EDLM – May 15, 2019
I wake early today, 5:34 am. I am at the farm(a) near Muncie which is where we have a sitter coming to watch the animals while we are out of town. R notices and joins me in bed for morning snuggles. The window is open and I can hear several birds including a couple owls. I enjoy the morning in bed and watch the sky brighten. I have a slight case of vertigo. I have had this a couple times recently and am thankful it’s very mild. I make my way to the bathroom and then the kitchen about 6:30. I make a breakfast smoothie but this morning I am out of kale and spinach and have just blueberries. I add a pack of powdered “veggies” to the smoothie which also includes a nut milk with protein. I use the veggie pack for the nutrients when I have nothing fresh but I am not a fan. I sit and drink the smoothie on the porch.
I drive downtown, get ready for and go to work. The vertigo at this point is non-existent, fortunately. I get through some work items including a client that is having some financial challenges. This is never the best part of my job. I contact the executive director of a non-profit I serve as board member. We have had to make some tough decisions and I offer support. I take a few minutes and take notes of my morning for the diary.
I head out of the office after connecting with my team, turning on my out of office email, and packing up my office work to take with me. I leave and stop at Debbie’s Hand Made Soaps. I pick up lots of soap and soap holders used to wash. These are gifts for the team at the dentist office for taking great care of our family. My next appointment is Monday. I also stop by the jeweler who is making my daughter’s ring, her graduation gift. It’s a rose gold band that will have a pearl added from our Hawaii trip. It has some family sentimental value. I do like family jewelry, an object that lasts, has meaning, and keeps us in connected.
I head home, eat some applesauce, tidy up the house a bit, wash the dishes and pack. I can’t find the right tie for my husband and decide to go buy one. I need a navy blue tie with red. Red, not burgundy and apparently that is not a common color mix for ties. I find one although it’s of the big and tall size and my husband will probably tie it a couple times to get the length correct. I won’t warn him just to have some fun with it. I end up driving back home to get a white shirt for him because I decide the blue shirt is not going to work with the tie I selected. My desire to color coordinate is a real thing. Red, white, and blue is a nice color combination. I call my Mom and let her know I am on my way to her house.
I stop at Mom’s house and move our bags to her car. We are taking the two large cars on this trip to drive the seven of us comfortably and to have extra space to pack our daughter’s things for the drive home. We are moving her home after graduation where she will do her job search. We drive to the farm which is just about 10 minutes. My Mom is ready to talk and I am not. I recognize that and take a couple deep breaths while also responding with very few words. Sometimes I am just not ready to talk. My Mom is retired and while she is involved in many social activities she sometimes counts on me to help her get her 10,000 words spoken. 🙂
We arrive at the farm and I grab my camera but can’t find my tripod. I make some toast to eat on the trip. I am hungry. I also take some notes on my phone because guess what I left my iPad at home and that is my tool for diary days. Ugh. Five days without a tool to write my diary is going to be a challenge. My husband is driving his parent’s in their car and I am driving my Mom in her car. We are headed to our daughter’s which is south of Indianapolis to pick up her and her husband for the drive south.
Car ride conversations…We talk about recent family conversations on Facebook. We have family all over the country and it’s not unusual for multiple people from all of the country to interact and sometimes we are meeting relatives for the first time through the discussion on Facebook. We also talk about a cousin who is ill and a friend looking for his retirement home. We are following my husband and he exits the interstate and of course I follow however I have no idea where he is going. I ask my mother to call and ask him and he says he really wanted to show her the horses to the right of us and the barn to the left of us and on and on. My Mom can’t stop laughing. The truth is we are avoiding a traffic problem, of course.
We arrive to our kids and they are ready to go. I go inside looking for food, I am still hungry, and to request a camera tripod. I found some cold leftover steamed veggies from the prior evening. Broccoli, yum. Also, our son-in-law made ginger cookies but I am saving those.
I change cars. The kids drive my mother and I am riding in the back with my mother-in-law and my husband and father-in-law are up front. We converse with the kids and get reservations in place. It ends up being too far away because we have an hour delay during the trip. I make a phone call to work which results in me having to get a couple hours of work done after arriving to the hotel. Timing isn’t always perfect and I am in the middle of a pretty big project at work. I expected I would need to do something which is why I brought my work computer. Work anywhere with an internet connection.
My daughter texts me a picture of her cap. She monogrammed it and it looks great. Also, it’s a salute to the south, if you will. She has met many people in the south who monogram their clothes and purses, and she now has several items monogrammed. I also eat some cucumber and an apple I grabbed at the farm, still hungry. Now is a good time to have a book on my phone to listen to and I don’t have one. It becomes story time with my father-in-law, and he tells us stories of his youth. We listen to music. Talk about the 20 somethings in our life. Talk about the political corruption in Muncie and the possibility of good and innocent people getting caught up in the corruption. I take more notes for my diary. I consider doing some meditation through my Calm app but instead do some breathing exercises to slow my mind.
We eventually arrive and it’s a bit after midnight. I set up my computer to get some work done, all of it done tonight. I do not want work to interrupt our family fun for the next three days.
(A) – We renovated a farm home enabling my in-laws to stay near us for the warm weather and they go south for the cold weather. We have an apartment in town that is small and not easily accessible for those with physical challenges.