Unpacking

This is a far as I had gotten unpacking last week:

I  dumped the dirty clothes out and took these packing cubes out of the suitcase.  Today, I managed to do a bit of laundry (nearly naked again), tidy the kitchen and unpack.  I love the packing cubes--you can keep everything from tumbling out of the suitcase when it is opened and have it orderly.  I've been putting things away in hotel drawers and the cubes are so simple-just remove from suitcase and stash it in a drawer!  So this mess has been cleaned up and the suitcase emptied of everything that gets taken out.  I leave a few things in my suitcase that I don't need and know that I'd just pack it again anyway.  I didn't put up the suitcases, seems foolish to haul them up to the attic when I'll just be using them again in a couple of weeks.

Mid-winter thaw

Today the temperatures were in the 60Fs!  I stood on the deck and chatted with my neighbor in a fleece jacket.  Just last week I wouldn't have stayed out more than a few minutes and then in my heavy coat.  I'm feeling some better, although I fade really quickly, so I took the camera out in the yard to see what I could see.

Daffodils up! Just three and this one in the highest about an inch above ground.  I have them naturalized all over the back yard, last year they all came up early then we had cold weather and snow and none of them bloomed so while I was happy to see signs of spring I kind of wish they'd stayed under ground a bit longer.

My old friend, Simba, enjoying a warm day on the deck!  He'll be 18 in June if he lives that long.  He has arthritis in his back and that makes it hard for him to get in and out of chairs, up and down steps, etc.  He doesn't seem to be in pain but moves ever so slowly and carefully and sleeps most of the time.  He's still very vocal about being left at home while I gallivant all over the place!

Short time out for being sick!

So, I haven't been around for a week-so much for my goal of blogging each and every day!  The whole photo each and every day went out the window as well, sigh.  I took one photo last week, of Ryan, on my cell phone and I haven't even dug out the cords so I can move it over to the laptop.

As you may have guessed I went to St Louis on Tuesday to see Ryan, his Mom and Dad!  I had decided to take my time going down and stop in Higginsville to visit a quilt shop I like-which had closed, although there is supposed to be another one there I have yet to find it!  I also want to visit this huge boot store, I've been meaning to stop for YEARS, literally!  I would really like to have some nice boots.  Several pair actually, warm boots, cowboy boots and designer boots.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any that will go on my foot!  This store does have thousands of boots, I didn't try any on but I may go back and try on jeans there as they had some really cute ones.
When I finally made it to St Louis I was late enough to check into my hotel (another less than happy experience) before I headed to Children's hospital.  I spent the rest of that day, almost all of Wednesday and Thursday morning in the NICU with Ryan, he is currently called a feeder/grower as they are just feeding him and waiting for him to grow.  The whole feeder/grower thing makes me think of the Stock report on small country radio stations--We've called them feeder pig stations forever!  He has only his monitors, feeding tube and roposil to manage now so I can just go in and pick him up and love on him!  Thursday morning he was actually awake when I got there and I got to see his lovely eyes as he tried to take in his surroundings and the face of this crazy woman holding him!  Scott and I had lunch and I headed to the UGG outlet-again looking for boots, again none of them would go on my foot!  Then I headed home.  Stopped in Columbia for a quilt shop break then on home to get Quinn.  The closer I got to home to worse I felt and by the time I got in I was sure I had a cold.  I still haven't really unpacked!  Since then I've had a tissue box tethered to my hand and the couch in the studio has been my best friend--Thank goodness for NCIS dvds!

On Friday, Scott called with the good news that Ryan's transfer to Boston is all approved.  He will be transferred on March 2 and have the first surgery on March 6 and the second on March 20.  He still needs to gain 1000grams of weight (and he is slow to do that).  I am really glad they aren't going up this week since Boston is forecast to receive 30inches of snow!  Flights into New York and Boston were already being cancelled yesterday!  My trip will likely be in April now, which is also good as I wasn't keen on the idea of driving up with the weather so dicey.

So, now I am tired again.  Just from getting out of bed, having my tea and breakfast and writing this blog!  A little rest and I will have to do a bit of housecleaning, oh joy!

18-19/365 A Day with the boys

Today being a school holiday for Martin Luther King (May he rest in peace) I spent my day with the "Big" boys!  Brayden and Kolby are such fun these days and getting easier all the time.  This morning they played on their Kindles while I did some housework and getting ready to travel then we went out to lunch!  I asked them where they wanted to go yesterday and Brayden said La Fuente's (Mexican) Kolby said "No, we just went there."  So today I asked Kolby where he would like to go--IHOP, Cracker Barrel, Ginger's etc and he said "La Fuente's"--What?!  I accused him of buttering Brayden up but he said he just wanted their chicken.  So, we invited Beth (Mommy) to join us as there is a La Feunte's very close to her work (like it took her longer to walk from her office to her car than it did to drive there!)  We had fun, ate good food and had fried ice cream for dessert, so yummy!  Mommy had to go back to work and we headed over to a new park for a little play time.  Except there wasn't any place to park the truck!  There were so many children on the play equipment they looked like ants at a picnic.  The combination of no school and very warm weather had us all wanting to be outside.  The boys decided they did not want to join the ant hill so we trucked on to their house.  I played Mean Granna and made them go outside!  It was over 60F. IN. January.  Outside we went.  They played a little garage soccer (don't ask) then got out these boomerang things--a triangle things, doesn't look at all like a boomerang--Kolby let his fly on their driveway and it disappeared!  After searching High, low, over, under and on top the truck for quite a while I spotted it on the neighbor's roof--guess the wind took it, but it definitely did not return! 

So they shot some hoops and I took pictures.  Can't believe I actually caught the first two! 

Kolby was looking darn cute checking out the truck!  You can see from these how gorgeous it was outside today, I just enjoyed soaking up some sun!  Then we went inside and watched How To Train Your Dragon 2--finished it up just in time for Mommy to get home!

Now, I have to go pack and make my bed!  St. Louis tomorrow to see Scott, Bri and Ryan!

17/365 Paddington

17/365 belongs to Paddington!  Taken with my iPhone but still pretty good.  From top to bottom--Brayden, Tanya (seats next to her are highly prized) Kolby, Beth, and Ethan!  Very funny movie, I had many good laughs!  Movies intended for children are some of the best and Paddington is such a great story!

What is it about Fridays?

So I missed yesterdays photo, again.  Then I looked back and saw that it was last Friday that I missed before!  Need to see what that's all about!

16/365 This is Friday's!  Some kind of fungus growing on a tree stump in the park.  I have some of this in my yard as well and the stuff is hard as a rock!

15/365 Ball fields in winter.

It was warm enough this afternoon for a walk!  Apparently, we are having a January thaw.  At the end of my street is Adair park, run by Jackson County even though it's in the city.  It's a softball complex, there are 7 fields and most weekends March through November there are competitive tournaments here.  It is one of Quinn's favorite places! (And much closer than the beach, another one of her favorites!)  From the time she was 3 or 4 months old and we were learning to walk on a leash we went to the park a couple of times a day.  Before long I would drop her leash when we were inside the fences on the ball fields and she would just run and run.  She still does that-it's most fun when her buddies are in the park to run with her but even alone she races around me, pulls on my pant legs and plays tug with the leash!  She can be such a puppy!  This is field 3, directly behind 3 is 4 and close behind 4 is 7--that's a lot of out field to play on!  She doesn't like it when the girls are playing though.  I mean, really, they are on "Her" fields and they wear really noisy shoes and pull noisy bags behind them!