Week 29 - Hanging with Connie

This week was all about Connie's visit. She was coming for her daughter's 50th birthday party, which was a catered affair at Robber's Cave and I was her plus one. She would arrive Monday night and leave Friday morning to drive to Toronto to see her daughter and family. That's a shorter trip than her usual.

Despite having cleaned like a banshee for days, I still had more to do on Monday. Vacuuming and bathroom I think plus it was laundry day, which I hung outside as usual. Connie left her house super early so arrived at 5:00 despite losing an hour between mountain and central time. I had made tetrazzini for supper and she brought all the produce from her fridge so I made brocolli to go with it. Yum and great chat over supper. Connie wanted to go for a walk since she'd been in the car all day and I thought the path from the park to the lake would have more shade. It was hot but OK in the shade but even at 8:30 at night, it was too hot when we were in the sun. We walked for maybe 30 mins and gave up. 

We had registered for an election event in Omaha on Tuesday with Pete Buttigieg stumping for Denise Powell, who is the Democrat running for Congress in Nebraska's second district. The doors opened at 11:15 so we headed to Omaha and waited in line in the blazing sun, only to see a sign at the entrance that there was a clear bag policy. We went back to my car to drop Connie's huge purse and my wallet and by the time we got back, the line was gone. It was standing room only but they had some seats saved and they asked us if we wanted to sit. Yes please! The event was great. We knew Pete was a great speaker but so was Denise. I will be voting for her and hope she wins. We were in southeast Omaha so headed further south to hit a thrift I used to love when I was buying Corelle, hoping we'd find somewhere for lunch on the way. We didn't so headed further south, which put us in Bellevue and I know nothing of that area. We ended up at Applebee's for lunch and it wasn't bad. We went home from there because Connie was going to Lincoln for dinner with her daughter while I'd be at a library board meeting.

Rachele's party was Wednesday night and Connie's car was loaded with decorations, which meant we'd be on the set up crew. With nothing else planned for the day, we went and got pedicures at the nail place in Wahoo. After a tea break at home, we headed to Lincoln. There were others on set up duty and we had fun putting up bunting, posters, balloons (had to blow those up) and such. Rachele has a diverse bunch of friends, some of whom came from far and wide. We hadn't planned to stay until the end but we had so much fun that we did, which meant we were on take down duty too. It was a great time.

Connie had committed to meeting in Lincoln for breakfast so we were up and out first thing on Thursday. I sat next to someone I'd enjoyed chatting with at the party and had breakfast nachos, which was a huge portion, even half was too much but I took it home to eat again. We went straight back to Wahoo and in an attempt to entertain Connie, who doesn't seem to be able to just veg, we did the stores in downtown Wahoo. I even took her to pet the kittens at the shelter, which she didn't seem to enjoy. We went back home and she made salmon for supper, which we had with all the salads I'd made that we hadn't eaten much of all. Connie tried to take a walk in the neighborhood after supper but was back almost immediately because it was just too damn hot. We watched a movie that night and of course I had troubles with my hotspot because I was still 6 days out from the service call to fix my internet. Ridiculous. We didn't stay up late because Connie was leaving the next morning to drive halfway to Toronto.

I made bacon (yummy cherrywood smoke maple bacon from the Wahoo Locker) and eggs for breakfast on Friday so Connie would have some protein to start her travel day. She set off and I got busy stipping beds, organizing the fridge, which was full of half eaten salads and such, etc. Then I sat down to enjoy some alone time in my house without worrying about entertaining anyone. Nice.

Saturday was Christmas in July for spinning group, which had been moved from a park to Nan's house because of the blazing heat. I made some tortilla roll ups, using up various things from the week, then wrapped my present for the gift exchange - a yarn bowl filled with unspun fiber from the Brown Sheep factory. I got a lovely skein of Malabrigo, which will make a beautiful hat. There was lots of leftover chicken so I grabbed a couple of pieces for later and hit Aldi before heading home. It was a fun day.

On Sunday, I had cat duty at the shelter in the morning and drove to Lincoln to swim in the evening and did not much else in between. I did chat with a couple of friends and knitted, of course, and I'm sure there was streaming too. I was happy to have a normal week coming up and after one more blazing hot day on Monday, the forecast for the upcoming week was much cooler with highs in the 70's. Can't wait for that.