SHEs Organized

(((Lilac DGD3)))) Owie!!!

I did the afternoon school pickup. Only TEN MORE DAYS of twice a day school runs!! Maybe....just maybe next year LO will be willing to be dropped off at school door and I won't need to physically walk him in to his classroom each day. On the flip side....I will probably cry the first time that happens because it will be another marker of him growing up.

DMom is doing very well adjusting to her new life. After 63 years of happy marriage, she is bravely meeting each new challenge of being widowed. She recently told me the biggest change in daily routine is not needing to take the trash out every day. DDaddy used to fill up 6 small trash cans with kleenex daily. Really. I'm not exaggerating! Family & friends continue to stop by her house frequently. I don't think a day has passed since DDaddy died without several people visiting her. She has several projects in progress. She is enlarging her flower and vegable gardens. She is also getting new carpet laid (on order) and we recently went chair shopping. She has probably looked/sat in over 200 chairs in her quest for the *perfect* chair for her. I think she found it. Unfortunately the place we were shopping (Lazyboy Gallery) didn't sell the furniture from the store (we didn't realize that). It has to be ordered and picked up days later. Plans are in place for DDIL to pick up the chair later this week and transport it to DMom's home.

LO afternoon/evening cards are working well. He loves doing his cards!

FYI - LucyLee posted in J&C

LOL, Helia. Yes, I've met Kathryn and she is lovely and lively. And Ken also. Wishing I could see them this trip but we are going on vacation just when they hit this area.

This ended up being one heck a day. Spent from approx 9:45 to 12:45 getting car services, including getting new tires. Also got a new car key, since we are down to one somehow and realized this afternoon that it will start the ignition but not lock or open doors remotely. So I need to make a trip back so they can get that right. By the time they were done with the car, I needed to go straight to dmom's to pick her up for dr appointment. Got through that alright and stopped off at home so she could say hello to ds, then got her home. Had to reset her Google password and then did a meds inventory for refills for her doc appointment on Thursday.

Anyway, I went into the day with a fair amount of energy and at this point have none.

Lucylee has been OMM all day.

Tomorrow there's nothing on the schedule. I may try to get a pedicure before we go to the beach.

Helia - I DO!!!!!! I would love to met more SHE's! Maybe someday..................

I recently ran across a picture of Bob's Mom and myself taken in 2002 SHE meeting.

I'm taking a break from working on paperwork.
Good News - June 2012 papers are completely processed.
Not so good news......there are still 6 more months of 2012 tax related papers to be processed.

Back at it. July 2012 - get ready because here I come!

Hi everybody!

Mike and I have also met K and K. We (Mike and I) keep saying we have to get back up to that area of Ontario soon.

Speaking about travelling SHE's... Mike is going to Cuba next week for a week without me. That means I will be doing a major blitz on paper (#1 problem for me, part of which includes the fact that Mike hates "stuff" being left out) I'm certain that numerous closets/cupboards/drawers and storage areas will get organized in some way/shape or form. He leaves on a Tuesday and gets home the day after a holiday Monday. I have asked for the Monday off, but I don't know yet if I will get it. (Dialysis clients in wheelchairs still have to get to their hospital appointments.)

Today I made one of those things (starts with an "l") to chart out the days between now and when he gets back with the Friday night/Sat. and Sun. highlighted with numerous things I would like to accomplish.

I wonder who has met the most IRL SHE's? I'm guessing MT, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was Kathryn

CathyS - YGG! Sounds like your plan is coming together.

July 2012 paperwork is done! YES!

Things I will never understand. WHY OH WHY do 4 year old boys think it is HILARIOUS to put dirt down their pants? Why would they even think of doing it? Why does being covered in dirt not bother them in the least?

LO is in the bathtub. I probably should empty the water and put fresh clean water in to finish washing him. HUm......maybe someone should invent a little boy bathtub that has cycles like a washing machine.....wash...empty water....rinse...empty water....2nd rinse....empty water....dry

OKay, you are in our sights but we aren't sure we can do it. It certainly isn't wise, but dh has a meeting in Santa Fe and we think that takes us past you. The downside is that it is a 4 day straight through drive for us (we only drive 7 - 8 hours a day) and it would be November so weather is a concern. Someone needs to tell me what trouble we might run into going up into the hills around Santa Fe. I'm northern and I can't imagine the weather would be good for that. Snow tires complicate things (they aren't meant to be used in warm weather but we'd need them for the northern part of the trip.)

The connectedness of SHEs came out at dinner. I cuop in J&C and burst into tears in the restaurant. I was so hoping they'd make it in time. She's just an anonymous person on the internet, someone I've never met, and yet all I could think of was that my friend had lost her daddy today.

And I felt bad that Helia and I had had such a great day when one of our village was hurting so badly.

We are checked into the hotel. Made it in 3 hours and 40 minutes including a sit-down dinner at Ruby Tuesdays (our first time there but most certainly not our last - it was so nice to have a healthy, affordable, meal while on the road and we were in and out in 35 minutes but never felt rushed.)

Dh grabbed the key at reception and ran up to the room to start his conference call (which, given the volume and tone of his voice, it isn't going well.) I moved the car to a better parking spot, programmed the gps for tomorrow night and brought up two loads of stuff from the car. There is an elevator which I missed the first time up. The second time I had got to the car without the keys so had to go back (did that at Helia's as well) and still my knee is fine. It was awful on Sunday so the long drives seem to be healing it (plus physio.) The third load came up in the elevator. All that is left is the cooler (but I hand carried up my physio ice packs and tossed them in the freezer.)

The next several posts will be ones I wrote in the car today.

Written between AA and Columbus.

Wonderful visit with Helia today.

We managed to arrive within 5 minutes of my estimate, despite having to stop at three stores looking for my allergy meds. Apparently, Walmart in southern Ontario isn't carrying it and I didn't want to try another brand when I'm heading off on such a long trip.

The pills worked wonderfully at Maia and Peppers house, you'd never know I was allergic to animals. And when we opened the door and the scent of the magnolia tree in the front yard washed over us, I only had the slightest catch in my throat.

Pepper greeted dh when he opened the car door and Maia greeted us at the kitchen door. She is adorable but Pepper is pretty great as well, calm and loving attention. We love dogs so it was fun to have some to play with.

Helia had baked sugar cookies (dh's favourite) and he claims they rival mine even though they are from a mix. They do too, and are much better than the 'cheating' sugar cookies I make using cake mix.

We enjoyed several hours of chatting. It is always strange to meet a SHE in real life because we know each other so well, but at the same time we've never met. And to get used to really seeing her instead of just visualizing her when she was talking. And getting used to hearing her kids' names in conversation.

The house is lovely but not at all how I imagined the inside (layout, not housekeeping, I don't give a hoot about that) I'm interested in floorplan, architectural details and am fully jealous of all the storage Helia has. Plus she has a great bathroom with little shelves next to the toilet that the men-folk designed in thinking of knick-knacks but, who really puts knick-knacks there, so she uses if for toilet paper which is incredibly practical and it looks like that's what it was designed for. One problem with hiding the spare toilet paper rolls under a cabinet is that when the last roll is put in the dispenser, TP has to be put on a shopping list and, certainly in my house, that doesn't always get done if I don't change the roll. Thankfully, we have three toilets so at any given time there's a spare roll somewhere but at Helia's, the inventory situation is never unknown.

Poor Helia, she's probably mortified that this is the one item in her house that I'm writing about instead of her amazing laundry room (tons of space to sort and fold clothes and unbelievable storage), the built in china cabinet, the window seat her dh built or her great new windows. Nope, it will be the toilet paper shelves and the cute 6" high barriers to keep Maia out of the trouble that were easy for the rest of us to step over (including Pepper.)

The outside was exactly what I imagined. Except for the magnolia tree, which I think of a southern tree.

Time flew, the girls came home from school (we couldn't get over how much her dd17 looks like our dd) and it was time to hit the road again with dh graciously driving to give me a chance to get some posts written.

Catching up since Sunday:

Thank you for the anniversary wishes. We had a very good day together. Of course, that's true almost every day, I'm very blessed. We made a point of having schnitzel for lunch at a restaurant we wanted to try and taking time to walk out onto a bridge in the time and look at the rushing river. Then we hit the road again and had McDonalds for dinner.

Booksaver I followed the travel blog of the guy who went round the world with no luggage. Parts were fascinating (like the fact that no luggage left him open to take time to see a city during a long flight layover because he wasn't having the schlep bags around.) On the other hand, he didn't take any meds at all so was dependent on the kindness of people like me who are a travelling pharmacy, if he felt sick on a plane. Not to mention women issues. I did learn from the comments section that the crystal deodorant works better if you wet the skin instead of the crystal and have been doing that with far greater success than I had before.

Harriet: We are coming and we bring sunshine with us when we travel. Of course, I've looked at the weather forecast and even I'll think myself magical if I can stop the rain over the rest of this week!