Friday, April 26, 2013

Yep.


You can tell it's Friday at our house. I picked up 6 teens at the high school and brought 5 of them home with me.

Oh, and you can tell it's a beautiful day, as evidenced by the shoes sitting there sans feet.

Monday, April 1, 2013

What Spring Break?

Well, that week went fast! Last week was spring break for Athens City Schools, a week during which at least the girls and I usually do something together. Usually we go spend a few days at my grandmother's and a couple of years ago, Mr. Incredible took the week off and we went to Gettysburg for the week. It's usually a fun, relaxing, recharge your batteries time. Really.

But now that we have two teenagers who are both back in public school, it's a bit of a different story. The only day I didn't either go somewhere or operate Mom's Taxi was Monday. I kid you not. On Monday, the weather was really icky, Monkey Girl didn't have track practice, and we just hung out at the house in our pj's playing on our computers.

I figured she'd have practice on Tuesday, but then I got "The Call." It came from my wonderful sister-in-law, asking if the girls could go check out a consignment shop in Lancaster with them on Tuesday, since that seemed to be the only day that would work for them. This was great. The girls were excited to go. We'd only been waiting on a day that worked for everyone. AND I'd have the day all to myself to maybe do some writing. Except that three sentences later, my wonderful sister-in-law wonderfully asked me to go along and my girls wouldn't hear of my staying home. Now, for the record, I'm not being sarcastic about my SIL. She really is truly wonderful. And I really did have a great time hanging out with the girls, as well as their aunt and grandmother on Tuesday. It was a fun day. We even discovered a new consignment/antique shop between Logan and Sugar Creek. I'm giong to try to get some of my earrings up there for them to offer for sale.

Wednesday saw us retracing our steps towards Lancaster, as Monkey Girl need to get a cavity filled up at Children's Dental in Columbus. Total time of the appointment, from the moment we hit the hospital lobby? About 1/2 hour. I think only 10 minutes were spent on her cavity, it was that little. She didn't even need anaesthesia, it was so small. Now that's the time to get them taken care of. And we still had the rest of the afternoon before us. Heck, leaving Columbus by 4:30 meant next to know rush hour traffic yet, which absolutely amazed me. it also meant I wasn't exhausted from the stress of driving with crazy people, so I had energy to brave the Rivervally Mall in Lancaster. We hit Hot Topic and Claire's, then finished up our day with dinner at Waffle House. Waffle House rocks by the way. And, once again, I had a marvelous time hanging out with the girls. Tuesday and Wednesday let to some great memory-making hours well spent. And I wouldn't trade them for anything. I still didn't get any writing done, though.

Nor would I the next two days either. Thursday was a mini-adventure hauling various kids around - not all of them were mine - as Mom's Taxi. Oh, and we mixed up the time for track practice, which apparently started an hour later than it does during the school week. *sigh* Monkey Girl missed pretty much two full weeks for practice thanks to having a bad case of strep the week before spring break.

I did however think I'd be rid of them for the night - prime snuggle time with Mr. I. But then the girls shuffled around what was happening. MG did go to her friend's house, but Drama Queen changed her mind about hanging out at her friend's. Until one of them called and they all harassed her into coming over. (She had a blast.) Mr. I and I did get a few hours to ourselves, including time out of the hosue for dinner. Since the goal had been just to spend time together, it was a success. (Applebee's, however, doesn't really have anything on the menu for someone following a vegetarian diet, let alone the CHIP diet, which is what Mr. I. has been doing.) I picked DQ up at midnight, while reflecting that my mother never would have let me stay out that late when I was her age. Times have changed.

Friday? Ummm, I'm trying to remember Friday. I know I wound up running somewhere, but I can't remember where right now.

So, that was my spring break. Busy, busy, busy. It was good though. Only now, I'm behind where I wanted to be with writing projects. But then again, none of them are on a deadline for anyone but myself at this point and I got to spend some truly enjoyable, quality time with my kids and my husband's family. And whether or not I ever get the book finished or published rather pales in comparison to those experiences. I mean, I wrote the book in part because of my daughters. They're only really mine for a few years longer. As for my in-laws, well, I love them as well. It would have been nice to see my grandmother last week, but in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't have traded any of the rest of it for anything else.