It's Just Like Having A Baby....In A Way

I dream about this place all year long.  I still find the initial adjustment to be an interesting process.  I arrive after spending days in a car driving across the eastern United States.  It is like giving birth!  Think about it, I  look forward to being here for 9 months, then comes the labor of the long drive, followed by the initial recovery from the pains of that labor, then the awkward first days getting used to this new life and finally the reward of new life.  I guess with all the babies being born in our family the analogy of birth seems very appropriate!

For nine months my memory idealizes this place.  The weather is always better  here, the food is fresher, the skies are clearer.  We have so many people around us to visit and who just drop in for a visit.  I live much healthier here.  Life goes by at a lovely, relaxing pace.  All these things float around in my mind while I am away.  As with anything, absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Like a pregnant woman, who dreams about how sweet that baby is going to be once it is born.  You idealize life with a new baby, even if you've had one before.  We always remember the good stuff and forget the bad stuff.

Sunny days and sandbars

In my case, labor comes in the form of 40 hours driving through 17 states and 1 province in 5 days.  This year I left Houston while tropical storm Bill was making his presence known.  Once I got about 2 hours away from Houston, Bill was not an issue for a few days.  We met up with him again in Pennsylvania.  It seemed we were chasing him all the way here.  We could see the storm in the distance, we would get very close and catch him only to take a lunch break, a bathroom break or stop for the night and Bill would march ahead of us.  Out of the 40 hours of driving I think we drove through 4 hours of rain total, not bad for following a tropical storm!  But it was definitely a labor...of love to get here.

Bill escorted me out of Houston

Driving through Virginia made me feel very patriotic

Virginia rest stop.  Good thing Virginia is beautiful because it takes a long time to drive through it!

We caught up to Bill again in Pennsylvania right before we stopped for the night.....

He just loomed over us for most of the rest of the drive until
 he just had to let go and welcome us with rain just like he had done in Houston.

Once labor is over there is joy... and recovery.  We were very happy to finally be here and finally be out of the car!  The reality was a bit different than all those fantasies I have all year.  My beautiful farmhouse is a Venus fly trap over the winter, dead flies everywhere!  There is always so much cleaning to be done upon arrival and this year it was not done with the windows open on a sunny day.  It was done on a cloudy, cool day with a fire in the fireplace.  Not complaining!  I left behind some very hot, humid weather, this felt perfect for a day of work.  It takes but one day for me to remember that this ideal place is a lot of work.  Just like those pregnant dreams of quietly cuddling with your new baby and the reality of sleepless nights, aching body parts and an inconsolable baby.

I'll be honest here, for the first couple of days I question myself.  I live in Houston, surrounded by a huge shiny city, in a nice suburban neighborhood with anything and everything one could ever want or need in close proximity.  It is about as far from this rural setting as the east is from the west.  It takes me a couple of days to shift gears from city to country.  But for those couple of days I occasionally question my sanity.  I'm not in Kansas anymore....    This became quite apparent when we approached the border in Maine and stopped for lunch at this fine Irving station diner....

Diner food at it's best
a far cry from Houston's top 100
I just love the vacuum cleaner next to the pie fridge....no dessert for me!

This was the moment I realized I was still carrying my city snob with me.  The food was good and the waitress was very nice.  I needed to check my city girl at the border and embrace my farmhouse girl.  After about three days, my blood pressure goes down and my focus begins to change, I see beauty in simple things like the birds at my bird feeder and the flowers that pop up everywhere.   I spend time riding around the yard on a lawnmower instead of on the freeway in traffic.  This is the settling down in my new life just like a new mother has to finally settle down into her new life with her new baby.  It also has different priorities.

And just like that new mother who can sit and look at her new baby for hours on end, I can sit and look out of my windows for hours on end.  Sitting for hours on end looking at anything does not lend itself to productivity but it can lower your blood pressure and make you very happy.  So even though my baby "the farmhouse" is a lot of work... puts me in my place at times and requires much effort to reach every year, at the end of the day it is all worth it to spend 3 months in a different world.

Just Give Him A Number

 After 37 years of marriage I may have found the key to my husband's motivation.  All he needs is a goal.  I've always known he was competitive, sometimes to a fault.  What I have recently discovered is that if I want him to do something all I need to do is put a number in front him.  Like a sales goal.... sell 4 million widgets, reach your goal and get that bonus.  Yes, this explains why he is such a good salesman, he finds his dangling carrot and pursues it until he reaches his goal.  Every salesman has certain goals, concretely defined, to which he aspires every year.  Reach that goal and you are rewarded.  Simple formula... goal, work, reward.  Sometimes it isn't really work.  Like when it comes to drinking beer or eating at restaurants.

Drink 200 beers, get a plate on the wall...done.

His latest pursuit is to eat at all of the top 100 restaurants in Houston.  It is a worthy pursuit.  There is a finite number of choices and the reward is obvious, delicious food, presumably.  This is a goal I can support.  It is so much better than accompanying him while he drank 200 different beers at the same fine pub.  For a girl who doesn't really drink beer this goal left me longing for a proper wine bar!  But, food and restaurants.... you are talking my language!  The list covers all the bases.  There are high end fancy places, food trucks, new trendy places, pizza places, Vietnamese places, home cooking places, you name it...it's on there.  Even BBQ, much to my dismay.  I am OK with him trying some of the 100 without me!

One place I might have missed without "the list"
and missing this place would have been sad!  Great place!

This quest began with an insert to our newspaper many months ago, "The Top 100 Restaurants in Houston".  The dangling carrot!  We enjoy eating out but find ourselves going to the same nearby places over and over.  To quote my friend Barbara, "We need to get out of the cul-de-sac!".  Every once in a while it's nice to explore your own city, especially if it is the 4th largest in the country.  We did this when we lived in Toronto and enjoyed being tourists in our own city.  Why not do it in Houston?  There are lots of places we haven't tried yet.  We have found some definite winners, others that for whatever reason were not as impressive as advertised but no real losers yet.  We have gotten out of the neighborhood and that's a good thing.  Of course, after we finish with the 100 restaurants we may need to have a new goal.  First person to lose the 10 extra pounds we gained eating at the top 100 restaurants.

Last weekend's excursion lead us here.  We both agree,
we will be back!

It was at this very table I came to a realization, 37 years in the making.  TJ needs a goal or he just isn't going to do "it",  whatever "it" may be.....eating out, riding a bike, drinking beer, selling locomotives or chemicals or services, planting a garden, playing golf, swimming... just to name a few.  Give him a number to reach and watch him go.  So from now on I'm taking a different approach around here.  First person to cook 50 meals, first person to do 20 loads of laundry, first person to walk the dog 30 times will be rewarded,   Think it will work?   Me neither!

Read A Book!

When was the last time you went into a bookstore?  Are you like me, do you own an e-reader and simply download your books these days?  I don't remember the last time I went to a Barnes and Noble to just browse around and be inspired before yesterday.  OK, I take that back, the last time was probably in February when I went to pick up a book about Croatia and didn't want to wait for Amazon to deliver.  I remember looking through the International travel section, drooling over all the places I haven't yet visited and dreaming about wanting/needing some of those other travel guides some day.

Dreams and adventures on a shelf

Every time I go to a bookstore, which is not as often as it used to be, I get excited and a bit sad.  I fear with the digital age, paper and print are going the way of vinyl.  Books will become retro, vintage and cool but only to a select market.  I always enjoy a good browsing session in the bookstore.  I notice books I would never see searching on Amazon.  I get to see the actual book, read it's jacket, flip through the pages, and let my senses guide me to places I'd never find on the Internet.  There are just so many books and so little time to read them all, especially if you read at the speed of a 5th grader like I do.  One advantage I find in reading books instead of e-books is I can skip around or just skip over things.  This works especially well with genres like how-to books, travel books or non-fiction, not so well with fiction unless you don't care about "who done it".

A Curious Mind....a book I would have never stumbled upon on the Internet.
I am curious!  This could be a nice pick up, put down or jump around book.

I should always have a jump around book going as well as the book I'm reading on my e-reader.  This will keep me in the book stores regularly and let me read a variety of books.  So, if you find yourself with a few spare minutes  hours, stop into a bookstore and just enjoy yourself!  Otherwise, they are going to become the next Blockbuster.

The library is another place a person can get lost.  I remember we used to take our children to the library every two weeks.  Our second daughter would always say she didn't want to go and sometimes pitch a fit about going....imagine that!  Inevitably we would select books for everyone and check out right about closing time and have to go from aisle to aisle looking for our reluctant daughter.  We always found her in some corner surrounded by a pile of books and fully engrossed in one of them.  The one who didn't want to go was the one we had to drag out at the end of the night.  Bookstores and libraries are just like that!

It's a Boy!

For those of you who are not Facebook friends of mine.....the 5 of you who just happen to read my blog because you have exceptionally good taste in reading material, our daughter and son-in-law had a beautiful baby boy!  Life is good!

Logan Archer was born on May 19, 2015 at 9:03 a.m. and weighed 7 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20 3/4 inches long.  Of course, he is beautiful!

Only days old here.....

12 days old and wide awake!

As far as babies go, he is a good one!  In my humble expert opinion.  It is such a treat to have a baby here in town.  I usually fly in for a week or more after a grand baby is born and help out a little and the next time I see the baby he (because so far they have all been a "he") is three months old, and they change a lot in those months!  I will be able to see Logan grow day by day, or at least week by week.

 With every baby born into our family I am reminded of my own experiences.  Things are the same as they were and yet so different.  That first baby is one of life's biggest adjustments, your life is never the same!  It is infinitely better and even though there may be times you think it is worse....it isn't!  Even junior high school and  high school.  I listen to moms now and think how nice it would have been to have the Internet when my kids were babies.  It would have been great to read what other mothers were experiencing.  It would have been nice to know I was not alone in the world with a crying baby and it would have been a great place to steal ideas.  Mothers today have such a vast wealth of information at their finger tips.  Man, I would have been such a great Mom with all of that information and just think of the audience I could have had for my blog where I shared all of my child raising expertise.  The world could have been a very different place.  Yea....right.

In other news....you may have heard.... it rained in Houston and most of Texas this month....and forgot to stop.  Usually you can assume that all of my complaining about the weather is just a personal issue, not this time.  This time it was real.  We set a record for the rainiest month EVER in Texas.  Over 16 inches of rain fell in Sugar Land this month.  I'm not making this stuff up.  My weather obsession has gone from frustration to amazement.  We can tell little Logan that he was born in the rainiest month EVER in Texas.  That is something you put in the baby book.

A few years ago I noted the drought we were experiencing with some pictures of a "lake" I occasionally walk past.  I decided to check it out today to see the difference.  The pictures speak for themselves.  Yes, it has rained a lot and the drought is officially over.

The "lake" today, things are definitely lush, wet and green.

The same lake in May 2011

The same "lake" in September 2011

The sidewalk to......nowhere.  Underneath all that water is a tunnel to the other side....

Interesting month to say the least!  Hope you are dry wherever you are.

Waiting for Sunshine

Do you suffer from spring fever?  I've been trying to put my finger on what's been up with me for the last few weeks.  I've just been in a funk.  I thought it might be all the rain and humidity or the fact that I am in between big events and therefore in limbo twiddling my thumbs.  I'm not good in limbo or at the limbo for that matter.  I like spring or at least I thought I liked spring until we apparently moved to the tropical rain forest formerly known as Houston.  Everything is usually so pretty and green.  The flowers are all blooming.  The days are longer which gives us more outside time.  There is often a chance to sit outside on the patio and enjoy dinner or drinks or just read a book in the spring before it gets too hot.  Ideally, spring is all sunshine, warm breezes, flowers and fun.  So far...not so much.  Except for the flower part.  Ok, and lots of warm breezes.  Unfortunately, those breezes include 90-100% humidity, and are anything but refreshing!  At least my complexion is being moisturized.  So maybe I have one less wrinkle to go with my frizzy hair!

The lovely flowers all over Houston, covered with raindrops....
as Houston has been much of the spring.

Having lovely flowers all around not to mention the moisturized skin should be enough to keep my mood bright, right?  Wrong!   My English class  is out for the summer which is good and bad.  Good, because it was the end of the year and all of us were losing steam and ready for a break but bad because I now find myself with too much free time.  I know....you would love to have too much free time.  Be careful what you wish for.  You may just find yourself stuck inside your now clean house with all of your laundry done, looking out at the rain and trying not to eat everything in sight.

Spring fever or spring funk is real.  I looked it up on the Internet.  Something about the long dark winter months using up our body's reserves of serotonin, the happiness hormone or nature's Prozac.  Plus serotonin requires sunlight to reproduce, that explains the lack of happiness lately... no sunlight!  The longer days of spring require a rise in hormone levels and this apparently puts a strain on our body and makes us tired.  I'm sure that is the problem, right?  Or is it just the rain, humidity, clouds and all that free time with no chance of playing golf?  Whatever it is, it has put me in a funk.  There are only so many hours I can spend in my house.

I was afraid I was just exaggerating the rain totals so I put on my weather nerd hat and checked the statistics.  Total rainfall in April was 9.7 inches in Sugar Land, normal is 3.3 inches. This made me even more depressed than I already was!  So far in May we have had over 5 inches.  That's it.....I'm moving to California!  Soon we will all have webbed feet to go with our wrinkle free skin.

What's an outdoor girl to do?  I've caught up on all the shows on my DVR, read, gone to more than my usual number of classes at the gym and done my share of economic stimulation at the mall. I've also sewn a crib skirt and valence for the nursery for "the reason all of us will be over the moon next week"!  We probably won't even notice the weather.  That's right!  By this time next week we will have a new grand baby!  If that doesn't change my funky mood nothing will!  I'll keep you posted on the ray of sunshine arriving next week!

Ready and waiting for our ray of sunshine!

I feel better already.  Think I'll go for a run....in the rain.

Parts 3 and 4, A New World

Before I really get going.... the best part of visiting Dubai was getting to spend six days with my son and daughter-in-law.  They were the main reason we went to Dubai and they will be the only reason we go back.  Dubai is a place like no other place I have been.  It is a cross between Las Vegas and Disney World with a little Europe thrown in all set in the Middle East.  It is a dichotomy.  On the outside it looks very modern, shiny, fast moving and rich.  If you dig deeper it is a very conservative country with strict rules about public behavior, alcohol, drugs and crime.  Everywhere you look you can see extremes.

Traditionally dressed camel rider next to Speedo man, French Riviera or Dubai? 

The long bridge in the background is the runway for FlyDubai Skydiving, so you can either ride a camel or go sky diving, all within a mile.  Almost everywhere you go in Dubai opposite choices are available. Shop at the souks or at the largest mall in the world?  Wear clothing that covers you from head to toe or clothing that is form fitting and revealing?  Even the landscape is a study in contrast.

The green golf course is an oasis surrounded by skyscrapers!

 Dubai is opulent.  I don't live with opulence so I found myself gawking occasionally and at times I even felt uncomfortable.  You see, I'm not one of those people whose life goal is to stay at the finest hotel, eat the finest food, drive the most expensive car and wear the finest designer clothes (do they even come in my size?).  BUT, there are many people in Dubai who love that lifestyle and actually live it.  Don't get me wrong, I like good stuff just as much as the next person, I'm just realistic enough to know I don't live in that income bracket....and never will.  It was nice to admire/gawk from afar though.

We were treated to brunch on Friday, our first day in Dubai.  Friday is the first day of the weekend in Dubai or the Middle East, it's the new Saturday.  Our brunch was one of many across the city.  It is a "thing"!  Four hours with hundreds of food choices and just about any drink you can think of all set in a swanky hotel, because hotels are one of the few places you can buy alcohol.  It was overwhelming!  I had no idea how we were going to last 4 hours eating and drinking in one place....but we managed!

Brunch....from one end of the picture to the other end, inside and outside!

An interesting tidbit... when we would leave the table my daughter-in-law said we did not need to bring our purses, no one was going to bother them.   I looked around at all the other tables and noticed all of the women left their purses when they walked around.  We were not just going from the table to a buffet in the same room, we were going from building to building!  She said you can even leave all of your stuff on the beach, take a walk and come back and no one will bother it.  Nice!  I found Dubai to be very safe.

After our "over the top brunch" we wanted to watch the sunset from a good vantage point.  There are any number of high rise hotels on the water to choose from for this venture.  We tried to sit outside on the rooftop deck but we were very chilly!  We had not prepared to be chilly in Dubai.  It was windy and cool by sunset and we were all in short sleeves or no sleeves, I did have a scarf but it was not nearly enough to keep all 4 of us warm!

If you look closely you can make out the Palm Island in the distance
 with FlyDubai runway right in front of it.

And the sun sets over the Persian Gulf....notice any oil tankers on the horizon?

Our first day in Dubai was wonderful.  There are several others that were just as great but one day, in particular, stands out to me.  The day we went to Abu Dhabi!  I figured it would be about the same as Dubai... it is and it isn't.  Abu Dhabi is the richer, more conservative sister or cousin to Dubai.  We were meeting an old friend of TJ's in Abu Dhabi and he volunteered to show us around.  It was great to have someone drive us around, especially someone who has lived there for over 15 years and knows where to go and how to get there.  The absolute highlight of the trip was seeing the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.  I expected it to be grand, I expected big, I expected beautiful.  My imagination is so limited, it was all that and more!

From the outside it is very big....but it's what's inside that is amazing!

The main prayer hall,
home to the largest hand knotted rug in the world, over 60,000 sq. ft.
Glad I'm not the one who has to vacuum this!

My favorite room!  I loved the inlaid marble flower walls!  The colors were so lovely.

The ceiling in my favorite room.  Beauty everywhere you look!

Everywhere!  

I really can't say enough about the grandness of this mosque.  We were there during one call to prayer.  At first I didn't know what was going on, there was a soothing, calm voice doing a chant on the loud speaker.  Later, I noticed all around town you can hear various calls to prayer during the day if you are near a mosque, and you are always near a mosque.  It was very cool to hear the call to prayer in such a peaceful beautiful place.  I prayed....and the walls did not fall down!  I also got to wear an abaya for our visit.  The rules to enter were clearly posted and if you were not loosely covered from head to toe you were given a black abaya to wear, free of charge.  I always wondered what it would feel like to wear one, especially in the Arabian heat.  I wondered if I would suddenly feel oppressed or hidden or just plain hot.  I felt like a girl in a Catholic school wearing a uniform just like all the other girls but I can in no way imagine wearing one in the summer heat!  I was more than happy to shroud myself out of respect.  It is not my religion but I can respect it while I am in their place of worship just as I hope others would do in a cathedral or basilica.

The rules....click on the picture to see a closer view.

Me...following the rules

Enough about the mosque...the rest of the visit had a lot to live up to!  While we were in Dubai, I played the most expensive (did I mention that almost everything is very expensive in Dubai?) and decadent round of golf in my short lived golf life.  I noticed at the golf course there was a crew of men setting up for an event, an event my son would be attending later in the week.  It was going to be quite the extravaganza!

Everything is a big deal in Dubai!  Lights, fireworks, music!

 We started talking about the laborers in Dubai.  There is a lot of construction going on in Dubai and I noticed buses on the highway full of workers.  Men are bused to their work site every day and then bused home at the end of the day.  The buses have curtains on the windows, presumably to shield them from the hot sun or to block light and let them sleep!  I had heard that these workers do not make much money, cheap labor has helped to build such a big city so quickly.  For some reason this troubled me.  I am not so naive to think this is a unique situation.  Still, it disturbed me that these men, and yes, they are all men, work tirelessly to build all of the grandeur.  Many of these men have left oppressed countries in search of work.  Their life, however hard and unfair, is better than the one they left behind.  Many have sacrificed their passports and are stuck.  The ones with families have left their families behind.  I felt almost guilty, must be the Catholic in me, enjoying the luxurious surroundings.

One day we visited the souks and Old Dubai.  Very different from Jumeria beach and the Marina area we had been enjoying.  I even did my first haggling at one of the souks.  I successfully bought a silver bracelet for half of what the shop keeper had it listed.  The key, in my amateur opinion, is to start walking out of the store and say you are going to keep looking.  The souks felt more authentic, even a bit cheesy but you had the feeling people go there regularly to buy spices, nuts, gifts and of course jewelry.

Water taxi ride!

need spices?

After our trip to the souks, I rode home with my son, a rare and special moment for just the two of us, and he showed me the "other side" of Dubai.  The side that is not on any tour map.  He drove me through the machine shop area; rows of large warehouses and metal shops.  He said he buys equipment there on occasion.  We talked about the working and living conditions of the laborers again.  I am constantly amazed by the person he has become.  He deals with all types of people, all nationalities, all income and education levels and seems to be able to do it with grace and confidence.  I always knew he was a people person.  As we drove farther into the area he told me, "Mom, whatever you do, do not get out of the car." .  OK.  He showed me where the laborers live and it surprised and saddened me.  Five to six men per apartment.  No women.  No families.  I think this may have been what bothered me so much.  It wasn't the obvious crowded conditions or the simple conditions,  but the fact it is all men.  I find that sad.  It is one thing to be poor but to have no family is even sadder.  Their life is work and only work.

A far cry from the swanky hotels and skyscrapers

Yes, I guess all those shiny tall buildings, Maseraties, designer shops, lavish hotel lobbies, and expensive meals eaten outside looking at crystal blue water made me think of the disparity between the labor force and those of us fortunate enough to enjoy the fruits of their labor.  I guess every country has their rich and their poor, but for some reason it just seemed different here.  Our ride together ended with two heavy hearts.
We needed something to cheer us up after our drive.

On the opposite end of the spectrum of hope I have a small world story.  My daughter-in-law kept saying that Dubai, in spite of its size, was a small city.  She said you run into the same people all of the time.  One night we went to dinner a bit late, 9:00, which is late in my book.  The restaurant was relatively empty.  Around 9:30 a family came in and sat right behind us.  I noticed this family, they were an Arab family and one boy was in a wheel chair and appeared to have no lower body.  He was smiling and joking with his brother and mother and father.  My daughter-in-law also noticed how happy the family was and how the boy kept joking and smiling.  Later that night I was checking my Instagram page and as I had just started following the Dubai crown prince, per my son's suggestion, I saw none other than the boy in the wheelchair receiving an award from the Sheikh himself earlier that same day!  The next morning he was on the front page of the newspaper with the Sheikh!   What an inspiration....in a small world.

Front page news in Dubai

We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Dubai.  Who knew there was an Irish Village in Dubai?  There is everything in Dubai!  It was a legitimate Irish celebration with great music, plenty of beer, lots of green and orange and white and even real Irish people.  We absolutely enjoy sitting outside for a few hours enjoying the weather, the music and the beer.

Luck of the Irish!

A good time was had by ALL!

One more story and then this will be over!  On our last night we went out to dinner, of course!  We sat outside, because we could.  Much to my dismay, one thing there is not a lot of in Dubai is wine.  What wine they serve is expensive and the selection is limited.  It would be hard for me to drink too much there given the limited choices and the prices!  I really wanted a glass of wine with dinner that night and TJ, being the gallant husband he is said to just go ahead and order whatever I wanted.  I looked over the menu and found a glass of wine I'd like.  It was something I would expect to pay $10 or $12 for a bottle at home.  One glass of this wine on the menu was 125 dirham or $35 USD!   I couldn't do it!  I could not pay $35 for a dinky glass of mediocre wine.  We had just come from Croatia where a delicious glass of Croatian wine was the equivalent of $2 USD!  Yes, Croatia and Dubai were just as different from each other as the prices of their wine.  I ordered a $15 gin and tonic.

Dubai was beautiful.  The city is very clean and very safe.  It is a feast for your eyes, everywhere you look you can see beauty and grandeur.  It is like living in the future.  A city that just popped up in the middle of the desert and has become a major center for business and tourism.  About 85% of the population are expatriates.  It is an international mecca.  The population is also very much male, 75%.  For some reason this city fascinated me to the point I was compelled to research it and learn more about it's culture and history.  This does not happen to me everywhere I travel.  To quote Forrest Gump, "and that's all I have to say about that.".

A few more pictures, because why not?

Abu Dhabi

A fountain full of flower petals

That silver tube is the indoor ski slope in the Dubai Mall.  That's as close as I got....

Because Tim Hortons is everywhere!

Burg Khalifa, go big or go home!
The world's tallest building!

Thanks to our most excellent tour guides!

Because Sometimes Life is not Perfect

I thought I'd take a brief commercial break from the travel blogs and catch you up on real life.  This post is so you don't think my life is all beautiful sunsets, clear skies, gallivanting around the globe and eating delicious gourmet food.  Sometimes life is not perfect.

We celebrated Easter last weekend,(yes, I started this a long time ago!) along with the rest of the Christian world.  We also celebrated the 7th birthday of one very special boy.  My daughter and her family were here for the week of their Spring Break, the last time they were here for Easter we did the limbo.  We had a great week together!

We remembered the Alamo!

We went to the aquarium and discovered that Daniel is the bird whisperer.

We were having a great time together and things were seemingly perfect until.... a little stomach bug crept into our house.  Man down!  We did a lot of washing...carpet, sheets, pillows, comforter, and clothes.  I forgot, because that is God's way of insuring propagation of the species, just how much ground vomit can cover!  Our patient recovered in time to enjoy Easter.  My favorite part of Easter happened with my new best buddy, John.  I dressed him in his Easter clothes and told him, repeatedly, how handsome he looked.  After I dressed myself I picked John up and he patted my dress and said, "Gigi, handsome!".  So, maybe my life is perfect!

We are so handsome!

Easter was over and the grandsons and their parents headed back to the cold north country.  I collapsed on Monday.  Some time during the night that pesky stomach bug crept back into our house and struck me.  Three days later I was finally able to drag myself off the couch and join the human race.  That was a rough way to lose a few pounds, which sadly I instantly gained back with my first bite of solid food.

Just when I thought life was going to be normal again I woke up and my eyes looked like I was wearing red eye liner and they felt like wet sandpaper.  That was over a week ago.  Two trips to the eye doctor and 3 prescriptions later I am hopeful my eyes will no longer scare people when I look at them.

All month since we got back from our trip I have felt like there is a force preventing me from living my life.  I have not been able to get any traction on my normal routine.  No regular exercise, no regular diet, no regular golf games, no blogging and I have even had to call in sick twice for my ESL class....first time in 5 years I've called in sick!  Yes, I know, I'm whining a little.  I never whine!  What has happened to me?  8 days of scratchy eyes will mess with your psyche, take my word for it!

Anyway, that's what's new with me....I'll now try to finish my post about Dubai which I've been working on for a month, in between company, stomach bugs and eye infections.  It should be a doozy!