Tightwad Tuesday is taking a short hiatus due to vacation-induced insanity. It'll be back by next week, we hope.
On the up side:
- We're having lovely visits with various family members featuring fireworks and planting with my mom and baseball with my dad.
- Natalie is starting to relax around the dogs, walking by them independently, talking to them, and even offering her hand for them to sniff.
- The frenzied getting into everything that we witnessed the other day was partially related to fatigue and overexcitement about our arrival. With a little more rest and settling in, Natalie is a little less...manic. Which is nice.
On the down side:
- The process of importing to WP has been less than smooth, so our move has been delayed. They've reset the new blog now, so as soon as we can redo stuff and (hopefully) successfully import, we'll send you to our new address.
- My mom has pantry moths. Rather thoroughly. Jen and I spent the afternoon/evening cleaning out the pantry, throwing things away, putting other things in bins for observation, washing shelves, etc. More to do tomorrow, though the really intense stuff is finished. While oddly satisfying, it was also more than a little exhausting.
- My mom got a call yesterday morning from family in Pittsburgh. My uncle's decades-long battle with HIV/AIDS has ended. This is not unexpected, but still a time of many emotions for my family. We'll have a memorial service full of his music at the end of July.
And now, we're off to bed.
Urgh. Now we have a flat. Not only do we have a flat, but I'm pretty sure it's the tire we had to replace a few months ago (when we discovered that our lovely, affordable, decent-mileage, 6-seater-but-not-a-minivan has ludicrously expensive tires). They've been rotated, so I am not 100% sure, but about 98%. Anyway, earlier in the week, Cait noticed that it had picked up a screw in this tire, so before we left I took it by our mechanic, who pulled the screw and said it hadn't punctured all the way through. He put some goop on it and it didn't bubble so no air was escaping. And I made sure to tell him we were driving 600+ miles in the next few days.
So now we wait for the roadside people to come and change the tire. (Yes, we can change a tire but you know, 1. we pay for the roadside assistance, 2. this is supposed to be a vacation, 3. we're indoors with a sleeping child and Internet access, 4. it's raining and 5. does there need to be a 5? Oh, yeah, the lug nuts on these wheels are a total bitch to unscrew, as we learned last time.) Then it's off to the tire store, hopefully to have it plugged rather than to buy another new tire or two.
And there IS NO SUCH THING as a vacation with a 2 year old. Grandma's house is like one big booby trap and we spend all our time keeping her out of stuff. Plus, she's terrified of the big, lovable dog who would love to play with her.
On the other hand, we aren't working, we have tons of relatives around dying to see us, and there are fireworks in our future. It ain't all bad.
I'm glad we didn't continue to blog our road trip via text messages, as we didn't realize they were getting caught in the spam filter. Grrr. The migration to WP will be completed in less than 24 hours, I daresay.
Anyway, we arrived, safe and sound, if a little insane earlier this evening. We did our typical 600 miles in 2 days (stopping over at great-grandma's), with visits to practically every rest stop between points A, B, and C. (A potty training toddler, a rather pregnant mom, and a menstruating mom is NOT a good road trip combo!) Natalie did a great job -- but a great job for a two year old DOES involve a lot of repetitive questioning, insistence on "Natalie music!" at all times, often the same CD, track, or phrase (not always granted), frequent demands to "Eat!", and not much napping at all. Cait and I planned to keep ourselves awake and focused by discussing name options for (not-so?) wee Carbo, but really didn't get much of anywhere (other than Anna... but we couldn't decide on a middle name. One? Two? Onetwothree?).
We did recover from the adrenaline rush and terror of the near-miss at the start of our trip. It was truly terrifying and miraculous. The driver of the SUV lost control of his car, went up on the embankment, struck a very tall (metal) lamppost, and spun across 4 lanes of traffic, slamming into the wall of the underpass and coming to a stop. He did not hit any other vehicles and seemed fine as we drove past (others were stopping to lend aid). The lamppost (at least 40 feet tall) broke in two, hovered above our roof and windshield for a heart-stopping eternity, and then crashed to the shoulder, hitting no one. Natalie was oblivious to the entire incident, I shook and heaved silently for a few minutes after we continued on, and Cait muttered "I can't believe it didn't hit us" repeatedly.
So now we're at Grandma's and we've already paid a visit to Grandpa. We hope to do a lot of relaxing, reading, Samurai Sudoku, and just general hanging out for the next couple of weeks. Midwestern blogfriends, we're also up for getting together - drop us a line if you want to hang out!
Next stop: WP.
Car in front of us spun out of control across the beltway. Sent lamppost flying into the air directly above our car. Somehow everyone ok. Still shaking.
Queer parents
The Circle of Jens
