another week has flown by...

The rest of the week flew by the way I knew it would... Andrew's flight home wasn't as unexpected as planned, the poor guy. After checking his itinerary, I found that he was supposed to be back in Intercontinental around 3pm... unfortunately, when his plane arrived in West Virginia, they had an ambulance and a medical team waiting to whisk away the chief flight officer. The result of that created a necessity for calling in another pilot, and in the meantime, routing the passengers onto different flights. Both the ones waiting for that plane, and the passengers already on it. He was routed through Charlotte before coming home, and he didn't get into the airport until after 8pm. It was a very long day for him, poor thing...

This weekend feels like it never happened... we crammed a lot into it with Andrew just getting home. We got chores and necessities done, and tossed in a nice dinner with his parents and Jessica as a "going away" dinner for her. Jessica leaves for Job Corps this coming Tuesday. That makes two of my chickadees out of the nest.

We took Jessica to Red Lobster for her meal. She was craving shrimp, and I knew she'd have a variety of options on their menu. She chose the shrimp linguini alfredo... which I thought looked awfully oily, but I didn't taste it, and she seemed to like it, so that's all that was important for her meal. I chose the seafood gumbo, and was devastatingly disappointed. The roux just did not have a good flavor to it... you expect a certain flavor to gumbo... and you particularly would expect a seafood restaurant to have a good roux. I've had better gumbo at Jason's Deli, and that's just sad.

Andrew and his dad both ordered the Admiral's Platter - the shrimp was overcooked, the fried fish was almost flavorless, and the scallops were chewy. Can I repeat that this is from a seafood restaurant? Hello?? And yes, you can believe that I DID do the online survey that was referenced on the receipt... you can also believe that I definitely stated everything that I just put here...

When your kids are little and fun and adorable and cute, you think you have so many years before they'll grow up and leave the nest... and then when it's time for them to leave, it's just incredible to think that it seems so very recent that you were holding their hand to cross the street, or teaching them to read, or working with them to learn to make decisions about what to wear... it's a shock when they change their favorite foods or color or cartoon character, and now they're ready to make their way in the world... I'm 36 hours away from taking her to the bus station... holy smokes!

It's after 9pm here, and I'm thinking it's time to head to bed... with Andrew home, my wake up time is back to 5:15am I think I definitely enjoy sleeping until 7:30am while he's in West Virginia don't tell him that there's a perk to his being gone. I like him being home :-)

Good night, everyone!

Another Day, Another Month...

I keep forgetting how quickly time flies... of course, if I weren't so busy, I might notice the passage of time, eh?

I have found myself here on March 1st, with Andrew off in West Virginia training people, and me in charge of the house and kids, and all of the things that go along with it.

Last week the car was being grumpy - I spent one morning in the mechanic's shop, and drove out $230 later with the issue gone. Two days later, the car died about an hour away, and I had to call AAA to send a tow truck... back to the mechanic shop for another $289 repair - my harmonic balancer had broke  

Yesterday I popped into Mann's Tires in Tomball to get my tires rotated, and was shown that they really did need to be replaced. $300 later, I drove out with 4 brand new tires on the car, and my husband telling me that I'm not supposed to be spend ALL the money while he's out of town LOL  When he called this evening, his questions were about the CAR, not about the kids or I. He laughed when I pointed it out... and it was kind of funny.

I spent yesterday with a friend of mine - we had some wonderful mommy time - getting mani's & pedi's and had lunch at Cafe Adobe afterward. It was positively splendid, and we have definitely got to take a day like that at least a couple of times a year. It was such a nice, relaxing day.

Today I ran a friend down to Galveston for an appointment, and then we stopped at Gringo's for lunch... ran a few errands together... it was so nice. The weather was just beautiful! I couldn't have scheduled it to be better.

Tomorrow I finish going through Jessica's clothes for Job Corps. I know she has some slacks that need to be hemmed... but we'll do an inventory and find out what we still need to pick up for her before she leaves next Tuesday. This means my two eldest children will have left home within two weeks of each other. It's exciting but so sad, all at the same time. I've been looking forward to this opportunity for months, and now that it's here, it's just so weird to let them go... 

I normally try to get some housecleaning done while Andrew is out of town, but I haven't even had time to sort through things. Perhaps tomorrow I can go through a little bit... but I know that with working on Jessica's stuff, trying to finish her shopping, rotating bread over so that we can make a run to pick up more tomorrow evening, and youth group for the kids tomorrow evening, the day will probably sneak past me pretty quick. 

Thursday morning we need to take the doggies in to get their nails trimmed. Their nails are definitely past the "need to" point... and we generally go first thing in the morning so that we don't have to wait in line. Thursday evening is Christian Skate Night at Skate Town - so I'll take the kids to that. It's a monthly thing that they really enjoy. It's always the first Thursday of ever month, and some of their friends usually show up at it, too. I usually take some knitting and some movies or tv shows on my ipod to watch, so that I get some "mommy stuff" done. I can't possibly "just" sit there... seriously. 

Friday is the day Andrew comes back this time. So I should get to stay home most of the day and work around the house before going to pick him up. I'll probably make a point of leaving early enough to go visit a friend of mine who has her husband and father both in the hospital right now. I haven't had an opportunity to catch up with her in a couple of weeks.... 

I complain that I never have time to get anything done... I don't know how my schedule seems to create itself. I really don't. There are days when I feel as though I'm only a participant in this playground of Life, and I've ended up stuck on the merry-go-round LOL

Hopefully everyone else is having a fabulous week... it's 10pm, and I'm definitely ready for bed tonight. Sleep well! Good night!