s Market. I got my fruit fix so wonderfully well! Ripe peaches, Yellow plums, Donut peaches with little heart-shaped pits.

We checked-in at the hotel, and unpacked, getting ready for our Dec Mom’s 10 year reunion. It promised to be small in quantity, but huge in quality.

Six moms, (Alabama Mom A wasn’t in town yet) three dads, and thirteen children and one very special guest met the next day at breakfast, then off to Chocolate World we went. The tour, the stores, the lunch…it was all good, and we liked the special little free samples we got at the end of the tour. I planned to go back before we left the town to get some gifts.

After Chocolate World we visited Hershey Gardens. Such a beautiful place. We had been warned of thunderstorms coming, and thought we’d hurry through, because this was really our only opportunity to see this part of the resort. T-storm #1 hit, and we ran for cover. Well, I ran for cover, my daughters danced in the rain. What a special and lovely thing to see—children laughing and dancing in the rain. We stayed there for a very long time, in between raindrops, and finally some of us just sat in the gazebo, chatting with other rain refugees as each t-storm began and ended.

On the way back to the hotel, we got hit by a thunderstorm cell. I’ve driven in these a few times, but for only a few minutes. This lasted about 15 minutes, and I was glad I wasn’t driving, but it was kind of scary. We made it safely to the hotel, where there was no rain, and the kids all wanted to go swimming. We made them go to dinner instead.

I got to be productive while we waited for a table. A children’s clothing shop was just a few doors down, and lots of items were on sale. My daughters’ school clothing shopping is nearly done! For less than $150, too!

That night we enjoyed a very special dinner at Macaroni Grill, where our server very kindly brought out chocolate cakes for each child and the whole restaurant staff sang Happy Birthday to them. That was a great time! The parents got a bite or two of each of those cakes and they were oh! so good!

That is certainly enough…I’ll post Hershey #2 next.

An Update!! Finally!

Finally, after some “encouragement,” I’m updating this blog.

So--are you all well? Going anywhere between now and school start? We have one more trip, and I'm thinking of canceling my part of it - I'm supposed to take the girls camping at Big Sur with two other families. Scott plans to stay home for the week. Lucky him--gets to go to work and gets to have the house to himself for a whole week. Something's wrong with that picture. At least he'll be stuck with the dog, and he knows if anything happens to the dog, I'll find something terrible to do to him. (he doesn't like the dog much.)

I'm in need of a home organizer, and someone else to help me with today's priorities. Laundry to put away, sheets to change, suitcases to put away, Dad's paperwork, my paperwork, bills, floors, tables, dusty surfaces and vacuuming, and then I'll be all done...wait, no...there's the play room and the girls' bedroom, and oh yeah, the bathrooms...that will leave the car. And the yard. oh, but today the girls have soccer practice. So I can't forget to make them an early dinner. Plus they both have swim lessons at noon:30.

If I get all that done today, we might get to play a little tomorrow--who am I talking about, "we"? ME. The others just play anyway, don't they.

I think I'll put creamer in my coffee today.