Living an EXTRAordinary Life

The other day, I was driving my old cat, Joey the Wondercat, to the vet for his bi-weekly acupuncture appointment.   The drive takes me one hour, each way.  During the drive, I often choose to listen to a podcast or two.   This week, I listened to Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s Vegetarian Food for Thought podcasts.   And I just had to express my thoughts over one of the ones I listened to, entitled:  Minding the Gatekeepers.

In this episode, Colleen talked about her appearance on The Food Network. Now, you know I have talked about The Food Network and Vegetarianism before, as that was a very early post to this very blog.  I must give a note that this particular podcast was recorded in January 2007, when veganism was hardly ever mentioned.  I know that in recent days, a vegan cupcake was the winner of the cupcake wars and that a vegan (Natalie Portman) challenged the contestants on Top Chef or some show similar where chefs compete against each other.   But back in 2007, before veganism became trendy (it is, haven’t you heard?), they weren’t really doing much with it.

According to Colleen, the crew was fantastic with her.  They were professional and polite and everything else you’d want in a group of people filming you.   The segment they were filming was about “vegan barbecues”.    The crew spent the day with Colleen and her friends and everyone had a good time and loved the food.   Naturally, Colleen was a little nervous about the editing of the segment.   Which, apparently, was actually very well done (there is a rumor that the editor is a vegetarian).   However, the show the segment aired for was for a Bobby Flay barbecue show and he does episodes called “Crazy-ques“.

Yup, this segment was one of four stories about crazy barbecues.  The other segments included a barbecue taking place at a gas station and another taking place in Area 51.

Now, how does a veg*n barbecue compare to those weird things?  It doesn’t!  The only difference between a veg*n meal and a “regular” one is the lack of animal flesh/products (depending on whether its vegetarian or vegan).   And let me tell you …. VEGANS EAT THE SAME FOODS AS EVERYONE ELSE. The difference is what they DON’T eat.   Everyone, veg*n or omnivorous, eats fruits, vegetables, grains, beans … all normal food.  Yes, I’ll give you that most non-veg*ns probably don’t eat tofu and tempeh and seitan regularly, or probably never, but everything else that a vegan eats, so do non-vegans.  We just don’t make up something and say “it’s food”.   We eat the original food given to us by nature, before we learned to hunt and kill.   We eat food!  It’s not crazy!  People who don’t eat fruits and vegetables are not seen as crazy!  Even though I personally think not liking fruit is a little odd, it doesn’t mean I think you are crazy.

It’s just not!  It’s just a little different.    Thinking outside the box!

I just had to get that off my chest!  :)  Thank you for reading.

Also, I would love to see a vegetarian cooking show on the network.  I know of a lot of people who are interested in vegetarian cooking, even if they are not a vegetarian themselves.

For more information about Colleen Patrick-Goudreau check out her website:

#mce_temp_url#

Here is the podcast that this information came from:

Minding the Gatekeeper

And a few days later, birdies noticed:

I love this gift.  It makes me smile every time I see a bird come by to feed.  But then I see this:

I usually open up the patio door to scare him off.  I like squirrels just fine, but I put out food for the BIRDS, not a squirrel.  :)

And while we are talking about food, Matt and I made some homemade pizza a few weeks back.  Here is a picture of my creation:

Looks yummy, no?  I used Daiya vegan cheese … both the cheddar and mozzarella flavors … I promise to my vegetarian friends, that this cheese is awesome … there are also lightly sauteed red peppers and onions and some Upton’s seitan sausage.  YUM.

‘This is the best pizza I had ever had!

That is it for the food portion of this post.  Now I will talk about more FUN and family.

Matt, two of my sisters-in-law, brother-in-law, and Matt’s parents, and me took the boys (nephews) and our baby niece to Idlewild park.  Here is a photo of the kids before the day officially started.  I called it the “While Everyone Was Still in a Good Mood” photo.

Joey, Jacob, Katelyn, Nicholas (Left – Right)

However, I ended up having to say “Some of the cutest kids in the world” photo as every one was so good.  Each kid, and maybe even an adult or two, had one little meltdown, but it was over quickly and the good moods and behavior returned.  It was a hot day, but not too much so as long as you didn’t stay in the sun for long.  It was fun.

Five days later, we celebrated our nephew Joey’s 7th birthday at his party.  He is such a cute kid and the most precious moment when the super shy Nicholas, who really doesn’t talk to me much, wanted to play ball with me.  It was so touching and sweet.  I enjoyed every minute of the attention he wanted to give me.

Later that afternoon, Matt and I spent three hours raking algae from our pond.  Yes, it was as fun as it sounded.  We learned an important lesson here.  Don’t let the algae get out of control!  What do we know? It’s our first pond.

The next day we attended Kennywood for Matt’s work summer picnic.  Kennywood has the world’s best French fries and even though the company provided lunch, we still made sure to get some of them.   We lasted three hours.  I don’t know why, but we just don’t enjoy that park as much as we used to.  The Thunderbolt and the Racer are some of the best coasters in the world, but after you ride those … you are left with mostly spinny rides that make me ill.   And the park feels small, so you can walk around it multiple times and check on lines.  I LOVE amusement parks, and I think I like the idea of Kennywood more than Kennywood.

When I was a young girl, I used to think the park was SO BIG and so much fun.  I guess these things change with age.  There is definitely a nostalgic factor at play here.

I don’t know how it can possibly be mid-July already.  Why do the nice lazy days of summer go so fast?  Days of endless daylight and sun, being able to just put on flip-flops and go, grocery stores abundant with fruit!  I love it all.  And it goes so fast.  Soon we’ll be in the dark and cold days of winter again.

But enough of that.  What has June brought me?  Puppies!  Yes, puppies.  Everyone around me is getting puppies.  A friend just got a little puppy they named Charlie, my husband’s boss got a little bulldog named White Chocolate (or W.C.) Truffle, or just Truffle and my brother-in-law and kids just got a Boston Terrier named Rylie.   You want to see?  Okay.

Here is Truffle:

Here is Rylie:

So, at the end of June, we went to visit my sister and the kids, for our bi-annual visit.  Summer usually coincides with Maddie’s birthday, so we usually celebrate that.

This year was a little different because the kids had to go to karate lessons and CoCo had a birthday party on Saturday, so our beach trip was reserved for Sunday.   I love that they live only two hours from the beach, I would go to the beach all summer long if I lived so close to the beach!  Our day was perfect, it was hot, near 100, but it didn’t feel bad at the beach.  The waves were really rough this year, which we attributed to a storm coming through at some point (and it did).

I was so proud of the little girls.  Ginger went into the water this year.  Not far, but enough.  Good brave Ginger.  And CoCo showed no fear and went out to the water almost to her hips!  In a few years, we will be having trouble keeping her close by!  Maddie is a stronger swimmer than I am and so I found it funny that she couldn’t go out in the water without an adult (who was mostly me, LOL).  Maddie is such a charmer.   Owen, well, he is still a bit spirited, so he mainly stayed with his dad or mom.   Or with Uncle Matt.

This year, we went to the North Carolina Farmer’s Market.  The place was HUGE!  I can’t tell you how many stands they had.  But in addition to the many produce stands, there were flowers/plants, crafts (we didn’t see) and a restaurant.  We didn’t get to see it all, cause the kids were bored, but we did get good homemade ice cream!  I had blueberry!  Yum.  I thought how much it would be nice to have a farmer’s market like that here … but then, I remembered that we have the Strip District.  It’s different.  In NC, its more like a park, or a fair, whereas, the Strip is City shops with tables outside.

Our trip was way too quick and I honestly didn’t get many pictures.   So I am going to post one of all four of them that I stole from my sister’s website.

Left to right:  Ginger, Maddie, CoCo, and Owen

They also added a canine to their family.  However, he isn’t small or a pup.  His name is Kalua, aka Buddha or Bu.

For the Fourth of July, Ben and Sydney usually come home to PA and we get to see them.   On the third, there was a big picnic at my father-in-law’s house.  It was nice to see everyone.  We saw people we haven’t seen in a while … Matt’s cousin’s Liz and Steph and aunts and uncles.  Ben and Sydney are getting so big and they are very very smart and sweet!  It’s nice to be able to hold smart conversations with them.

Here is Sydney with Rylie:

And Katelyn, who is getting so big and has decided to just go ahead and like people, meeting Rylie:

The Monday after, that would be the 5th, Jacob, Ben, Sydney, Joey, Nicholas, and Kate, along with their moms and their grandparents and Uncle Matt and Aunt Jenn went to the Carnegie Science Center.  We were there for 5.5 hours and I was really ready to go home.  The new SportsWorks was pretty cool though.  And we had the entire place to ourselves for a long while. However, I forgot my camera and I only have this picture to show taken on my cool iPhone 4, which still needs a zoom:

That would be Uncle Matt on the bicycle in the air.  I did it too.  It was too short … as soon as you gained confidence, and knew you weren’t going to topple (it starts out going backwards) it was time to return.  But after my Hawaiian adventures, it was hardly intimidating.

Till next time!

It’s been six weeks already since we moved into our house.  How are things going?  Well … pretty good, actually.  Despite the fact that we still have one more room (the library) to finish unpacking and need to get our stuff on the walls, I can say that I’ve definitely had more energy living here.

Today, I have a house full of workers, who are repairing the spiral steps that Hope had fallen through.   They are noisy, with the power tools and stuff, but they promised to be done today.   The cats are all in the basement, cursing my existence.

I honestly love pretty much everything about living here.   I love the fact that there is a lot of storage and therefore I don’t have to look at my clutter.   Living in a 100+ year old house for the last seven years and an apartment before that means that there really isn’t a lot of storage.   In our last house, my clothing was in closets in a different room from the bedroom.  I don’t have that problem now.   When I am out and about, I forget that I have an attached garage and I am expecting to have to haul my stuff through the yard, until I get here and am surprised all over again.

I am not spoiled yet, and I still don’t take the house for granted.  I know how incredibly fortunate I am.  However, I keep reaching for the medicine cabinet in the bath because I am used to having one above the sink and I have to remember that my stuff is in a drawer.  It’s funny … it’s a 40 year habit, and I wonder how long it’ll be before that habit wears off.

My favorite thing about the house though is the privacy and the yard.  We have watched a family of geese … six babies grow up from fluffly little things into the almost adults that they are now.  They look like geese … they have the long necks and dark fur.  They are still fluffier than a full fledged adult.  The other day, I watched them learn diving lessons … one of the babies didn’t want to do it and walked around the side of the dock and walked in the old way.

And now we have baby deer.  Two fawns.  They are so cute when they are out there frolicking.   When they run off, their tails seem too big for their bodies!

The only thing I would change is that I would be able to go for a walk without having to drive to the park. I know its only a mile to the park, but I miss being able to just get up and go without needing the car.

But its a small price to pay.

Enjoy some pictures of the babies:

First born (above)

Splashing in the water in our driveway

They are getting bigger!

This is the newest picture … see how they look like grown ducks now!

Our nephews, Jacob and Joey (cousins) both graduated from kindergarten and had their final t-ball games last weekend.  Here is some cuteness from those events:

Jacob graduating from kindergarten

Joey playing T-ball

Nicholas being shy, and telling me that he is three.

Katelyn was in a good mood and we bonded totally.

Jacob playing T-ball.  That was a good hit!

Till next time!

In my current attempt to eat healthier (yes, I am always making new attempts), I am working on upping my fruit and vegetable consumption from sometimes none, but only a few to LOTS.   Last night, I was looking for something healthy, didn’t feel like looking through recipes, or cooking anything extravagant.

Here is what I came up with:

It was a rice blend of white, brown, red and wild with grilled onions, yellow zucchini and red peppers, and black beans on top.  It was so YUM!

This time it was different though, as we travelled with friends.   Two couples and two single guys.  The first couple, S&A, have been friends of ours for a long time.  S and Matt went to school together and lived practically next door to each other.  It’s a very long relationship.   We didn’t know the other couple J&B or the guys, but we all became friends by the end of it.

Matt and I have been travelling together for awhile.  When we go to Vegas, we know exactly what we want to do and we do it.  This time, there were six other people we had to consider.

I won’t give a play by play, but some of the highlights this trip was actually the food.  I know, you are surprised.  A foodie liking the food.  But seriously?  There was some spectacular food this trip! We stepped out of our comfort zone, and were surprised.

First, the Planet Hollywood buffet was really surprisingly good.  We got there for breakfast, which is mostly what I ate, but since we were at the lunch crossover time, we also got to sample a small amount of lunch food.  I really liked this.

Second place of note:  Bon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas.  Matt and I never considered eating in a French restaurant, but the others wanted to, and Bon Ami is a steakhouse, so other than small portions, what do we have to lose?  I thought it was pretty funny when the menu was delivered in French.  I think that was the wine menu only.  Pretty much everyone chose a steak of some sort, except for me, the lone vegetarian, who is unable to get her brain around eating eggs these days.  I ended up with a tomato/feta/basil salad, which was supposed to be an entree, but was more of a side, and a side of very extremely yummy macaroni and cheese that turned out to be entree sized.  The mac & cheese had breadcrumbs on the top.  So good.  I was satisfied even though I really ALSO wanted the greens salad that J ordered.

The other place of note, was 9, a steakhouseas well.  This was a high-end restaurant and probably the highest end I’ve ever eaten in.  I chose to eat a green salad (when I asked the waiter how big it was, he said “not that big”, but he was wrong), which was $12!  My sides were $11 each.  I got pierogies (how fun!) and green beans.  And yes, I got a large portion of greens beans.  I couldn’t eat them all!  But they were tasty.   We didn’t get there until 8:00 p.m.  and by the time we left, it was hopping in there and reminded me of a place that you think of when you think of New York City.  Interesting.

Matt and I, but not the others, ate at a place in downtown, that had a 40’s vibe and it was really good there.  All three of these restaurants had awesome bread as well, and each one had a different type.  Seriously.  Give me a GOOD salad that is comprised of more than just iceburg lettuce and brown tomato and cucumber, and some really really good crusty bread and butter, and I am content! 

I did get to eat at Stripburger, my favorite place.  Their veggie burgers are homemade and oh so good.  I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten that opportunity.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood, the old Aladdin hotel.  PH really jazzed it up, but I was still surprised that the room was tiny.  Especially for the price.  The rooms at the Excalibur, which can often be gotten for under $100 per night, were bigger.  However, the theming was cool.  We had the “Mommy Dearest” room with actual props from the movie in there.

We also had an awesome view!

We could see the fountain show.  I did see a few daytime ones, but unfortunately, didn’t get a good night picture of the fountain.  Below is Paris at night.

I also learned that the Bellagio changes its atrium each season.  Every time I have visited, it has been the same.  I guess that is summer?  It is the one with the ferris wheel.  This time, they had a garden theme and here is my favorite picture of that:

And on our last day, while waiting for our flight, we went in search of The Cupcakery, cause we heard it was good. It is located right at the new City Center tram station in the Monte Carlo.  Here are the cupcakes we selected:

Matt got chocolate with peanut butter fudge icing (and it really was fudge) and I had strawberry.  I couldn’t eat it all, it was too sweet and the cake really wasn’t all that great.  It tasted like it had been sitting for awhile.  I hope they didn’t sell me a day-old cupcake.  I would think there are plenty of homeless who would eat them at night.

It was definitely a fun trip, made better by the six new friends we made.  I can’t wait to do it again!

Look at this face:

That face belongs to Hope, my adorable and sweet little 7.5 year old Snowshoe cat.   Besides wanting to squeeze the juice out of her, I want to protect her always.  Wouldn’t you?  (If you are a cat lover that is).  And I’ve done a pretty good of that so far!

Last Friday, my husband and I moved into our new house.  We were very excited about this.  We really upgraded in our space, size, location.  We can’t get over how beautiful this house is and how fortunate we are to now own it.  Sure, its more to clean and more to heat in the winter, and yes, we have a driveway to shovel in the winter as well.  We thought the cats would LOVE it here … so much more space for them to run around in and stay away from each other when they want.  The wooded backyard … that is a cat’s dream!

However, there is the big foyer with the beautiful stairs:

Gorgeous aren’t they?  Yes, one of our favorite features.

Until …

You look down.  If you are scared of heights, its creepy.  If not, its cool.  Unless you are a small pet owner.

If you hadn’t noticed, the steps don’t have backs.  And cats often like to lay on carpeted things.  And squirm.

And sometimes, they squirm … right off the steps to the bottom of the spiral.

This happened to Hope.  She was squirming.  I saw this and tried to get to her, but I was too late.  The next thing I knew she was at the bottom, and landed on her side on the ceramic tile.   She wasn’t moving.  When I stood her up (I don’t recommend you do that, I am a trained professional) she fell right back over, so off to the emergency vet we went.

We knew she was alive, but she was very dazed and not moving, so all kinds of worst case scenarios went through our heads.  Spinal damage, neurological damage, a rib puncturing a lung.  We called the emergency vet while driving there and they were ready and took her back immediately.  After waiting an interminable amount of time, we found out that she is relatively okay.  She has a dislocated hip.  The x-ray showed that plain as day, but when when the orthopedic doctor looked at her, it was already in place.  We opted for an ultrasound to make sure that there was no internal bleeding and left her for 24 hours for observation.

We took her home the very next day, obtained a referral for a possible surgery, in which they would shave down the femur so that the hip could stay in place, and with orders to keep her on cage rest for 14 days.  If her hip stays in place, she will not need surgery.  But how can one know if she is caged all the time?

Anyway, she will not tolerate the cage.  All she does is cry, cry, cry and it breaks our hearts. Look at how sad she looks:

I finally let her out … she is walking fine, she runs around for a few minutes, then finds a place to sleep.  She is hardly an active cat anyway.

We’ll keep our eyes on her and get the steps corrected for safety.

I would just feel better if she would sleep somewhere other than the spiral steps.

For the last month or so, at the house we currently live in, I’ve been complaining to Matt that the water is “not right”.  I hadn’t taken a very good shower in a long time, because I kept being unable to moderate the water temperature.  I was either freezing or scalding myself.  Matt claimed that it was just me, that nothing was wrong. I threatened to turn the hot water tank temperature down.

One day, Matt says to me “I used practically all hot water and the shower still wasn’t hot”.  We both took a few showers like that, until last weekend, Matt went to check the hot water heater.  He came up from checking on it and he says to me “Hey, you turned that down way too much, it was on warm.  I changed it to medium” or whatever.

Um, I never actually did that.  Really.  I know sometimes my memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be, but I can definitely assure you all that I never got around to checking the temperature of the tank.  So tell me … if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Matt and cats don’t have opposable thumbs and therefore cannot do it … who did?

Last Friday, we closed on our new house.   During the inspection, we were told that a GFI switch doesn’t work and we couldn’t figure out the basements heater, but we tried out the doorbell.  And the ring is quite unique … and very long.  So on Friday, my in-laws came with their truck and took us to IKEA for the furniture we wanted.

We were there putting stuff together, when my brother and sister-in-law show up with our nephews (and baby niece).  During the evening, we discovered that the GFI DOES work and Matt figured out how to work the heater.  However, Matt was entertaining our older nephew and told him to check out the doorbell.  Guess what?  The doorbell didn’t work.  And no-one knows why.  We tried turning on all the light switches (there are at least a million in the house) to see if that mattered and it didn’t seem to.

I know its coincidence, but I am blaming the same entity for both pranks.  He or she can stop now.  Thank you.

Although I am not running at this time, running is never far from me. My husband is a runner, and I have many friends who run as well. I also meet people frequently who are runners. And there are some themes to the thoughts that I notice that these runners have. I wanted to discuss that ….

The first is the whole notion of not being a real runner? What makes a person a real runner? A real runner runs. They run a few days a week or more. It’s important to them. They miss it when they don’t. They run even if the weather is not perfect (sometimes). They buy running shoes and technical fabrics. They are out there … running. Doesn’t have to be fast. Doesn’t have to be steady … you can still be a runner and take walk breaks. You are also a real runner even if you don’t participate in races. REAL RUNNERS RUN. That is it. Simple and truthful. Don’t confuse yourself with an elite.  An elite runner is a professional, and most people cannot attain the crazy level of training (and low body fat) that they have.

Another refrain us runners say a lot is “I’m just doing the half”.  WTF?  What do you mean JUST??? That is 13.1 freaking miles my friend!  That is NOT a small accomplishment.  How many people can do that?  How many people even try?

Sure, I understand how it feels.  You have a few half-marathons under your belt and you think you can do more.  So you train hard and complete a 30K or a marathon (42K).    And it was awesome, it was fun and it was also torture.  You get addicted and want to do more.

But then you don’t feel up to the full distance and so you decide to run halfs for a while.  So you feel like a failure.  Trust me, I know.  But I can also tell you that the many times I have finished a half marathon, while my husband finishes his full, that I am so happy that I “just did the half”.  I have my medal, my water, my post run fuel, my flip-flops and I am done running. I am always so happy that I don’t have double the distance to do.

Half-marathon distance is a perfect distance in my opinion.  But I think the word “half” is what is tripping us up and making us all not feel good enough when we complete one.  Making us explain that we “can” do a full.  So I propose changing the name.  And mini-marathon is even worse, more “degrading” that half.  I propose we call them 21Ks.  Now doesn’t that sound nice.

As humans, and especially as runners, we all tend to be hard on ourselves.  There is no need for such foolishness.  I would even bet that the majority of runners are driven in their personal lives as well.  No need.  There is more to life than being our own harsh critic.

So just go out there and run your 1 mile or your 20 miles.  Run it fast or slow.  Include walking intervals or not.  You ARE a runner, and you are damn good at it and should be PROUD.

Chaos. That is my life lately. Maybe nobody else thinks it is, maybe its just me, but I have just been running around, making phone calls, doing stuff. And since nobody offered to be my personal secretary, well, then I had to deal with all of this myself.

As far as the move goes, Matt & I are rolling along on the long to-do list. We have selected a painter, bought living room furniture to be delivered the day before move-in day, put a pool table on layaway and picked out the rest of the furniture that we will buy as soon as we close. We did end up picking stuff at IKEA, but our cars won’t hold a lot and there was no sense in having it delivered HERE and then moved again, so we’ll go out at a later time. We also just accepted the fact the we have to build bookcases. I was also quite surprised to see how expensive dining room sets are. I knew they weren’t cheap, but what we saw, besides IKEA was quite heart attack inducing.

There is still a lot to do around here. Still some projects at the house we need to find someone to do. I haven’t made any phone calls this week, except for “one” which turned out to me many to the same place. Yesterday, I spent my whole afternoon with one company. See, there was incorrect information on two of my credit reports. The address I never lived at didn’t bother me much, but the collection charge did. My mistake was trying to have the collection agency take care of it for me. After three, no four, days of talking to different people and talking to about 10 different people and hearing “You know this isn’t your charge, right?” I was ready to explode. YES! I KNOW it’s not mine, but its on my credit report people and holding up my mortgage, grrr. After talking to the very last person yesterday, I was told to call the credit bureau (Experian). Now, this sounds pretty logical right? Well, except that they won’t talk to you unless you have a “report number” and I didn’t have one because I ordered mine online. Finally someone yesterday shows me where to find it. It is deeply buried in the interface. Tell me what sense does that make, considering you need that number just for a general inquiry?

Anyway, after I had that number, Experian was most helpful. The person I talked to there asked if she minded if she put me on hold. That was how I spent my entire afternoon. I didn’t care again. She called the collection agency herself and got confirmation that it wasn’t mine and promised it would be removed in 48-72 hours. This morning, I received the e-mail that said the information was deleted! That was even faster than Equifax, who, when I called for the collection account number I needed, asked what was up and filed the dispute and took care of it for me. I received that confirmation on Thursday.

So while I will say that collection agencies are not necessarily evil, and the people working for them are not evil, they are just doing their job, I will say that they just don’t do it very well. If you are ever in this situation, go straight to the credit bureaus. Learn from my mistake.

So this week was crazy. Monday was the first contact with the collection agency and that took the morning and then we went furniture shopping. Tuesday, I had a vet appointment. Wednesday, an appointment with my neurologist/headache specialist and yesterday, the deal above. Running, running, running. I thought I quit running.

The neurologist told me that I have migraines due to chemical imbalances in the brain. Oh lovely. Sometimes they are helped with anti-depressants, but not the one I’m on. But he didn’t change that.

I’m on a new “retrain my brain” to work regimen. I need to take my medicine right away, not wait to see if it goes away. I need to tweak my supplements and exercise (even walking, it doesn’t have to be intense, high impact every day) even on migraine days. On migraine days, keep it to 30 minutes and take it down a notch. So instead of high-speed walking of 1 mile in 15 minutes, I say, do 20 minutes or more per mile. I am to be on a regular sleep schedule … nice one, doc, I’ve been trying to do that for YEARS ha ha … and eating schedule. That I can handle.

This weekend should be nice. I won’t have the collection thing hanging over me anymore. We are going to be home on Saturday, doing things, although Matt will go running. And on Sunday, we are going to see our girl Kayla at college and take her to dinner and a movie. It’s always nice hanging out with Kayla.

I have more to say, but I’ll save that for another post. Thanks for reading!