Whoa. I hadn’t had one of my long “vacation” weekends in a while, and really packed this one FULL!
I started Friday morning with an ortho appointment, having received a referral from my regular doc at a recent visit. It’s my hip, which has been making itself felt more & more, and it’s making me anxious about traveling. I’ve never felt that way before! Deterioration has continued, affecting joint mobility, as evidenced by comparing 2yo x-rays with new ones, and it’s at that “bone-on-bone” stage. I’m managing OK — good days/bad days — I’ll need a hip replacement in the future (we’re not there yet!), and I’m going to get a cortisone injection before going to Amsterdam.
On Friday afternoon, Rusty & I drove over to Algoma where there was an opening reception for an exhibit featuring Rusty’s paintings & drawings. We stayed the night at a cute, basic little motel, then headed for home on Saturday morning — Ali & fam came over for farewells, and Rusty needed to pack! I got him to the airport in time for his 7am flight to Vegas on Sunday morning to meet Kate… then came home & took two naps.
The highlight of the weekend was the arrival of Ginny at 9am on Monday for the long overdue start of 1:1 time! 36 hours!!
She brought a to-do list!! And I had one of my own!
We started with errands — running cans to the recycler, dropping off a few bags at Goodwill, stops at two home improvement stores, Target, Starbucks (to visit Ali) (also coffee), the grocery store. Ginny said, “Nona, do you do this everyday??” haha. We did all but the first errand in the convertible, and mostly with the top down.
Ginny recuperated from all the running around by watching the first of the two movies on her list. We had a late lunch at Jimmy John’s (by request), and then we went to the playground at a nearby school, and then to another brand new playground at a park close to my house — so new that they’re still doing landscaping. It’s a climber’s paradise!
The gallery we visited on Friday also has antiques and I found a tray of old sterling silver charms, which I was just idly sifting through until I found the windmill and the lightbulb came on. I couldn’t find another one, but I did find a US Passport & a world charm, so I added those to our AMSTERDAM Swiftie bracelets during craft time, and Ginny made a couple of beaded bracelets, too. Click on any of those photos to make them big.
We wound up the day by making lasagna for supper. Ginny knew that there was tomato in lasagna, but was not happy to see that they started out big! I always like to use a can of whole peeled tomatoes and chop them up myself, rather than diced tomatoes — I feel like there’s more actual tomato that way?
On Sunday, we built a fort in the Garden Room. Instead of for sleeping, she used it for making pom poms (a singular pom pom — it’s a fun activity, but also tedious).
We ran downtown & stopped in at a thrift shop, then across the street to my local antique mall — so much to look at — and walked down to the corner to have ice cream for lunch. Yum. That’s the “junior scoop,” and I’m so glad that we didn’t go larger!
We came home & made some sun prints from a Mondo Llama kit that I picked up at Target. I’m a sucker for those things and have had mixed results. The kids usually enjoy doing them, though! I am so happy with this sun print kit. It comes with a pad of 20 sheets of paper, a couple sheets of images (butterfly bodies & wings to build your own), and some plastic film to use as a work surface & to keep it all together. Well, you can see that we didn’t follow the directions! Ginny made a couple of bugs on the last sheets that she did, but mostly we walked around the yard and picked flowers & leaves, laid them on the paper in the sun, rinsed them as instructed, and VOILA! We were both so pleased with the results.
We walked over to Ann’s and Ginny watched the second movie on her list while I got laundry going & made beds for the Airbnb turnover. We had leftovers for lunch, made popcorn later in the afternoon while watching a couple of other things on TV (Nona needed a nap), and we just had such a great time!
In a couple of weeks, I’ll be doing it again with Malina!
In other news, I’ve made 20 Swiftie bracelets for each of us… so far! I haven’t been knitting a whole lot. I finished reading a book!!!!!!!
