Home again, home again, jiggety-jog....

My wonderful vacation time with Page is over and I'm back home. Not back in a regular routine yet - trying to hold on to that vacation feeling as long as possible. As most people know, it takes several days to really start unwinding - in my case,I started unwinding the second week. Page brought home Siam Square Thai food take-out Thursday night and it was good (mine had little more heat but not too much). I put a nice roast with veggies in the crockpot Friday for dinner. I pulled out the fresh green beans we had bought the Saturday before and had a Jeri moment. I was looking at them wondering if I should cook them and thought, "I'll call Jeri...." and it was one of those moments that will happen to so many people for a while. They looked okay and still had a little "snap" to them so I cooked them and they were very good. Page helped me get everything back in my suitcase Friday night and we both realized that I am officially a "bag lady". I have little bags for everything and I started wondering about that. I do know I'm not able to carry heavy bags for long so maybe that is how it got started? Hmm -that sounds good - lets go with that. Page got everything packed in the car before it started raining and hopefully she went back to bed. She works so hard and I know how much she needs her sleep. I stopped at a combination service station/McD's for a breakfast burrito and to fill the tank with gas. I decided it was time to call Cyn from the car dealership - I couldn't figure out how to get the windshield wipers to work. LOLOLOL Yeah - she and I definitely need to sit down in my car and let me take some notes. As I was eating my burrito I pulled out my GPS and programmed it to bring me home. Not because I don't know the way but for some reason, it is hard to get on 85 North off 285 unless you do it more than once in a while. I couldn't wait to tell Page how easy it was for me with the GPS - it kept telling me to stay left until it was time to start moving to the right where it still gets tricky because you want to stay to the left of the right (so you go North instead of South on 85). It started raining while I was eating my burrito and rained constantly until I got well on the North side of Charlotte. I made one quick pit stop in SC to use the rest room and buy a Pepsi to keep me awake and the whole trip between the service station in
Smyrna and the service station on Hwy 70 took me a few minutes under 6 hours. Miya did so well - she talked to me several times but as soon as I put my fingers in her cage door, she would get real quiet again. Bentley called me after I had been on the road for a bit to tell me it was CoCo's birthday and he wanted to "have Miya" for dinner. Isn't he cute? Yeah - just a barrel of laughs. We laughed about it and talked a bit until the traffic got a little tricky. It took a full tank of gas for the trip so I think I got between 27 and 30 miles to the gallon which isn't as good as the Avalon but better than BigD's truck. I just realized yesterday I put a note with picture about Leah's car reaching 200,000 miles in two posts. You know what - just ignore it. Not worth going back to "fix it". I picked up some North Carolina style BBQ and a Chocolate Malt Shake at Cook-Out and came home. After we unloaded the car I was pretty much done, done, done. I got caught up on 2 weeks worth of funny papers - I know - I'm addicted, watched Duke lose to Carolina and did my WT study after which I headed off to bed. It was raining a little when I got to the meeting this morning and it turns out they had put tar in the seams of the parking lot yesterday and the rain kept it from getting hard. Evidently I parked in the middle of the worst spot and along with some others, my shoes were full of tar on the bottom. They were wiping up the tar from the tile and Eric sat me in a chair in the lobby and cleaned my shoes for me. Then Eric was so sweet after the meeting - using his big umbrella to help us to our cars. In my case he put a towel on my floor board so I wouldn't track any tar on the carpet just in case I got more on my shoes. Who said chivalry was dead? It stopped raining so I decided to go to the grocery store. I left my phone at home so I called BigD on my OnStar phone (his is about the only number I can remember and I'm using it free for a month) to tell him and about the time I got there - the bottom fell out so I came on home. I talked with Page who said their "girl's night" last night was fun and that the apartment feels empty. I think she enjoyed having Miya too. :) I miss her already - the two weeks flew by but I can honestly say I feel more rested than I have in a long time. Now back to reality. Sadly, Jeri's youngest daughter, oldest son and his entire family along with some others are coming back from a cruise to a very harsh reality. I know they "will" be okay - but not today. Their not being here has prolonged the grieving process in a strange way. Sometimes we just need some kind of closure. Well - I guess I need to get up from here and wash the dishes (I miss Page's dishwasher)and try to unpack. We had a pretty heavy rain with some wind but it looks like things are clearing up now and the sky is looking brighter. I'm ready to see the SUN!!!