I received a call yesterday. My youngest niece was on the line, and she wanted me to guess her good news. I guessed badly, and she finally had to tell me that she had won a GOLD at solo contest! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Some of you have asked me about my mother’s trip. She left last Wednesday. I had to be away from the house when the limo came, so we said our goodbyes earlier.
My stepson was in Bangkok at the time of the tsunami, and didn’t leave an itinerary. We didn’t know if he and his wife were safe. There was a great deal of discussion on the subject of leaving an itinerary with a family member when you travel. Despite that, Elegant Mother blithely went off without leaving an itinerary. Since she was traveling with my brother and his wife, I assume that I could track them through his company. It wasn’t until she was gone, that it occurred to me it would have been nice if they’d left the information.
She is having such a great time that she has not called. I’m sure we will hear all about the trip when she returns Tuesday night. I’d say she lucked out. Their plane left just ahead of a small snow storm, and they will be coming back to relatively nice weather for February in Chicago. While it won’t be as warm as Key West, it should be warm enough to melt off more snow.
I guess I’ll just have to pass on the stories later in the week.
Oh…she’s already announced that she WILL NOT be going to exercise on Wednesday morning. Anyone want to take any bets about Friday??

I want to thank my personal IT support (read: stepsons) for getting our network up and running! It is so nice to have access to printers from both computers. Sharing files will make it so much easier to do back ups and keep track of my herb information.
I’m really excited that everything is good to go. The next time I’m at the computer, no matter which room I’m in, all our data will be at my fingertips.
Thanks, guys!

Well, if you count today, two. Mother has been away, in Key West, since last Wednesday. It took me several days to adjust to the quiet, and to the idea that I could keep to my own schedule.. Friends have asked what Dear Husband and I did while Mother was away, expecting great things. Actually, other than eating out, life continued along the same basic lines.
We ate out one night with one of my stepsons and his girlfriend. The kids went on to a movie, but we headed home. Dear Husband had to work the next day, and he gets up at 4:30 in the morning on work days.
We also had lunch out one day, and brunch on Sunday morning. I enjoyed not having to shop, to prepare food, or to have to clean up in the kitchen. I used my extra time to cut pieces for a new quilt and to listen to a book on tape.
Tonight will be a bit disrupted. My stepdaughter has just purchased a used dryer for a condo that she and her husband are selling. DH has a truck big enough to carry it, so they’ve asked him for some help. I’m going to prepare a pot of chili early today so that he can eat, and then go out. I plan to do a little more work on the quilt pieces.
So, tomorrow will be my last day of sorta-solitude (“sorta” because the cat and my stepson have been here, quiet though they be). I have office work to do, and Christmas stuff to reorganize in the basement. My niece and her boys are coming to dinner. It’s all pretty normal activity for us. No, Diane, DH and I have NOT run naked through out the house. Even if there was a fire I’d stop to put on clothes! *G*
I have to go….the office calls. If you were looking for excitement, this wasn’t the right stop.

Mother has been off in balmy Key West for three days now. I can’t believe how much sound EM contributes to this house when she is here!
I was out running errands today, and stopped at one of my favorite stores, Trader Joe’s. I usually limit my shopping there to special occasions because the temptation is to purchase things that don’t fit into a diet.
I was trying to come up with something for a simple but classy meal for DH and myself. I picked up the roasted red pepper tomato soup, a wedge of Gouda, a small package of spinach hors de oeuvres, a chicken and veggie stir fry, a package of cashews, and two bottles of Two Buck Chuck.
Dear Husband expected to be late this evening, so I held off starting dinner. Thirty minutes before I expected him, I heated the appetizers, put the soup on low, tossed a salad, and opened the wine to let it breathe.
Of course, he called, and said he was going to be about 45 minutes later than he had expected. I had my soup while I waited for him, and then reheated everything when he was ready for dinner. We ended up skipping the stir fry, and just had soup and salad.
We’re getting easy in our old age….

Last March we bought a new computer. It sits in the living room, and there’s no printer connected to it. My office is across the house, and we wanted to network the computers so that I would have access to the printers. My stepsons are very computer literate, and they offered to help set up the network. Things move very slowly in this household, so the wire to connect the two computers was not strung until right after Christmas. Dear Husband made the connections, and nothing happened.

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No….that’s not right. I’ve never seen my mother run. Actually, yesterday, she was off to Key West for a week. Smart woman!
My brother, my mother’s only male child, invited her to go with him and his wife on a week’s trip to Key West. It will be a business trip for them, so they invited a granddaughter along to keep Mother company while they are in meetings.
Mother has been looking forward to this trip for months. I was relieved that they got out of the airport before a snow storm came in. It was a minuscule storm, but you never know what to expect in the Chicago area.
Friends have asked if DH and I would be running naked through the house (not likely!), and one of my sisters called to ask if we were enjoying the empty house (it’s not empty….one of the kids lives with us and the cat is here).
We ARE looking forward to a more relaxed week. I hope to persuade Dear Husband to take me out to eat a couple of times, other than that, we don’ t have any plans. The cat says I had to stay so someone could be at his beck and call. As an older cat, he’s decided that staying in during the winter isn’t such a bad thing, but he has to test that theory with brief jaunts outside a couple of times a day.
I want you all to send positive vibes to DH about a short trip to Florida to visit with his oldest son and grandson. All subliminal messages encouraging him to take a few days off for travel are welcome, with the exception of any that involve sailboats.

…is the cardinal. I can see why. I have at least two dozen of them at the feeder north of the house this evening. They flit around so much that it’s difficult to get an accurate accounting, but I’m sure there are at least a dozen pairs stopping by for a snack before bedtime.
We have cardinals year round here. At one time we had even more than the 24 I saw tonight. There used to be a thicket around a couple of lakes to the east of us, but a developer razed most of that to put up houses, destroying their habitat. I’m not sure where they are nesting now, but I was glad to see that they stayed near us.

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