Taxes, Poor Jeremy, Colony Club.

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Jeremy came back from California exhausted and ill.  He caught a cold at the tail end of his trip and has spent the week dragging himself into this time zone, fighting his cold and facing a full plate of stuff at work including socializing in the evenings (remember, he hasn’t been in the office since we left for Pittsburgh for spring break – longer than 2 weeks).  This morning, we woke to the alarm, turned on the light and then Jeremy said in a terribly hoarse voice – I feel terrible, this is not the morning to feel terrible because today I have to do a presentation with people who might disagree and that will require diplomacy and tact.  I’m not sure I can be diplomatic feeling this terrible.  Poor guy.  I’m trying to avoid his cold and I’ve been procrastinating on taxes.  If you look at my to-do list, it looks like the above for about a week.

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On Wed, I had an event I wanted to attend downtown and Jeremy was putting in an appearance at a happy hour after work and therefore, we crossed paths at Dupont Circle and had a Shake Shack dinner and I headed deeper downtown and Jeremy headed home to bed.

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I went to the Colony Club which is near Columbia Heights where Thu and her brother were doing a combo poetry reading & band performance.  I had a really great time, I don’t know what I’m doing to deserve these invitations, but they delight me to no end.  It’s like a whole ‘nuther life – a literary, artistic life.  I took a Lyft from Shake Shack to the club because I was running late, but to go home, I walked the half mile to the Columbia Heights metro.  That’s also something that I like to re-experience, walking downtown at night, I used to do that all the time!  Well, when I was in college. 

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Today, I spent a couple of hours with Edda at her orthotist figuring out new bracing for her errant foot.  I actually refused the new daytime braces and we are going to get different ones.

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She got a new tensioner to wear at night to prevent her toe from pointing too much. 

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Jeremy’s back, weight, let it go.

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Jeremy arrived back home last night, he took the shuttle from the BWI airport to Shady Grove metro where I picked him up.  He’s been working diligently to get down to racing weight (150 lbs) for his biking season (though he came home and ate a bunch of ice cream as noted above).  Honestly, I was a little shocked how thin he was when he was striding through the parking lot towards the minivan pulling his wheeled luggage behind him.  I think this is the thinnest he’s been since I’ve known him and he was quite thin in 1994-95 when we first met.  I was worried that he was getting too thin and we talked about it as we were falling asleep last night – looking up weights of professional cyclists (of course, all much lighter than him) and also looking up BMI for his height.  According to the BMI charts, for him to still be totally within the normal range for his height but at the low end, he could be 129 lbs which is just unimaginable to either of us.  That’s pretty much what I weigh right now, but I’m 8 inches shorter than he is.  I’m actually at the high end of the BMI range for my height. For me to be in the middle of the BMI range for my height, I’d have to drop about 15-20 pounds which would land me at 110-112 pound which is so, so, so light for me.  I wasn’t even that light at the height of my grief about Edda’s diagnosis where I basically stopped eating for a good while there.  I looked fantastic (I did get compliments at that weight), but I felt terrible.  Oh so terrible.

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It’s nice to have Jeremy back for many reasons, but it’s just helpful for it to not just be me and Vince interacting in the house.  With Jeremy gone, I begin to focus too much on Vince and I get attached to having things done certain ways and I can’t let go that easily.  It could be as simple as getting frustrated at him for misplacing a piece of clothing or a homework assignment or him answering my questions in a curt manner.  (As a side note, Jeremy thinks I need to go back to school just so I have my own gig again and stop paying so much attention to the boys (J & V) – I do see some valid points in Jeremy’s plan.)  I mentioned this to Vince and he said, well, what about Edda?  She’s here the whole time and part of the deal, no?  I said that Edda was on a much higher plane than the rest of us, probably always floating at the self-actualization level while the rest of us (ok, me or I or whatever pronoun I should use) tumble up and down Maslow’s hierarchy and behave badly.  So I will try to let it go, let it go.  Sigh.  As another side note, Edda finally likes Frozen.  It took a long time, though she likes the beginning more than the end because she’s seen the beginning more often.

Pt Reyes, Edda orienteering, cheeze balls & sushi.

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Sorry folks, small photos today and too tired to resize them.  Jeremy went hiking today near Pt Reyes and went to look for some cheese at the Cowgirl Creamery.  He said they didn’t have ice cream which I find hard to believe.  Creamery = ice cream, right?  Anyways, he’s home tomorrow, so I don’t have Sunday night blues.

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I had no childcare today, so I took both Edda and Vince orienteering.  Vince went off on his own, but Edda & I tried out the approx 1 mile long beginner course. 

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No elevation gain & through clear, open fields, you could practically see the next control from the one you were at which was perfect, perfect for the two of us.  Edda did great.  I might even say that she loved it.  She did laugh in the middle of it all as we needed to cross some leafy areas and she did not complain during our hour-long outing.  About 8 minutes after Edda and I were done and enjoying the cheese balls they had set out at the snack table, Vince came in from his course and we went out for sushi lunch.

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Edda!  Orienteer-er!  Completer of an athletic event with someone recording a time!

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Breakfast, pug, sentences.

It’s almost 7 pm on Saturday night.  I’m with Edda in her bedroom thinking about breakfast foods for dinner (cereal? oatmeal? eggs? maybe a leftover birthday pancake?).  Vince is in his bedroom fast asleep.  He went to a sleepover last night and then got up very early to go to some science convention downtown so I suspect that he is low on sleep.  I hope he sleeps on through until morning…we will see.

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Jeremy called early this morning concerned about my Friday afternoon blues, but it’s not bad.  I see that some of his photos have loaded onto Flickr and so I can tell you some the things he did in California this week.  He rode to the top of some hill with a rented commuter bike which was his biking workout.

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And he traded affectionate kisses with Linus the pug.

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Friday night blues, Debbie, donut.

I’m headed into the weekend without Jeremy, so I have a weird case of the Friday afternoon blues which almost never – like never ever happens.  I like to keep the blog relatively light & cheery with a small dose of reality.  But reality is hard & I rely on Jeremy to hear all the stories I collect during the day and have him help prop me up a little.  Everything at the house is generally well, but lately everytime I bump into someone, I hear a story of a heartfelt struggle and I can only send a hug and a heart emoji (?) and tell them I wish it wasn’t happening to them. 

And the weather is totally f-ing with regulating my place in time.  It’s 70 degrees right now, but sometime tomorrow it’s suppose to be 28? 

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I met up with Debbie for lunch today, a highlight of the week!  We went to Inferno – this pizza place right near her house that has been getting great reviews and Debbie hadn’t been yet.  They usually have only dinner hours (and Jeremy and I have gone there on a date), but I noticed that they had a two hour window for Friday lunch – the only day they served lunch – so I scheduled lunch to be then.

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I walked in fully expecting to eat pizza, but it turns out that they serve only 2 things for Friday lunch.  An amazing fried chicken sandwich with slaw and special sauce for $8.

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And a few kinds of donuts.  That’s it.  There was a line out the door the whole time we were sitting down and eating.  This donut was so light that it was like a daydreamed thought covered in sugar/cinnamon/cardamom. 

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Oatmeal, shoes, vet.

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Ning had some delays coming home from her trip back home, so I’m manning the mornings for a little bit this week.  Edda decided to sneeze as soon as I put a spoonful of oatmeal in her mouth.  Hmmm,

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I finally bought Edda a replacement pair of shoes that should fit her orthotics.  She’s getting a new set of orthotics next week, but I thought I would replace the shoes now.  I thought I ordered wider,  but they are harder to shove the ankle braces in, hopefully they will stretch out in a few weeks to be more accomodating.

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Vince took one look at her geriatric looking shoes and suggested I go out and buy her Nike Air Monarchs (?).  He said her shoe game needed to be on and he was sure Monarchs came in extra extra wide.  Recently Vince has acquired so many shoes I had to get him his own personal shoe rack.

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I took the third child to her well visit checkup.  Maxi went to the vet today.  Look at all the doggies/kitties who had an appointment today:

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Maxi, my sweet but nervous dog, did great.  All up to date on shots and looking good.

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Delicate, California, Annual Checkup

Vince walks into my bedroom/office where I’m already working (though in my pajamas) at 7am and says – are you listening to Demi Lovato?  I said – oh no!  It’s the new Taylor Swift song.  He groans.  Then Jeremy walks in and putters around for a little while and says – you listening to that on repeat?  I said – yeah, I’m going to listen to it all day!  It’s not her best work, but at heart I’m a swiftie.  And I love that blue fringe-y dress.

Jeremy left for California tonight for a week.  This is a business trip that is spanning a full weekend which is unusual for him, but he’s trying to meet up with some friends/family that need meeting up with.  Last night, even though he was going to be gone for a week, I was in a chipper mood.  This was unusual enough for him to note – I can be grumpy before a business trip because I resent having to do all the things, whatever those things are. It inevitably involves poop and something like a water heater disaster.  Generally, it’s all fine, so I’m trying to haul that behavior out back and bury it in the ground.  I’m 23.2% successful at that.

Edda had her annual check up today.  Everything looks good (except for the Rett Syndrome – but we already knew that).   I got to speak to both the doctor and her teacher (when I drove her to her school) about high school!  Ack.  Not ready yet.  I still want to grab my kids, pick them up and tuck them under my arm and run around like crazy.

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Easing into the work week.

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Today was the last day of spring break.  The house still was out of sorts when I woke up this morning, but by evening all the furniture had been moved back to its regular place.  I worked a bit today, it was the end of the quarter, I just tidied up a few things and spent most of the day taking Vince for a regular checkup and dental checkup.  All the laundry got done – with help from Jeremy who worked from home today.  He has enough clean underwear to get him through his business trip to CA this week.

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Vince is here playing games at the dentist.  My big goals for the next few weeks are 1. taxes 2. thank you cards for Edda’s birthday party.  Edda got to go to afternoon camp from noon-4pm today. 

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Roses, quilting, Nat & Dara.

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Edda had gotten two bouquets of roses for her birthday at her pancake breakfast and sometime during the week while we were away, I thought I should have given them to someone who could see them everyday because I thought by the time we got back, they would be wilted.  But they were still quite happy when we walked into the house and we are enjoying them now.

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I have my fourth finished quilt – this one I did the edging myself which saved about $100 dollars on the quilting costs.

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I rather like this one, though I didn’t think that I did when I was putting it together.  This was not a pattern I chose myself, this is a pattern for the intro to quilting class I did last fall.  For the backing, I used all the scrap fabric I had from the front of the quilt.

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I spent a lot of time this weekend quilting.  Jeremy went out on long bike rides both days.  Edda and I hung out in her room.  She was happily watching TV, I was quilting and listening to audiobooks.  I find the combination of the audiobooks & quilting very satisfying and relaxing. 

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Maxi kept us company quite a bit and I kept the laundry cycle going all weekend.  There is a lot of laundry after vacation.  This was the scene from my quilting corner.

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Nat & Dara surprised us on Easter morning!  With gifts from Japan…thank you!  We should have been showered, but we were not. 

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