update time again

I know that you are all eagerly waiting for a bit more of my stories--the new hiking plan, the drummer's travels, the darling girls--so, because I love my internet, this is for you.

About the hiking plan. Let me just say that while things didn't go exactly to plan, we are both recovering nicely and will attempt to start up the plan again next weekend. Okay, that might have sounded a bit dramatic. What happened was that Jack came down with a cold--a bad man cold--that would have laid me low too. He was down, staying home from work for two days and then crashing after work the rest of the week. And then on Saturday, it got worse. Moved into his chest and gave him the deep, deep man voice. Totally hot that voice.

Then on Saturday my lower back went into spasms when I moved one of the bar stools three inches closer to the bar. It's only taken three days of sitting around taking aleve and muscle relaxants so that I'll be back to normal just in time for work tomorrow.

Hiking update next week. We hope.

About the drummer and his travels. As I said earlier, I really feel like this is the start of real life for him. While I'd love his life to be without pain or inconvenience, that isn't life. Which is the only reason I can come up with that explains why his luggage (a sleeping bag and everything he'll wear and need for the next 10 weeks) was lost. again. Isn't that just like real life? You start out with high hopes and very quickly, something comes along and helps you recognize that life has its bumps.

About the darling girls. Most recently Audrey. She (and her parents) visited last night. That girl is another one who has it all going on. She's got that adorable curly blond hair and those big blue eyes and the deepest dimples in her cheeks. Last night, she again displayed her smarts. Audrey is a nonstop chatter. She has a lot to say and has no trouble voicing her thoughts. It's just that she speaks a foreign language. The only words that her language has in common with English are bye, kitty, mama, dad, and dog. But, she recognizes many things by name in English--for example, when the dog barks, she swivels around to the sound and says, 'dog?' And she has started to understand the pleasure of sitting on gramma's lap while we share a book. She recognizes fish, ball, frog, fork, and many other pictures including egg, which was her favorite picture last night. After I pretended to pick up the egg and eat it, she quickly got the idea and sat on my lap eating eggs for, oh, I'd say about a half an hour. She didn't mind if her mom or dad had some eggs, but she wasn't about to feed them the egg. They had to get their own egg. It is truly amazing to watch these girls develop.

That's the update. Oh jeez, I almost forgot the BIG news. This week, I'll be headed to lovely, tornado-struck Minneapolis to attend a corporate legal department get together and while I'm there, I'm on the agenda to explain one of the applications I use in my job to see if it will work for other company locations. While the idea of telling a bunch of lawyers and other paralegals about how I do something is intimidating enough, my biggest concern was--obviously--what to wear? Since none of my favorite suits fit comfortably, I told Jack I seriously needed to go shopping. He agreed and offered to go with me.

Let me just say that I may never shop without him again. I had in mind another black suit--the usual work clothes. But not Jack. He found this adorable--might I even say, CUTE--suit jacket. It's a tweed jacket made with pink, blue, white, tan, and black yarns. And best of all, while I don't even want to look at the size tag, I've discovered that size doesn't matter. Fit matters. And this adorable jacket fits. And it was on sale--$84 marked down to $12.80. JACKPOT!

We also found a pair of slacks that fit perfectly that are black and white tweed and look so dang good with the jacket. And they were marked down from $54 to $8.80. BONUS!!!

Omigosh--a whole CUTE outfit (because I already have a couple of cute--seriously they're cute--tops and some great shoes--sensible and stylish even) and the CUTE outfit cost less than $25. This outfit doesn't even require a CUTE outfit label from the opwo. For that price, it is more than CUTE. It is adorable. It is colorful. It is stylish. It is the perfect size. And it's mine for less than $25.

Even if the presentation somehow falls apart, it won't matter. Because I'll be wearing a new, adorable, colorful, stylish, well fitting, amazing bargain outfit. And I will feel good about it.