Finally kept in the loop

My mom always wants to protect me from worry, so she never tells me about bad things until they are fixed. I brought this up to her this weekend, so last night she called. I had just mowed the yard and was taking a shower. As soon as I turned off the water I heard my cell phone ringing in the kitchen. I quickly dried off and then heard the house phone ringing in the living room. "This must be important," I thought. It was my mom and she wanted to tell me that my grandfather had fallen and broke his hip. (or he broke his hip first, which made him fall) She said, "You say I never tell you anything, so I'm telling you." My parents were on the road to Tennessee delivering a camper when they found out about my grandfather, so they couldn't be there to help him with his decision. He decided on his own to have his hip replaced. My mom said that it felt great to not make all of the decisions. Maybe this will make him feel empowered to make more decisions. We can only hope. Troy said that maybe he will be able to walk better after he gets the new hip (he has been unable to walk well for the last several years).

Keep my grandfather in your thoughts at 2pm EST today (7/31). I'll give an update tomorrow.

Weddings

Yesterday, I went with my parents and sister to my cousin's wedding. It was nice seeing all of my dad's sisters and their families. We had a good time.
I can't believe how people think that you should have to drag your husband to weddings. My husband hates weddings and didn't even want to go to ours. I don't drag him, because I'm not that selfish and I have other things that I would rather force him to do against his will. He would have just been miserable and I would have had to listen to it.

I am so glad we had a small wedding. My cousin is a bubbly happy person, but by the end even she had trouble keeping a smile on her face. I think large weddings are mostly a feeling of obligation. It is your day, so you should get to do it your way. Forget everyone else!

I'm at my parents' waiting for my mom to get ready for church. I'm ready, and looking forward to seeing a lot more people I haven't seen in a while. Then we'll go visit my grandfather before I head home. This has been a fun filled family weekend!

Nice Weekend

I had a pretty good weekend.

Saturday - I got up at 7:30am and walked the big country block up to Olde Pickerington Village to get coffee and Krispy Kream donuts. My husband is a huge fan of the cream filled donuts.
I got home and sat in the backyard sipping my coffee and reading Wicked. Pan, you are right, it is a slow read. I've been reading it for a month (actually I have read 2 of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books in between). I am not even half way through Wicked, yet. The rest of the day I did laundry, read off and on, watched 2 movies, and took a very long nap.

"Mother of Mine" is a foreign film that tells of a boy that was sent from Finland to Sweden during WW2, so he could be safe. The film is mostly in Swedish, so I had to read all of the subtitles (it wasn't possible to read Wicked at the same time).
"The Pursuit of Happyness" was recommended by my mom. I've heard bad reviews, but she said it was good. I thought so too.

Sunday - I went to church (felt good about that), went to the grocery, and made meatloaf. That is about it. Oh, and I read more Wicked. I will continue to read it little by little until I finish it.

Ready for kids

I think that my husband is finally ready for kids. He was playing with our niece and one of her little friends on Saturday. I think that he doesn't touch them until they are big enough to stand on their own two feet. He never held her as a baby, but now that she is running and playing he really likes her. We also had a long conversation about how we would do things when we had a kid.

Now that we are both ready, it can happen any time.
Hear that, God??? We are ready and waiting!

What a Wonderful day so far :(

Today has not started out very well. I had errands to run, so I left the house at 9am. I swore I had my cell phone in my purse, but I didn't. (strike 1)

I went to the library and got more books for work. That went okay. Then, I went to Half Price Books to buy books for my niece and Pan. So far so good... I spent about an hour in the store trying to select the right books. I ended up buying 14 books for 50 bucks. Not so cheap, but probably better than Barnes and Noble. After leaving the store, I opened the trunk of my car to put the books for my niece in the gift bag that contained her other presents. (strike 2) This is the beginning of the bad part...

I must have dropped my keys, when I set the bag down in the trunk. Before I realized it... I closed the trunk! I locked my keys in the trunk! I was stranded, had no cell phone, and was too far to walk home. (A second car would be really helpful about now.) I went into the store to find out where the nearest pay phone was, and walked across the street to call home. We decided I should call a cab to take me home to get the keys (Yes, it would have made more sense to have Troy get a cab and come to me, but he was too asleep to think straight and I was too frantic.), so I called a cab. I had the cab take me home, I got the keys, and had the cab take me back to Half Price Books. The cab ride cost $37. (strike 3, I'm out)

The irony is... if I would have paid more for the books at Barnes and Noble, I would have been close enough to walk home and back, which would have saved me more in the long run.

I have totally not been feeling myself lately, I'm scatter-brained, emotional, shaky, and down right stupid.

To quote Troy's favorite (as in the one he makes fun of the most) pregnancy test commercial:
"I can't concentrate. Could I be pregnant?"

Now I have to get ready for the party to celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday. Hopefully, nothing else goes wrong today.

At least it's not 1851...

I was just reading a children's book about a 12 year old boy that was heading from Pennsylvania to Oregon in 1851. He had to leave his little brother behind, but wrote him every day.

We should be glad that it isn't 1851, and we don't have to travel across country on foot or horseback. We have airplanes, so we can see our loved ones in a few hours instead of weeks.

This makes me feel a little better about Panda's cross-country move. I am still going to miss her, but she is only a few hours away by plane.

Televised Karaoke

Last night I watched "Don't Forget the Lyrics" on Fox. The girl that was on last night (cont. tonight) was fun to watch. She didn't sing TOO bad, and really got into the songs. Wayne Brady is the host, and makes the show even funnier. I'm not sure I will be able to watch some of the other contestants they have showed in the previews, though. If they sound bad, I won't subject my ears to the torture.

Books, Books, and more Books

Right now I have over 30 children's books sitting in my cubicle. I have to type excerpts of each into Word and then do a readability check. Once that is done, I will have to read through the ones that fit into the grade range.

I guess this is better than what I did yesterday, which was searching for the 30+ books in the Main library. No one told us that the children's area of the library has been turned into a daycare. There were 50+ kids running around, playing, screaming, and NOT reading books. That is a day I'll never get back.

Last night was fun, though. The McGraw-Hill gang went out to Martini's for a farewell dinner for Amanda. I was really sad, because her departure day is fast approaching. :(

Friday night was a blast!! At Aladdin's we had delicious Greek food. Then, we thoroughly embarrassed Dennis at Giant Eagle. Paul desperately wanted to give Amanda and me make-overs. He bought the lipstick in the brightest red possible, green eyeshadow, black liquid eye-liner, a headband for Amanda, and a fake hair ponytail holder for me. We also bought liquor to cope with the horror of what was to come.

Paul made us look like drag queens and then we had to show our faces in public. While he was putting on our makeup on a bench in front of Giant Eagle the rent-a-cop was suspicious and started to walk toward us. Thankfully, he didn't come over!

The best part of the evening was when we went to this total dive and got a private room to sing Karaoke. We had so much fun belting out tunes. I recorded Amanda, Paul, and Dennis singing. I made sure to edit myself out, because I can't hold a tune in a bucket. You're welcome!

4th of July Celebration

My 4th of July included baking, reading, watching a movie, and watching fireworks. I baked blueberry muffins from scratch. I used a recipe I found on the Internet and it was more of a cross between muffin and scone. They must not have been too bad, because my husband ate them all. OK, I had a few!

I spent most of the day finishing The Razor's Edge. It is a pretty good book, but took the full 2 weeks to read.

I took a break from the book and watched The Lake House, which I loved. I'm not sure why I loved it but I did. I think it may be the fact that it was romantic and had an air of mystery.

I watched our local fireworks out the front window of the family room, and then watched the Boston Pops' Red, White and Blue celebration.

That about sums up my day off. Not much excitement, but a lot of relaxation!

Family Filled Weekend

Friday, I went to Lima, Ohio to go to a funeral home viewing for my mom's cousin's wife. She was only 58, and was tired of fighting the infection she had for many months.
After the funeral home, we went to visit my grandfather.

Saturday, my mom, sister, and I went to my cousin's bridal shower near Kent, Ohio. We saw 3 of my dad's 4 sisters and their daughters and granddaughters. After 6 hours with them, we were more than ready to go home. I am thankful that we see some of them less than once a year. Those that we see more are by choice, because we actually like them.

Sunday, I spent some time alone at my parent's (they headed to Saint Louis to deliver a camper) before I headed home for an evening alone with my husband. I crashed when I got home, so I didn't really spend any time with him. I'm sure he didn't mind, much.

Today, I've been bored most of the day due to the network being down.