This vacation is eating into my computer time . . .

. . . so you get bullet points of today's events.

• Trip to Orlando (FUN!).



• Lunch at Black Bean Deli (YUM!).



• Tour of Rollins College (PRETTY! IMPRESSIVE).



• Thai food for supper (YUM!).



• A visit with the Dessert Lady (YUM!) where the ladies' restroom looks like this:
  
  
  
  and this:
  
  
  
  and this:
  
  

West coast

This will be a quickie post, as I'm exhausted. Jenny and I took Mike over to St. Pete today to visit Eckerd College. It was a beautiful school and a great day for a tour. One interesting point about Eckerd: some of their dorms allow pets! How wild is that?!

Random photos from my phone

We went to see I Love You, Man today. It seemed busier than usual at the DeLand theater, and parking was shockingly scarce. We found ourselves wishing that there were some sort of public forum for shaming idiots who park like this:



I wish I had had my real camera nearby for this one, but the phone was all I had:



That's Arlo--my parents' new cat. He's a stinker but very entertaining.

Tomorrow we're getting back on the college circuit--driving over to St. Pete to visit Eckerd. I think FSU has become the standard by which all others will be judged.

Phone blogging

I have got at least a half dozen things that I need to do on the computer, but tonight I just want to hang out, so I'm not even turning it on.

Bellini's

It's what's for dinner:



Yay, we're in DeLand!

I want to hug Tallahassee

We're starting to get suspicious and look around for hidden cameras. Is it possible that the people here could really be this friendly and helpful? The most recent example? Getting back to the hotel tonight and finding a THANK YOU LETTER for my tip! People have hugged us today; they have walked across the street to point us in the right direction; heck, they have walked through the pouring rain to help us get to Point B from Point A.

The FSU tour was fantastic. We started with a walking tour of the campus this morning followed by an information session. I was impressed with the formal part of the tour, but it was the stuff that happened later that won my heart. Some highlights:

• Eating lunch in the amazing Suwanee Room. It looks like the dining hall at Hogwarts, and the food was amazing. The staff was so friendly and took such obvious pride in putting out a first-class meal.



• Chatting with the receptionist in the Air Force ROTC office (she offered to have us come back sometime and she would show us around campus in a golf cart) and then getting information from 2 different captains about the program. And THEN having a student who is in the program escort us over to the circus tent in the rain.



• Seeing the circus tent and watching the students practice. Talking to the director and finding out that students can take a circus class for PE credit and that participation in the circus program is open to any students who are interested.



• Visiting the film department, learning a lot of interesting stuff, and being advised to also check out the media production department.



• Visiting the media production department and watching both kids light up like the fourth of July on our impromptu tour of Seminole Productions.

I never dreamed we would spend the whole day on campus. We're back at the hotel now, jammied up and waiting for "The Office" and "30 Rock." Then it's off to bed so we'll be ready for the drive to DeLand tomorrow.

Greetings from Tally!

I'm SO glad we left Tuesday afternoon and stopped for the night south of Nashville. That made today's drive an easy 9 hours, which included a leisurely stop for gas and lunch (WHATABURGER!) and a fast stop at the state line to celebrate:



We're in Tallahassee for the next 2 nights, and so far we like what we see. The people have been so friendly! We're really looking forward to our FSU tour tomorrow.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. (Lao-tzu)

A journey of 2,364 miles begins with a full tank of gas and plenty of munchies and caffeine. (Bonnie Taylor)

Let the spring break festivities begin!

UPDATE: We are spending the night at a La Quinta in Franklin, TN. I was a little nervous booking this place, as there were some reviews on TripAdvisor.com that really ripped it. The only thing I can find that's wrong is that the hot and cold water in the bathroom sink are reversed. For $59 a night, I can deal with that. Tomorrow on to Tallahassee!

A sign?

The kids and I followed this car most of the way home from E'town today:



Kind of funny considering we have our FSU tour scheduled for Thursday morning!

Hurt so good

Back in November I took a series of 5 private pilates lessons at a studio up in Louisville. I meant to keep going, but then the holidays got crazy, and the weather got yucky, and I got rather depressed about the deployment, etc., and before I knew it, I was a pilates dropout.

The holidays are long gone, the weather is halfway decent, and I'm adjusting, so I made an appointment a couple weeks ago to go back, this time as part of a group class ($20 an hour as opposed to $50). The night before I was scheduled to go back though was the night that Annabelle and I spent in the ER, so needless to say I canceled my class and slept that day away instead.

So last week was my first chance to get back into it, and I loved it! I was able to remember how to use the equipment, and my muscles seemed to remember a little of what they learned last time around. I swear I was a solid inch taller when I left the studio.

This is a Reformer, the machine that we use for the class, but most of the moves demonstrated in this video are way beyond me:



For now anyway!

Getting ready for Florida!

I can't believe we will be taking off for spring break in just a little over 2 days! The hard thing for me about getting ready for a trip is that so much of it has to be done more or less at the last minute. It's not like I can pack everything 2 weeks out, you know? I have been working around the house, clearing up little projects (like the button sewing) that I'll feel better having done before I leave. But tomorrow it's time to get serious!

Mike did his laundry today, so Annabelle and I will take care of ours tomorrow. Tomorrow we're also going to have a blitzkrieg of cleaning so that I won't die of embarrassment when my cat sitter comes in to take care of Eddie.

I can't wait to get on the road!

Everything old is new again

One day last year when I was at Goodwill, I came across a really neat looking cranberry and green houndstooth wool overcoat. The label identified the fabric as Harris Tweed:



Unfortunately, its buttons were a crime against humanity:



Since the coat was only $5, I decided to grab it and deal with the button problem later. On my trip to NYC last November, I stopped in at Tender Buttons on the Upper East Side and dropped $25 on beautiful pewter buttons.

I brought the buttons home and set them on my dresser. Ever since then, I have been meaning to get around to sewing them on, but I never could quite get up the motivation to do so.

We're getting ready to leave for Florida on Tuesday, and I am starting to get ready. In true rearranging-deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic fashion, I decided that one thing I must do before the trip is to take care of these buttons. If nothing else, I figured that having this coat finished and wearable will mean that winter is officially over. I just hope Annabelle's arms don't grow too much longer in the next year:



Answer: Four months and 30 minutes.

Question: How long does it take me to sew on 10 buttons?

Whoops!

I almost forgot to blog. I can't believe that. When Annabelle and I got home from youth orchestra tonight, I turned on the TV rather than firing up the computer. Mike and I watched "The Office" and "30 Rock," and now I'm watching "Grey's Anatomy." I was thinking to myself how pleasant it was to spend an evening NOT glued to a computer screen, and then it hit me: I almost forgot to blog! So I paused GA and grabbed the computer real fast. But now I'm turning it off again. Nothing of interest to report today!

International incident

Annabelle and I took the dog for a walk the other day and decided to venture through the more interesting part of the neighborhood. We discovered that a priceless objet d'art has been stolen from Canada House:



And the house across the street is sporting some new yard bling (that hula girl is one of a string that light up):



And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street!

Wearin' o' the green

I'm celebrating St. Patrick's Day by getting my oil changed. I dropped the car off at Sears at 9:00, but they can't get to it until 11:00. I'm waiting it out at Panera, having breakfast and enjoying the free WiFi.

There's a couple at the table next to me having some sort of business meeting. They're both nicely dressed, and the guy is wearing a coat and tie. And shamrock socks! I couldn't resist discreetly snapping a picture with my cell phone:

Things I think about

Tonight is pizza night. Lovely, lovely pizza night. Our standing order at Dominos.com is an extra-large ham and pineapple and a large cheese pizza. Mike and I share the Hawaiian pizza, with me sometimes getting up to 3 slices. Annabelle focuses on the cheese pizza, but Mike helps her out when the Hawaiian is all gone. He eats our crusts, and Annabelle generally has a couple slices of leftover pizza for the following day. It works for us.

Anyway, I think being able to order pizza online is easily one of the greatest technological advances of our time. I am especially fascinated by the online pizza tracker, where you can follow your pizza through its creation and delivery.

I'm starting to wonder though if it's for real. I can't help but notice that EVERY week, "Melissa" makes our pizzas. I suppose there could be a real Melissa who is on the schedule every Monday night, but don't you think she would get sick occasionally or maybe be in the restroom when I place my order? No, week after week, Melissa helps us out. The cynic in me wonders, if I were to get in my car right now and drive over to Dominos, would I be able to meet this "Melissa"?

And I would do exactly that but . . . it would kind of defeat the purpose of having supper delivered.

UPDATE: "Jan" is on her way here with our pizzas. I'm going ask Jan about Melissa!

UPDATED UPDATE: Oh, me of little faith! I'll admit it. I was feeling very cynical when our pizzas were delivered by a man somewhere in age between my dad and my grandfather. I took the pizzas to the table and then returned to the porch to sign my charge slip.

I'm sure the delivery guy probably thought I was checking him out, but what I was really doing was looking for a nametag. Finally, I decided to go for it and just blurted out: "So are you really Jan?!"

Yes, indeed he was. He even whipped out his wallet and confirmed it with his social security card. And what's more, he confirmed the existence of Melissa. In fact, it turns out that there are TWO Melissas working at that location.

He was a nice guy, long retired from the Army, and we stood on the porch and discussed duty stations for a little while. He told me a funny story about being ordered to report for duty to the Women's Army Corps. When he showed up, they asked why on earth he was there, and he replied, "I'm assuming stud service."

When I finally made my way to the table (to find half the Hawaiian pizza already gone), Mike asked, "Good grief, what took so long? Did you pay him in change or what?!"

The pizza was a little cold tonight yet somehow tasted a little better.

All's well that ends well

Annabelle had a little excitement on her journey home today when she missed her connecting flight out of Chicago. I told her that travelers accumulate war stories, and she's just got a good, early start on hers. They managed to re-book her on a flight 2 hours later and got into L'ville shortly before six. We stopped for Vietnamese food on the way home, and brought carry-out home to Mike.

Not much else to report. I'm going to spend my Sunday night with desperate housewives and desperate sister wives (Big Love).

SAT Saturday

I had to get up early again this morning (6:30) to drive Mike down to E'town for the SAT. It's a good thing I wasn't the one taking the test, as I got about 5 hours of sleep last night. I tried to sneak back to bed when I got home, but the dog didn't agree with my plans.

It's been a pretty low-key day since then. I took Mike to Panera after the test, and we dropped his guitar off to get new strings. We caught up on some TV watching in the afternoon and rented a movie for this evening.

It feels weird not having Annabelle here. Sounds like she and Fred have had a lot of fun though! I'm glad she recovered just in time to enjoy her trip.

I'm sleeping in tomorrow!

Friday adventures

I am pleased to report that Annabelle finally seems to be on the road to recovery. She lasted less than an hour at school yesterday before coming home and sleeping most of the day away. She was feeling OK when we set out for the airport at 5:30 this morning, and I hope it holds so that she and Fred can have a fun visit.

I had a hair appointment in Louisville at 11:45, so there wasn't much point in coming home. I went to the mall and sat in the parking lot waiting for Macy's to open. While I was waiting, Annabelle phoned in to let me know that she had made it safely to Chicago.

Once the mall opened, I helped her kill time by texting back and forth. I'm having fun with Picture Mail, so I sent her a shot of a display of Derby hats:



(I don't especially want to go to Derby, but I sure wish I had a reason to go hat shopping.)

I didn't find anything at the mall for myself (what's with all the stupid summery clothes?! I'm freezing still!), but I made an absolute score for Annabelle. I found a Tommy Hilfiger hoody that feels like it is lined with teddy-bear fur, originally priced at $100 (who pays that for a hoody?!) and marked down to $50 (still absurd) but brought down through a combination of promotions to under $30 (score!). I ran to the ladies' room and laid it out on a table in the lounge and took a picture of it to send to her:



There was a woman in the lounge nursing a tiny baby while her mom and preschool-aged son loitered nearby. It reminded me of the time when Annabelle was a newborn, and I was nursing her in the ladies' room at Nordstrom (best place for breastfeeding in Tyson's Corner Mall), and I ran into an old friend of mine from Stetson. I didn't want to go all "Sunrise, Sunset" on this poor stranger, but it hit me that that day at Nordstrom feels like yesterday, yet here I was swapping text messages with that "baby" while she waited for her connecting flight at O'Hare. Wah!

OK, enough sentimentality! After the mall, I stopped by Qdoba for a quick lunch of steak nachos and then headed off to my hair appointment. I love going to get my hair done, because my stylist and I just talk about all sorts of stuff. Today, however, we got so busy chatting that we forgot that (duh!) I've been using Retin A to try to fight off wrinkles. Turns out Retin A is the natural enemy of the eyebrow waxing, and I lost a strip of skin just above each eye:



Ouch!

Seventy-five percent

That's how much of the school year is over as of today. End of the third quarter already? How on earth did that happen?!

Fred's school year is buzzing right along too. One of his big activities now is the Eisenhower program, in which he and 11 other colonels travel around to meet with high-school and college students. They made their first trip last month to Pittsburgh, and Fred sent me a link to a newspaper article about it: "Military elite tune into civilian concerns." The article does a much better job of explaining the program than I did!

Wednesday's post

Look at me, taking care of today's post, and it's not even 4 a.m. yet! Of course, it's likely to be the ONLY thing I accomplish today.

Annabelle and I just got back from the ER. The final diagnosis was that she passed out due to not eating and drinking enough because she has felt so terrible the past couple days. We don't know exactly why she has felt so terrible the past couple days, but apparently it's not strep or any other bacterial thing. Don't know about flu, as they were out of the testing swabs. But they did an EKG and a host of lab work and an IV, and she seemed perkier by the time we left, albeit quite tired.

I think she and I will be sleeping in today.

Hospital blogging

Annabelle has been sick for a couple of day. Tonight she fainted, so I brought her to the ER. That was 2 and a half hours ago, and we are still in the waiting room. She's more or less OK--just eager to get home and crawl into bed. I am starting to doubt that we will make it home before midnight, so I decided to type up my blog post on my cellphone. Now I need to go find a place where I can get a signal, so I can upload it.

Time change

Bleah. I hate springing forward. Sure, it's nice to get that extra daylight at the end of the day, but this change always messes with my sleep big-time. The dog and I curled up together for a nice nap this afternoon, which felt great, but now it's 10 p.m., and I don't feel the least little bit sleepy. I also don't feel terribly motivated to do anything though. Looks like a spider solitaire kind of night!

Snakebit

Gold Rush turned out to be lots of fun! After 3 years with the horses, it was fun to sit in the hallway with my friends Tina and April and work the Ways & Means table. We could see everybody but were spared the noisiness and the heat of the rooms where all the action was.

I heard April and Tina discussing an older gentleman who had a really cool hat with a snake head on it. When I saw him walk by, I gave my camera to my friend Gabi and said, "I need to get a picture with my new boyfriend." He seemed tickled pink:



A few minutes later he came back by and motioned for me to come over. He took the hat off and let me wear it!



(Don't worry, Fred--you're still my one and only boyfriend, even if you don't have a snake hat.)

A great day for doing good

The temperature was already in the mid-60s when Annabelle and I left the house this morning. We spent a couple hours in E'town working with some of her youth theater peeps to clear storm debris for the wonderful couple who run the theater program. I figured that given how truly miserable the weather was that caused the mess, we were owed perfect weather for cleaning up, and we got it!

Now I'm getting ready to leave for Gold Rush. I haven't been involved in the planning this year, but I'm going tonight to help my friend Teresa run the Ways & Means table. I'm sitting here in PJs with my hair still wet from the shower though. I think I had better get going!

An evening at the theater

Tonight was the public performance for "Cats and Dogs." I was really impressed by the turnout! I had expected the audience to be mostly family of the cast, but lots of people came out and brought their little kids with them.

The show was excellent! I could hear Annabelle loud and clear.

Pongo's mom gave us a disk of photos she took the other night at dress rehearsal. Here's a cute one of Pongo and Perdita:



I forgot to take my camera tonight, but I did manage to snap a couple after the show. Annabelle with her flowers:



And signing a program:



It was a great end to a busy but fun week!

How I spent my Wednesday night

I whipped up this little video to post on my Hawaii blog:



I don't have the post ready for that blog though, so I figured I would premiere it here.

Also cute and cozy

I finally got around to dropping Fred's scarf off at the post office, and it arrived in Pennsylvania safe and sound. In this self-portrait, he is modeling the scarf I made as well as the hat we gave him for Christmas:



Very handsome, no?

Cute and cozy

I spent this morning working at my home-away-from-home (Panera) while Annabelle was at her show. This little fellow is a regular visitor at Panera:



He always waits so patiently for his master.

The drowsy chaperone

Chilly chaperone is more like it. I "worked" backstage at the dress rehearsal for Annabelle's play tonight, and it was c-c-cold. I say "worked," because really all I did was hang out backstage chatting with the other adults. And when they did a complete run-through of the show, we got to go out and be the audience. Tough job, but somebody has to do it.

The play is called "Cats and Dogs," and it's really 2 mini-plays, one of "Aristocats" and the other of "101 Dalmatians." Annabelle is an alley cat in the first show:



And the mother dog (Perdita) in the second:



I didn't get any really decent pics from "Aristocats," but here's a taste:



And here are a couple of Pongo and Perdita as well as some of their pups:





Here are a couple of brief (very brief--I was running out of room on my memory card) video clips from "101 Dalmatians." Here are Pongo and Perdita summoning the dogs of London using the twilight bark:



And here is a snippet of "Dalmatian Plantation":



They're doing the shows for Hardin County school kids tomorrow and Thursday. Then on Friday night, Mike and I are going to the public performance. Can't wait!

Break a leg, Annabelle!

End of weekend

Oh, I wish this were a 3-day weekend. I could really use another day of nothing in particular. Instead, tomorrow we dive into a crazy-busy week. Annabelle's musical theater group is having the performances for their new show, so it should be fun at least!

Forgot to share

This past fall the trees in the field behind our house turned the most glorious shade of gold. I dragged the kids out there one day to take pictures that I planned on using for our holiday card. Then we wound up using a family photo from Thanksgiving instead, and I kind of forgot about these. But today is cold, and there's nothing terribly exciting going on, so this seems like the perfect occasion to pull them out of the vault:

Such talent!

The kids were a little disappointed that neither of them placed in last night's talent show. Annabelle in particular was pretty hard on herself for her mistakes and wouldn't listen to our reassurances that it sounded great to the audience. I think Gary Larson best illustrated this tendency:



Annabelle played "Ice Dance" from the movie Edward Scissorhands:



Mike played "Classical Gas":



I was terribly impressed by both of them!

Number crunching

Phoning it in

Well, rats. Our Internet has been out for the past few hours and is showing no signs of springing to life before my bedtime. There was an editorial cartoon in today's paper that I wanted to share here. Guess that'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Another season gone

Tonight was the banquet for the swim team, but I swear it doesn't feel like it's already been a year since last year's! As is our tradition, we did a potluck supper in the middle school cafeteria. Coach Mason presented all the swimmers with their varsity or junior varsity letters and talked about what each particular swimmer brought to the team.

Mike got the Outstanding Athlete award for the boys' team:



Everybody is already excited for next season and can't wait for summer practices to start up!

Monday=pizza

We have established a Monday tradition in the past couple of months--pizza night! It works out perfectly because the commissary is closed that day, and I don't have to run out to Walmart to get whatever last-minute ingredient I need in order to cook. And best of all, it takes some of the sting out of the Mondayness of it all.

Tonight I finally finished Fred's scarf. (Remember the box of yarn I gave him for Christmas?) I'll stick it in the mail tomorrow, and maybe I can get a photo to post by the weekend.

Champion time killer

I work awfully hard some days at wasting time. Yesterday, for example, I decided that I wanted a special cellphone ringtone and image for when Fred calls me. First I ripped a song from a CD of the 82nd Airborne Division Chorus and trimmed it down to a 17-second WAV file using the Windows Sound Editor. I reduced the quality to PCM, mono, 8 kHz, 16-bit (not that I have the first freakin' clue what that means, but I was loosely following the directions in this blog post). Then I downloaded PureVoice and used it to convert the file to a QCP format--again, not because I know what that means but because that blog post said to).

Once I had the sound file ready, I picked one of my favorite photos of Fred from my old blog. It shows Fred relaxed, sporting a 2-week growth of beard, and eating French fries (in France) with a knife. I used Rumkin.com's Sprint uploader to upload the files to the Internet, which I then downloaded to my phone via links in texts sent from Rumkin. I assigned them to Fred's listing in my contacts, and voila! Now when Fred calls me, I get this:



I always feel so stupid when it comes to cellphones, so I'm rather proud of myself. I'm hoping that next time I want to create a ringtone I'll be able to pull it together in under an hour. Not bad for a first time though!

Big picture, small picture

There is a better than even chance that I will survive winter.

Grape craving

I hardly ever buy soda to keep at the house. A few weeks ago though, I discovered that Walgreens in E'town sells Welch's grape soda, and I've invented reasons to go there a couple of times just so I can get that grapey goodness. (Believe it or not, it reminds me of Germany, as I used to occasionally buy a can of it at the USO.) So today I decided that when I went to the commissary to pick up a few odds and ends for supper, I was going to treat myself to a 6-pack or a 12-pack or whatever I could find.

Alas, it turns out that Welch's grape soda is not one of the fifty-million soft drinks that the commissary stocks. So I bought some grape Kool-Aid instead, which was good but not quite the same thing.

We had supper freakishly early tonight. I was back upstairs in my PJs by 6 p.m., and I think I am going to spend the rest of the evening catching up on my TV watching. I have a lot of shows to clean off the DVR.

Oh, by the way, if you missed seeing Annabelle's post from yesterday, you need to go check it out. She posted the German video she made for the upcoming foreign language festival.

Blogging from E'town

My hobby for today is driving to and from Elizabethtown. I had 2 appointments this morning and went home in between to walk the dog, as I knew I would be going straight from the second appointment to the school board meeting. Then I came back one last time this evening to take Annabelle to youth orchestra rehearsal. Each week I contemplate dropping her off and heading for the bookstore, but I just enjoy listening too much to pass up an opportunity. Right now they are playing a medley of classics from Bugs Bunny cartoons, and I get so excited each time I hear her bassoon. I feel like one of those moms at the end of The Music Man: "Plaaay for me, Whatsyername!"

Wine and munchies

I've gotten into a nice little habit with a couple of friends where we get together occasionally for an evening of wine and Mexican layer dip, and tonight was one of those nights. Such fun!

Fred had his knee fixed today. By all reports it went well, and he assures me that it was not nearly as traumatic as when he had the other knee done (twice) in San Antonio a few years ago. He plans on being back in class tomorrow!

A night out on the town

Annabelle has been on a break from her bassoon lessons for the past couple of months. We didn't set out to take a break, but things got crazy with her various performances over the holidays. Then she had all those teeth pulled, which added to her time away. She got back into her lessons this afternoon though, and we all went to make an evening of it in Louisville.

After Annabelle's lesson at the university, we zipped over to Lynn's Paradise Cafe for supper. Then we hopped on I-64 and headed across town so the kids could get their hair cut. Now we're getting to bed a little on the late side, as the kids had homework to finish up when we got home.

End of the weekend

I swear today felt like Saturday. I'm not going to know what to make of tomorrow when alarms go off before dawn and the kids troop off to school.

It was nice having Fred home this weekend, although this certainly wasn't the fun weekend we had planned. We did manage to get caught up on the current season of Big Love. I also got my video footage from Regionals uploaded to the computer, although I have yet to start breaking it down into YouTube clips. Baby steps, baby steps!

Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don't we go . . .

Our major accomplishment for today was finalizing plans for our summer vacation! After Fred graduates, we're going to take the kids to Jamaica for 5 nights. This is where we're going to stay! Can't wait!!

Change of plans

We're having a nice weekend with Fred home, although my ongoing experience with the plague has forced us to change our plans around a bit. We wisely canceled tonight's fancy hotel stay a couple days days ago, and yesterday we opted to do lunch then instead of our planned dinner out tonight. The trip to the airport and restaurant seemed to sap all of my energy yesterday, so Fred and the kids scavenged for last night's supper, and we saved my birthday dinner (grilled scallops!) for tonight when I could enjoy it. My major accomplishments for today were taking a 2-hour nap and helping Fred do our taxes. Tomorrow I hope to shower. Good to have goals, eh?

Happy birthday, Jenny!

This picture, taken at the Walmart in Mililani, Hawaii, best captures my sister's offbeat, fun-loving personality:

Looks like an Olympic moment

Mike got a text from his friend Sam today asking, "Did you see our epic man love in The Turret?"



Fred is supposed to be arriving in Louisville in a little under an hour. Instead he is stranded in stupid Newark thanks to stupid Continental Airlines. He is scheduled to leave for stupid Cleveland at 1 o'clock in the morning before getting here shortly before noon tomorrow. I just got a text from him though, and he may be leaving at 10:50. Who knows?

Better but still not good

I felt pretty good when I woke up this morning. I still had a cough, but I was able to make it to a school meeting at 9 and hit the commissary for a few necessities and take a short walk with the dog. By early afternoon, however, my energy was flagging, and my cough seemed worse. All through supper tonight, I was counting the minutes until I could come up here and crawl into bed. So while I'm definitely doing better (and I give the Sambucol credit for that), I still have a ways to go. I'm going to take it extra easy tomorrow morning, as I have to take Annabelle to E'town for orchestra rehearsal tomorrow afternoon and then go pick Fred up from the airport late tomorrow night.

Well, the flu test was negative . . .

. . . but I think it's wrong.

When I went to bed last night, I noticed a little tickle in my throat. Nothing major, and the only reason I remember it is that I decided I was too lazy to get up and get a drink of water. This morning I had a cough. By noon I had a cough and body aches. And over the course of the afternoon, I felt my temperature rise bit by bit.

I had a hair appointment in Louisville today, which no way was I going to miss, but when I got home, I went to the ER. They did a rapid flu test, but it was negative.

I hope I hit bottom soon so I can start recovering. Fred is flying in Thursday night. We're celebrating my birthday on Friday, watching the state swim meet on Saturday, and spending the night Saturday at some swanky hotel for Valentine's Day. Sick is NOT an option!!!

Button eyes!

I'm afraid all I did today towards getting my video clips ready was to install Premiere Elements on my laptop computer. I hardly ever get on the desktop one these days if I can avoid it. Maybe tomorrow I can actually capture the footage and work towards getting it posted!

I picked Ginger up from the kennel this morning. I'm a little ashamed to admit how much I enjoyed my dog-less day yesterday, especially after her enthusiastic greeting for me when we were reunited. She's normally not a very barky dog, but sometimes when the joy is just too much, she gets quite yippy.

I did get around to doing a button eyes photo of myself:



My aunt sent me the link, and all the cool kids are doing it. You should go make one yourself.

So THIS is that global warming I've heard so much about

We made it into the low 60s today and expect the trend to continue at least until the middle of the week. I was still slipping on ice in my driveway as recently as Friday, and today I wore sandals. Some people are meant to live in warm climates, and I am one of them. My whole mood is brighter when I'm not freezing my tail off.

I have a lot of work to do transferring my video clips from Regionals to the computer and getting them posted online. I thought it was going to happen today but apparently it's not. So I'll just give the quick and dirty report and save the videos for (I hope) tomorrow.

Mike qualified for day 2 in all 4 of his events. Final results:

200 medley relay: 2:01.82 (9th place)

200 IM: 2:33.46 (10th place)

200 freestyle relay: 1:45.37 (8th place)

100 breaststroke: 1:15.01 (10th place)

Too bad that videostream didn't work as expected yesterday. The site says they are uploading new copies of the swimming competition, but so far all they have is the same 11-minute grainy clip they had yesterday.

I can't believe swim season is all over!

Tune in!

Starting at 2:00EST, go to www.ckysports.com to watch a live stream of day 2 of Regionals! Mike's events:

event 2, heat 1, lane 4 (200 medley relay) (Mike swims the breaststroke leg)

event 6, heat 1, lane 6 (200 IM) (pay attention to his transition from backstroke to breaststroke)

event 18, heat 1, lane 4 (200 freestyle relay) (last I heard, Mike swims first)

event 22, heat 1, lane 6 (100 breaststroke)

Quick Regionals report

Greetings from the Best Western in Frankfort. We have eight boys and five girls returning for the finals tomorrow. Mike is going back in all 4 of his events--2 relays and 2 individual events! Knox rocks the blocks!

Getting ready

I was so looking forward to my long night of sleeping. I had such high hopes when I turned off the TV at 10 and passed out cold. And then I woke up at midnight. And pretty much hourly thereafter until the kids got up a little before 6. I'm just so excited about Regionals that I couldn't sleep! (Good thing I don't have to swim.)

I've been going a mile a minute all day getting things ready. I made 2 batches of blueberry muffins, figuring that they would be good for Mike to have on hand for snacking. I made a batch of Krispie treats, because it's just not a roadtrip with Krispie treats. I took the dog to the kennel, bought last-minute stuff (like a backup pair of goggles), and took Annabelle to orchestra rehearsal.

Somehow I managed to find time in my busy day to break my toe. I was walking between my bedroom and my office (barefoot! I never walk around barefoot!), and I kind of listed to one side and kicked the corner of the wall. It's just mildly painful as long as I'm not doing anything to it, but if I try to wiggle or curl my toes, I feel like the bones are coming right through the skin. Ouch!

It's going to be an exciting couple of days. Here's hoping I sleep better tonight!

Sleeping in tomorrow

For the past couple of months, Mike has had swim practice at 6 a.m. most days. I kept meaning to re-adjust my schedule so that he could just drive himself to the gym and then on to school and I wouldn't need to go anywhere until he got home in the afternoon. Somehow I never got around to it though, so we've gone through the following daily routine:

5:15 Mike gets up and turns on the car. Once it warms up, he drives himself to the gym.

7:00 He calls me to wake me up and let me know he's on his way home. I put on my fleece-lined jeans and throw a sweatshirt over my PJ top and meet him downstairs as he tosses his wet suit and towel into the kitchen and grabs dry ones for afternoon practice.

7:15 I drive him (and sometimes a swim buddy) to school and take the car back home so I can have it later.

7:30 I creep back up to my room, strip off the jeans, and crawl back into bed to wait for the sun to come up.

Well, today was the LAST morning practice for this season, and I am positively giddy at the idea of not having to leave the house at that ridiculously early hour!

Happy birthday to me!

When you give a gift--especially to a child--it's difficult to know whether your gift will have true staying power. For example, when my grandmother had a puzzle made of a photo of my fifth birthday party, who would have thought that I would work that puzzle with only one piece missing on my forty-second birthday?



Here's the original that the puzzle was made from:



And here's another scene from that day:



Don't we look cute and . . . vintage?

I don't have any big plans for the day. We're saving the bulk of the celebrating for Presidents' Day weekend when Fred will be here. I've got a board meeting at 12:30. Aside from that I'm going to take it easy.

Edited to add:Whee! After I got home from my meeting, my friends Sandy and Laura stopped by and surprised me with layer dip, brownies, and presents:



I'm having a very nice day. :-)

Things that make you go hmmm

Today I saw a billboard that advertised tattoos WHILE YOU WAIT. Such an improvement over the old system, where you had to drop off the body part to be inked and wait--sometimes for days--for it to be sent back to you.

Also, I heard that the almighty groundhog has proclaimed that we will have 6 more weeks of winter. At first I started to get angry or at least disappointed. But then I thought, heck, 6 weeks isn't that bad. I'll take 6 weeks. But I am putting the groundhog on notice that I expect winter to be OVER on March 16!

End of the longest week

We are usually so busy that time really flies by. This past week though draaaaaaaagged. Some of it was a nice drag, where we actually had a moment to catch our breath and be a little bit bored. But the part where we sat around freezing and wondering when the power would come back on or how long it would last this time pretty much sucked.

Tomorrow we get to ease back into our regular routine. The schools have already planned a 2-hour delay, which is nice. Those buildings are going to need a little time to heat up! The rest of the week should fly by, with swim practice for Mike and theater rehearsal for Annabelle and meetings and errands for me. The week will culminate with the 2-day regional swimming competition in Versailles (rhymes with "fur whales") next Friday and Saturday.

Getting back to normal

The first day of this storm was fun and exciting. The second and third days were stressful, with the loss of electricity and uncertainty about what we should do. Yesterday was better, and today has been downright pleasant. Today is sunny and warm (oh, how low have my standards become when 34 degrees feels nice?!), and the ice is dropping from the trees and power lines. Fort Knox sounds like Rice Krispies.

The dog has not coped especially well with the storm. For one thing, her potty schedule is all kinds of messed up. Also, the terror of listening to the trees fall the other night seems to have given her night-time anxiety about her kennel. Her kennel is her happy place and the one spot I can feel 100% certain that she won't have a potty accident, which also makes it MY happy place. I really cannot afford to have her taking a negative attitude toward her crate, which is why I ventured forth to E'town today to score some Valium. For the dog, for the dog! I am a teensy bit jealous though, I admit, and can't help but think that if I took the Valium, she could use the whole house for her restroom and that would be fine by me.

Mike and I were in movie mode yesterday. First we watched Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's new flick. I'm not usually a huge Eastwood fan, but the movie was much better than I expected. At first I was disappointed in the ending, but after reflecting on it, I decided that really it was the proper ending. Then last night we watched The Untouchables, which I adore. It's not my usual type of movie, but I enjoyed it as much today as I did when I first saw it almost 20 years ago. (The movie is actually 22 years old, but I resisted watching it at first because, again, NOT my kind of movie.)

Not again!

The power just went out again. Annabelle heard they were going to shut it off for an hour at 10 last night, but that never happened. Maybe this is it. I hope so!

Edited to add: It's 6:20 a.m., and we've got power again. All's well that ends well, except that the dog goes bonkers every time the power either goes on or off. I was able to ignore her earlier when it went out, but this time she was just freaking out. I got her out of her kennel and stood in the doorway while she ran outside on her leash and refused to pee. Now she's back in bed, and I'm headed that way myself.

We'll be getting a lot more of the afternoon sun

Poor tree:

Back for now

We got our electricity back about an hour ago. I hope it's for good this time. I have the heat cranked up to 80 just in case.

Nooo!!!

It went out again. The stupid power went out again. Please tell me that this is a joke.

Let there be light (and heat)!

Oh, beautiful, beautiful electricity! I missed you so much! NEVER do that to me again.

The power wound up being out for not quite 12 hours. All in all, it wasn't so bad--got down to around 60 in the house, which actually felt toasty after taking the dog outside--but I was dreading having to make it through the night. Three cheers for Nolin Electric! Now I just hope it stays on. There are still a lot of ice-covered branches waiting to drop.

I took some pictures of the damage. This is the tree in our front yard that I mentioned in last night's post:



Same tree, but taken from my bedroom window:



The side of our house:



The view down our street:



And some ice that I thought looked interesting:

Let's see if this works

I am sending this from my cell phone, as we lost power 15 minutes ago. I woke up to hear the dog going batshit crazy in her kennel. I think she was responding to our big tree I referred to in my last post giving up a fairly good sized limb.

Now I am just lying here alone in the dark, listening to the periodic crashes of icy branches coming down. It's pretty scary, and suddenly my snow day is not much fun.