What a nice weekend we had.

On Friday we drove down to the Dayton, Ohio area. The hotel messed up our reservation, or perhaps was just plain overbooked. They gave us a room with one bed, though I had booked one on-line with two, and there are four of us, of course.  To add to the injury, they had no other rooms available, and they charged us extra for a cot. So Bill got the cot,  and Steven ended up sleeping in a chair. And the smoke detector was covered with little green blinking lights, and looked like a UFO coming in for a landing all night long. And no one could sleep because the room was stiflingly hot and the air conditioner was not working well and you couldn't open a window.  So that night was a stinker, but the rest of the weekend was wonderful.

We drove on to the Kentucky mountains on Saturday. The state park offered us a very private cabin, down about sixty steps from the others, on a side of a cliff. We gladly took it. It was peaceful and quiet, and the covered front porch (complete with rocking chairs) overlooked the hill down, complete with a bridal path. It was pleasant hearing the music of the horses' hoofs. We also had a private trail going down and joining the foot path to the Cumberland River. Most of the path was a very steep staircase down the face of a sheer cliff down to the River. It was about 1/4 mile to the River, most of it straight down. But when you got there, it was lovely. You could sit on huge boulders next to the water and watch the kayakers and canoeists passing by. Very peaceful, and you could hear the roaring of the Falls around  a big bend downstream.

The cabin had three beds, much to the joy of the kids. It also had the heavenly covered porch, a fully equipped kitchen, and barbacue grill, and a living room with fireplace and cable color TV. Nice way to rough it! And all for less than $100 night. Cheaper -- and far, far nicer than a lot of hotel rooms. It also has central air, but we never needed it. We just opened the windows and let in the cool, sweet mountain air. It was like breathing in heaven.

On Saturday we just rested, other than going to the grocery store and buying some food for the weekend. We had a lot of sleep to catch up on from the night before. Dan and Steven did walk down to the River, and reported on how lovely it was. After dinner, we fell alseep to the distant roar of the Falls, and the hootings of owls.

On Sunday morning we visited the Falls, which were beautiful, and walked on trails along the River. Steven earned a new nickname, SpiderMan , due to his climbing all over boulders as big as houses, and exploring little caves along the trail. Wonderful for an athletic, curious 12 year old boy.  We then ate lunch at the Lodge. Bill especially enjoyed his Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich.  The dining room of the Lodge overlooked the River and its canyon. A ledge outside contained many bird feeders and flowers. As you ate, you could see all of the birds coming to the feeders -- along with squirrels, chipmunks, and a raccoon (much to the delight of all of the children in the dining room).We then went back to the cabin, and I walked with Dan and Steven down to the River. It was peaceful and lovely sitting next to the water. After dinner, we fell alseep to the music of the Falls, the owls, and singing of a pack of coyotes running through the forest.

On Monday we packed up and checked out. We visited the Falls again, then took a scenic drive through the National Forest. It was beautiful. We then drove home, stopping off for dinner at an Olive Garden in Lima, Ohio.

The weekend was restful and totally relaxing. I have not seen Dan that energized and happy in years. It has been so long, in fact, that I cannot even remember when I last saw him like that. Bill spent an average of 12-16 hours sleeping per day, and eating large, healthy meals. He quite obviously felt the best he has since he as a child, the best in about six years. Steven spent time exploring and being very physically active, and otherwise spent hours drawing and listening to music. He was happy, feisty, spirited. I relaxed, slept, listened to music, read. Loved sitting by the River and taking pictures of the mountains and Cumberland Falls. I think this is the best I have felt since shortly before my father got sick and passed away.

Wonderful weekend.

Free. Free for four blessed days.

We will leave tomorrow after the kids get home from school. We will be spending the night in the Dayton, Ohio area, then moving down to Kentucky mountains on Saturday for the rest of the weekend.

I think this is the first time I have actually been very happy and genuinely looked forward to somethimg since last December.  This is going to be good.

Feel like I had a narrow escape tonight. I was driving home from work after midnight on the freeway (US23) and the cars in front of me all of a sudden threw on their brakes, turned on their brights, and swerved all over.

There was a herd of deer running around on/in the freeway.  

I stopped in time to avoid hitting them (or any vehicles), and even better, the semi-truck behind me was also able to stop.

Tuesday. Three work nights left until our long weekend. Last night was busy, thanks to many admissions via the emergency room. That's fairly normal for this time of year, though, as allergies and asthma run amok.

I haven't seen mountains since last summer. I am past due.  It seems that nearly every year we make it to the mountains for a few days. It might be the Smokies, the Blue Ridge, the Rockies, or the Black Hills, but I seem to require a visit to some sort of mountains periodically. This year I will be lucky. This long wekend in the Cumberlands in Kentucky, and will get to see the Catskills in New York in August, as well as the mountains in Pennsylvania on the drive to and from New York.

 

Monday. On Friday we will be on our way down to the mountains in Kentucky for a long weekend. We have a cabin rented at Cumberland Falls State Park. The park is lovely, and is more or less surrounded by a national forest. The Cumberland River runs through it, with a huge waterfall and a beautiful canyon. The lodge and restaurant have stunning views of the canyon. Our cabin is supposed to be in the woods. I'll be taking along the camera to take pictures of the waterfall, the mountains, and wild flowers. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can do some hiking.

So, since we will be leaving Friday afternoon, I am frantically doing laundry so we all have enough clean socks and underwear.

The weekend went well. Revenge of the Sith  was enjoyable, though the book was much better than the movie.  And I had a wonderful time filling up the pots and planters with all sorts of flowers.I had a few leftover, and we planted those next to the deck. Steven and I went out for ice cream when we got done.

Work last night was quiet and enjoyable. Hopefully it will remain that way for the rest of the week -- and it might, since next Monday is a major holiday.

Bought some annuals and herbs today. Will have a lot of fun planting them tomorrow. . I got spearmint and orange mint to try out, and I think we can pick our first strawberries tomorrow, too!

We went out to dinner for sandwiches at our favorite diner tonight, then went to see Star Wars. Episode 3 is much better than Episode 1, and infinately better than the painfully bad Espisode 2. Natalie Portman's acting still stinks, but she isn't in many scenes, so its not so painful watching her. The book was better, but I usually think that.

Last night I ordered a lot of tickets to start organizing our summer. I got tickets to a Tigers game in June, to a Pink Floyd Laser Light Spectactular at the Toledo Zoo in July, and to the Green Day concert at the Palace early next fall. Hopefully the weather will cooperate for the first two. It was hard trying to schedule things around work, vacations, Bill's  school trip to Europe, and the kids' wrestling camps. I would have really liked to get tickets to the U2 concert -- they are one of my all-time favorite bands, but both shows in the Detroit area were nearly instant sell-outs. I might try to get tickets to the Rolling Stones concert when they go on sale tomorrow, but I expect that one will also be a very quick sell-out...

Tomorrow -- fun with dirt and seeds and baby plants!!!

Just spent a very nice week at work. It was quiet, I got a great year-end evaluation, and everyone was just in a wonderful, happy mood all week long.  Wish more weeks could be like this one.

The kids are happy and excited because there is less than a month left of school, and because we are seeing Star Wars Episode 3 tomorrow night. They are both very geeked up, and Dan isn't far behind them!!  So tomorrow night he will actually get home from work early, so we can go out and eat a nice dinner someplace, and get to the theater early (we already have our tickets) to make sure we get great seats.

The rest of the weekend I hope to spend planting flowers. I usually have containers and planters and pots filled with them at the doors and on the deck, but last year I was too messed up from grief to do that. I am happy and excited to do it this year. I also want to dig out the pretty ceramic hummingbird feeders and put them up in the yard. I also will probably buy some more herb plants (peppermint or spearmint) and add those to the garden.  I keep thinking about how nicely fresh mint leaves would go with tea.

Spent most of the day yesterday working in the house,  cleaning and getting ready for Dan to remodel part of the basement (starting with the laundry area). We were originally going to do that last year, to make a bedroom downstairs for ourselves, so my dad could move in (he would have had our current room). After he passed away, we put the remodelling off...

After the storms passed through we went to the farm market and picked up the plants for our little veggie patch...this year (besides the returning green onions, chives, and catnip) we shall have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, garlic, garlic chives, three kinds of peppers, snow peas, and cilantro. Steven and I planted those today, while Bill mowed the lawn, and Dan continued his basement project. We also found two red raspberry bushes/vines, which Bill will plant near the other berries after his break.

We're also talking about putting in some sort of ground level brick or stone patio, with Dan's outdoor fireplace and some sort of water (fountain or hot tub). But that will be next summer's project...

Was sleepy after being out so late last night, but had a good day. Ran a lot of errands this afternoon, including getting Steven's trumpet repaired. Thankfully, it was a quick and easy repair that only took a few minutes and cost $12. Can't ask for better than that!

Tonight Dan and I drove (through the pouring rain and thunderstorms) up to the charming little village of Dixboro (though it is being engulfed by Ann Arbor's subdivision sprawl) to a wonderful restaurant called the Lord Fox to celebrate my poem being accepted for publication. It is in an old farmhouse, very rustic and elegant and romantic. I had lentil soup, lobster ravioli, fresh veggies, and creme broulet with fresh berries. Yum!! Dan had veal and roasted tomato soup, pork tenderloin with garlic mashed potatos and fresh veggies and candied apricots, and New York style cheesecake. He seemed pretty happy with his food, too.

Since it is supposed to storm all weekend, he is staying home and doing a lot of things around here the next day or so. It will be nice seeing him, and the projects he will be working on are things that badly need to be done.

Thankfully, Billy felt better today and was back in school. We've been getting advertisements from local photographers everyday for his senior pictures, so I guess I will have to call around and get some prices soon. That might be a good thing to do after I wake up in the morning, in fact.

Today I went to two different nursuries before work looking for raspberry plants. Neither one had any. There is one more nursery near the house that I can check, and I was told about a huge one near Metro Airport that I can get to rather easily if I cut across country through New Boston. I might try those tomorrow, depending on the weather (its supposed to storm rather nastily most of the weekend).

At work tonight I bought everyone dinner to celebrate my poem being accepted for the book. After work a few of us got together at the new home of a girl who works with us (she was off tonight). Her new house is on a side road off of the road I live on, just a few miles away. Nearly a neighbor now. We sat around drinking pop and eating pretzels and giggling until 3AM. Her new home is beautiful, and we all hope to go back and see it in the daytime, so we can see the stream running through the back yard (there are reportedly beavers in it). It was fun, but sitting out on the deck while the guys smoked their cigars was chilly. The girl gave me a blanket to wrap around myself, which helped greatly.

Well, Monday I got sick. Bill had been home one day last week with a tummy bug, and I think I got it from him (though I might have picked it up at work). Fever, nausea, throwing up, the other end acting up, too. Yuck. Things were made worse by a book I tried to read. A lot of people had recommended the book to me, saying it was creative and unusual. So I picked up a copy awhile ago, and thought to start it since I was home from work. About two (maybe three chapters in) there was a sex scene between a man and a great big bug. Blech. I threw the book across the room! Not what you need to think about when you are sick to your stomach!!  If anyone wants an anti-recomendation (at least for when you are running a fever and feeling sick to your stomach to begin with), that would be China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Blech.

So, Tuesday I was starting to feel better (made it into work), but Dan had the tummy thing and Bill was sick with a sore throat and fever.

Not a good start to the week, eh?

Today Dan and I got the bills paid, then I ran into town to take care of some errands. Bill was still home sick. Poor kid has a really sore throat -- if its not better tomorrow morning, I will be calling the doctor.

Then I got some good news this afternoon before work, which redeemed this week. One of my poems is going to be published in a book! A life time dream will be coming true for me! Dan agreed to go out for a nice dinner with me on Friday to celebrate.   

Today was Mother's Day.

I had one of my favorite kinds of days. We had a quiet breakfast out on the deck (though that bothered the mother bird, so we probably won't use the deck very much until the babies are up and away), then went for a quiet walk with the dog.Then we went out for ice cream cones.

 

I had to go to work after that, unfortunately, but so goes life. As long as there are sick people, they must be taken care of.

Met Dan for lunch at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor on Thursday, called the Prickly Pear. Rather than the rather standard Tex-Mex you get in this part of the country, this is more like authentic Santa Fe/Southwestern cousine, though not as spicey (in recognition of bland Midwestern tastes). . Best Mexican food I've had this side of Colorado and New Mexico, other than the San Angel Inn at Disney World. That night we had a party with all sorts of chocolates and home made goodies at work, too. It was a good day.

Yesterday I slept in very late, in an attempt to regain some energy from that midnight-afternoon double back earlier this week. Nontheless, Bill and I went to a nursery and bought a large number of strawberry plants (36 to be exact). I guess I am on a home grown fruit kick right now. Last weekend we planted two blueberry bushes. This weekend it was 36 strawberry plants, as well as a bunch of day lillies and a burning bush. We are talking about some raspberry vines for next weekend.

A stupid robin has built her nest on top of the outside light right over the door which leads to the deck. We won't be able to use that door until her babies are grown. We hope we can at least use the deck for grilling and eating outside without disturbing her as she sits on her eggs.

Ended up working midnights on Sunday night, then afternoons Monday and today. Am exhausted, and having one of the kids home from school throwing up all day today didn't help either (I hate it when my kids get sick). Today is a bit better than yesterday, at least I made it home in one piece, yesterday on the way home I nearly got into an accident with a semi-truck on US23.  It can be difficult to drive when you are that tired.

At least there are only a couple of days left in the work week, and on Thursday we will be having a party at work for Cinco de Mayo -- Mexican food and lots of chocolate. Chocolate, after all, originated in Meso-America.  If all goes well, I will also be meeting Dan for lunch on Thursday before I go into work. So Thursday gives me a couple of things to look forward to, and that always helps when things are a bit difficult.