I have an 11:45 dentist appointment for cleaning, then a quick lunch, then off to see mom in the damn hospital, then meet my husband at my parents' house to clean out the guest room for the live-in girl who is moving in on Friday, same day as mom's discharge. Oh, have to re-order dad's meals-on-wheels for the week before two this afternoon. Guess I'll do that from my mobile.

I got an email from Nick this morning - he's in Bangkok now and enjoying it, especially the low costs of everything, and the food. Mike's in Stockholm. Tony and his little family are at a resort on the Bay of Quinte, just east of here about 2 hours.

I've got a couple of loads of dirty clothes on the laundry room floor, a small bit of ironing, and some banking to do.

Tonight we have some kabobs to bbq, left over from Sunday night when one guest bailed out at the last minute. I think there are 3 of them we didn't cook that night. Kabobs, not guests.

That's it. I'll try to watch my soap tapes while the potatoes are cooking, hope I can ff through most of them.

Happy Tuesday!!

Oh - great way to bbq potatoes: Scrub them and cut into quarters. Place on heavy aluminium foil, sprinkle with XV olive oil and course sea salt. Wrap well and plunk on medium flame, lid down, 35 minutes. Turn foil package after 20 minutes. Yum and no mess.

I took my van in to the shop, only 24,000 miles and I need front brakes!

It's rainy here, and I have a bit of a headache, so low-key day for us

Hi Tina. I just got home from running all over the place. Stopped in here before going down to flip the laundry around, start dinner and watch some soap while waiting for Ted.

One dog peed all over the place while I was gone, barfed up too, so I should wash the floors. I'm pretty sure it was Champ, the Maltese/poodle freaky little dog.

When I was visiting mom, the coordinator told me she was discharging her a day early, on Thursday. So now I have to call a bunch of people to organise her care a day early. I stopped by their house to get a head start on clearing out the guest room and my father wasn't home. HMPH! Meanwhile, the trunk of my car is full of mom's stuff as I have begun her move out. So now I'll have to drive back over to parents' place again so I can empty it.

It's humid today and my hair's a mess. I hate that it fizzes up like this. Otherwise, it's been an ordinary day. Running two households would be a lot easier if my father were more cooperative. Some days it's like trying to push a piece of string.

For example, it took me 6 weeks to convince him to sell my mother's car. When he finally did, the 2008's came out and the price he got for her almost brand new 2007 Cadillac dropped several thousand dollars. Next, I told the live-in that we would install cable TV for her in the guest room. Dad resisted, said flatly NO WAY. I finally got him to call the cable guys by pointing out that if she didn't have TV in there, she'd end up watching in their family room on my father's gawd-awful ugly jumbotron. So he called. Ditto about everything else.

I am a little frazzelled (sp?). Things will get better after the girl from Guyana settles in. I can plop a few of the responsibilities on her, I hope. She's only 19 and very much still a child. She's on a 2 week trial and if she's as temperamental as I think she is, the agency will have to replace her asap.

At least my kids are in one place for the time being. For today, anyway. Now it seems that Mike is hell bent on taking a little side trip to Prague as long as he's there. He made me laugh when we dropped him at the airport last night. He said "It's only Europe, mom". Which doesn't make it any easier knowing that Nick and Laura are heading to Koh Chang next week, then Cambodia. And that Mike is going to Ushuaia for Christmas. Argh.