Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Over the river and through the woods

to grandmother's house we go...

Time for a mini Thanksgiving road trip!

0856 Drop kids at school

0910 Arrive at the bank to get signature cards for the Brownie bank account

0950 Arrive at another bank to deposit my checks

1010 Home to pack

1106 I've got most of our stuff gathered. Now it's time to load the car.

12:12 p.m. Half of the pile of stuff is loaded. The mail has arrived and I have spoken to the dental insurance company about the big bill that just arrived. Dishes are done. GPS Lady has been programmed. Making good progress.

12:13 p.m. We are officially out of paper towels. There are none in the car and none on the shelf. I have to leave the roll in the kitchen for Mom to use while we're gone. Looks like I have to make a quick stop at the store before we leave.

12:21 p.m. Broke a nail already. Happens every time. Good thing I packed the nail clippers!

12:41 p.m. Ready! Off I go...

12:43 p.m. Drop off a house key with Christy.

12:54 p.m. A traffic jam already! So much for a quick trip to the store!

1:10 p.m. Done at Safeway. Got my iced latte and paper towels.

1:30 p.m. Kids are loaded. Leaving school and officially on the road. Pretty much on schedule so that's good. Now I hope there's not too much traffic headed out of town.

1:43 p.m. Ugh. Traffic ahead in Tyson's corner.

1:56 p.m. Maryland!

2:34 p.m. Our first mountain... Braddock Mountain, 985 ft.

2:37 p.m. Listening to the news on the radio. An airline kept people on the tarmac for 6 hours overnight because the airport wouldn't open after they were redirected due to weather. Yikes - that's a long time to be trapped on a plane. Also, a man who was thought to be in a coma for 15 years was actually coherent the whole time but unable to move or communicate. Double yikes!

2:40 p.m. Passed by the Medina Sherriff. With Ohio plates. And a prisoner in the back. So is it really a prisoner being extradited? Or his he mad at his family and making them ride in the back behind bars?

2:46 p.m Cows! It's officially a road trip now - we've seen our first cows.

2:50 p.m. Sheep too

3:18 p.m. Signs for Western MD Rail Trail. Sounds interesting. Like it might be a place to bring scouts to hike.

3:21 p.m. See a Herbie look-alike being towed behind an RV. It looks just like him but without the number 53

3:50 p.m. Cumberland, MD - stop at Taco Bell. This place reminds me of Trinidad, CO. It's a town in the mountains, below the highway, and with lots of old brick buildings. Cool.


And now I have to wake up the kids so we can get on the road for Day 2... looks like you'll have to wait until we get back to read the rest of the story!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

*I just read someone's post on Freecycle for a Spanish/English dictionary. Which reminded me that I wanted to get a dictionary. Just a small one to keep somewhere so that I can look up words... Wait - was that a dream? I think it was just a dream about needing a dictionary. I also dreamed about a vacation to Disney World. But then I remembered that we had already banked our points for the year and couldn't actually go until next year. Which was okay because I had no money anyway. Hmm... maybe I should put "restful sleep without crazy dreams" on my Christmas list this year!

*I don't like defending my parenting decisions. I'm sure no one does. But I did feel a tiny bit of satisfaction when Bella woke up with her temperature down to 99 this morning. See - no trip to the doctor necessary. Tylenol every 4-6 hours, not necessary. Just a bit of vitamins, immune system boosting, and lots of rest. One dose of Tylenol before bed each night to get her started on some restful sleep without totally cancelling the fever that is fighting the germs. So far she's still hanging in the 99 range. Hope she stays there.

*Ryan is half sick. It hurts to cough and one side of his body has a fever. The other side is just fine, thank you very much. Funny, huh! So far he is not as sick as Bella was and hopefully will stay that way and get better fast.

*We leave in one week for our drive to Illinois. Thanksgiving at Grandma's this year. I'll miss my friends here but I've missed the Thanksgiving that I had almost every year growing up. This year is the year. So all you germs hanging around my house better be gone by then!

*Darby peed on Bella's bed. Again. Second day in a row. Seriously - what is it with that dog?!?! Yesterday I was wondering whether I would rather have the known dog problems that we have now or the unknown problems our next dog will bring. Then again, we could always just not have a dog... Felisa would never stand for it though. Of course, I'd be willing to trade a dog for a horse or two... Maybe I should put that on my Christmas list too!

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

And then I freaked out...

So here we are in a new month... any chances things will be any calmer this month? More organized? Less busy and stressful?

Hahahahahahaha! Ha! Ha. ha....

Okay, maybe not. But ever the optimist, I will hold out hope regardless.

So, I've been fighting a cold this week. Of course, because this was the long weekend that the kids went away to the beach. What could be more disruptive to my hopes of great productivity in my endless hours of childfree time than microbes. Ugh. Nothing major - just a slight scratchy throat and the sniffles. That is, until about 2:30 this afternoon. That's when I ran head-on into the brick wall of microbes. Perhaps I have been less than careful the last two days about resting and not going crazy. Oops! So I promptly took a shower (can it be considered promptly if this shower was in fact about 8 hours after my morning workout?!?) and curled up in bed with The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Too bad I had to uncurl back out of bed 15 minutes later to pick up the kids because I was so ready to just close my eyes and nap..... and nap..... and nap.... Oh well. Off to school I go. Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Felisa's hungry. Ryan is hungry. Bella wants to go to Grandma D's house. I don't know what to cook for dinner. The laundry needs to come in off the line (the laundry that I just hung out there before my shower) because giant black clouds appeared almost out of nowhere.

Fast forward to now... I have pulled in the laundry, delivered the girls, and started spaghetti for dinner. I decided to go online and check the credit card balance, fingers crossed that today was the beginning of the next billing period. Sigh of relief... it is. But then I freaked out because OMG that's a big balance! Combination of factors. Last month was good. Next month hopefully won't be too bad. But in the meantime - Ack!

Alrighty then, time to log on and pay the mortgage. Today is payday - woo hoo! So I logged on. And then I FREAKED OUT!!! because the pending payment was no longer pending. And the deposit was not in the account. Ron's paycheck disappeared into thin air! Double Ack! Deep breath... call the bank... everything is okay. The money is in the process of posting to the account and will be visible again at midnight. Whew!

Dinner should be ready enough in about 5 minutes that I can retreat back to my bed where I will be dutifully resting until about 6:45 when I crawl back out to go to the Brownie Leaders' Meeting. The plus side of this is that since I have a brownie meeting, Ron has to take the girls to cheer practice. Which means he will be subjected to the ear-splitting screeching of 20 kindergarten and first-grade girls, and not me. I wouldn't wish that horrible noise on anyone. I am, however, happy that I won't have to listen this week.

Oh except that it's 5:30 now. Which means Mom will be stopping by in a few minutes. Waaaahhh.... I want a nap!