I'm Home....Momentarily

Just arrived home from a most excellent conference in Richmond. This is the first one I've attended in over 2 years in which I was neither speaker nor committee member nor exhibitor. Just attendee.... How nice to realize that we didn't have to worry about such small things as the LCD projector hooking up properly to the computer to run the videos -- or if the coffee and tea were hot enough for the participants -- or what the evaluations would say. Nope, just sit and soak it all up.

Bliss.

Flew into O'Hare and my DDH (that is Dear Darling Husband) picked me up as usual. He looked -- well -- truly HOT (not as in warm, either, for my older readers) in his shirt & khakis. I was MOST proud to introduce him to one of my lactation consultant friends who was getting her luggage at the same time.

Tomorrow morning I leave again for southern Indiana to speak at 3 hospitals doing 3 Building Bridges and 3 Connecting Bridges. I'm detouring to see Torrey & Chris and say goodbye to Tim (that's another, more sniffly post) and take them to lunch before heading further south -- and then spending Wednesday night at the Ray of Sunshine Motel.

Meanwhile, I'm taking the dirty laundry out of the suitcase, putting the clean laundry back in, switching out the books I've finished for some new ones, making sure I have more than enough audiobooks to take me on my travels...Indy to Washington IN to Jeffersonville to Evansville to Indy to home again...adding one more speaking outfit, and then then trying to sleep better tonight than I did last night.

But once I get home on Thursday, I'm basically home until February. A couple of little trips, but no speaking involved....

I can't even begin to think about what I should be able to get done between now and then.

Wow.

Better get started on my list!!

In Sickness & In Health....part 2

If you've been keeping up with Torrey's blog, you know that she's got a miserable cold -- not quite as bad as the last one which was all of about 3 weeks ago, but miserable none the less.

I have a cold now too. Not as bad as hers, but enough to make me grumpy and sniffy.

I asked Torrey if she could have possibly sent me hers through e-mail...

And Chris then wanted to know if I had updated my virus protection.


Badaboom!

Good one, Christopher!

A Plethora of Catalogues

Catalogues. I have catalogues. More than anyone needs -- and they keep on a-coming! I have a hard time throwing them out without reading them though -- I mean, what if there is something important that I MISS?

So the other night I sat down with 50 or so that have been piling up, and glanced through them. I can order an 18,000 piece jigsaw puzzle if I like -- 18,000 pieces? Who on earth has time for that? Bob said to put it on hold for retirement -- IF we are bored then, which he doubts. Remember, I still have 3000+ books to organize and re-read! Or, we can get (from a catalogue?) an electric car that will go from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. And gets 40 to 80 miles on one charge. AND costs $150,000.

I don't think so.

Anyway, I discovered that the catalogues I really enjoy looking at are those that sell cooking and kitchen stuff. You know, Williams Sonoma or Chef. I wonder if all those nifty gadgets would turn me into a cook. This is especially odd since I don't cook -- I just apply heat to food.

For Bob's birthday I decided to cook dinner -- all the kids were coming home as a surprise for his day. I asked him what was his favorite meal of my vast repertoire and he replied that he liked my pot roast the best. Oh good -- since that's Torrey's, Chris' and Tim's as well.

It just hit me yesterday that the poor man didn't have much choice of meals. My vast repertoire of good meals consist of pot roast and turkey. Since his birthday is in February, and we had just had turkey at Thanksgiving, that narrowed his choices to -- one.

Hmmm.

Remember we didn't have turkey for Christmas last year as -- well, I posted about Lazarus the very dead turkey that did NOT rise to the occasion for Christmas dinner.

But I continue to look at the gadgets and gizmos and think that maybe, just maybe, if I had a silicone spatula or a nifty french press with coffee grinder or a red dutch oven, that I would instantly turn into the new Julia Childs or Rachel Ray.

Just like I think buying Martha Stewart Living will somehow give me the ability to turn empty tin cans into an amazing Christmas wreath.

Sigh.

I don't think so.

The Amazing Internet

When I was a little girl, my parents were missionaries. First to China, where we were deported about a year after arrival since the communists were basically shutting the country down to westerners. We went from there to Australia where my father was an itinerant Bible teacher, going from city to city. (Please, do NOT think Elmer Gantry here!!). At one point, we ended up in Tasmania....

I have few memories of our life in Oz. I do remember my daddy taking me outside one night to see the flying foxes. I have a picture of me holding a *real* koala. I go into withdrawal if I can't have a regular fix of Vegemite, even today. I remember hunting for gifts on Christmas, and going to school with Heather and David when we lived in -- was it Melbourne? Adelaide? Brisbane?

About four years ago I got a surprising e-mail from "Nan" in Australia. She had been looking for my father on the internet, and found my e-mail address. Yes -- it was the Nan we had lived with in Tasmania. She had a son who was just a month younger than I -- and I remembered playing with him on his tricycle and keeping it away from David, his slightly younger brother.

Nan and Don had kept in touch with Mother and Daddy over the years, and at some point, Hugh and I corresponded for a brief period of time when I was in nursing school and he was working north of Alice Springs and Ayers Rock (Uluru). But that was (mumble mumble) years ago...

Nan and I wrote back and forth a couple of times in 2002, and then lost touch. But several months ago, I got an e-mail from Torrey telling me to go to her wedding website on The Knot. There was a note from Nan. Through some circuitous manifestation of the internet known only to geeks and others more savvy than I, Nan had ended up on Torrey's wedding webpage.

Nan and I have since corresponded a few times. This is truly a voice out of my past and how delighted I am that we have been in touch. She has her own blog which I enjoy reading on a fairly regular basis. What is amazing is that we both share a love for mothers and babies and attachment parenting....

So, dear Nan, if you are reading this, here is a picture of wee Janny from those many years ago...(this is NOT the live koala from Lone Pine but one that was given to me that I still have...)

Outer Banks

Sitting on the deck of the beach house --

Windy and cool, watching and listening to the waves pound the shore --

Vacation here would be perfect if my dear Bob and all my children were with me.