Hi! So much has been going on around here that I have been hesitant to post anything about it as I wouldn't know where to begin. All is more or less okay-ish, as in no disasters, but so many changes, subtle as they might be, but changes nonetheless, like when you pick away at an overgrown shrub, a little every day until one day the thing begins to look really pretty good. It's been like that around here.
Mike is here, playing trumpet downstairs - he has a recording in a few days and is preoccupied with that, to say the least. Nick was home for a few days last week, scouting out a new location for his club crawls and believes he has found one. So back he went out west to work away on THAT one until he can safely sell it off and return to Ontario. He was taciturn and remote for most of his little visit, a really unsatisfactory one, from my point of view, but apparently successful from his.
Tony's kids have been around a fair bit lately too. Kids grow like weeds, non? They change so fast, it's head-spinning sometimes. I just buy the groceries, clean up the messes, keep smiling and fill in the gaps. I'm at the bottom of the totem pole for needs as far as the rest of the tribe can see, so mom, the mainstay of it all, gets ignored unless of use. Not a complaint, just an observation. (I'm trying to be stoic, but breakthroughs of anger pop up here and there. With no emotional support, it gets a bit tiring, but c'est la vie.)
My mother is on a new medication now, in patch form, and it seems to be working well. She has a nurse five days a week and I take over for the weekends. She sat still long enough yesterday for me to repaint her fingernails and didn't smudge up the fresh polish, so THAT in itself was a major improvement. She ate some dinner and delicately moved the leftovers around her plate in ladylike fashion without falling asleep at the table. A small victory, yeah, but it made a big difference. There was a glimmer of her old self there.
Today is another one of more of the same old, with the odd twist here and there. It's cool and breezy, a perfect day, weather-wise, with sunshine and busy birds.
How's the world treating all of you today? I miss our little chats.
KaeEll, that's really excellent news about your mother's medication. I'm very happy to hear it, and I'm sure that those small victories mean a great deal to you. Let's hope that this patch continues to do its work!
It's also wonderful news about Nick's success in finding a new location for his club crawl. I know what you mean by these visits not being exactly what was hoped for (been there), but I imagine that Nick was just very focused on his task. Our oldest is going to be up here tomorrow night, with Loren, to see Conan O'Brien at DAR Constitution Hall. As usual, they're going to be cutting it really close with the timing; they're working a half day, then (if they're actually organized enough to leave Raleigh), they'll hit the road sometime between one and two. It's a four to four-and-a-half hour drive (if there isn't some massive back-up on the road, due to an overturned truck somewhere), which will put them here at six-ish. If not later. The event it at 8:00 pm, so there's no time for any dinner, and they'll still need to get into downtown Washington, DC. Fortunately, Constitution Hall is located right of, well, Constitution Avenue, and across the street from The White House, so it's really just across the bridge. The BAD news is that there's no parking, and there's also no conveniently located Metro station in that area. I'm envisioning a mad dash into town with a very stressed, already-tired, and hungry pair of young adults!
I think that I'm going to make a big batch of crepes this morning, and then refrigerate them for dinner tomorrow. I haven't decided on a filling yet... That way, I can either assemble them before the mad dash (if there's time), or I can feed Jim and me while the kids are watching Conan, and then give them a late supper. Maybe I'll just give them a salad, or some asparagus. And I guess that I'll set out some crackers and cheese for them to grab, if it looks like a late supper will be the more practical choice...
Kids DO grow like weeds, KaeEll, that's for sure. When we went to my great-niece's 8th grade graduation the other night, I almost fainted at how much she's, um, grown. At fourteen and a half, she looks not a day under seventeen. The two younger ones, Brady and Grace, had changed too, just in the past few months. Scary!!
Today is much cooler than is has been lately too, so I think that I may go look around at a couple of nurseries that are nearby, and conveniently placed right next to each other. LOL... And I have a doctor's appointment for later this afternoon, so the crepes, the plants, and the doctor ought to be enough to keep me out of trouble. At least for today.
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"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
Moore, I can almost hear the "kids" sheepishly asking for a RIDE to see Conan, lol, and Jim jumping up to do it. Then again, they may not want to bother the parents with their own rather optimistic view of managing time that fell apart at the eleventh hour. Let us know how that went.
I just got back from filling in the gaping holes in the pantry. (How quickly we forget that "kids" eat a lot.) And I got my parents some dishwasher tabs and that finish liquid that dries the dishes. I had to do something to keep father from dumping a large bottle of CLR in the dishwasher to "make it run better". And that was an improvement over taking a hammer to the door of the thing. I really wish I could talk them into moving into the neighbour's house that is for sale. They could move right in and I could keep an eye on them without having to drop everything and drive over there at all hours. It'll never happen, but I can dream, lol.
Moore, I meant to tell you that I DID see that episode of House Hunters!! Yay for kids we know on TV!
Hey, I have OLTL on TV right now. Natalie and John back together again? Uh oh for the anti-Natalie camp, lol. Nobody here has to mod over at the OLTL board, non? As I remember, it was the John wars that got me away from even reading about that soap way back when. Funny!!
Oh, I'm so glad that you were able to see that House Hunters episode. Juliana and her sister look so much alike, it's crazy. I thought the house they chose was the prettiest of the three...
Jim has already come to terms with the fact that he's going to be dropping the kids off at Constitution Hall tonight, so we're just going to prepare for that as a reality.
Shortly after I was bumped to full mod status on AMC, I was asked if I had any interest in moderating for the OLTL board too. At that time, I was a little wary of whether I was up to doing two boards, but then later regretted having turned it down. Whenever I go over there to post something, I always see a lot of things that I would fix, if it were my board. Although I have the ability to make changes on any SOC board, unless it's getting rid of a spammer or responding to a report for a board that doesn't have an assigned moderator, it would be rude of me to do it! And I remember very well all the Natalie/John craziness from a few years ago. There was a separate sticky thread where all comments had to go, and I've threatened to do the same thing on the AMC board a few times, over Zach, Kendall, Greenlee, and Ryan...
KaeEll, that would really be SO convenient for you, if your parents would move in next door. Or maybe a nightmare. I'm not sure which, but either way, you wouldn't have to travel far for whichever way it turned out to be!! LOL...
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I am leaning towards the nightmare thing for your parents being next door. It could be convenient or they could just add more to your to do list because you are so close. Ugh.
Anyways, I am glad I don't do OLTL. Although Liz asked me about it when I volunteered for the YnR board. I asked if she would give me a trial and she said just to stick with the 2 for now. Thank goodness. Its hard, mainly because the YnR board doesn't get a lot of RPPs so I have to spend time going through all the threads checking for nasties. On the other hand I have learned which threads had the nasty people in them.
