The best laid plans...

Making it to vacation got even more complicated than I thought. I'd made some progress on that list and then headed off for a wedding on Friday, planning to pull a long night and get a lot done in the wee small hours- and then whatever it took Saturday morning. But no... instead, while I was at the wedding (where it stormed both during the wedding and the reception, but not between, thankfully), the Nichols homestead was getting the full brunt of a summer storm. My housemate even went to the basement when the sirens went off because the wind was crazy and shaking the house, reportedly. And then we lost power. Zap.

I didn't know about any of this until I was driving home from the reception in Canton, about half an hour away. All the way home I watched a gorgeous lightening show in front of me. And when I got into Saline, it was eerily dark. Maple (the road I usually turn on) was closed off. The traffic lights were out. There was no power for the few blocks near my house. Trees were down everywhere and branches and leaves were all over the street. Lovely. Our street was completely dark, not a light in sight. Just some downed trees. Remember all my plans to clean, finish laundry, pack, etc? Oh yeah, hard to do by candlelight (and with a flashlight). So I hung out for a bit with my roommate and then went to bed, hoping against hope the power would be on by morning so I could do that final coat of paint on the cabinets with the power sprayer.

Morning came too soon and too hot and still without power. I started packing, trying to find games, laundry, etc in the basement by flashlight, and trying to survive the horrid heat and humidity (with no air circulation). It was miserable. I was seriously annoyed. I delivered the dogs to their vacation destinations, still hoping for power... I spent an hour on hold with DTE, only to hear the repair estimates for sometime late Sat night. Well, I guess we won't wait around for that. Meanwhile I'm nervous leaving a house without power and no one living there. But we've gotta go. We need to finish loading the car and get outta dodge. It eventually happened. It wasn't pretty, but we did finally leave around 3 pm, just grateful for AC in the car and praying the fridge and freezer wouldn't defrost entirely before the power came back on...

Cue the vacation.

Making it to vacation...

Why is it all so complicated? This week has been a whirlwind of activity, none of which actually moved me the right direction toward going on vacation! I may, in fact, be even more behind than when I started.

Somehow, somewhere between now and leaving Saturday morning (God willing) for vacation, I have what feels like an insurmountable list:
- get home from work amidst rush hour- ridiculous construction- art fair traffic
- pull out bike and bike rack for SIL who wants to borrow them
- hang out with a couple friends tonight (before one moves out of town next week)
- put coat of paint on newly sanded cabinet doors, let dry 24 hours
- put coat of paint on backside of cabinet doors, let dry 24 hours
- do laundry, lots of laundry
- get out the painting stuff for Jenny Pink, who will be painting her bedroom and moving in while I'm out of town!
- clean house (so it isn't a disaster for JP moving in!!)
- get dog stuff together and deliver dogs to separate vacation destinations
- wrap wedding gift
- cousin's wedding on Friday afternoon (and party into the evening)
- pack for vacation
- load car
- go on vacation...

I'm not sure how I'm going to squeeze it all in, but somehow I must... please excuse me if I am frantic for the next few days.

Backyard Nudity

It all started with the purchase of this fabulous kiddie pool for $3 at a garage sale while I was garage saling with a friend with a van (very important since even $3pools don't fit into my car). I got it as a puppy puddle since the dogs love to find mud puddles to flop in after hot bike rides, and I just thought it would be cleaner and more convenient to just have a small pool they could use. And I'll admit that I figured I do have a lot of small visitors that would also put it to good use. Not to mention those hot days when I just need to lounge in the pool... (jk, I haven't resorted to that just yet).

The dogs weren't really sure about the puppy puddle, I think they prefer the mud. So for the last 6 weeks they have pretty much only gone into it if there is incentive... like treats... floating in there. Then Suze started walking into it to drink while wading. And this week we managed to get all the way to a full scale laying in pool lapping water and cooling off. I guess it takes 95 degree weather and 15 minutes of chasing a ball to adjust to anything. The puppy puddle is finally a success! Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh right, the nakedness.

So... the first day I had kids over for a dip in the new pool, a week or two post surgery, some people swam in only diapers, for awhile anyway, until they were too full to stand, at which time they went stark naked. Some preferred nothing at all. The naked swimming digressed to naked running around the yard to naked swinging to naked standing at the fence watching the neighbors in their pool. All of this happened while four capable adults had a great visit on the patio, mostly not seeing the naked gawking because of the jungle (garden) between us and them. Awesome. (see, that jungle on the right would make it hard to see the fenceline and the nakedness!)

This weekend we had some more backyard nudity. One niece prefers to strip naked on the patio, not inside where I kept suggesting, but right there on the patio. She did it at least half a dozen times in 3 days... Not to mention today, a hot sunny Saturday, when I had six nieces and nephews over for awhile. Mostly it was playing in the hose and in the pool and an elaborate game on "the ship" and a picnic lunch, also on "the ship." And plenty of nakedness, although today's nakedness was mostly in the form of undies. Although later in the day one girl decided to strip off her suit (on the patio) to wrap in a towel, and then got distracted and climbed the playstructure, leaving the towel below (again, the jungle was obstructing my view). And to end the day on a naked note, the kids were finishing their post dinner popsicles and Ben says "I gotta go potty" and races over to the pine tree to give it a drink- there in broad daylight and in full view of the neighbor's house. Excellent.

Hope your backyard is just as exciting :)

Weekend Plans, or lack thereof

This weekend I have three of my favorite munchkins staying at the Homestead while my sister heads a couple hours north to be in a friend’s wedding. I’m always happy to get to spend some good quality time with great munchkins, and even more so now since these guys will be moving across the country in a few short weeks. My coworker asked me yesterday if I have the whole visit planned out. Um... What do you mean “planned out”? Yes, I’m a planner, I plan. But a weekend with the munchkins? Nope. Not a plan in sight. The plan is to hang out, to keep them fed, happy, and enjoy our time together. The plan is to put some water in the baby pool and spend some time in the yard. The plan is to not count on getting anything done around the house, so if I manage to get anything done, it’s a bonus.

There are a few set things in the weekend of variables: I will sacristan for the Saturday evening Mass at Church (with munchkins). I will have Andrew down for naps at the appropriate times. Hmmm. Yeah, I think that’s it. The rest of the plan is to not plan. To revel in the joy of the moment, of childhood, of being together.

Happy weekend, friends.

The new boy

I meant to post this earlier but kept having computer / photo issues. Here he is, little David, the latest and greatest Christian in my life (as of July 4th anyway). And somehow I am blessed to be his Godmother. Clearly I'm pretty mush over him. He's such a sweet boy and such a snuggler. So July 4th was great, Mass, baptism, hanging out with a lot of friends and snuggling a boy that smells like chrism oil, does it get better than that? I think not.

Living it up

Yes friends, I am living it up in this newly found freedom, this new phase of recovery. I haven't had to take pain killers all week (even over the counter ones). I am back to my usual productive / power walk with no pain. I weeded last night for a bit, between rain storms- no pain. I carried heavy trash to the curb, by myself. And now my head is spinning to figure out what I should tackle first this weekend... oh a weekend! A real for real productive weekend. So. Excited.

I know, I'm a little out of control. And loving my "normalness." (Thanks to Alexis for telling me to enjoy my normalness, no one has ever said that to me before ;)

All Clear!!

Today was the day I went back to the doctor's for the 4-weeks post surgery check up. Everything looked just fine and he gave me the all clear on doing whatever I want. Did you hear that? The all clear!! He said I can play softball- as long as I try to not slide into home on my stomach or head (no problem). I can lift people and things that weigh more than a gallon of milk. Basically, I can now go back to overdoing it to my heart's content. Yippeeeee!!!

Now I just have a ton of catch up to do... and I think I'll start by hauling some heavy trash out to the curb. Hooray!

On recovery... and patience...

So... I must say, this recovery thing is still not my cup of tea, despite good progress as far as I can tell. Here's the thing, the inability to be super productive (particularly on Saturdays) really does kill me. Kills. Me. I am still trying very hard to be good because I really don't want to drag this out any longer than necessary, but wow, it is definitely a lesson in patience. I assume all my mommy friends out there know this - I know you've experienced this in lots of ways, that everything takes 12 times longer than it should. However, there is one notable difference, you all have really cute (and needy) reasons for this. Me? I've got a 6" incision in my stomach. Not nearly so cute. I am ready to walk at my ridiculously productive pace again, work as long as I decide to, and just get back to my full energy insanity. aaahhhh. Patience. Still working on the patience thing. One day at a time.

On a positive note, today I weeded a lot, probably 3 hours total, with breaks in between, and I'm finally beginning to see progress (and yes, I am sore right now). I also watered the poor parched garden and managed to thread my soaker hoses through the tomato half of the garden to give them a good drink too. I think I can say I've gotten about 75% of the vegetable garden at least under control. Not perfect. Not weed free, but at least to the point that you can see what is actually growing there. Just 25% to go and then weaving soaker hoses through the rest of the garden and putting down straw for mulch. Though it wasn't nearly what I'd like to have accomplished, I think it was a decent amount for a three weeks post-surgery Reenie. I also managed to grocery shop, talk to my BFF on the phone for an hour, look up chicken coop plans (on one of those between weeding breaks), and am considering a shower at some point. I know. Look at me go :)

And now it is time to end this very trivial blog post.

Off to a good start?

By the time I finally left work on Friday, an hour after I'd started leaving, I didn't think the long weekend was going well. I missed my hair appointment. I was sore from being at work all day. I was kind of cranky. And traffic was bad. Sigh.

But sometimes the little things have an amazing ability to turn things around. I sat on the patio and read the town newsletter with my feet up in this fabulous chair that I don't typically spend much time actually sitting in (thanks Kara). I made a batch of sangria (yay for summer sangria). I threw the ball for an attention-starved, ball-starved mutt. I wandered to the berry corner and found a whole bowl full of ripe raspberries!! This is my third year with the raspberries bushes and the first time I've found more than 6 ripe at the same time. True, it is a tiny bowl, but these little jewels definitely made my day.

Then Jenny Pink came over and we drank some sangria together. And she's just terrific in general and fun to hang out with. Definitely a kindred spirit. And she's thinking about moving in, which I'm very excited for. Better yet, the move in conditions include finishing the cabinet doors (covering her bedroom to be) and painting the bedroom! Two projects I desperately want to finish but, thanks to this whole recovery thing, have made no progress on. Woo hoo!!

I would have to say, I did get off to a good start after all, even after the work and haircut fiasco. Today I slept in, visited with Susy (a friend who is visiting for the weekend and making it very confusing having a dog by the same name), drank some great coffee, and now I'm determined to make some progress on that weed patch that has some vegetables hiding in it somewhere. Maybe before it gets horribly hot....

Happy Independence Day, friends. Happy long weekend. Happy July!