Talk about stress last Friday. Ugh. Late Friday afternoon I found out that after avoiding business travel like the plague for the last year, on the anniversary of my return to working after my 10 weeks of paid maternity leave (loved that), I am expected to be in DC. Ugh.
I know it is time and that especially now with AB working closer to LJ than I actually do, that AB can deal with taking care of LJ. And we have a wonderful support network here in place to help him deal (thanks V!). The biggest stresser is that I leave on the 29th and month end is HELL for AB. So to have to deal with work, school and taking care of LJ on his own for those couple days will be a challenge, but I know they will rock.
It is bittersweet for me. I always kind of enjoyed going on travel, especially living here in podunksville. I like getting out of town and to a big city for a few days. I like eating out, catching a show if possible, and going shopping. Some itty bitty part of me is excited to go to DC for a few days. The other part of me is sick over it. I have to leave LJ and AB and I don't want to. It looks like I will fly out Thursday morning get there Thursday night (damn that flying to the east coast time change). Friday I give a presentation and then I can fly out at 4:30pm and be back here about 11:30pm. It will be a tight schedule. And there is some part of me that wouldn't mind staying Friday night so I can shop or go to the Smithsonian Friday afternoon. But I *know* once I get there I will just want to come home asap. So I will ask my admin to get me on the earliest flight out.
---------------
This weekend was nice, but short. After having two 3-day weekends in a row, it seemed far too short. Friday AB picked up Mexican food and it was super. LJ was fussy with a tooth coming in so we didn't even want to attempt going out. And the take out Mexican was spectacular, they even packed in a bag of chips and salsa!
We watched The Wedding Date, which was fun, good for what it was, a romantic comedy. AB even liked it and it finished in time for him to watch most of his beloved Battlestar Galactica. ;-) I, otoh, headed off to bed.
Saturday we got up and headed out to the Parade of Homes. We stuck to houses in our general location and amazingly LJ was amiable to visiting 5 houses. There were very few that I loved, ok, none that I loved the whole house. What is it with builders? Do they not cook? Every.single.house we saw, save one, had a kitchen smaller than ours! And they were all minimum $100K more than ours cost (3 years ago). We need a BIG kitchen. Ours is not big enough and it is good sized (12'x12'). And I *need* a walk in pantry - and no, not a step in pantry, I want to walk in and be able to walk around. None of the houses we saw had an appropriately sized pantry.
We went to a $750K house on a fantastic view lot. What a frickin' waste of a view lot. The kitchen was half the size of ours, had no cupboard space, counter space or pantry. ?!?! The Master bedroom was smaller than ours. Oh, but they had an art gallery, what a bonus. (sarcasm)
After that we had lunch and headed to Costco where I pounded away a little more at my Christmas gift list. We got home and made spaghetti, and we watched another movie after LJ went to bed, Flight of the Pheonix. Bad, I fell asleep. And if you fear plane crashes, as I do, don't watch it, especially bad when I just found out I will be going on travel in 2 weeks. Ugh.
Sunday LJ napped early was up around 1pm and he and I went and bought real shoes for him. These are what he got. We tried a few different pairs on. I wanted to get him the Merrells just like daddy's and I loved the price. But LJ has a fat little foot! I don't know where he gets it, AB and I both have very narrow feet, to the point where we both have trouble buying shoes narrow. The saleslady was wonderful and helped him try on a few pairs, until his tolerance level was reached. He has never worn "real" shoes with soles, just Robeez to date, so with new hard sole shoes he acted like he had cement blocks on his feet. He finally got the hang of walking, that he has to really pick his feet up VERY high to take a step. It was too funny and I was wishing I had brought the video camera. He will have to practice in them a few nights before wearing them to school.
We then went to Target where LJ's level of tolerance for shopping was nill. He got a few forks and a couple other little things. But we spent most of the time there buying clothes, books, toys, etc, for the Hurricane victims. LJ's school must have heard my thoughts in my quest to actually get items that were needed to victims of Katrina. They hooked up with a church in Houston that took in 300 families displaced from the hurricane. We chose to buy some stuff for a 6-12 month old baby, because I had some idea what they might need. Then we bought for a 10-12 year old girl because that age group is kind of out of the range of what LJ's school covers.
Well I should go get busy. LJ did have a wonderful night last night. He was "up" briefly at 1:45am when his Advil wore off, but wasn't really up per se. AB got up and dosed him with Advil and gave him his binky back and LJ layed back down and slept until 6:08am. Tooth is through, ears are better and he is back to sleeping through the night! Yay!
Ok, I must go make my travel plans now. Ugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment