Our weekend was completely open. We could have done anything. We ended up visiting with family and spending a lot of time on the road. Not so great for sleep, but perhaps good for the soul? My husband got in touch with his younger sister. She turned 18 in the fall, and will graduate this spring. We had mentioned how she’ll be grown up. Since we hadn’t seen her since K was 1, really, she’s grown up a lot. Not a 15 year old struggling with classwork, but an 18 year old with an idea of what she wants to do with her life. I’m sorry that we missed out on those years. They’re important. I don’t suppose my brothers were really involved in my life at that time, but my husband and his sister always had a pretty good bond. So?
We went down to visit, to take her out to eat (for her last few birthdays, Matt’s been saying they should get together for dinner, and forced the issue 🙂 )– his mom joined us. I’ll let that sink in. After a meal where Keeley was a right distraction, I *very smart* had something ready in case we were invited back to their house for any reason. I love the color wonders stuff–where the markers are white, but they react with the special paper so they don’t make a mess? I found some for under a $1 so I grabbed a few packs and put one in the truck just in case. We were in fact invited back to their house and that proved to be a good distraction. Not much has changed, gone are the fish rug in bright colors of the young teen, in is black and leopard, and more toiletries than I’ve used in 15 years. Lol. I guess that’s a ‘normal’ teen for you. The funny thing is? It was like the whole 2.5 year separation never happened. Matt invited them to our house (we’ve done this several times before), said to pick.. any time. I guess we’ll see.
We stayed all night with my parents, had breakfast at their church (where everyone cooed at Brennan and laughed at Keeley’s pouty face during children’s time–and her insistence that her socks were multi-colored, not rainbow), and back to their house for lunch. It wasn’t a very restful night, but the company was good. For the first time traveling with both kids, not too bad.
I’m still on track for Lent, no soda, and trying to keep up with the ‘add on’ chores. Last night I conned Matt into putting a half hour show on after dinner (homemade waffles and sausage with syrup or fruit, mmm)– for Keeley and helping me clean the dining area and move stuff around. I got the mop stuff out while he swept and moved stuff off the floor, then did the bathrooms downstairs in between his sweepings, cleaned the table really well, and so on. I was VERY pleased with the results. I’m still behind for Saturday, but I can move a lot of Brennan’s room around on my own, so I need to decide what to do for Monday’s ‘clean up’, maybe re-organzing the stuff in the laundry room, taking most of the mittens and stuff and putting them back away, and so on.
Oh and my mom (bless her HEART) sewed up the ripped seam in my purse that had been soaked in oil in the wreck. My husband got most of the nastiness out of it, so it’s time for a final wash and hopefully I can use it again! I’ve really missed it, even though I only used it a few times in the month I had it!
That’s great about Matt and his sister. It’s interesting about his mom. I guess time will tell. Keep me posted.