Long Day

Last night and today was orientation for my youngest at his new school. I left orientation last night after a few minutes of greeting old acquaintances and spent quality time with my oldest. The youngest had to spend the night.

Today I got up at 6:15 a.m., showered, dressed, had breakfast, and drove the hour to get back to the orientation by 8:30 a.m. The sessions started right on time and went on all day.

We would listen for a couple of sessions, get up to walk to another building, get a snack, attend another session, go back to the other building, get up, have a meal, and then go back to the other building, etc. We finally finished up around 6:00 p.m.

We stopped on the way home to get ice cream at Beth Marie's, then went to IKEA to replace my bedroom quilting bookcase that I gave up to the boys for their playroom.

The youngest and I finally got home around 8:40 p.m. tonight. Hot, thirsty, and so tired. We looked at the pool and thought about how great it would feel on such a hot sticky night, but we were both too tired to make the effort to get in and out of it. Too tired to cool off in the pool, now that is sad, but quite a testament as to how long this day was.

My Days "A Here"

My maternal grandmother was really something, not a nice something either. She lived with us for at least five years, but I think it may have been closer to eight. I know we were still in Ohio when she moved in, and it was after my paternal grandmother had died, but that is as far as it goes in my mind.

I really could write a book about this woman, but I don't like to dwell on the hurtful things in my life, and she was one of them on many occasions. However, her antics have provided me with lots of laughs in my life too.

Her name was Fanny Mae Spoonamore Thompson, and one of her favorite sayings was "Your days a coming." (days = "day is" but she ran the day and is together) Later my mother and I would use this against each other for different circumstances.

My mother always waited up for me when I went out in the evenings. Even after I graduated from college and was still living at home (waiting for Raymond to finish up a semester behind me and we could get married), my mother would sleep on the couch each night I went out and wait for me to get home. Since triple showings at the drive-in was one of my favorite things to do with my best friend, it was often three in the morning before I would get home, so Mom had lots of "couch" nights during the warmer months of the year. After a pretty sleepless night for her she would say "Your days a coming."

Well, my days "a here" now.

My oldest did not get home until 4 a.m. this morning. He was not out partying, drinking, clubbing, or anything that would make me out of my mind with worry, he was working on a job that would put money in his pocket, and learning a new skill. What was driving me out of my mind was I did not like the area he was in. I did not know the person he was working with, and it was a pretty long drive back to our house and he falls asleep if he closes his eyes.

The oldest sent me a text at the appropriate time telling me that they still had several hours left to finish the project they were working on. I went to bed at my usual time, read until I fell asleep and was not having any trouble sleeping until about 2 a.m. I checked my phone, and there were no new texts, but the oldest wasn't home. I decided to read again, and at 2:30 went back to sleep. Up again, at 3:00, had a small anxiety attack, read, and finally went back to sleep at 3:30 but still no new texts. Oldest came in at 4:00 a.m. I checked my phone and there was a text by then. He asked if he could sleep late because he has another job this afternoon (unpaid). He also told me that if I looked closely at the text I would notice it was not from his phone as his had quit working. (We are researching new phones now because of issues we are both having with our phones.)

I am not getting enough sleep lately because of my oldest being out so much. He belongs to two groups on campus. When one of them meets he does not get home until 2 a.m. The other one he gets home between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. These groups meet late because the other members are still in their early twenties and have jobs during the day, but they are also young enough to not understand the value of sleep so they don't mind meeting until the early hours.

So finally my grandmothers prophesy came true. My days "a here" when it comes to worrying about my child being out most of the night. I don't like it, and there is not much I can do about it now, but there is an out coming up.

My oldest will be able to start living in his new apartment June 20th, and even though he wants to stay here this summer, we have decided that on meeting nights he can just sleep in his apartment on campus. That way I don't have to worry about him falling asleep on the road, or getting hit by a drunk driver, which means a lot more sleep for me.

I know that Mom and Fanny Mae are up there laughing. I guess it is time to start using the saying on my boys.

I wonder what next "a here" is going to get me.

Chair Fund Update

As you can see, the "Chair Fund" is gathering more dust than coins.

As my youngest said, it is hard to save for something when the old one is still in use. Easy for him to say, he isn't the one that gets stuck by a wire every day.

He is right though. It is very hard to get enthusiastic about a new chair.

Of course, plumbing issues, a new pool heater, and spending money for the boys' trip to Costa Rica are getting in the way too.

The fund will probably do better once I get the youngest off to school in the fall.

Great Day, Lousy Evening

I had a great day today.

I went to work excited about my plans for the day.

I went to lunch with my friend Marie. "Hi, Marie!" Her birthday is coming up, but she is also getting ready to go to Colorado to see her daughter for an unknown amount of time, so I took her out today. We went to Taste of Home in Wylie for a tasty meal, and then did a little browsing at Blue Ribbon Quilt Shoppe. Once back at work I showed her my quilts.

Marie is a great sounding board for me. I really appreciate the fact that she is there for me and that she understands how tough my situation at work can be at times. She is a scrapbooker and from what I have seen a very good one. She has a very good eye.

After Marie left I worked for about another 90 minutes, and then I came home expecting to get quite a bit done on setting up my quilting area now that the tortoise table is out of the living room. (YEAH!!!) However, for whatever reason after just a little bit of work my hips started really bothering me and I was down for the night.

I really thought the weather change was over and I was through with the pain for the week. Guess not.

I'm going to try to watch a movie and hand quilt, but I may be off to bed instead.

It is very discouraging to have such a great day only to have the evening turn lousy, but I am not going to let the pain take away the joy I am carrying over from my time with my friend.

Itchy, Itchy, Itchy

I have bites all over my legs and shoulders from those nasty little mosquitoes that like to hang around my garden.

My youngest has used up almost all my spray on Benadryl. I hope I can sleep.

I Gave Myself A Great Gift

When Raymond first got sick several doctors told us it was his back and that the best thing he could do was exercise in a pool, so we put in a pool. Not a small play pool, but a pool that is 40x22 feet. Of course, it was not his back, and he never got to use the pool very much after it was in. He was able to swim some after his amputation, he even made himself a special bench so he could get in etc, but he was getting chemo almost constantly and had a port or line that kept him from swimming a great deal of the time.

Anyone that has a pool knows that it requires a lot of maintenance. Raymond was never able to actually work on the pool once he got sick, so all the work has fallen on me or the boys. We have had several problems over the years and I have had them all fixed, but it seemed that every time I found a great pool maintenance man, he would quit the business or move. I have never had a cleaning/chemical service.

Since this is probably the last summer that the boys will be here without jobs, etc., I decided that I did not want to do anything with the pool but go out there and jump in whenever I wanted. So I started checking around and I found a pool service on a local online forum. I called the man and he came out immediately. He is a wonderful man who has been in the business for over 20 years, but has just recently moved to Texas.

He has been out and cleaned my pool to where it is spotless. He found a few issues with my equipment and I called a man he recommended to look at the problems (how nice that I did not have to find someone myself). I found out my 11 year old gas heater was actually dangerous due to some internal problems, so I will have a new heater installed Saturday.

I am so excited about the pool this summer. All we will need to do before we swim is empty the skimmers and look for wildlife. YEAH! The boys are happy because they won't have to spend so much time working on the pool each week.

This was a huge decision for me because it added to my financial burden, but I cannot begin to express how excited I am about the summer now.

What Wonderful Technology

A storm woke me up in the middle of the night last night and I when I went back to sleep I had a horrific nightmare, so I decided to stay awake and read. The only thing handy was my Kindle2, but the only thing on there right now that I wanted to read was a sample I had downloaded last week.

I pulled the sample up and read it, and really enjoyed the story, even though I am pretty sure I read it out of the library a couple of years ago. When I finished the sample, I still was not sleepy, and I was back to nothing handy I wanted to read. I laid there for a few minutes and decided that if I got up to look for something I wanted to read I would probably 1) wake myself up so much I would never get back to sleep; 2) risk waking up the oldest and not get back to sleep. I was getting extremely frustrated.

Then I thought, what am I so frustrated about. I turned my K2 back on, went to the end of the sample I had just completed and clicked the button and before I could get my pillows adjusted the full book was there for me to read. I read until about 6:30 a.m., then I slept until my alarm went off at 7:25 a.m. What wonderful technology.