Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Week 16 - My Week Off

Well, my vacation plans were not working out as planned. I started the week with another miserable night’s sleep because of the worst cold I’ve had in recent memory. I knew I wasn’t going to be getting much done so made a list of errands in town and did all those. That was it. I spent the rest of the day endlessly blowing my nose and feeling like crap. So crappy that I didn’t go to knitting. That’s bad.

I felt better on Tuesday so got busy on my now shortened list of must do chores before Drew arrived. Number one was reclaiming the spare room, which was mostly taken over by badly organized yarn and knitting stuff. I actually had fun sorting my yarn and bagging it up so it would stop disintegrating when I was rummaging. It took a couple of hours but was done. Unfortunately when I stood up from the bed, my knee was a mess. It hadn’t hurt when I was sitting but wouldn’t straighten and was painful as all get out. Great! Just what I needed.

It was time to call in the troops if I was going to get anything done. I called Anne Marie and arranged to pick up her 2 oldest girls at 4:00 to do some raking. Yeah, that didn’t really work out either. They worked for an hour and it was clear they had no idea how to rake. Seriously. I took them home just after 5:00 and went out to rerake everything they’d done with my knees locked. Here’s a pic of what I raked from the supposedly already raked beds. Sheesh! Unfortunately I wasn’t going to be able to bend to pick the leaves up so could only do where I could leave the piles, so the front parking strip was still a mess. Oh well. I tried.

My knee was some better on Wednesday so I did what I could in the house in the morning and emailed my neighbor at work to see if I could hire her daughter to pick up the piles in the yard. She said she’d have Emma call so I got to enjoy the afternoon. Darla came by after work for tea and we sat and chatted for hours. It was great to see her again. Emma called and said she had too much homework. Huh? What’s wrong with kids today? I would do anything for money when I was young but these days kids have zero motivation, almost no skills and don’t seem to need money. I just don’t get it. Anyway, Emma came over after her mom got home from work (forced for sure) so at least the leaves were done. All but one pile and I had plans to put my nephew on that.

I met Helen for breakfast on Thursday morning (it was great to catch up) then finished my Drew prep and headed to Omaha with Andrea for a quick shopping run. I needed some groceries since a 20 year old boy/man was coming. We did a quick route, ending at Aldi where I bought a ham for Easter dinner and various and sundry other foodstuffs. Then it was home to wait for Drew’s call. When I finally gave up waiting and called him, it was to find out he wouldn’t be getting to Omaha until nearly 11:00. I watched some Hulu and then headed to pick him up. It was a long night by the time I got to bed. Clearly Drew was younger and had more stamina.

Drew slept in much later than I did on Friday. Go figure. I cooked bacon and eggs and then we headed to the SAC Museum because Drew’s into planes. When I mentioned the museum, he seemed thrilled. Did I mention that this museum is 2 enormous airplane hangars full of planes? On a bum knee. I managed to gimp through the first hangar but opted for sitting on a bench after half of the second. I so wished I’d brought my knitting. But Drew enjoyed it so I was the good auntie, right? From there we headed to Lincoln for the all you can eat Chinese buffet in my lame attempt to fill his bottomless stomach. Then I took him to campus, where we ended up going to the movies at The Ross. I’d already seen The Grand Budapest Hotel but I was being the good auntie so…. At least I could sit. I was done eating after the Chinese food but Drew was hungry again so he snacked his way through the frig when we got home before heading to bed earlier cuz auntie was tired. : )

After another home cooked breakfast, it was time to head to Helen’s farm. Drew wanted to see the horses. I sat in the car. After a bit, Helen came over and suggested that Drew stay and help and I could come back later and get him. Yee ha! I was off the hook. My knee was much happier at home than sweating in a car cuz it was pretty darn warm. I relaxed the afternoon away, picked Drew up later and then we both got cleaned up because we were going to Farmer Brown’s with Helen for prime rib. Yum! We were there when they opened at 5:00 so were home by 7:00, full and happy. I then continued good auntie mode and watched Caddy Shack. Yikes!

The weather was supposed to suck on Sunday so I’d declared it stay at home day. Drew had brought some homework with him so dug into that after breakfast. Since the rain was holding off, I went out to prune my roses, which I managed to do without my knees getting worse. It still wasn’t raining so I planted my early veggies (1 bed out of 4 done, yay!) while the ham cooked. Drew moved the last pile of leaves and set up my hoses, which required kneeling, before dinner. We ended up eating in separate rooms – Drew out front over homework and me in the back while watching PBS. It was not a particularly festive Easter dinner but fine for a heathen and a Jew. Nora stopped on her way through town and dropped off some yummy carrot cake. I went to bed, giving Drew strict instructions to pack before bed because we’d be leaving the house at 8:00 come hell or high water.

So, it wasn’t the super productive week I’d planned but I did get some yard work done, had social time with Darla and Helen and spent a nice weekend with Drew. He seemed happy and I’d gotten enough done despite being betrayed by my body at every turn. I’ll take that.


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