If you missed my email, the anxiety from my last post was because of an interview.  I still haven’t heard anything back from that, but I didn’t expect to until late this week or next week.  I’m not sure how good my chances are, but I’ll be sure to let you know when I know something.

I’ve found a gym to replace the one near my house that closed.  There’s a YMCA near work that has a deal with employees.  It’s a little further away from the house, but it’s significantly cheaper.  And they do offer a Zumba class on Wednesdays at 5:30.  So I’m heading there after work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the foreseeable future.  It’s not bad!  And I get home for the evening earlier since I’m going directly to the gym and then going home, instead of the other way around.

I’m going to a symposium for work.  I don’t know how I managed to score an invitation – no one has admitted nominating me.  But it’s in Orlando in a fancy, swanky hotel and all my expenses are paid and I get paid to be there and the talks are all about Lean and process improvement and I’m very excited about the whole thing.  Justin’s coming with me because he can stay in the hotel for free and only have to pay for his food and he’ll just bring the netbook and work from the hotel.  He doesn’t get to come to the fancy dinner at the end of the symposium, and that’s a bummer, but it’ll be wonderful to have him there.

From the symposium, we’ll drive up to Luke’s wedding.  We’ll actually spend Monday – Wednesday night at the symposium, Thursday night at a hotel on the road, Friday and Saturday night at a place near the wedding, and Sunday night at another hotel on the road.  We won’t stay in our own bed for a week!  But looking at the price of tickets (greater than $500) and the price of hotels and gas (less than $500), we decided to take the less expensive way, even through the drive will be really long.  It’s going to be interesting!  And the wedding is going to be awesome!

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep up with tasks at work.  There are a lot of projects to complete in the next couple weeks and I expect them to stack up more than they’re already stacked.  It’s just the way things go.  “Oh?  You’re busy?  Let me give you more to do!”

But it’s not bad!  In the evenings, Justin and I might make dinner together and watch an episode of Pushing Daisies or Eureka, both excellent shows if you’re not familiar with them.  Or we’ll poke at our computers and relax.  His work stuff is going slower than we’d like, just because people are slower at responding to requests for information than we’d prefer.  But we’re still optimistic about how it’s going to work in the end.  Things might be tight right now, but life is still so much better than it was when he was working for the Awful Place.

So life is good!  Busy!  But we make time to relax and maintain our sanity.  Before money got tight, we bought a year-pass to a beach not far from here, and we might head up there this weekend.  It’s a great way to get away from it all for a while, and then I sleep for the rest of the afternoon because it’s exhausting!

It’s a great life!

Wednesday:

• Awake at 3:30 to drive to the airport in Charleston.  Drink 30 oz of coffee and get VERY WIRED.
• Fly from Charleston to Chicago.
• Fly from Chicago to Milwaukee.
• Sit in Milwaukee for a long time because our flight was delayed.
• Find a used bookstore in the airport.

Bookstore where?

Renaissance Books

• Fly to Minneapolis.
• Collect our rental car and call Nathan and Co.
• Meet Nathan & Co. and Erica & Ltd. at Erica’s house and have a fun-filled picnic dinner.
• Play with nieces and nephews and lots and lots of balls.  Play in the park.

Fun with plastic balls

• Eat s’mores with Erica.
• Go to bed after being awake for about 20 hours.

Thursday:

• Get up to go running with Erica and plod my way through 2.5 miles for the first time in many, many months.
• Ache for the next 2 days.
• Shower, dress, and drive away.
• Chat with Erica and pass things to Chloe until we get to Eau Claire.

Chloe, show me your teeth!

• Have a delightful lunch with Mom and Dad.
• Go to Goodwill to find shoes for Chloe and buy a hat and purse.
• Drive to Grandma’s house.

Grandma's house

• Have a delightful dinner with Grandma and Dee and stay up late chatting.

Friday:

• Get up and have a big breakfast with Grandma and Dee.
• Sit around chatting and working out genealogy and enjoying company.
• Shower.
• Take Chloe to the park and have fun running around.

Chloe on the playground

• Eat lunch.
• Go through my wedding book with Grandma, pointing out people she didn’t know.
• Say good-byes and drive away.

Group shot with Grandma and Dee

• Drive to Knoxville, IA.
• Get lost.
• Get un-lost.
• Hug Grandpa Doug and other people in the dark and not know who they are.
• Get settled into the camper trailer and meet Justin’s aunt, uncle, and cousin.
• Sleep on a mattress covered in plastic, with heads lower than our feet and get a sore throat.

Saturday:

• Get up and chat with people in the trailer while breakfasting and getting ready.
• Wander down to the pond and meet a couple more people.
• Wander down to the barn and say good morning to Grandpa Doug and Great-uncle Bob and a few other people.

Barnett's barn

• Wander down to the tent and meet Great-uncle Jerry and help him wipe down chairs for lunch.

Reunion tent

• Meet a couple more people.
• Run into town to grab some things from Walmart (a pillow, throat drops, hot dogs, a fan)
• Make it back to the farm in time to meet a whole bunch more people, grab a few sodas, and stand around chatting for a little bit before lunch.
• Have an unfortunate run-in with a gust of wind in a billowy top and face questions about whether I’m pregnant.  Quelch that rumor as quickly as possible.
• Eat lunch.
• Sit around chatting with people.
• Sneak off to take a nap.
• Wander around the property of a distant cousin who raises lilies and hostas.

Randy's hostas

Randy's flowers

Purple flowers

Stone stairs

Grass driveway

Lily

• Jump in the pond for a swim before dinner.
• Meet a couple more people while swimming.
• Go to dinner in a different outfit than at lunch.  No billowing.
• Meet even more people.
• Cheer for the talent show.

Grandpa Doug on harmonica

• Cook s’mores.
• Chat with people until dark.
• Watch the men clear up chairs and tables in preparation for inclement weather.
• Move trash bags to the side so they wouldn’t wash away.
• Walk back to the trailer in awe of all the lightning bugs.
• Die of heat while trying to sleep, even with the fan blowing, with a sore throat and feet higher than our heads and a loud plastic wrapper on the mattress.

Sunday:

• Wake up, breakfast, shower, dress.  Feel very groggy, head-stuffy, throat-achy.
• Go to the high school for lunch because of the expectation of rain.
• Cram 130+ people into the high school cafeteria.

Barnetts in the high school cafeteria

• Meet a few more people.
• Eat delicious lunch.
• Release a microphone to the masses.
• Hide in the bathroom for a little bit.
• Walk around the school with Justin a little bit.
• Leave messages on Gillian’s phone.
• Drive back to the farm.

Barnett rock

• Go sit at the barn out of the rain and talk with people.
• Walk back to the pond and watch Justin go swimming while I sit on the dock under an umbrella.
• Change into dry clothes.  Call Gillian.
• Chat with people for a little longer.
• Go see Gillian.
• Chat with Gillian and play with her children for a while.  Forget to take a picture.
• Leave so the kids can get to sleep.  Go out for dinner.
• Watch fireworks as we drive home.
• Go to sleep with sound of rain and cool air blowing.

Monday:

• Wake up, breakfast, shower, dress, pack.
• Throw everything into car.
• Wander up to the barn to chat with people.
• Wander around old homestead house and take pictures.

Git offa my lawn

Outside his childhood bedroom window

Outhouse

Wooden steps

Water wheel

The reason we made the trip

• Sit back down and chat some more.
• Finally say good-byes and drive off.
• Stop for lunch and move our luggage into the back seat.
• Repack everything so it fits into one suitcase while Justin drives.
• Meet Sara at Cheesecake Factory, but walk across the street to Barnes and Noble to work up an appetite.
• Catch up with Sara and wander around the store.
• Go back and have a delicious dinner.
• Wander around the mall a little bit before saying good-byes.

Tickle shot

• Drive to Erica’s house and keep her up late while we finish packing and getting ready.  She braids my hair.

Tuesday:

• Get up a little before 5:00 to pack up, put up the beds, and head to the airport.
• Arrive on time, return the car, check in, make it through security, and only sit a little while before boarding.
• Fly to Chicago.
• Get adopted by an 80-year old woman looking for help getting to her gate.
• Stay more calm about the shuttle bus to another concourse and the time crunch of our layover because of that angelic woman.
• Get to the gate just as they finish boarding and get right on the airplane.
• Fly to Charleston.
• Collect our luggage, find the car, and drive home.
• Pile everything inside the house.
• Shower and curl up to relax.
• Fall asleep and sleep for about 15 hours.

And as a bonus! Wednesday:

• Relax all morning.
• Go to our financial advisor appointment and start making good plans.
• Go to the grocery store.
• Get a flat tire leaving the grocery store.
• Watch Justin put on spare tire.
• Go home and unload the groceries and tidy the kitchen while Justin sorts the luggage into dirty laundry hampers.
• Eat a late lunch.
• Take the car to Tire Kingdom.
• Buy a new tire.
• Go home.
• Find out that Justin’s old boss and coworker had shown up AT THE HOUSE to ask why he hadn’t been answering his cell phone.
• Laugh delightedly that he no longer works there.
• Relax for the rest of the evening.

I’m back on the diet again after taking about a month off to handle with stress and not logging while we had company in town.  But I’ve been logging again for 15 days now and my scale at home (that’s not terribly accurate) gave me a whole long line of 0’s on Saturday that made me very excited.  It’s gone back up a couple pounds, but that’s what happens when I sit down with a bag of M&Ms on one day and a big plate of Kung Pao chicken the next.  But I thoroughly intend for it to be back down again by Saturday.  I might not make it down the full 50 pounds before my doctor appointment at the beginning of September, but I’m going to be pretty darn close!

I don’t know exactly how much weight I’m going to end up losing in the end, but my goal right now is to get my body fat percentage down around 25%.  Wherever I land poundage-wise is where I’ll end up, but I want to get that percentage down there.  I started at 42.2%.  Right now I’m at 38.2%.  Once I get under 32%, I’ll no longer be considered “obese” and THAT will be a very happy day. 

The car thing is an end as far as I know.  I finally called the claims department on Friday to ask what the progress was on the file and they told me that they had denied the claim.  Wohoo!!  I mean, the woman didn’t have a leg to stand on but it’s still nice to have things work out the way that they’re SUPPOSED to work.  I didn’t hit her, I shouldn’t have to pay for it.  And I’m not!

As far as I’m concerned, the matter is now closed.  She can try to appeal the decision or take me to small claims court, but the insurance is going to back me up if she does that.  I’m going to assume that she’s not going to be quite that desperate and just stop thinking about the whole thing.  And now I can finally try to get the paint off my car, since I’ve been waiting until everything was resolved to try to work on that.  Before I was just being lazy.  But now I have more motivation to get it off.

There are things happening in the job front that I’m not comfortable talking about right now.  You know that feeling like if you talk about it, you might jinx the whole thing?  THAT.  But hopefully I’ll have news for you there in a while.

I am still going to be briefly unemployed while the whole place shuts down for a couple weeks, but I’m looking forward to the time away from work.  It’ll be nice.  I’m hoping to get a bunch of projects done around the house.  Because, you know, there’s nothing like a vacation to get some work done around the house.  What?  Relax?  I don’t have time to relax!

In more trivial news, I’ve developed an allergy to my face lotion.  I’ve been using it for a while and I’m about halfway through this bottle, but the last few times I tried to use it, I broke out in hives.  It wasn’t pleasant.  My only hypothesis is that there’s almond oil in the lotion.  Of my nut allergies, almonds were pretty low on the list of reactions, so I picked up a box of cranberry-pomegranate granola bars (with almonds) and was eating one of those a day.  And then I broke out in hives from my lotion.  So I’m not eating the bars any more and I’m using aloe vera to moisturize my face, since we didn’t have anything else in the house that would work.  Avoidance is effective and I’m doing just fine.  But it’s kind of a bummer because I was fond of that lotion.

And to end on a more UP tone, I have a trip coming up to visit several people and I’m SO EXCITED about it!  I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m still just beyond thrilled to get to take this trip.  I didn’t expect to be able to spend time with my siblings and it’s going to be so much fun!  Lots of people know about it, too, because I can’t stop talking about it.  I’ve already started my packing list—I’ve been trying to figure out how to pack everything in a carry-on so we don’t have to check our luggage.

But mostly, I just think, “I get to see the kidlets!”  “I get to see my siblings!”  “I get to see Grandma!”  “I get to see the Barnetts!”  And try to figure out how I could fit seeing more people into the tiny amount of time that we’ll be in each place.  Like Sara!  And Gillian!  And Mom and Dad!!

But before that, I’ve got 3 projects that need to be completely finished up before the end of this week and 3 other documents that need to be released and mailed off for approval before next Tuesday, at the absolute latest.  I have a lot of work to finish up.

And I am going to do a post about Grandma Mic (is that how to spell her name? I’ve never been clear on that) soon.  Things have just been crazy, making it hard for my creative side to think and write.

More news on that soon-ish.  But for right now, I’m going to play with code a little bit.

OH!  HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, DAD!!!  Love you lots!!

So I’m going to stop thinking so much and just write.  And hopefully what I end up with will make some vague semblance of logic.  Or at least be mildly entertaining to read.  Especially for those of you who know what I’m talking about.

When I was younger, Mom and Dad would drop us kids off at Grandma Fritz’s house for . . . what was it?   One week?  Two weeks?  It felt like two weeks, but maybe it was shorter.  Time passes differently when you’re younger.  But they were fun weeks.  We maybe didn’t behave the way we should have – we spent too many hours sitting in front of the television instead of sitting listening to their stories.  But they had cable!  And Nickelodeon!  And air conditioning!  And Grandma was always making sure that we had enough to eat, so there was always something to snack on.

We’d spend a little time with our cousins who were close to our age.  We’d go on trips to the zoo.  I have fond memories of going to the zoo with my grandparents and the aunt who lived with them at the time.  I remember going to see where my aunt worked, when she worked at an eye doctor’s office for a while.  It was a dark office with wooden desks and it felt so expensive.  In the car I’d sit and look at the wonderfully beautiful purple star sapphire ring that she wore and wonder about the moles that popped out of her skin and how she managed to not snag them on things and tear them off.

Whenever I smell gold Dial soap, it reminds me of my grandma’s house.  They always had Dial soap in the bathroom; we had Ivory soap at home and it was much more harsh.  When I have sandwiches with cheese, deli meat, iceberg lettuce, and mayo or braunschweiger, it reminds me of my grandma because we’d eat those so often when we were there.  And it was such a delicacy because at home we’d never have sandwiches with something other than bologna or peanut butter and jelly.  She’d give us instant oatmeal for breakfast, wonderful and delicious after Malt-o-Meal at home.

The front door of her house leads into a small, dark porch that leads into the kitchen, and there’s a sweet, musty smell in that room that I always think of as The Smell of Grandma’s house.  It’s the first thing we’d smell when we got to the house.  We’d sit on the floor of that porch and play with toys.  Cars in a garage with a spiral drive up and down.  Others that I can only vaguely remember.

There’s a room upstairs that I think was supposed to be a bathroom but that we weren’t allowed to go into because the floor wasn’t sturdy.  My memory might be completely off on that one, but it’s what I remember.  I used to wonder what that room could look like without a floor – dark, with boxes around the corners of a black, gaping hole.  I never stopped to think about what would happen to the first floor if there wasn’t a floor in that room. 

We weren’t allowed into the basement, either.  It was Grandpa’s territory and it wasn’t safe for children.  Same with the garage.  There was a long bookshelf at the top of the stairs in the house that held his AC Delco books.  Grandma used to call him “Grumpa” when his blood-sugar was off balance and he hadn’t taken his medicine.

There was a swing on a tree in the back yard and we’d play there.  There’s a huge empty field behind the house where enormous electrical poles stand holding the wires and we’d run around there sometimes.  There was a park a little ways down the road and we’d go down there and play, too, when someone would walk us there.

There were three bedrooms upstairs:  one for my aunt and two smaller ones where we kids would sleep while we were there.  When we arrived, there’d be something waiting for us—a new toothbrush, usually.  Maybe some chocolate or a small toy.

There was a cat named Darcy who thought she was a dog and would try to bark, but mostly stayed to herself.  They had a dog, whose name escapes me at the moment and that surprises me because they had her for years.  (Her?  Him?)  Sandy?  Is that the dog she has now or the dog they had before?  The dog they have now was a hyper thing, but she’d bring her own pillow around to lay her head on it.

The organ in the dining room that didn’t work but had old wedding photos on the top of it.  The photos of my dad and his siblings on the wall of the dining room.  The many, many photos lining the walls of the living room.  The huge ceramic vase or butter churn or whatever it was sitting in the corner.  The dark shelves filled with mysterious things in the stairs leading out to the back door.

Textures are a big part of my memories at her house.  The feeling of the short berber carpet in the kitchen and bathroom.  The shag carpeting on the floor of the rest of the house.  The scratchy green fabric on Grandpa’s chair.  The smooth paint on the floor of the screened-in porch.  The softness of the skin on Grandma’s hands.  The cold gray metal desk in the dining room.  The springy back of the turtle-shaped footstool.

We would have parties and all my aunts and uncles would come over.  We’d have dinner that Grandma would spend hours cooking: ham and rolls and veggies and pies.  The kids would sit at a card table off to the side while the adults all crammed to fit at the dining room table.  White curtains covered windows that lined the outside wall of the dining room, defusing the bright afternoon light.  We kids would plot ways to get more dinner rolls.

On Sundays, we’d go to church and sit in Sunday School classes where we didn’t know anyone and sit through sermons where Grandma would pass us Cert mints.  When we got home, Grandpa would be sitting watching cars go around and around in circles on TV.  Later, we’d get to watch old movies like “Show Boat” and “South Pacific” and “Oklahoma!” 

I get sad thinking about Grandpa.  I miss him.  My last memories of him are at Erica’s graduation, sitting in Pizza Hut and talking with him about how his eyes watered because of his diabetes.

And I think that’s where I’m going to stop with this one.  Abruptly, without any great transition, on a sad note.  I’m at the top of the third page of my Word document, which means I’ve babbled on for a long time.  I should let you get back to whatever you were doing before you stopped by.  But before you go, family members, how accurate is my memory?  And did I spark any memories of your own?

I’m really excited for both of these encounters.  My exposure to the Barnett family has been pretty limited so far.  It’s been notable, to be sure—Grandpa Doug cut in on our first dance at our wedding, something that makes me laugh every time I think about it.  I guess after you’ve lived long enough, there are some social situations that simply don’t seem to apply anymore.  But most of my time spent with Justin’s family has been with people from his mother’s side of the family.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what it’s like on the other side of the tree.  My understanding is that we’re going to be spending the weekend at the family farm, sleeping in a trailer that’s been brought on site for a handful of us, while several other people sleep in the barn on cots.  It’s going to be interesting!

The other part of the trip is going to be spent with my paternal grandmother, and my maternal grandmother if she’ll see us.  I haven’t seen my paternal grandma since, I think, 2004, when she came up for my sister’s graduation.  I haven’t seen my other grandma since . . . I’m not even sure.  It’s probably been more than 10 years.

I started writing about memories that I have of each of my grandmas and, well, when I hit the third page of writing, I thought that maybe I shouldn’t put all of that up in one post.  So, if I can manage it, I’m going to write about some memories that I have of my grandparents over the next couple days.  Which makes this a post about a post that’s not up yet, and those are always frustrating.  “You’re telling me you’re going to tell me something but you’re not actually telling me anything?!”

So . . . um . . .well, the weather’s been pleasant.  It’s hot during the day, but the mornings are nice.  Last night, I got home from work and Justin and I went grocery shopping to replace things like bread and milk that were emptied out while his family was in town.  He went home to put the food away and I went to Zumba and had a blast shaking my booty.  And then I came home, showered, and went downstairs to make banana bread out of the bananas going bad on the counter.  I have no idea if it turned out because I put walnuts in there and they don’t cooperate with me.  And then I made sautéed apples with some of the many apples in bowls in the kitchen.  I used 8 of them (they’re really little) but I think we still have 8 left.  The ones I cooked turned out really yummy, though.  They’re like the apples you can get from Cracker Barrel.  Not great on calories, but ooooooh, so good.  And Justin made pancakes that nearly exploded with fluffiness.  Our only explanation is that he opened a new container of baking powder and the old one must have been really old.

And now I’m hungry.  Great.

Hey, does your calendar say “Juneteenth” on the 19th, too?  Apparently it’s actually a pretty significant holiday (in 36 states) but I’d never heard of it.  Have you?

For a little while anyway.

I really don’t have much to say right now.  I’m thinking about the laundry that needs to get done and the floors that need to get vacuumed and the lawn that needs to get mowed.  I’m wondering what’s white and semi-liquid in that Rubbermaid container in the fridge.  And what happened to all the watermelon and the chocolate chip bars?  And what am I going to make with all these peaches and tangerines?

Hurricane season has officially started and I’m thinking of doing a workshop with a bunch of people to get kits put together and organized for the (unlikely) possibility of an evacuation.  It’s one of those things that everybody here knows that they ought to do, but not a whole lot of people actually spend time doing.  But maybe if I thought of a way to make it more interesting . . . .  It’s something I’d like to do, anyway.

And my head hurts.

If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m waiting in line to get into the shower.  Six people.  One shower.

I don’t really know what their plans are while they’re in town.  There will be some time spent at the beach and some time doing the normal touristy things like bus tours and shopping.  There will be lots of time laying out by the pool.  But I don’t really know anything about what’s going on yet. All I really know is that they’re arriving sometime on Thursday.

So we spent several hours cleaning the house yesterday and we’ll be doing more of that over the next couple days.  Not that our house is terribly messy, but because it gives us the opportunity to go over everything and make sure it’s all dusted and cleaned out.  We had bedding that had been sitting in Justin’s office waiting to get bundled into vacuumed space-saver bags and into the antique trunk we bought.  So we took care of all that and now we have easy access to a complete bedding set for the sofa bed – complete with mattress pad, sheets, blanket, comforter, and pillow.  And a secondary set for the air mattress.

Justin moved the sofa, vacuumed under it, and put it all back together with the rug back in the right place and the whole thing lined up with the TV armoire.  He vacuumed the dust off fans.  I dusted everything below that.  We put the extra leaf in the dining room table so we can actually seat 6 people at the table.  Earlier, while he was helping do set-up at church, I pulled all the weeds from the front garden.

Tonight, he’ll tackle the bathrooms and I’ll take care of the kitchen, scrubbing everything down and getting things a little more organized.

I think a lot of what we’re doing is really just for us.  Will anyone other than me notice that I dusted all the games?  No one’s going to see the bedding that we packed up and organized.  And no matter how well I organize the kitchen cabinets, they’re going to be completely different by the end of next weekend after three different people put the dishes away.   But it feels nice after it’s cleaned.  It doesn’t even look all that different, but the fact that we’ve touched every single surface in that room, from the ceiling down to the floors, makes it feel clean.  It feels soft and inviting.  And I can’t wait to get the rest of the house as clean as the living room and dining room are right now.

Update to the update to the thing with my car
Friday morning, I came home from work early so I could meet an insurance assessor (or something like that) who wanted to look at my car and our mailbox.  She was a lovely woman, very pleasant to work with, and she took measurements and photographs of the damage on my car and the damage on my mailbox.  I pulled my car out of the driveway and lined it up with my mailbox and she took photographs of that, too, so it’s obvious that the marks on my car line up perfectly with the damage on my mailbox.

She wasn’t terribly forthcoming about her opinion on the matter, but I got the impression that she understood that the damage to my car was fairly obviously done by encounters with my mailbox.  I asked if she’d be the one to go look at the Tahoe, but she said that the insurance company would probably send someone from the Georgia side of things.

And now I’ve done everything possible for me to do.  I gave a copy of the Security officer’s report to the assessor when she was at the house and she was going to forward that to my claims officer.  I spoke with an agent from my local insurance office this morning and he’s checking around to make sure that there aren’t any loose threads out there.  But as far as I know, there’s nothing more for me to do other than wait for information while the insurance companies duke it out.

Trip to Toccoa
After dealing with the insurance and then running into town to get my oil changed and pick up some supplies from Target, I packed up for our trip to northeast Georgia to go see my family for a handful of hours.  We left later than anticipated (my fault because things took a lot longer than I anticipated that they would) and we arrived slightly after 9:00.  But we all sat and chatted for a little while before heading off to bed.

We got a nice and early start to the morning and helped finish up projects that Mom and Dad had been working on completing.  Holes in walls filled in or created.  Shelves built and moved.  A trip to the post office in town.  Tools sorted out and packed away.  I had a fun morning, mostly just following one or the other of my parents around and helping however I could.  I know there was a lack of structure that was frustrating to other people, but I was just so tickled to be around my family that nothing was going to bother me.  Not humid weather.  Not random project progress.  Not spiders.  Nothing.  I had a good morning.

Mom and Dad left slightly after noon to start their long drive back to Wisconsin and we waved them off.  Justin and I helped Luke and Krista build one more shelf before getting cleaned up and packed up ourselves and ready to head off.  We sat and chatted for a little while before letting them have the house to themselves again.  After a long, hectic week, I understand how wonderful it can be to have a quiet house again.

Trip to Atlanta
Justin and I had planned to hit a mall outside of Atlanta to buy me some new dress pants, since all the pairs in my closet right now either are too big or are from back when I was slender enough to wear them, meaning they’re threadbare and stretched out.  The mall didn’t turn out quite like expected, though, (I’ve never been in a mall that had so many different shoe stores!) and we decided we’d go see a movie.

We found a theatre that was showing Iron Man 2 in Imax and How to Train Your Dragon in 3D and we were going there, when we passed an Atlanta Bread Company directly across from a Barnes and Noble bookstore.  Well, they closed down our Atlanta Bread Company a handful of months ago and it’s one of our very favorite restaurants.  And we love Barnes and Noble.  So we scratched our movie plans and spent an hour wandering around in the bookstore before heading across for sandwiches.  And we enjoyed our time much more than we would have in a movie theatre.

After spending a relaxing evening and morning at a hotel and breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts, we set off for the Georgia Renaissance Festival. We got there probably close to 10:30 and wandered our way all the way around the faire, looking at booths and admiring the crafts and the spectacle.  We watched the joust.  We saw the Flying Debris juggling show.  We saw the Washing Well Wenches.  We saw the Tortuga Twins.  We missed a few acts that aren’t at the fair this year, like Dexter Tripp’s high wire.  I got some flowers stained onto my leg with henna.  I got to eat a turkey leg. We picked up another item from Bronze Age Studios to match the fountain that we bought from them previously.

It was a whole lot of fun.  And I caked on the sunscreen and wore a light cotton shirt with sleeves and a hat and came home without any sunburn.  I’m a little sun-kissed, but not at all burned.  With my complexion, I call that a win.

Plus, it was just so much fun wandering around the faire, looking at all the different things to look at – people and artwork and everything else.  I laughed at the shows, held my breath at the joust, drooled over everything in the Casta Diva shop.  And we left close to 4:00 to start our trek home, arriving at our front door a little after 9:30, I think.  We unpacked, showered, and got ready for bed.

And now it’s Monday and I wish I had another day in my weekend to recover from my weekend.  But no such luck.  Back to work with me!

I’ll try to put up a few pictures from our weekend later tonight or tomorrow.

I feel so much better today!  I’m eating real food!  My brain is functioning correctly!  It’s a wonderful day. 

Plus, hey!  It’s already Tuesday!  I’m going to see my parents over the weekend and I am So! Excited! to see them it’s hard to say.  And then we’re going to make a second attempt at going to the Ren Faire and I’ve been looking forward to that for several months.  I’m trying to figure out where I’m going to get my henna tatoo this year.  I get one every time we go.  Last time (in 2008) I got a rather large fairy on my shoulders.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do this year, but I’d like it to be in a place where I can actually see it without a mirror.

In other news, my pants are too big.  The pants I wore yesterday were too big, too.  But I thought these fit!  I’m going to have to wash them “wrong” and see if I can get them to shrink a little bit because this is getting silly.  It’s easier when shirts don’t fit quite right.  When pants don’t fit, they have a tendancy to try to fall off!!

Such a bother. 

I’m going to go outside and see if it’s as nice out as I think it is!  Cheers!