I'm thinking about taking another trip to drop stuff off at Goodwill. I have become obsessed with getting rid of anything that doesn't get used. I swear if my teenager sits on the couch too long, I'll be carrying him out next, haha
I might go buy a portable dvd player at Best Buy too, they had a really great price. I checked Froogle and didnt' see anything lower. It will come in handy for car and plane rides (for Gabi)!
we picked up a portable DVD at a day after Thanksgiving sale last year for $60, it has been great. I wont be using it on the plane this trip because its just me and Jolene and I dont want to have to juggle too many things at our layover in Dallas. I have 3 hours but I am always afraid that my first plane will be late and I will have to rush it to the next plane. I wont have a stroller this time so i dont want to have to carry too much should I need to grab Jolene and run.
But the DVD player will come in handy on my drive down to VA. My sister just had one put in her jeep so I wont need mine for the road trip across country.
My husband put 32 songs on my IPOD this weekend, and I think it already had at least that many on it before...So we will have plenty of cool tunes for our trip...Me and Jolene leave Friday for the initial drive down to Maryland...Im getting ansy.
I hate work, but my boss is at boy scout camp so this week should be okay, plus the week I get back will be my last. YAH
Good morning everyone. Where are you going again, Tina? You could also get some audio books from the library to pop into the car for the trip. We used to get crazy ones like Cheech and Chong, the Frantics, laughed ourselves silly for hundreds of kilos. Makes the travel time go so fast.
Last night was a disaster. We took chicken, steaks, vegetables and ice cream to my parents for a bbq dinner and my father was in full power struggle mode. The minute I finished my last bite and cleared the table, I told my husband we were leaving, got up and abruptly left. If I had stayed one minute longer I might have said something and caused a scene. Had to get my sail out of his wind, so to speak. I'm taking several days away from that place and situation to repair my sanity. It's one thing to have to struggle for my mom's well-being, quite another to have to sit and listen to a pack of blatant lies. AND, I strongly suspect he is withholding an important medication from mom for his own vile purposes.
I'm going to try to get a spa appointment for this afternoon. Then we're out to friend's for dinner later.
Wow Kae, so sorry things didnt go well for you last night. If i lived near you I would join you for a spa treatment. That would be nice.
And Tina, I think we may use a backpack this trip. Still doesnt leave much room for the DVD player, but I think that coloring books and reading books will be enough. The flight is at 6 in the morning so hopefully she will sleep most of it anyways. This will be her first flight where she has her own seat, not sure how well it will go. Hopefully everything will be okay..
Kae I feel bad for you. Was your dad always this difficult or is he going through a stage of dementia?
I'm not going on a trip any time soon, but when we drive to my M-I-L's house, it's an hour drive and the kids can really be annoying.
Ryan can play with his gameboy, and Zach has a leapster, but Gabi is very demanding. So a movie for the ride would be perfect. And then when we fly to Florida, which is about once a year, it will help on the flight too.
I hope they have them in stock, I have a feeling they'll sell out at that price, but then I guess they'd give me a rain check.
No Tina, not dementia from my father. He has ALWAYS been difficult but this time he is a position of "power" over my mother and he's being extremely obnoxious. He's taken up baiting the poor little girl from Guyana too. It's a mess.
I got a spa appt. for 2:30. Yeah.
I feel for you ladies travelling with kids. I'm so glad that stage is behind us now. We used to drive for 17 hours several times a year for 12 years when we had the place in Hilton Head. Took us 2 days, usually stopped for the night in West Virginia, Clarksburg or Morgantown, up in the mountains. Nick was barely 5 years old when we first started going there. He learned all the Frantics skits by heart. Then we'd drive all over trhe place on the way home.
Many warm hugs and fuzzies, Kae. What an awful situation! The spa will do you good though. I'd like to come along myself!
I would like to get one of the portable dvd players for the car...how much were they running Tina? I have a large one. It's a tv set that sits between the front seats, but I'd like something smaller.
And the books on tape is a great idea! I got cheech and chong and almost had to stop I was laughing so hard, LOL.
Hey Jojo..your man was on Army Wives last night....he looked hot..
While I dont like the idea of our flight, I wont mind the drive back because my niece will be there too and we think the 2 kids will be able to entertain each other pretty well. They havent seen each other since last summer. So it will be fun
My husband is absolutely addicted to books on tape, and I've listened to a few myself. They're a wonderful way to make the travel time go faster.
When my kids were young, I also liked to travel with those little lap desks that have soft bottoms. If you can find them with a little drawer, it's a great place to store crayons or pencils.
KaeEll, I am SO sorry to hear about your disaster last night. What a mess! I really do feel for you during this ordeal.
One of my childhood friends has had a really tough couple of years, having lost her mother fairly quickly and unexpectedly to leukemia, and dealing with in-home care for her father who was NOT at all pleased at the idea -- at first -- but who finally ended up absolutely adoring his care provider. He had dementia, and he passed away last November, but it was a mess for a while. Talk about control issues...!!! This man was a big, tall Texan, a lawyer, a former U. S. Congressman, and a very successful lobbyist. He was definitely a man who was experienced at persuading others to do his bidding, having survived political campaigns, and the wheeling and dealing of Capitol Hill, from both sides of the fence! He was a real larger-than-life, Lyndon Johnson kind of a man. My friend also had to deal with his outdated paperwork, a surprise grandchild, a disabled younger brother who had a brain injury at birth, and a younger alcoholic sister who dropped out of sight for so long that she didn't even know her mother had died! All this, and my girlfriend herself is a cancer survivor.
Aging parents (and grandparents) can become very difficult when faced with these changes. I'm hopeful that I won't fall into the same pit, but I can also imagine that it's really tough to begin relinquishing control over different areas of your own life. While I worried so much over my grandfather's reluctance to stop driving, I'm realistic enough to know that I may not be all that happy about giving up my license either!
Enjoy your day at the spa. You've earned it...
(Tess -- post pictures!)
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I don't have an exact date, Kae...sometime between Aug. 14 and Aug. 29. The 13th is my last day at work, and the 29th is when school starts, so that's my window.
My Hubba Hubba was on Army Wives?!? GAH! I will need to see when that repeats! LOL.
I live about 2 hours or so away from Longview, Shelly. Maybe a little more. It's an hour and a half to my grandma's house in Daingerfield and I'd say Longview is about 45 min. or a little more beyond that.
I dunno...I might be a little out of the way. What route are you taking? If you're traveling up Interstate 30 at all, I'm definitely on that path. I-30 runs from Dallas to Little Rock.
Many warm hugs and fuzzies, Kae. What an awful situation! The spa will do you good though. I'd like to come along myself!
I would like to get one of the portable dvd players for the car...how much were they running Tina? I have a large one. It's a tv set that sits between the front seats, but I'd like something smaller.
And the books on tape is a great idea! I got cheech and chong and almost had to stop I was laughing so hard, LOL.
-- Edited by jojolin at 11:18, 2007-07-23
I got the Best Buy brand DVD player for $69 and actually saved another $10 as I got one that was already opened.
So far it works great, comes with a car adapter and can be hooked up to a regular TV
good deal Tina, and its hard to beat Best Buy for a brand name.
hey Jojo can you PM me a number I can call in case we do pass through your way. We will be leaving Phoenix on the 6th, will be in Longview on the 7th. So you should still be there, yes
