Time Flies!

Wow, November 11.  Go figure.  I got a little note from Merry Mom asking how I’d been and realized I hadn’t posted in TWO MONTHS.  YIKES.  I guess I’m due for an update!

All is well here.  BUSY.  Like, crazy busy.  As usual.

So, the big news is I survived my organization of information class.  I really had a VERY hard time with it.  I felt stupid the whole semester and was so glad it was my only class.  I somehow managed to get an A, and when I tell you it was a miracle and in no small part due to my partners in the small group project, I am not lying.  Not even a little bit.  I had a lot of help from our local friends too, who attempted to teach me XML and database building, and thanks to my husband who took lots of time off so I could get caught up and get homework done and whatnot.

I am registered for 2 classes this semester:  Ethics for Library and Information Professionals and Introduction to Archives.  I’m excited about it, neither class seems too hard core and both seem interesting, more importantly.  Classes start Wednesday.  I’ve gotten a volunteer job at a local archives, so I should get some hands on learning, which should help with a paper I have to write for the archives class!  I hope the archives class and volunteer experience helps me decide once and for all if that’s the direction I want to go in.

AFS kept me busy.  There were some problems with Kristin and her new family and their other student, so I wound up doing an intervention, which is not really what I think I’m good at, but I did it and got the family to stay together for a little so I was proud of that accomplishment.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun.  We did the Turkey Trot in the morning—my goal was to do it in less than an hour and I accomplished that goal, which made me happy.  My dad was here and made the turkey, but we were all tired from walking and running so I can’t say as we did very much.  We had a little birthday party for my niece that weekend, and I really can’t believe she turned 3.  The time is just flying by!

December was a whirlwind!  Emily and I went to see Diane Keaton in November and decided to go back and see Michael Ian Black on December 1.  He was HILARIOUS—we were at 6th and I Synagogue and he started a joke that mentioned Anne Frank (it wasn’t a joke about Anne Frank) and he looked up at the stained glass window waiting for lightning to strike and said, “Well, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen now!” and everyone was just laughing hysterically.  It’s the second time I’ve seen him, the first time doing a solo act, and he was really great.

We took Kristin and fellow student Ilaria to Wolf Trap for the annual holiday sing-a-long and for pizza afterwards.  They had a lot of fun and I enjoyed having them along for the tradition.  The following weekend we spent some time at my sister’s and then went to our friends Paul and Kris’s house and church for their annual Christmas pageant and dinner.  It was really lovely, and wouldn’t seem like Christmas if we didn’t go.

Unfortunately, I was in a minor car accident the following week, and my car was in the shop until after Christmas.  I was driving to meet some friends for dinner and a kitten ran in the road.  I stopped and the person coming towards me stopped, but the guy behind me didn’t stop and hit me.  At first glance, it didn’t look so bad, but ultimately cost Allstate somewhere in the neighborhood of $6000 when all was said and done.  They did give me a rental, and I was pleased about that since I put almost 800 miles on it in just over a week’s time.

The following weekend was my Christmas concert.  This is my second year with the Stafford Regional Choral Society and in November I was elected to the board of directors.  I really thought that this Christmas concert would be the best concert I’d ever sung in, and I dare say I was correct.  I did a lot of rehearsing at home with the on line tracks, and managed to sing without my music, which made me happy since I didn’t have to lug a bunch of books around!  The choir chairman was nice enough to give me rides to rehearsals and the concert since my car was out of commission and I hadn’t gotten my rental yet.

The following day, Monday, my dad and his girlfriend decided to make a big turkey pre-Christmas dinner, and since I was still eating turkey from Thanksgiving, I decided to go ahead and invite some people over.  We had about 15 people who came to eat turkey and still had plenty of leftovers!  Leah had a ball.  Our neighbors came and brought her gifts and some other friends came and brought us fresh eggs from their chickens.  It was great!

Tuesday, for their first Christmas present, I took Dad and Linda to see ICE! at the Gaylord National Resort.  Mike’s and my theme for Christmas this year was cherishing old memories and making new ones.  To that end, we made a conscious decision not to buy “stuff” that people wouldn’t want or wear, and instead to either make things or make memories.  A few years ago, we bought tickets for the whole family to go see ICE! but couldn’t afford it this year, so I just took Dad and Linda (Leah got in free).  We had lunch with my sister beforehand and then went to the show, which was really lovely—it had a Madagascar theme, which didn’t mean much to the rest of us, but I enjoyed it anyway.  It was a really nice afternoon.  Midway through, I got a text from my mom that she was coming up early, so I prepared myself for her arrival as well!

Wednesday, Mom came and Mike and I went down to Richmond to pick up Penny’s brother Mickey at the airport.  He is in boarding school out in Kentucky (Or Cuh-cucky as Leah calls it) and needed a place to go when the school closed for 2 weeks for Christmas.  He took one look at us when he saw us at the gate and kept on walking and when I stopped him to ask if he was Mickey, he said he had to get his bags and took off to the baggage claim.  That was essentially the high point of his visit.  He was a rude little bugger. 

Thursday, Mom came back to our house to stay for a week plus.  She and my sister started arguing and at this point I can’t say who’s wrong or who’s right, I just really wish it hadn’t happened.  My goal for this Christmas was for everyone to get along, no fighting, and to have a peaceful and calm time.  It didn’t happen.  By Christmas Day, I had a nervous breakdown.  There were SO MANY people and SO MUCH was going on, it was crazy!!!  Friday, my buddy Joe arrived and Saturday we went to my sister’s for Christmas Eve. 

Christmas Day was here, my sister brought a stray with her, so if you’re keeping count, there were 13 people here.  Judy’s stray wanted to make wassail for everyone and the crockpot wouldn’t hold it all, so we had to do it on the stove, which he fretted over literally all day.  The present situation, even though we all scaled back, was again totally crazy out of control—even if you only buy each person 1 thing, that’s 13 presents for 13 people (for a total of 169), and you know that no one bought ONLY one thing for each of the kids.  So it was pandemonium.

For our part, Mike and I made each family member (Mom, Dad, Judy, Lucas, and Joe) a scrapbook of memories of our times together.  It was a special moment for everyone and there were a lot of tears flowing as everyone looked through their pictures and swapped books and traded stories.  We also made a photo collage of all of us making funny faces (mostly unintentionally).

And framed them. Everyone got one of those.  So it helped lighten the mood a bit from all the other crying.

Dinner was the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.  Mickey announced the first night he was here that he wasn’t eating a thing I cooked, all he wanted to eat was beef ramen noodles, despite the fact that he doesn’t eat beef.  He informed me that the noodles are only beef flavored.  I asked him where the beef flavoring came from and he couldn’t tell me.  I read the package and sure enough they contain beef, but I didn’t give a damn and didn’t tell him.  And I also let him eat Yorkshire pudding, despite it having beef “flavoring” in it. :-)

Dad and I did our traditional trip to Richmond to see the Ginter Gardens Festival of Lights, which was beautiful, as was the weather!  It wasn’t warm, but it was far warmer than usual when I had to stand by the bonfire for an hour mid-way through.  They expanded their repertoire slightly so we got to see some new lights and of course, we got crapped on at our favorite awful Burger King, where we ALWAYS get lousy service.  It was a fun night!

Post-Christmas was similarly busy.  Our “memory” present to Mom was a trip to the Melting Pot, so I took her out one night for that.  Joe decided I needed to start watching Ghost Adventures and Ancient Aliens, and we invented a drinking game to correspond with those (every time someone yelled “DUDE!” in Ghost Adventures or said “Aliens” or “extra terrestrials” or some variant there of in Ancient Aliens, we took a drink).  By the time we were done, (and let me be clear here, we were drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonades, this was not serious alcohol!  But I haven’t had a drink in probably 5 or 6 years and Joe is a real lightweight when it comes to alcohol so this was never going to end well), I was sitting on the floor convinced I could understand every word some German guy was saying, and Joe was moaning about a headache, which took him most of the next day to get rid of. 

We spent one day with Andy and Melissa bowling and taking Mickey to Coldstone Creamery, since he wanted ice cream.  Mike took the whole week off, which was nice for me to have a break! 

I took Mickey on my famous nighttime tour of DC in an effort to get him to spend some portion of the day either not watching TV or playing around on the computer and to interact with some member of our family.  I think he enjoyed it once we left, although he put up a bit of a fight about going.  I was excited to see the new Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, which I hadn’t seen yet and somehow almost drove past.  You can’t believe how big that thing is.  The pictures I’ve seen of it do it no justice at all.  It is literally massive.

We essentially did nothing to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  We forced Mickey away from the computer 10 seconds before the ball dropped on Times Square so at least he could say he saw it, although he wasn’t much impressed.  Mike went back to work on the 3rd, so I tried to come up with things to do with Mickey every day.  We went and saw a 3D movie—my first one ever, The Adventures of TinTin, which was OK, went to the mall, and had lots of Thai food, which is in short supply in rural KY.  Friday we started getting ready for our 3 Kings party, which was seriously scaled back this year—half what it was last year.  I didn’t want to have a huge crowd and be exhausted, so I decided just to have a few people and call it a night.  Mickey announced the beef stroganoff smelled terrible and that he was going to sit in the kitchen so he could leave, and then after watching me cook, clean, and set up for 2 days, just as we were ready to sit down, he asked if he could make ramen noodles.  I should have told him what he could do with his ramen noodles, but held my temper and told him no as politely as I could.  When I sat down to dinner on the other end of the table, my friend asked me what was wrong, that I looked like I was ready to commit murder.  Haha.

We dropped him at the airport yesterday and spent the rest of the day tidying up.  I had a nice evening last night, preparing English tea and watching the Downton Abbey premiere on PBS.

So that brings us to January.  Leah is in dance lessons—has been doing it for over a month now and LOVES it.  She is particularly fond of tap dancing and although she is the tiniest and youngest girl in her class, she is doing just great and learning a lot.  We have started back to Toddlin’ Time on Tuesdays and now are on the hunt for pre-school.  I am touring one place tomorrow which is probably the one that is farthest from my house and at the far end of where I am willing to go.  I start school on Wednesday.  We are going to my dad’s for a week next week, but Mike is staying home again to have some peace and quiet. 

Otherwise, I am watching lots of Quantum Leap on NetFlix, trying to keep up with housework (a losing battle), and trying to make good on my New Year’s resolution of cutting back and doing less while making it mean more.  I would like to get back into Weight Watchers, but every time I say that, I go for 3 weeks and quit again.  I need to find the motivation I had in 2008.

So I’ll probably write again in another 2 months when Merry says “WAKE UP!” :) 

Bloggety, Blog, Blog, Blog

The last time I blogged was on 9/11 and little did I know that all hell would continue to break loose around here.  We got our basement fixed up beautifully—I’m happy to say you would never know anything happened.  There is one less couch and there is a lot of extra lighting now, which is awesome, but other than that, life is back to normal downstairs!

In the meantime, the car needed new brakes and I needed glasses, which added up to a lot of money!!!!!  Thankfully we were able to get both done and finish paying off the credit card bills, because things just kept getting crazier!

Unfortunately, just as we were preparing to go to NY for my dad’s 60th, my mom called to say her long time companion Jim had collapsed after having suffered a massive heart attack.  He passed away on September 28th.  Having been a big part of our lives for a number of our years, this was a really sad loss for the family.  I was thus in Florida for almost 3 weeks.  During this time, Kristin from Iceland moved out.  I was disappointed in a way, but I think it was probably for the best and since I am still working with her new family’s other student, I will see her here and there.  I very much doubt we will host next year although I said that this year, so who knows, but I’m excited to say that Penny’s brother Mickey is coming to spend Christmas with us this year, so it’ll be kind of like celebrating with an exchange student anyway and we’ll get 2 weeks of fun before sending him on his way.

Florida was a good time, despite the circumstances.  I found things for Leah to do in and around Vero Beach and we went to the Brevard Zoo, SeaWorld, and Lion Country Safari.  I do believe the kid knows more about animals than any other 2 year old around!  Her particular favorites were the sharks and penguins at SeaWorld.  I also took her to see the movie A Dolphin Tale, which she loved and went around telling everyone she could find that the dolphin broke its tail.  We came home from SeaWorld with a 3 foot long Shamu, and just recently Leah ripped all the stuffing from ‘Mu’s tail and has informed me that Mu has a broken tail like the dolphin.  When I re-stuff Mu, we shall remedy his broken tail with a band-aid!  We also paid some extra money to go pet a rhinoceros, which was a pretty awesome experience that I won’t soon forget!  Leah liked taking a scrub brush to him and tickling him.  Whenever I ask her about the rhino, she says, “BRUSH!” (you can kind of see the rhino behind my mom in the picture above)  So we did a lot of things we might not otherwise have gotten to do and I got to go to the beach (even if it wasn’t Myrtle Beach) and just chill out and help out my mom as needed.  We kind of tossed around the idea of Disney World, I think more because Mom and I wanted to go than we really wanted to take Leah, but cooler heads prevailed—she really is still too young and we want her to remember that first time forever.  Another couple of years!

This class I am taking is really kicking my butt.  For 3 weeks, I basically did nothing, as the professor told me not to worry about it, so I’ve been playing catch up ever since.  We have group projects to do, and I’m happy to say I have great group members who really picked up the slack for me, and so I am now going to work doubly hard to make up for the work I didn’t do on Assignment 2.  Only 36 days till the class is over, THANK GOD, and let us hope I never take a class about organizing data and information EVER AGAIN!  Next semester I hope to take Introduction to Archiving so I can see if I really want to pursue that as a career option like I’ve been thinking I might.

I had fun in October going to the Kennedy Center to see Les Mis with some members of my choir, and then spending that evening answering phones for WAMU at their annual member drive.  We had a recordbreaking night, getting $35,000 in 3 hours, which is pretty incredible.  I love volunteering during The Big Broadcast—the most interesting mix of people volunteer and we had  fun table.  It was nice to unwind and let my hair down after the stress of Jim’s death and the classwork piling up.  The production of Les Mis was spellbinding—literally I wept many times and it was just a great performance. 

Leah and I have been having a lot of fun getting ready for Halloween.  We’ve been doing little projects now, like baking bread and making pumpkin-shaped jello and pumpkin-shaped crayons from all the crayons she broke to bits.  I went over to the local teacher supply store and bought a few charts for the walls so we are learning our colors and taking little scavenger hunts.  We talk about the weather and count the days on the calendar.  We went to the pumpkin patch and carved pumpkins today.  It’s fun and keeps her engaged.  I am looking forward to getting her into preschool, but am not in any rush.  We are keeping busy with a music class and MOPS and various and sundry other activities and are looking into gymnastics.  She’s a fun kid and able to do so much more.  Even though I miss snuggling with a newborn, I do enjoy these toddler days!  I like being crafty and even little things turn into a lot of fun for her, so I try to come up with something to keep her interested and teach her something new, while allowing me to stretch my creative muscles and keep from getting cranky!

Hopefully our bathroom project will get underway soon.  We finally got our loan approved and got the money to pay the contractor, so we’re ready to go.  We picked a design and that’s that!  It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 3 months since the Great Flood, and while it had unintended consequences, it’s fun to think of the positives of the situation and how we’re going to come out of it.  We also paid off our car this month, ahead of schedule, which loosens up our budget some to do some other things.  It’s the first time in 6 years we don’t have a car payment.  We nearly got hit today by the local ne’er-do-well on our way out to get pumpkins to carve, and I thought, “Wouldn’t that just be my luck!?” but thankfully he got back on his side of the road with about 6 inches to spare before he hit us.

Joe and I went and saw the MST3K live show, Cinematic Titanic, again on Thursday night.  It’s a fun way for him and I to celebrate our frienshipversary—this year being #17.  It won’t be long now before I’ve known him more than half my life, which I find mindboggling.  We had our traditional Bertucci’s dinner and then walked around DC for a couple of hours before the show started.  Afterwards, we got on line for the signing and I got myself a poster to have signed.  We also discovered Joel was allowing people to take pictures, so of course, we took full advantage.  I like that all of us are modeling sexy eyewear! :-D  My next big celebrity trip will be in November to see Diane Keaton at 6th and I Synagogue, which should be quite interesting.  I enjoy watching her, and she seems like she’d just be a really nice and down to earth person, so I’m looking forward to meeting her!  I wonder if she’s going to wear something crazy or just dress casually.

In general, I’m just feeling quite content with life.  I seem to have made friends with some exceptionally kind and low key people—just last week I was able to go out to dinner with 3 new girlfriends and we all sat around and laughed and chattered until before we knew it, 2+ hours had gone by.  I’ve joined a new book club here in town, which is fun, and my NoVa book club seems to have gotten back on track, surviving the 7 year itch.  I’ve become very friendly with a wonderful couple down the street and their daughter, all of whom think Leah is the best kid in the universe (and of course, I quite agree!). 

I’m keeping busy, busy, busy and keep telling Mike, “I promise, I’m going to calm down…after this week”.  Fortunately he’s been patient with what has been a ridiculous autumn!

There have been a lot of fun little things going on and I always think, “Oh, I should blog about that!” but usually I am too tired!  It’s a shame—Leah says some damned cute stuff that I’d like to remember and we have a lot of fun and do a lot of things, but time just keeps on slipping away…  I really can’t believe tomorrow is Halloween!  Then it’s November, and I do debate doing NaNoWriMo just so I can get this damned whiteboard down from my bulletin board and finish my book!  And then in a few short weeks, it will be Thanksgiving.  Mike and I have been debating what to do in April for our 10th wedding anniversary, and yet it seems like just yesterday we were getting married.  I feel too young to be this old and too old at the same time. 

I’ll close here and who knows when I’ll blog again!  The new Facebook sucks, but it doesn’t seem to keep me from using it, so of course, you can get my updates there if I don’t update here :)  Ta ta!

Updates from Susan-Land

It’s been a busy few weeks.  It’s hard to believe we have less than 40 days now until Penny leaves us.  There were times we never thought this time would come, and now here we are in many ways dreading the fact that she has to leave at all!  It will be an interesting summer, though, and we have a lot planned, so I think we’ll have some fun.

The big news this past few weeks has been that we had to have our beloved little bunny, TomTom, put to sleep.  He started acting a little punky and out of it and then just started smelling really bad, and finally had a hard time moving at all.  I took him to the vet last week and she said that he was having kidney issues and they could try to nurse him through it, but there were no guarantees and it would be kinder just to let him go.  For all the kidding around we’ve done in recent years about waiting for him to die so we could install bookshelves in his spot downstairs, it was incredibly sad and painful to bid him farewell.  This picture was taken when he was about 4 months old, and he lived to be 6, so he had a good, long life.  I know living in his pen in the basement wasn’t his favorite place to be, but we did the best we could by him, and I think as long as we gave him carrots and whatnot, he was happy.

I am busy now with two major goals, the first of which is finishing off everything I need to do in order to start school this summer.  This includes completing a checklist of things they have on the school website for the summer course I’m taking, as well as the nuts and bolts, like applying for a loan, making travel arrangements, getting the text book, getting tested for immunity to measles, and making arrangements for where I’m going to stay.  I’ve got an email address set up now for my school stuff, so I can say I’m official, and now that the bill is in, I guess I’m really going.  The worst part of it has been dealing with my doctor’s office, trying to figure out about how I can get tested for a measles immunity.  Despite my repeated phone calls, they haven’t called back, so finally I called the clinic in Central Park here in Fredericksburg and they can do the test and have the papers ready in 2 days.  I should have gone there 3 weeks ago!

The other major thing is working on getting Leah potty trained.  She has indicated a readiness and willingness for the task, as for the past couple of months, she’s gotten very upset when her diaper is wet or dirty, and tries to get it off.  If she can’t, she screams and cries pitifully.  We’ve been at it almost 2 weeks now, and she’s definitely getting the hang of it.  She likes earning little rewards and she loves wearing underpants instead of a diaper.  So I think we’re making good progress.

Last weekend, Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s butler, came into Fredericksburg to help raise funds for the new children’s museum they are hoping to build here.  Of course I jumped at the chance to go meet him and brought Penny along as her opportunity to meet a celebrity.  We had a great time—he got right on the floor with Leah, and Penny was so happy that I talked her into going back and getting herself a book signed and asking him about the royal wedding.

Penny has developed an interest in the British Royal family thanks to my tutelage, so it was kind of special to share in that after we watched the Royal Wedding together and I taught her some tea sandwiches and scones to make English tea, which we did for both the Royal Wedding and for Mother’s Day.

Today we rolled down to Westmoreland Berry Patch to pick berries and play with goats.  She LOVED it this year, as opposed to last year when she really wanted nothing to do with it.  She sat in the mud happily mashing and eating berries and then we fed the goats and had lunch.  They give you a handful of corn or a handful of goat feed for a quarter, and she was determined that the goat was not getting more than one niblet at a time, and even then he’d have to pry it from her fingers, but the goat was quite patient and happily ate whatever she was willing to give without biting.

I have been penpalling a lot lately, and have new penpals from England, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, and Switzerland.  It’s a lot of fun and very interesting, and helping me travel vicariously, since I’m not likely to go too many places between now and who knows when!  One of my Australian penpals friended me on Facebook and it is hilarious to see her snow pictures while I’m gearing up to roast off a few pounds here with summer kicking off.

Otherwise, we’ve been sticking close to home.  Gas prices being what they are, I’ve canceled our summer travel plans and am now making plans for things we can do locally.  This past week I only used one tank of gas, which for me is astounding, since I was going through 2 a week.  We are enjoying Toddlin’ Time and MOPS, and at the MOPS event on Sunday, they were talking to me about putting Leah in pre-school this fall, which I am still thinking about.  I’ve been leaning away from doing it, but at the same time, it would give me a couple of days a week to get schoolwork done, as well as allowing her the chance to socialize and learn some things…  So we’ll see.  I would like to take her to the Richmond Zoo and Ginter Gardens this summer, and we’ll go up to DC to Mike’s new office and to meet his co-workers.  My old office is having a party next week and I’m going to go to that.  My book clubs are still going strong, and I’m enjoying them both.  Zipping around a lot with Penny now that she’s gotten more involved in school and friends.  She really enjoyed the prom last weekend, and this weekend is having Korean food with friends, volunteering at a local 5K, and wants to go see Pirates of the Caribbean.  Monday night, Mike will be out visiting some friends from RI who are coming to town, so we girls are going to have a little girls’ night, and I know she also wants to go to Charlottesville again, as well as go berry picking.  Last night was her last choir concert, tonight she has to go to an improv show for her school.  So it’s a busy time for all of us!

This summer, I’m going to go enjoy my first concert at Celebrate Virginia Live, when Barenaked Ladies roll into town.  I’m also hoping to get to see Hello Dolly over at Riverside.  I’m really excited to go to Tucson, and also to swim, spend time with friends, and start planning my dad’s 60th in September.

That’s all for now!  The fun never ends! :-D

So Much Nothing

I haven’t blogged about anything in several weeks, despite my firm declarations that  I would blog more this year.  So much has happened and yet nothing really has happened at all.  I have been trying hard to keep up with our AFS blog, since a lot of other host parent bloggers fell off that wagon pretty hard, and our blog is all over the AFS website. 

The other night I was mentally composing a blog post in my head and it was BRILLIANT, I tell you.  BRILLIANT.  I was listening to Sarah Bareilles’s King of Anything on the radio and singing along.  That song has become a personal anthem of sorts.  There are so many great parts in it, but here are some that really resonate with me:

You’re so busy making masks with my name on them in all caps, you’ve got the talking down, just not the listening…

You sound so innocent, all full of good intent, swear you know best.  But you expect me to jump up on board with you and ride off into your delusional sunset…

Now I have forgotten much of my brilliant post, but I’ll try to formulate below…

February was a month when a lot of people disappeared from my life.  I have done a lot of soul searching in the past 18 months or so, and I’ve discovered that if I had one complaint about myself, it’s that I allow people to treat me as a disposable commodity, a convenience to pick up and put down at will. 

There is a part of me that has always felt “second best” and been eager to accept any mere crumbs that have fallen my way.  Everybody’s pal, but nobody’s best friend (don’t get nervous, Lesley! :-D).  In one of my favorite movies, The Holiday, Arthur tells Iris she’s never the leading lady, only the best friend, and Iris realizes she should be the leading lady in her own life.  That part has always felt to me like the true soul of that film.

Until a year and a half ago, that was enough for me, or at least, I was willing to put up with it, feeling I deserved no better.  I thought that if I disagreed with my family or with my friends, it made me a bad friend, a bad daughter, a bad sister, a bad wife, a bad mother.  I would go so far as not to express an opinion about anything—books, movies, music—until I had a gauge of everyone else’s opinion first and if I disagreed, I would just nod rather non-committally and refrain from expressing an opposing view.  I think during the first 5 years my book club was in existence, I may have opened my mouth just a few times to express anything.  I was (and to an extent, still am) terrified of saying “the wrong thing”.

So many things I’d say if only I were able, but I just keep quiet and count the cars that pass by…

All my life I’ve tried to make everybody happy while I’d just hurt and hide, waiting for someone to tell me it’s my turn to decide.

Through a lot of help and especially recently talking with a good friend of mine who had similar patterns of behavior and thinking, I’ve come to realize that the worst thing that can happen is that you lose people who can’t accept that you are changing.  That you are demanding just a little bit of respect.  (Remember Dianne Wiesst in Parenthood?  “Not a lot, just a little!”  I’m full of pop cultural references today!)  That you expect honesty in your relationships.  One thing I can really and truly say is that I am sick to death of being lied to.  And I do believe that dishonesty is a major cause of many relationship problems that most of us have.

Regardless, I am not entirely innocent either and I definitely am willing to own up to my mistakes, and I have made more than a few.  So to those of you who have been offended by something I said or did, I am truly sorry.

One interesting aspect of having Penny here is that I do feel it is more incumbent on me to be a role model.  I make no show of hiding how I feel about many of Penny’s friends, who are obnoxious and rude little shits. :-D  Since the day she has arrived here, they’ve sent her nasty messages via Facebook and the things that she’s told me about what they say to her and how they treat her when she is in their presence is literally shocking.  And I suggested to her, “You are so desperate not to be lonely that you will tolerate any abuse at all just to have someone to talk to.”  And she agreed with me, which is sad.  But I have also talked with her about my own relationship issues as they’ve come up while she’s here and let her take the lead in deciding what should be done about them.  Some decisions she’s made wouldn’t have been done the way I think I would have done them, and she’s found it very interesting and I think a learning experience to see what happens in relationships and that you can survive if people you are related to or people you think are your friends bow out. I have tried to explain to her that you can say good bye without feeling resentful.

One thing we’ve talked extensively about is how each of us has our own perspective on things.  One of the things we’ve talked about with regards to friends is how whether or not I think something is true, my friend views it as true and I have to at the very least attempt to respond to their reality.  For instance, someone recently remarked that she wants to be friends with Penny but that Penny never talks to anyone.  Penny disagreed totally with that statement.  I explained to her that whether she agreed or disagreed, that was how other people saw her was as a person who didn’t want to talk to anyone.  So she renewed her efforts and now has been making good progress in the past week or two at talking with people and seeing them respond to her as a result.  (Of course, she is pissed it is now March and she is seeing results, but it’s taken till March till she’s made this type of effort!)

So, yadda yadda yadda, just some things that we’ve been talking about, things I’ve been thinking about and discussing with friends.  In light of this, I recently cleared out my friends’ list on Facebook.  I cleared off nearly 100 people. There are more that I certainly could clear off, and I may.  Every couple of days I go back through the list and chuck off a couple more that I never hear from, that I was just being nosy about, people who weren’t especially nice to me “then” and who I really don’t care about hearing from now.  In preparation for Lent, I’ve been thinking about last year’s experiment in giving up Facebook, and I’m going to do it again. During that time, I’ll make a list of the people whose updates I miss most and delete pretty much everyone else…

In other news…

Leah’s 2nd birthday is planned.  I was going to have it at Toddlin’ Time since that is her favorite place on earth.  Then when I went to reserve it, I came to find out they already had a party booked on that date, so I had to look elsewhere.  I really didn’t want to clean the house and go to the expense, and frankly after looking at it, the price to have a party elsewhere is cheaper than the expense and trouble I go to having a party at home.  So I booked her party at Wiggle Worms and then found out that the party at Toddlin’ Time is for one of her friends at TT, and we are invited to that party.  That mom had her invitations professionally printed and the whole 9 yards, and since I hadn’t, I volunteered to move Leah’s party, which I was able to do.  My dad is going to make it down since I’ve moved it, which is even more exciting!  He is also going to come down on April 20th and give us a night off for our wedding anniversary.  Woo hoo!

Choir rehearsals have started up again.  I am enjoying it.  Our theme for this year’s gala is “Going on a Sea Cruise” and we are doing all songs about the sea, so it’s right up my alley.  I have been busy helping with the silent auction by soliciting donations and I’m happy to say I’ve gotten some pretty awesome ones, so that’s cool.  I have made a lot of connections in the past 2 years of being here in the community full time, so it’s paying off for the choral society anyway!  If anyone has eighty five dollars they don’t know what to do with, feel free to come on out on April 17th at UMW and listen to us.  Tonight we started learning choreography and stuff, so it’s going to be a lot of fun!

Well, I guess I should go to bed. I’m tired and I’m babysitting my neighbor’s son tomorrow.  There’s more stuff going on, like my great yard clean up this year, but that’ll have to wait for another post!

Good night, everyone!

Whirlwind Weekend

This is one of those weekend that got so busy and so crazy so quickly that you’re almost glad it’s Monday.  Except that I don’t have back up to keep Leah entertained on Monday. But it’s nice to have her to myself today!

Last Tuesday, we got the mail and in it was a little postcard from Lisner Auditorium.  I was sitting on the back porch when Penny brought the mail up and as I read the postcard, I yelled, “Holy sh**!” and ran in the house to buy my tickets for Cinematic Titanic, the live MST3K show.  I got a great seat and emailed my friend Joe and asked him to go with me, since we spent a good deal of college watching MST3K. 

Friday night, we met up at the Lisner and headed over to Bertucci’s for dinner.  It was a big night for us, every October on some nebulous date, we celebrate one more year of friendship, and this year we celebrated being friends for 16 years.  I brought him some fun cards and he paid for dinner.  Due to the crappy service at Bertucci’s, we sat around for 90 minutes, but it was a fun time to reminisce and talk about life now and I got to preview his new comic book, which is amazing.  (way to go, Joe!)

The show was spectacular.  I laughed for 2 1/2 solid hours.  The movie was predictably horrible.  Although the postcard read for something like “Battle of the Insects”, the real name of the movie was Genocide.  (But as they pointed out, who wants to say they went to the theater to see genocide, and even worse, who wants to say they laughed at it?)  When Joel Hodgson stepped out on stage, the whole theater erupted.  One of the cast members said, “MST3K fans are the best fans in the world.  You know why?  Because the show has been off the air for 12 years and you’re still packing auditoriums!”  WOO HOO!!!!

The movie was horrible—I was actually bored of it, although not of the experience, but I was just like, “Come on already!”  As the MST3K cast riffed on the movie, there was a chance for them to interact with the audience depending on how we reacted to their jokes, so it was just amazing.  Joe and I agreed to bookmark it and if they ever come back to DC, sign us up!

Afterwards, we got on line to get autographs.  I had dug out my old VHS tapes, which Joe was extremely impressed at their condition.  And I had picked up a couple of DVD’s at Borders the night before.  The line was quite long but moved rather quickly and it was exciting to get up there and talk to the cast.  Joel said hello and shook my hand (I’ll never wash it again! haha) and then signed my tapes and I moved on down the line.  For some reason, one of my DVD sets piqued their interest as none of them had seen it before.  Go figure!  It was awesome to meet Trace Beaulieu (unrecognizable without the crazy hair) and Frank Conniff, who looks exactly the same as he did as TV’s Frank.  I shook hand with all of them and they were all so nice.  Joe and I were beside ourselves.

I got home around midnight, and I was exhausted, but I knew the cavalry was coming.  Saturday morning, I got up and we got Leah ready to go to Woodbridge to spend they day with Auntie Melissa.  We drove her up there and dropped her and a pile of toys off and then came home.  Penny was waiting for us, and she told us she missed Leah as soon as we walked in the door! :-D    She had Homecoming on Saturday night, so she was excited to go dancing with her friends.  I spent the day cleaning up the house, which I am happy to report is still pretty clean even though Hurricane Leah has been home a full day now.  It only took me a few hours and then everything was more or less up to snuff—I need to wash the floors, but other than that, I’m in good shape, vacuuming, dusting, and surfaces all complete.

Penny’s friend Ashley came over around 4:30 to do her hair and make up and I sat down and watched a zombie prank on YouTube that my buddy Steve had posted to his Facebook.  I was laughing so hard Penny and Ashley came down to see what the heck was going on.  I don’t know where the Japanese get off making this kind of stuff, but it is HILARIOUS.  I was crying I was laughing so hard, mainly because I could totally picture Leah kicking the zombie in the back.  If you want to see it, click here.

Afterwards, we got Penny dressed and took a few photos before going up the hill to see the family of the young man she was taking to the dance, who happened to be Ashley’s cousin.  He was all dressed up and ready to go, so we all took a bunch of pictures and then Ashley, Penny, and JB headed out and Michael and I came home to go have a quiet dinner somewhere.  We decided on Ruby Tuesday’s.  We went to the one in Central Park, but it was JAMMED, so we took off and went to the one on Mine Road, where we had a delightful meal.

We came home and decided it was a perfect night to spark up the firepit and have some smores and our neighbor Jett came over to say hello while we were out there.  We chatted with him for a while till the fire died out and then retreated to the warmth of the house just in time to get the call that Penny was on her way home.  I downloaded the new Sara Bareilles song King of Anything, which has become my new anthem of the moment and when Penny arrived, we were debriefed on the fun of homecoming, at which it seems she had a great time, and that was confirmed looking at her pictures!

Sunday, Melissa brought Leah home, although Leah didn’t particularly care if she was brought home or not (between you and me, I think she enjoys the spoiling she gets up there).  We took Melissa out to lunch as a thank you for watching our girl and then she headed out and I made a big pot of tomato sauce for my family for dinner, since I was heading up to NPR.  I had planned to bake pumpkin cookies, but frankly, I fell asleep.  The only thing that woke me up at 4:00 was my mother-in-law calling to talk to Penny. :-)  Since I needed to leave around 4:30, it was just as well.  I got up and found Penny and called back to Rhode Island and got myself together and headed out to WAMU, with a quick stop to get gas.  I don’t know how it happened, but I saved 60 cents on gas at Giant, which was awesome.  I thought I’d save about 40 cents, which would have been good enough, but 60 cents is even better!

I got to WAMU at 6:10 or so and found my preferred table was back where I wanted it to be.  My sister walked in and a bat-shit crazy part of me was so happy to see her that I even smiled at her, which she completely ignored and sat elsewhere with her husband.  I found his presence interesting on a number of levels that I can’t really go into.  Anyway, it was a good night, we raised $35,000 in 3 hours.  I only took about 8 calls and not for big money, but a lot of people were getting small donations that apparently added up to a bunch of money in the end.  A place called Tonic (I think) provided the meal, which was a chicken pasta dish, bbq chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, cupcakes and brownies.  The food was very good, especially the salad.  I picked up 5 or 6 new books from the table, which was cool, read a lot of my book club book, and I was home by 11:30.  I’m looking forward to the February campaign!

Good thing too since Michael’s carpool driver didn’t sleep last night (I know the feeling), so he had to get me up at 6:00 to go and take him to the train.  It was actually nice, though, as I got to spend some time with Penny before she left for school, and I was able to write out her note for missing a couple days for our upcoming trip.  I took a hot shower and now I’ve been able to fill in my blog updates! WOW!

By some miracle, it’s 7:45 and Leah is still sleeping!  It was most definitely an awesome weekend.  My father once told my sister that I didn’t understand the importance of feeding the soul.  Well I do, and this weekend, I fed it by just being me and having a whole lot of fun.  And can I just say, walking into a clean house is a real boon to the spirits!  I’ve been beating myself up mentally a lot lately, and this was just one of those weekends that let me put things into perspective.

Coming up, I will finish off my grad school applications—I am waiting on one more letter of recommendation—and we are heading out for my mom’s 60th birthday soon.  Penny and I will spend a day at Disney World, her first time there.  She has triple and quadruple invitations to Halloween parties, so she has to decide what she wants to do about Halloween and I have decided to skip the Rally to Restore Sanity to preserve my own sanity so I can take the girls to the pumpkin patch and we can carve pumpkins and whatnot.  The annual Kosior Fall Festival—I want it to happen! :)

Ta ta for now!

Bitches With Books

October marks the last month of any given year of our book club’s schedule.  This October was particularly special, in that I had asked all the women in the club if they would grant me a wish and come down to Fredericksburg once for book club.  I haven’t hosted a meeting in my home since November 2004, when we lived in Centreville, because the commute to the ‘burg is insane.  I was pleased when everyone agreed to come on down and lose out on a Saturday of their precious weekend to come to my place and talk book.

Last month’s meeting got a little rowdy, and while we were all laughing and crying and enjoying ourselves, Lauren suggested that we should include a night at the bingo hall at the end of book club as part of the F’burg experience.  Then I was beyond excited!  So it was set, October 2 was books and bingo day.

I selected The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger as my book for this year.  I love going to book club and discussing the books, don’t get me wrong, but I also wanted to shake things up a little bit and try something new.  Since I knew we’d have a good amount of time between book club and bingo, I decided to change our format of eating and discussing to include arts and crafts hour.

Cecily contacted Steve and he agreed to call into the club meeting at 2:00pm.  We were scheduled to start the meeting at 1pm, but of course with a car fire on I95, everyone got to the house around 1:30.  We tucked into our food (Dinner theme:  What would you serve if your favorite celebrity came to dinner?), and then discussed the book for a few minutes until the phone rang and Steve was ready to chat with us!

He is a fascinating book club speaker and talked with us for about 45 minutes.  He told us lots of stories about how the book came to be, who the characters were, and so forth, and a hilarious story about the Tony Awards (seriously, if you ever have him call into your club, ask him about that one!). 

Afterwards, I finished off with one of my favorite quotes in the book and then it was time to set the schedule for next year.  We have an awesome round up of books coming up this year (see below for the list) and I’m really excited to get reading!!!  We asked Penny to take a group photo as well.  She agreed, but we had pre-arranged that after we took one regular shot, we would all make a peace sign like Penny does in most of her pictures.  Oh my gosh, she was so embarrassed and laughing.  it was ADORABLE!

The it was time to get busy and do some crafty fun!  I asked each member to bring a picture of someone who had changed their life and be ready to talk about it.  We went around the circle with our pictures and everyone started talking about the person who influenced them.  More than a few tears were shed as we talked about moms and best friends and teachers and aunts and uncles.  It was a special and moving experience that I can’t hope to capture here, but it was awesome to be a part of. 

Then I got out all my scrapbooking materials and we set up shop on the coffee table.  Pretty soon scraps of paper were flying, stickers were being exchanged, and projects began to take shape.  I’m so glad I decided to do something a little different—I think it was a whole lot of fun for everyone and gave us all a lot to think about.

 

The person I selected was the school librarian from my school growing up.  I first remember meeting Mrs. Collins (at the time, Miss LeBel) when I was in kindergarten and she really inspired me with what has become a lifetime love of reading.  In 1998, when I had moved home and was trying to figure out what to do with my life, Mrs. Collins would request me all the time as her sub when she was out.  In the spring of 1999, she asked me to be her long term sub while she battled cancer, a fight she ultimately won.  Then she was diagnosed with MS and retired from the library.  This spring, I was lucky enough to see her at my dad’s retirement party, and introducing her to my husband and my daughter was a special moment for me.  Then I sat down with her and began to talk about the new crossroads in my life:  what’s next?  What am I going to do with myself after Leah doesn’t need me full time any more?  Mrs. Collins responded, “You would make a great librarian.” 

So here I am now applying to library school, the final push in the right direction having been applied.  And I have asked Mrs. C to write me a reference.

Back to book club…

After we all finished our projects and shared them, we had some time to hang out and relax until bingo.  We started packing up at about 5:45 and headed over to Wawa for some extra provisions in case our meeting leftovers didn’t hold out.  We got to bingo a trifle bit late, so we all had to cram around a table for 6 (and there were 7 of us and the people next to us were not giving an inch!). 

Luck held.  Melissa won big, $100, her first ever bingo win!  For most of the night, we were all sitting around laughing, eating, and hoping for big winnings, but Melissa was the lucky draw.  Then a few games later, my number came up at the exact same time 6 other people’s lucky number came up, so I won a whopping $14.  Ah well, it nearly paid my admission! :)  A win is a win is a win, right?

 

Anyway, at the meeting, we officially agreed that a) we would change our names from NoVa Lit Chicks to Bitches with Books and that b) Books and Bingo will now be an annual event and I’ll get to host, so I am over the moon excited with how great that is.  My favorite girls, my favorite game, my favorite hobby!  What gets better than that? 

**************************************

Bitches With Books Year 7 Reading List

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkaner
The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
A Scattered Life by Karen McQuestion

and 4 choices to be named later.  Happy reading!

Yard Sailing…

Yesterday was our big yard sale.  I’ve been watching a lot of “clean up your house” shows on TV since I’ve been home, and it has really inspired me to clean out the clutter myself.  I had so much junk that I was able to hold a yard sale and invited several others to participate with me.  Yesterday was the big day.

I always feel a bit sad when I put things out for sale, and yesterday was no exception, really.  Looking at Leah’s baby things out there got me all misty-eyed and wistful.  I usually feel quite confident that I’ve put the right things out, but there is always one or two things that I think, “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”  Nothing has struck me yet, but I’m sure it will.

I took a chance and asked one lady who came over about her hair.  She was African-American and had the most beautiful head of hair, I just loved it.  Leah’s hair continues to be a mystery to me.  It turns out, the woman I spoke to was an adoption social worker at Fairfax County Department of Family Services.  We had the most amazing chat about adoption and hair and it was really life affirming…  She gave me her card and asked me to keep in touch.  I certainly shall!

After we took most of the valuable stuff back in the house, I posted our left overs on Craig’s List and Freecycle and waited for people to come grab it.  However, after all the heat yesterday, there was a terrible thunderstorm in the late afternoon.  Fortunately, our neighbor’s son came over and helped me get everything up on the porch just as quick as you please, and a gentleman who stopped over to pick up a few things also helped us work to get things under cover.  I grabbed some blankets and trash bags and got most everything covered before the rains came. 

Last night, 6 Freecyclers rolled and took probably 60% of what was out there.  The main things I have left to deal with are some furniture (dining room chairs, coffee table), books, VHS tapes, and odds and ends.  I’ve reposted to Freecycle this morning and we’ll see what happens.  By noon, everything is going.  To the dump, to Goodwill, to wherever, I’m loading it up and taking it out of here.

It feels good.  I like knowing that I have made my home a lot nicer, that I’ve helped people who need it, that I’ve cleared out the clutter in more ways than one.  Today, I have a metric ton of cleaning to do, getting clothes boxed up so I can consign them this fall, picking up the toys and stuff that got strewn around while a pile of babies and toddlers were running through the house while their parents were losing probably 8 pounds each in sweat alone outside, our normal dump run, and getting ready for the week ahead.  It will be busy, but short, as I’m heading up to my dad’s for his retirement party this coming weekend.

But I’m proud of what I accomplished, grateful to my friends who stood by me and helped out (Thanks mucho Cindy and Jason and Manda!) and ready to tackle our next project: preparing the house for a teenager!  *Cue scary music*

Thus Begins The Insanity!

Tomorrow is April 1, and in a week, my baby will turn 1.  It is something I simply cannot fathom.  She is a beautiful, smart, funny little darling, and while we’ve had moments of stress and anxiety in the past year, I would not have changed a thing about it at all.  I have a dream job—staying home and raising a little person.  What a joy!  Even though I just had some Easter portraits done at Sears, I scheduled an appointment to have some more portraits done on her actual birthday over at Picture People, since they sent me a coupon. 

Today, Leah and I went to the mall with my friend Lisa and her little guy, Daniel, who is about 5 months older than Leah.  We walked them around the mall, they both met the Easter bunny, we had a nice lunch, and let them play at the playpark in the mall.  Lisa and I met last summer when I decided to have a Pampered Chef show and put a notice in every mailbox on the street to try and meet my neighbors.  Unfortunately, Lisa couldn’t make it, but we started walking together around the neighborhood.  Leah was still too little to play much, so we didn’t really hang around, but now that Leah is a little bit bigger, we’ve been spending more time together.  Tomorrow, we are going to go up to DC to see the cherry blossoms, have a picnic, and let the kids play out on W. Potomac Park.  It should be a great day.  We are both going back to WW the Saturday after Easter (Leah’s birthday party), and we’ve been motivating each other to walk a couple miles each day when the weather is nice.  I have been enjoying having a friend right down the street and we have common interests and a similar parenting philosophy.  The other night, she, Daniel, and her husband were walking around our block and stopped over.  John and Michael hit it off like a house on fire, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them!

Work started on the house today.  The main level and all the brick and the front porch were powerwashed and the old shutters were removed.  It looks kind of odd in that whoever lived here before didn’t bother to paint underneath the shutters when they painted the house, so we can actually see the color of the original brick.  It makes me wish even more that whoever did it had not painted the brick, but what’s done is done, so now we will finish the job.  We picked what I hope is a nice yellow color, although I suspect that it’s going to be more beige-ish.  I’m reserving judgment till I see it, but I hope I’m going to like it!

Then it’ll be time to get ready for the weekend!!!!  I plan to spend Friday shopping and defrosting a giant turkey, as well as starting to prepare the coconut cake I’m going to make for dessert (unless I wimp out at get the Wegman’s Ultimate White Cake, which, frankly, is AMAZING).  Saturday will be spent doing preparations for Easter, and then in the evening I’ll be going off to dinner and bingo with Wendy.  (Anyone else want to play?  We’ll be in the usual spot!)

I’m really excited for Easter.  I think we’ll have a nice crew and it’ll be fun having some kids around.  Most importantly, Mr. Gobble will be out of my freezer, freeing up valuable real estate for provisions for the party.  I hope the painters get the house painted by Easter is the only thing!  I plan to take Leah to church first thing and then we’ll get cookin’!  So far, Manda is bringing potato salad, Melissa is bringing devilled eggs, and Wendy is bringing a ham and mac n’ cheese to make her fussy eaters happy.  I think we’ll have a nice variety of food for sure.

Monday is book club.  We’ll be discussing Olive Kitteridge and then I will post a review here afterwards.  Friday, Michael is having some training on Leah stuff, and then we have to go to DMV, since we just discovered his ID expired a year ago!  Then we’ll start preparing for the big blow out.  My buddy Joe is coming down Friday to help out, and we’ll go and get the food.  I hope the weather is nice—we’re going to try having a cook out and I would love to be outside as much as possible.  If you’re coming and it’s nice, please bring a camp chair, lawn chair, etc. if you have them.  Saturday is the party and then Sunday I have choir practice.  Then Jennifer arrives that Thursday, and we’ll spend Friday apartment hunting.  Saturday we will take her back to Richmond to the airport, go to a birthday party in Richmond, and hopefully meet up with some new friends we’ve been corresponding with through our adoption attorney—they are hoping to adopt soon, and have turned to us for advice.  The following week is our wedding anniversary, and a pile of dress rehearsals for the chorus concert, which is the following weekend.  The 24th, I am getting together with my friend Kris, whose kids and husband will all be out of town.  The 25th is the big concert (tickets are still available at the low, low price of $85!), and by then, it’ll be the end of the month!  Sheesh, I’m tired just thinking about it.

I’ve been in contact with a friend from home since I sent out the email asking people to vote for Leah.  I said to her that if we won, we would come visit her while we are in NYC, since she lives in NYC, and she told us not to wait, to come anyway!  Turns out she lives right near where I went to college, so I’m thrilled that I can go visit my old stomping grounds, show Michael Manhattan College, and we can go around NYC.  We are hoping to get up there in June.  And of course, in May, we’ve got our trip to Myrtle Beach lined up.  I got Leah some clothes today and a bathing suit—this one a one piece to compliment the two piece her auntie sent her.  We are so excited to be going, although sad to hear the Wellses can’t join us after all!!!  I plan to do a lot of R&R that week.  And it’s nice the fee for the condo includes the maid service, so we can just walk on out of there Saturday morning with nary a thought.

We have become the smoothie king and queen.  We had a box of oranges to use up, so I juiced them all and then put the juice in the blender with the strawberries I had picked and frozen last summer.  YUM!  Since then, we’ve been trying different kinds.  We had strawberry lemonade slush tonight, and last night we had peach-berry.  Michael has loved them too, and we have similar taste in fruit, so it’s working out very well.

So that’s about it.  Less than a week till I get to go back on Facebook, but it doesn’t seem as important as it did nearly 40 days ago.  I have enjoyed blogging again, so I can see myself reading other people’s updates, and I’m sure I’ll post updates, but I just hope I keep up with my blog. 

Till next time!

Stuff!

Well, my husband must really love me, is all I can say. This week, I'm out 4 nights. Sunday I had choir practice, Monday I had book club, tonight I am going to see the Harlem Globetrotters with the Heplers, and tomorrow I am going up to see my friend Debbie from DBVI for dinner. He has been so, so patient and taken such good care of Leah while I've been sowing my wild oats. Although, I will say, we had a little incident on Sunday that I thought was pretty hilarious.

I came home from choir practice, and he says to me, "Susan, Leah threw up on her shirt." I said, "Oh really? What did you do?" "I washed it off with a washcloth, but then it was wet, so I just took it off her and put her to bed. I covered her up nice." "Yeah, but what is she wearing? Did you put PJ's on her?" "No, I don't know how, I just put her to bed and covered her up." I went upstairs, and sure enough, there was Leah, sound asleep wearing nothing but her pants and socks. I turned the heat up a bit just in case it got cool, and let it go. But I thought it was hilarious and so new-dadish!

My in-laws stopped in for a quick overnight on Monday on their way home from Florida. It sounded as if Florida was a bit of a bust for them this year--much cooler temperatures than usual. Still, I'm sure they had their usual good time, and it was real nice to see them an extra visit, even if I was gone for most of it. Book club was a lot of fun, although it was awfully strange without Judy there for the first time in 5 1/2 years. I have heard through the grapevine that this may be a permanent state of affairs, so perhaps it'll be something I have to get used to, but I haven't heard anything about that as yet. We were hosted by Maggie at her house, and it was her book that we discussed, but unfortunately she got a call right as we kicked off and had to leave because her daughter had a little fall. It was great that she trusted all of us to be in her home without her, and fortunately she got good news about little Natalie--no broken bones! We did clean up after ourselves and got a nice note from her yesterday, so it reminded me again of what a family the club has become. Everyone really is there for you when you need them.

Yesterday I was feeling a little blue, so I texted Cindy and Wendy to see if they wanted to have lunch with me (Manda, do you text? If so, I need your number!). Cindy replied that I could come on over to her place, so we made plans to have lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then I would go to her house for a Cricut tutorial. Just as we left Chick-Fil-A, my phone buzzed and it was Wendy! She said she was free for lunch tomorrow (which is now today) and did I want to meet her at 12:30 at Chick-Fil-A. Hahaha Good thing they like us in there!!! So we are dining at CFA this afternoon. They have a wonderful greeter/drink refiller/hostess in there named Deborah and as we were leaving, I said to her, "See you next time!" Little did I know next time is 24 hours later!

Last night we had dinner with the Heplers at Chilis. I had to get my Globetrotters ticket from them and will meet them up north in Stafford today. The game is at North Stafford High, and since I have been to Stafford High for basket bingo and Colonial Forge for choir practice, I think I'll have covered the local high schools now and should know where all of them are.

LOST last night was amazing--not quite as good an episode as last week, but awfully good nonetheless. We really are getting down to the end, only 10 episodes to go, and they really are starting to make sense of the whole thing, even though there are still many unanswered questions. I am enjoying the hell out of it, and will be sad when it is over, but at least I have my DVD's and I can go back through and re-watch the entire thing from start to finish to see what I've missed and what makes sense now in light of later episodes, etc. I haven't kept up with Project Runway as much this season. I think last season was such a bitter disappointment, and this season I just don't seem to care. Isn't that awful? I was such a fan. And this season has been so much better than last season, I feel kind of guilty for not watching! I read the Project Rungay blogs to see who wins and loses, and maybe I'll catch up eventually, but just haven't felt like it lately. I also haven't felt like staying up to watch Hoarders, but at least I've been catching up with that on A&E's site.

For anyone who has asked, no, we still have not heard anything about our exchange student. We are just waiting to hear if the school will accept her. We were hoping to hear by the end of January, but then with all the snows in early February, we still haven't heard anything and here it is March! We would love to get in touch with her and start getting to know her a bit better, but I guess we just have to be patient and let things take their course.

In the meantime, we've decided to do some flipflopping of our house if we are able to. We are going to move the home office downstairs into the basement and make Mike's office upstairs into the extra bedroom. This makes sense for a number of reasons: 1. Caroline will have a closet! 2. When the baby wakes up at 6:00am and wants to play, I can take her downstairs and not have to worry about waking up a slumbering teen! 3. The guestroom is a bit larger than the upstairs room, so I could put up a desk for my new scrapbooking hobby! 4. Mike can go use the computers and radios as much as he wants at any time of the day or night without having to use his headphones or worrying about disturbing anyone. 5. At night when we are all doing our own thing, we will still be on the same floor and easily accessible to one another without having to holler up and down the stairs. 6. Our upstairs floors are really creaky and it won't keep anyone up any more if they are trying to sleep in the spare room if someone's moving upstairs and creaking around.

The two questions that will hold this operation up are: 1. can we get that room wired for ETHERNET and 2. can we get his radio antennas wired into that room. He's got a buddy from the ham club coming over to have a look, and then we'll ask our friend about the computer wiring. He could go back to using wireless, but I've been informed he does not want to do that.

Once we find out if it's possible to do this, I'll have to go on a marathon painting binge, since I'm sure Michael doesn't want a pink striped office. It was a lot of work and I enjoyed it and loved the stripes, but I think something a little more subdued will probably be better for a man cave with a wife-corner. I will probably also repaint the office, but maybe not. The color does match all the bedding we already have, so I may just leave it for now and if Caroline doesn't like it, she can help me repaint it. If anyone wants to help paint or move furniture, we'll pay in pizza, beer, or whatever else floats your boat!

We are excited that Mike and Lesley's niece is moving to DC this summer, so even though it's not Mike and Lesley, it's the next best thing :-) She is coming to stay at the Cookie Jar this April and I'm going to take her apartment hunting while she's here so she can get off to a good start when she makes the move in June. She is a great gal and of course we hope this will be an even bigger incentive for Mike and Lesley to move on up here too!!! :-) Damn the housing market is all! But I know they cannnot resist Leah's siren song, so I have a funny feeling they'll come on up sometime sooner rather than later, as Lesley said :-) Jennifer and I have been swapping emails back and forth to figure out a game plan, and we have just over a month to figure out what we want to do, so I know it will be great. I'm of course going to steer her towards living on the Virginia side of things, because we know how those Maryland types are. Haha!

As for Weight Watchers, well, it seems like I get going and then I get off track. I really did great my first week back, down 4.2 pounds, and then BANG! The snow storm hit and we sat around and ate brownies and cake and did puzzles and read books and stuff. Then the storm was over, and we went to Greensboro and enjoyed ourselves. Then we got back and I just couldn't face it the first week, and that week turned into two, turned into 3. I know it is something I need to do, I have made concrete goals for myself and I want the results, I just have to get into a mindset of where it's going to happen. I remember where it all went terribly wrong--we were up in Plattsburgh when my dad first had the attack and we went to the store, and I thought, "F*** this, I'm getting some Doritos." It's all been downhill from there. I know I can, and I know I will, it's just a matter of when! :-)

As for FlyLady, everything is just great! I do a quick clean every day, and my in-laws were SO impressed when they walked in Monday. They were like, "you have done a lot of work around here!" Between that and Michael's "It's a whole new Susan!" campaign, I guess I was a real slob before :-) But I'm happy with how things look and how easy it is to maintain. If I could just get Leah to pick up her toys...

I guess that's about all the news that's fit to print from Fredericksburg. I am very nearly ready to break out my Cricut and get scrapping, just need to go get some pictures printed off at Walmart and then I'm going to town. I'm so excited. I'll post some pictures of what I create. I got a couple of extra cartridges at Joann's yesterday since they are 50% off right now, so I can use different fonts, etc. on the book. Cindy gave me a great tutorial yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty confident I'll be ready to scrap in no time!

Hope everyone else is doing just dandy :-) Drop me a line, update your own blog, let me know what's going on!

Nice Weekend

It’s been a nice weekend so far.  Very quiet.  VERY quiet.  In fact, the other day, I got kind of curious when was the last time anyone called me on the phone, so today I went into the caller ID, and it turns out that the last time I got a phone call from anyone other than Landry was on February 11th.  That’s more than 2 weeks.  WOW! 

Anyway, this week I got a Cricut machine.  They were on sale at Joann’s, marked down from $200 to $85, so I decided to get one.  Ever since I did our adoption profile, I’ve been thinking I need to get into scrapbooking, and so this is an exciting way for me to get into it.  I got a scrapbook as well, on sale for only $6, and some paper and stickers and stuff, so I’m going to start out making a scrapbook about our journey to adopt Leah, from when we started our homestudy all the way through to the finalization.  I’m excited to see what the Cricut can do, and also to see if I am any good at scrapbooking!

Today, our friend Anne and her son Nicolas watched Leah for us.  For the past several weeks, Leah has staunchly refused to sleep past 5:00am.  I feel like we have a newborn again, honestly, I’m so tired I hardly know my own name.  Well, Anne caught wind of this and told me to bring her over so I could sleep.  This morning, Michael managed to get Leah to sleep for almost 3 hours, so I got a three hour nap this morning, and then Anne had her from 1-5:30, and I slept about 3 1/2 hours this afternoon.  I feel absolutely drunk on sleep, but to be honest, I think I will probably go to bed at a normal time tonight and not have any trouble getting to sleep whatsoever.  That and a nice hot shower, and I should start to feel human again. :-)

This evening we had dinner with the Heplers at Red Lobster.  The lobster tail was pretty good, although I think they do have a tendency to overcook their lobster there.  I didn’t feel like going to the trouble of cleaning a whole entire lobster, so I just got the tail.  Maybe one of these days I’ll get one steamed at Wegman’s and eat a real one.  We’ll have to see.  Tomorrow we are looking forward to watching the USA v. Canada men’s hockey game, and then the Olympics will be over for another couple of years.  I didn’t get to watch very much of it, or really any of it, but I understand the athletics were particularly good this year.  I tried to look some of it up On Demand, but it was mostly mash up videos and not really anything I especially wanted to see.  So I’m hoping the hockey game tomorrow will be good.  Then I have choir practice tomorrow night.  I am hopeful that the extra music has come in so I will have my own music and will be able to mark it up as I need to!  The lady I sat with last week was very generous to share with me, though, and made roughly similar notations to how I would have done it, so no complaints :-)

This week is a busy one.  I have book club Monday and my in-laws are popping in for a quick overnight on their way home from Florida. I think it’ll be nice for Michael to have some time with his parents and his daughter, and I’ll get a night out guilt free, since I know that even if she melts down for Daddy, she’s unlikely to melt down for her grandpa, whom she clearly adores.  Wednesday night, the Harlem Globetrotters are in North Stafford, and I may go to that with the Heplers.  Have to see about getting tickets.  Then Thursday night I’ll be going to dinner with my friend Debbie.  This weekend is the first of 3 kids’ sales in Fredericksburg as well, so I will probably go and hopefully get Leah some 9 month clothes.  Yes, she is still little enough that she is JUST getting into her 9 month clothes now.  And her 6 month clothes fit just fine, I’m just feeling ornery about the fact that she is still in them. 

We had talked Myrtle Beach with Mike and Lesley and may still go, but since poor Lesley has limited vacation time and they are planning to go to Newfoundland this summer, it may not happen.  We’ve decided that since the rental in MB is fairly expensive for the time we want to go, we should be able to take an actual trip somewhere for the same amount and are looking into Puerto Rico, where Michael’s friend’s family has a beach house.  I’m also kind of hot on California, so we have some possibilities we are looking at.  And who knows, we might just say, “The heck with it!  We’re going back to MB!”  We’ll see.  But one thing we know for sure:  we’re going SOMEWHERE! :-)

So that’s all the news that’s fit to print from here.  I’m heading to bed with a book shortly!  Good night all :-)

A Weekend Away From It All…

This weekend was one we’d been planning for quite some time, a trip to Greensboro NC.  We had heard that our favorite author, Philip Gulley, was coming to speak at three different Friends meetings (as in the Quakers) in Greensboro and checking the map, we found it was a scant 4 1/2 hour drive away from us.  We were so excited and immediately decided we were going to make it, no matter what!

As the time drew near, we made more plans and posted to Facebook what we were planning, and Russell and Amy decided to join us.  We were SUPER excited, since we hadn’t seen them since last June for the Janet Evanovich road trip.  They wound up being the only ones who were going to be able to make it, but we didn’t mind one bit.  Russell found a hotel and we booked reservations and were ready to roll!

And then Snowmaggedon hit.  It was looking a bit dicey as to whether we’d get out of town.  But here’s the thing:  Philip Gulley has never come to the East Coast since we’ve read his books that we’ve known about and been able to go.  And I frankly would have crawled to Greensboro on my hands and knees, dragging Leah behind me in her stroller like a sled dog if I had to.  And fortunately, later in the week, the weather tamed for us and we not only decided to go on Saturday, but Michael and I elected to go a day earlier and leave on Friday.

So I called the hotel and added an extra night to our reservation, we packed up, and we headed for Greensboro.  It was extra exciting because we got to add another state to Leah’s growing roster of places she’s been.  If I’m not mistaken, on the East Coast she is only missing Maine, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.  Not bad for not even being a year old.  When we crossed the border, she woke up from a lengthy nap, so we pulled into a rest area so I could change and feed her.  I snapped a picture of the sign you see here to commemorate the event, but there was no way for me to get her in it without putting her down, and I didn’t much want to do that.  We did go into the visitor’s center and they gave us a travel guide to Greensboro, which we read and found some neat stuff to see.

Michael and I were VERY impressed with Leah overall, I have to say.  She did not squeal at all the entire trip.  It is such a difference from the baby who would scream from the time we put her in the car to the time we took her out, whether that was 2 minutes or 10 hours.  She really is growing up and learning patience!  Way to go, Leah!

Anyway, we found the hotel and unloaded some of our car and let Leah crawl around a bit and work out the kinks.  The hotel room was a standard 2 double bed bit, but we were excited to see an adjoining door and hoped Russell and Amy would be able to get into the room on the other side so that we could hang out in their room Saturday night.  We gave them an update and they gave us one as well regarding the oncoming storm that gripped the south Friday evening.  They were a bit worried about whether they’d get out or not, but we all decided to just hope for the best and pray they’d get here!

Meanwhile, we were hungry and time was growing late so Little Baby would need to go to bed.  We decided to try out the Carolina Diner, which was right down the street from the hotel.  We hit the jackpot.  Not only was the food delicious, but Leah turned out to be a real crowd pleaser.  She had half the restaurant waving to her, she was waving back to them, everyone was coming up to our table and telling us how beautiful she was and how funny and sweet and cute she was, and long story short, we got 10% off our bill PLUS we got free dessert!!!!!  If she ever learns to harness her power for good, she will enact some serious change in the world.

After dinner, we debated attending Phil’s speech that night, but we were a little road weary and we wanted to put the baby to bed, so we went back to the hotel.  We put on the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremonies, but I was a little underwhelmed and fell asleep for a while.  I managed to catch the US team march in and then fell asleep before they lit the torch.  For some reason, I woke up at 4:45 and caught a replay of the torch lighting, and then I couldn’t go back to sleep.  I turned on my cell and got a message from R&A that they were going to wait a bit to see how the weather developed. 

By 7AM, my two darlings were up and ready to roll (and very unhappy to discover it had snowed overnight!), so we decided to have breakfast at a local chain called Biscuitville, which seemed right up Michael’s alley.  He had tried a biscuit at the diner the night before and had an indecent reaction to it, so we had high hopes for Biscuitville, but overall, I’d have to say the biscuits there were just OK. 

After breakfast, we decided to do a little shopping—I had only packed one shirt for myself, since I was so excited to get out of the house, so we hit Walmart and I picked up a shirt, some treats for Leah, and a few Valentines for my Sugar Bear.  Then we decided to take Leah over to the Children’s Museum in Greensboro, since it is apparently appropriate for even infants.  (How did I ever live without my GPS, by the way?  That thing took us EVERYWHERE!)  Well, by the time we got there, both Leah and Michael were snoring.  When I pulled over, Michael woke up and we took a vote that we might as well take her back to the hotel because the more well rested she was, the better she would probably do during the speech.  So we drove all the way back to the hotel, I get her into the room, kick my shoes off, I’m kind of tired, and just as I am dozing off, she wakes up.  Figures, don’t it?  We get a text from R&A that they are on the road (we were relieved and happy they were at least going to try and make it!) so we decided to go over to Barnes and Noble to see if we could get the books for that night’s event.

In hindsight, this was one of the smartest things we decided to do.  I got the books, no problem at all, and then we went to Starbucks and I was able to connect to the wifi using my iPod.  Then we had liquid refreshments and a scone and as Leah was getting restless, I decided to take her down to the children’s area to zip around.  There wasn’t much doing in the hotel room, so I thought it might be a fun way for her to burn off some energy.  Well let me tell you!  BINGO!!!!  She crawled around until after 12 noon.  What a blast she was having!  She watched other kids run around, she followed after other kids, she found shelves of stuffed animals to knock around (which I picked up, thank you), we looked at books, she crawled everywhere, she played with trains.  It was a red-letter experience in every way possible.

We left around 12:15 and got a call from R&A that we should go ahead and have lunch without them and we would all just meet up for supper.  Michael put in a request for Zaxby’s, a chicken chain that we had been to on our visit to Savannah.  While sadly, our luck with freebies was out, Leah was the hit of the place once again. Apparently even the way she eats celery is adorable.  And you know she just ate it up—she couldn’t even be bothered to face our table, she was looking all over, waving at everyone, going absolutely crazy.  And everyone was going crazy over her in return!

We went back to the hotel to wait for R&A’s arrival, and Leah fell asleep on the way over there, so I quietly put her in bed, and then I collapsed in bed for a while myself.  Sometime around 2:30, the Savannah contingent arrived, but I missed it because I was snoring.  Around about 2:45, the vibrating of my phone woke me up and when I saw “knock knock” in the text, I sprang to my feet and opened the door, and there was Amy!!!  WOO HOO!!!  They made it!!!!!

Russell was negotiating with the front desk to get them the adjoining room, and he was successful!!!  Even better!!!!!  They came in and Leah woke up and immediately we all started catching up and admiring Leah of course and before I knew it, two and a half hours had passed.  We had all agreed to go to Steak N Shake for dinner, and so we all got ready for the evening’s festivities and headed out.  Three of the four of us got milkshakes, and we all had burgers.  They gave us a free kid’s meal with purchase, so I got Leah some applesauce and mac n cheese, neither of which she especially cared for—Leah liked throwing the noodles on the floor more than eating them.  It was about time we found something she didn’t like, right?  I had a guacamole burger, my new SnS favorite, and it was so good.  It was probably the most crowded SnS I’d ever been too, but they dished food up fast and we all had a good meal, so who can complain?

Then it was time to head to the church!!!!  We were headed for New Garden Friends Meeting, and found it with only a little trouble—I am not great at reading signs in the dark and wasn’t too sure if Russell and Amy were behind us a good part of the time, so I was pretty cautious and stuff throughout the drive.  Not to worry though, we made it all in one piece and got to the church with about 15-20 minutes to spare.  We followed the crowd in and the sanctuary was on our left.  I peeked in and there was Phil, standing there talking with some Friends, just like anything.  I got all excited and hissed in Michael’s ear, “I SEE HIM!” It was like seeing a rock star or something, I mean, we were just so excited about this whole event.

We tried to figure out how long we’ve been reading Phil’s books and we finally decided on 6 years.  Home to Harmony is one of my two favorite books of all time and all of Phil’s books have inspired me with laughter, tears, thought, and joy.  To see the person who had the power and creativity and thought to bring that entire world into life for you, it is awe-inspiring to say the least.

So, we walked into the meeting room and as we made our way to find a seat, Phil came towards us!  Now I was really getting excited.  He looked at us, and I said, “Good evening!” and put on a bright smile, which he answered back and then patted Michael’s shoulder and said, “Good evening, friend!” and kept going.  Michael said, “Was that him!?” and I said, “yes it was!” and we both had to keep from jumping up and down :)

Soon a nice man named Bob sat to Michael’s right and we got to telling him about how we drove down from Fredericksburg VA and he asked where we were staying and we said in a hotel and he offered us that next time we come, he and his wife run a sort of underground B&B and we’d be welcome to stay with them.  I’d be lying if I said this sort of generous spirit was a fluke—every single Quaker we met greeted us with such warmth and generosity.  And we were total strangers there and admitted to not being Quakers and they did not care.  I was so inspired by them, I cannot begin to explain how profoundly our experience amongst the Friends affected me.

Eventually, the presentation got underway and Phil was introduced and talked about his new book, If the Church Were Christian.  There are 10 different chapters in the book and he discussed the first two, entitled If the Church Were Christian, Jesus would be a model of living rather than an object of worship and If the Church were Christian, affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness.  Unfortunately by now, Leah had had quite enough, and I missed out on some of the presentation, but I caught most of it, and I cannot wait to dive into this book.  I honestly felt as though he had written this book for me and was addressing directly thoughts that I’ve had and never shared with anyone.

And I know I was not alone in so feeling.

Eventually Amy came out and relieved me for a while, but I could hear Leah screaming from way down the hall, so during the Q&A session, I went and got Leah back from her and kept her quiet until the talk was over.  I knew she was just worn out from her busy day and she had only taken a 45 minute nap and refused any further rest, so she couldn’t help it one bit.  Amy and I went back in the hall to retrieve the men and I gave Russell my camera so he could catch a family shot of us with Phil.  We followed Phil and his crowd of admirers down the aisle and just as it was our turn, a woman came to him and said he had to come into the hallway to start signing books!  But he gave us his time very generously (I think Leah put the eye on him!) and so we asked him if we could take a picture and he was happy to do it.

Then we followed him out and he signed our beloved and much read copy of Home to Harmony and the two copies of the new book I had picked up earlier in the day.  Bob had told everyone before the speech that we had driven down from Washington DC, so Phil thanked us for making the trip and we said that we would see him again tomorrow, because you can bet your butt I was not going to miss an opportunity to witness Phil as a pastor.  Russell got his book signed and then we were done for the evening.

When we left, I was all aglow, it was such a great experience already.  I asked Russell what he thought and all he could do was nod his head.  Words, honestly, were meaningless in the face of such an important message (or at least to me, they were not necessary!).

We stopped off at Sheetz on the way back to stock up on refreshments and by the time we were back at the hotel, Leah was out cold.  She didn’t budge when I pulled her out of the car seat, much less when I put her in her crib.  We went over to Russell and Amy’s room to talk about the events of the evening and it was just so affirming to talk religion and other sensitive topics with people who had no room for judgment of me, me of them, all of us asked questions, listened to each other’s stories and feelings, it was quite wonderful.  Unfortunately, having been up since 4:45, I was totally spent, and so I crapped out at 11:20 and went to bed.  I could have sat up all night, but driving’s demon head was leering at me for Sunday…

This morning we got up early (again I couldn’t sleep past 4:45) and when R&A were ready, we went out to IHOP for breakfast.  After lots of pancakes, coffee, eggs, hash browns, and more were consumed, we went back and checked out of the hotel and hauled ourselves down to First Friends Meeting in Greensboro, where Phil would be delivering the 11:00 message.  I had never been to a Quaker meeting before and was determined to make the most of it.  I read in the bulletin that there was childcare available, so with my heart in my throat, I decided to put Leah in the nursery so I could enjoy the service and listen to Phil’s message uninterrupted.  Holy cow were the girls in the nursery nice!!! I was introduced to them and their children and they took Leah and told me not to worry about a thing!  I don’t think she even noticed as I walked away, and I didn’t hear any screaming when I went back to the meeting hall, so I took it as a good sign indeed.

The meeting started and it was a lot of singing and a lot of time for quiet contemplation.  They had a segment where the children’s class filed in and talked about what they were doing for church school.  Then I got really nervous, because they brought in all the young children, and there was Leah right in front of us!  But she could not have cared less about where we were, she was fascinated by all the other children and the banks they had made to collect money for Haiti.  Then the minister handed around quarters for the children’s banks and even gave Leah a quarter, and you can imagine what she did with it:  yup!  right in her mouth!  Fortunately they got her to put in a bank.  Then the kids left and went back to the nursery or Sunday school, and the service continued.  When it was time for Phil’s message, I was totally enchanted.  He speaks very much like he writes, with much humor and grace.  The topic was “A Quaker Future” and honestly, I cried—the message really had a universal appeal, which was great since I know nothing about being a Quaker.

It was all over too soon.  The service ended, there was a talk back session afterwards, but we decided not to stay for that as we really were anxious to get on the road.  I went and retrieved Leah from the nursery, where I was informed she was the happiest baby in the world!!!!  She didn’t especially want to leave with me, she seemed to be having a heck of a good time.  But eventually I pried her away from the loving arms of the nursery worker, Leigh Ann, and went back to the chaos of the meeting room.  People were leaving, people were moving forward, and my party of three was waiting for me to come back so we could head out. We were swarmed by people who remembered us from the night before, asking if we had really driven down from Washington DC just to come to the meeting and meet Phil, people who wanted to admire Leah (who ate it up, may I say, the kid is an absolute rock star, I am not exaggerating in the least!), people who just wanted to welcome us.  It was the most welcome I had ever felt in a church, certainly in my adult life anyway.  There was no awkwardness, no sense of not literally being among friends.  I was ready to sell the house and move to Greensboro, honestly.

Finally the legions of fans cleared a bit and I put Leah on the pew to put her coat on when I felt an arm around my shoulder and heard, “Thank you again for making that drive all the way down here just to see me.”  I looked up and it was Phil, giving me a hug.  I about wet my pants.  I think I said something about how much we enjoyed it, how moved I had been, and I picked Leah up and he asked if he could hold her.  Well of course!!!!  I handed her right over, and I think it was an instant love for both of them :-)  I wish I had had my camera handy, it is an image burned into my brain, Phil smiling brightly at Leah, Leah kind of looking at him like, “Yes, that’s right, adore me!”  It was such a special moment as a reader and a mom, the two great passions in my life intersecting like that.

He handed her back to me and we said goodbye and then he went over to Michael and thanked him also for coming and either shook his hand or grabbed his shoulder, I’m not sure which.  And then he had to turn his attention to his talk-back and I had to turn mine to remembering how to breathe.

So that’s how we left Greensboro.  (Michael and I would both like to go back and explore the actual town—we enjoyed our time there a lot!)  We soon parted ways  with Russell and Amy and headed home.  Leah was completely knocked out, so we didn’t stop for the first 4 hours of the trip because she was asleep.  We did finally stop when she woke up and wanted some food, so spent our Valentine’s Day dinner eating at a McDonald’s somewhere between Richmond and Petersburg.  Leah wasn’t too happy to be put back in the car afterwards, but she made it home with only a few little squeals.

And I will now unpack and head off to bed.  It was an amazing, amazing weekend of friendship and love and I am so glad Russell and Amy made it and we didn’t miss each other due to snow.  I don’t know how to express how happy it made me to get a little hug from such a great and genuine man I have long admired, to hear what he had to say and to relate to it so deeply and personally.

It was such a wonderful Valentine’s weekend and memories I’ll carry with me for a lifetime.  Thanks to everyone who made it possible.