Week 26 - Roadshow with Dottie

Well, I started the week happy about the reclaimed the spare room, a car full of donations for Goodwill and anticipation of my sister’s arrival and Antiques Roadshow. All good, right? And it only got better.

The Goodwill stuff was dropped off Tuesday at lunch, when I also scored some new tops at ShopKo, which would go a long way towards decreasing my stress every morning as I tried to find something, anything that fit and was presentable for work. I did make a mistake and wear a pair of earth shoes that I’d bought a few years ago but hadn’t worn because they were too tight. When I was in the pool on Tuesday, I noticed how skinny my feet were so decided to try the shoes again. I wore them to work Wednesday, I was smart enough to bring some Birks, which were on my feet just 2 hours into the day. While they fit, the negative heel definitely was throwing off my gait and since I’d already had a shot in my knee, I couldn’t take any chances of messing things up before my trip so off they went. Good decision. I can wear them later when walking isn’t so crucial.

I had decided to stop rotating once my sister arrived, which would be 3 days short but I was OK with that, especially when I broke 50 pounds on Thursday morning. I had a custom training session scheduled for all afternoon Thursday so bought some cookies at The Cookie Company to offer as a snack mid-afternoon. Well, I ate just half a cookie and felt like crap. My stomach really can no longer cope with sweets, which isn’t all bad. Don’t get me wrong, there will be some chocolate consumption but after meals when my stomach isn’t empty.

Dottie was originally scheduled to drive all day Friday, spend Saturday at Antiques Roadshow and then drive back on Sunday but early in the week she called to say she was only scheduled until noon on Thursday so would drive then. I promptly took Friday off so we’d have an extra day together. She made good time and arrived ~9:00 on Thursday. I was fresh from the pool and ready for some fun.

After staying up late chatting, we had a leisurely morning on Friday, chatting some more over coffee. Then we headed out for some garage sales since it was Wahoo’s city wide garage sales weekend. We found some fun stuff here and there, stopping for lunch at The Wigwam then hitting a few more. From there we drove to Lincoln to check out the architectural antiques store for light fixtures for Dottie’s house. We spent a bunch of time there but she didn’t end up getting anything. After a fruitless stop at the Eco Stores, we went to Aardvark Antique Mall, which is huge but we did it all in an hour or so. I scored a lime green Pyrex pie plate to replace the one I foolishly let out of my house with a gift pie never to be seen again. We were pretty tired by the time we got back home so I whipped up comfort food for dinner – corned beef casserole and broccoli. It was a fun day.

Saturday was Antiques Roadshow so we just putzed around all morning and then headed to Omaha, arriving just in time for our 2:00 tickets. It’s very like Disney with switchback lines for each arrival time that took 40 minutes to get through only to get to the table where we got tickets for the lines we had to wait in for our appraisals. Our first stop was Asian Art, which had no line at all and we were pleased to hear that the Japanese 4 season prints our dad had brought back from the Korean war were worth $200. Then we waiting in glass for our grandmother’s crystal breakfast set, where the appraiser poo poo’d them since they were clear glass rather than colored but it was still worth more than we thought. Then it was an even longer line for jewelry, where Mrs. Jansen’s ring was worth between $475 and $550. We’d saved the longest line for last - Collectibles, which is where they throw everything that doesn't have a more specific category. It was an hour and twenty minutes of waiting before we saw the appraisor, who told Dottie her cast iron iron trivets (that's not a typo - they were meant to hold hot irons) were worth more than her husband had bid for them at a recent auction. That done, we were more than ready to hit the road. We'd had 4 hours of Roadshow fun.

We were meeting Helen at Farmer Brown's for prime rib but when we drove up, Charlie, Brenda and the baby, Carter, were there too and Michael arrived shortly thereafter so the whole family was there, which was a nice surprise. Charlie had recently had his 2nd hip replaced and was like a new man. I literally felt like I'd never seen this side of him. It was heartwarming. We had a wonderful dinner and lingered at the table, catching up. We left with prime rib leftovers, full bellies and smiles on our faces. It was a lovely ending to Dottie's trip.

Before Dottie left Sunday morning, I loaded up her trunk with all the acrylic yarn from my basement, which included several half done afghans, my afghan pattern books and even some hooks. It was great to see yet another load of stuff leaving my house. Dottie leaving wasn't so great but we'd had fun and vowed to not let so much time pass before seeing each other again. I think I'll be headed to Indiana before she comes back to Wahoo. 

After she left, it was on to chores - laundry, mowing, you know... all the stuff. A regular Sunday in my world.  I'd be leaving for my trip back east in 4 days so I had that in mind as I folded laundry, setting aside things I'd pack. Having cleaned out the spare room was a help because I'd neatized the house when I was done so it was looking good to be gone. It had also been a fun weekend sharing the once in a lifetime Roadshow experience with Dottie. Next stop - New York City.