College 2019-2020 move-in

She did not want to go back to school. Now starts the hard part. The junior year when things get real. Her major kicks it up, coupled with a promotion at her job equaled a college kid not keen on returning. Because she works on campus, she had to go back early for training. A win for moving into the dorm, but a bummer that summer ends sooner.

She didn't start packing until the last minute. I didn't worry. This is my organized, get-it-done kid. She opted not to visit the storage unit that her father paid to store her stuff instead of relying on the man and her sister. When they returned with her things, she began packing. By the end of the night, she was missing some stuff.

Darcy: "I think it's in the storage unit. I remember putting stuff into a large bin that mother had."

Madison: "There was nothing there but my stuff and the Barbies. We got everything."

Darcy: "You didn't because I'm missing stuff."

Tom: "We got everything of yours out of the unit."

Me: "I think she knows what she's talking about. We should check."

Tom: "It's late. They close soon. I don't want to drive all the way there to have to turn around and come back. I'll be annoyed."

He did it anyway. After more of the above where Madison and Tom insisted there was nothing more of Darcy's left in the storage unit. The three set off to check, and when they arrived, a beaming Darcy walked into the house first with a giant container of her belongings.

Me: "I take it, you found it?"

Darcy: "I went right inside and lifted the first container, and underneath that one was this one. A container that literally has scrawled across the top in black Sharpie, Darcy's Crap. How hard was that?"

Much laughter. She finished packing. We headed out the next morning on time in two cars packed to the ceiling. Darcy and I got her keys and met the other two at her dorm. She's in the same dorm as last year as it is a specific dorm where her floor is only ASL students. Those residents only communicate via sign language when outside their rooms. Last year there were only five kids on the entire floor. This year it is full.

At this point, we are experts in moving in and out of dorms. We now own the equipment needed, and we each know our jobs. This year we had the addition of Madison and the boy-man to help, which was a blessing seeing as I'm only one-armed.

I supervised from the desk chair. The first order of business was lofting the bed. Madison rolled her eyes at what this school calls lofting, seeing as her bed was twice as high, but we ignored her side commentary and lofted the bed. Darcy moved the same items she'd had under her bed last year; chest of drawers, refrigerator, and shelf. This year she purchased a little cart for kitchen items not going into the kitchen, and she gave the job of building that to Madison and the boy-man.

While she and I unloaded suitcases and put away clothes, Tom hooked up all of the appliances, took out the trash, and carried the empty boxes, containers, bags, and suitcases back to the van for the return home.

We met the RA and one other early move-in resident. We speculated on Darcy's roommate and whether or not she would really show the following week when the rest of the school moves in. Darcy has had odd roommate experiences, but this year will have a roommate and two suitemates on the other side of a joined bathroom. Her room is a few doors down from last year's place, closer to the kitchen, with the same set-up.

Madison was put in charge of decorating above the bed, a fete she perfected in her four years of college dorm life. I organized the desk. Darcy decorated above the desk. Tom wandered around, looking for things to do. The boy-man entertained us with stories and suggestions on picture selections, etc.

In no time at all, we had the messy room turned into a clean, organized place. We had dinner together, shopped for the essentials needed, and then we kissed her good-bye and drove the hour back home. Happy Junior Year, kiddo!

Oh, wait. Not so fast. Darcy forgot her pillows. Not an item that we need more of, so instead of purchasing more pillows, Madison and I drove back to the dorm the following day. While we were at it, we brought the other things she forgot, like laundry detergent, pictures, and ice trays.

Happy Junior Year, Darcy! Here's hoping that this year is your best yet! We love you and will miss your stories. Don't forget to call home every once in a while.

Happy Day to Brea

My niece turned twelve today, and we celebrated with cake and dinner. This kid...she is a hoot. When she was under five, her mother left her with me for swim lessons. She whined and cried and insisted that I take her to the side of the pool. I refused. I told her if she wanted to get to the side she had to swim. I knew she could do it.

She cried. She argued. She cried. I held fast. My daughters and my nephews, who were also in the pool, kept trying to console her. I shooed them away and did my teacher thing. She cried and then argued.

This went on and on until finally she'd had enough and she swam to the steps and climbed right out. The kid avoided me at all family functions like the plague after that. She wanted nothing to do with me for years. Until I was the only one who paid her any attention in a sea of aunts, uncles, and cousins far older than her.

One night at Grammy's house, I taught her some card games. I showed her what to say to the cousins who all considered her a bother. We bonded. She doesn't remember anymore that fateful day in the pool. She loves hearing the story, though. It makes her laugh.

We SnapChat and text and keep in touch despite living a few miles away. She's a cool kid. I get her. She gets me. We have great conversations. I was stoked to celebrate her birthday this year. She's getting to be quite the young lady.

Plus, she pulled in some cool cash for her birthday. Always good to stay on the right side of those who can loan you some money.

Happy Birthday, Brea!

Remodel 2019 - Madison's bedroom

Madison is home for the next school year while she works on the next step in her future, and first on the list was redoing her room. It hasn't been touched since I redid the room when she was five. It has been an Ariel Little Mermaid room since then, and Madison has steadfastly refused to change it before now. As soon as she uttered the words about changing it, I began stripping the wall border and talking colors.

After running into a blip when the wallpaper refused to be easily removed, we left it for a few weeks. Which drove the husband crazy every time he ventured into the room.

Tom: "When is this wallpaper coming down?"

Madison and I would hem and haw until eventually one weekend we enticed him into the room so that he could see how difficult the paper was behaving. He had plenty of suggestions, all of which we had already done, but being Tom, he knew we hadn't done it correctly.

He began the project of removing the border with the supplies that have been lying around Maddy's room for several weeks and added his own. Eventually, Madison and I joined him, and we spent five hours removing the damn wallpaper border that I must have cemented to the wall eighteen years ago. By the time we called it quits, we were all tired, grouchy, and the walls were mostly done save for the splotches of white paper backing that we could not remove no matter how hard we worked.

Tom: "You'll have to sand that before you paint."

Madison and I nodded and then promptly filed that under the much later category. After Madison had found a color, she wanted. Something she didn't want to do until she'd found a new comforter. Another big step in her life since she's refused to replace the bedding that has been on her bed for the last ten years and is practically thread-bare and see-through.

She spent several days shopping in different stores in the area because she has very sensitive skin and can't handle most fabrics. When that didn't pan out, she shopped online and took a chance. Oh my! Wayfair delivered quickly, and she then gathered some paint samples, but the project went on hold due to my SIL's arrival.

Tom: "What's the status on the paint? Today is a good day to get paint."

Madison's room is visible upon entering the hallway. Since the only daylight hours Tom walks that hall is on the weekends, this utterance came the Sunday after my SIL's departure. Hearing his tone, I knew I had to act. He'd already told us he was not going to do the painting, but I haven't been his wife for twenty-five years without learning a thing or two. Plus, Darcy offered her and her man's services.

A discussion was had on paint colors. When I painted this room eighteen years ago, I painted the ceiling the same light lavender I had painted the room. Maddy wanted to go with a darker color. After an internet search complete with pictures of colored ceilings, we decided to get a sample of the color to try it out. I put the other two to work moving furniture, sanding and taping.

Upon the return of the shoppers, I exalted on my expert painting skills and began supervising. This included nixing hubby's direction, which in turn had him questioning my expert skills. A small disagreement was had, which resulted in him joining the painting project to prove he was more of an expert than me. Sometimes it is just too easy.

Despite my injury, I did have to go beyond supervising. We got one coat applied with another trip in between for more paint before darkness halted the project. That left Madison and me to finish the following day, but we did it even with a loss of electricity at one point. We liked the way it turned out, especially the ceiling.

I'm already making noises about painting the living room.

Staycation 2019 - ending

We started the day off with breakfast at one of Suz's favorite places. Not new, but delicious. From there, the rest of the day was like the others; palm trees, food, sun, pool, sun, and palm trees. Madison and a friend from high school made macaroons which we sampled poolside (hadn't done that before) before showering to hit the next restaurant for dinner.

Again, a stand-by but worth it. It was a girls' dinner with cocktails and seafood (except for my Florida born daughter #1 who refuses to eat sea creatures). Thankfully, I had checked the weather before our arrival, so when the hostess wanted to seat us outside the patio area, I declined. When I explained that a storm was coming, she told me she'd "check the radar." Like I was a big, fat liar.

Which explains my face in this picture. I still wasn't over that snub despite being seated under the covered patio and given a waitress who was the BOMB. The people behind us, however, were not so objective, and they had been seated roughly ten minutes before the storm arrived out of nowhere and poured down in sheets. My face got better with that vindication, and I ordered another drink.

As it is in the Florida summer, the storm passed quickly, and the sun came back out, and Susan asked to walk across the street to the beach. Something she'd never done before...walk across the road to the beach from our restaurant. I took a picture to capture the moment. Firsts racked up daily.

The beach was awesome. A nice breeze. Fairly uncrowded. Darcy began moaning about the end of summer and having to go back to school. Obviously, in this picture, she and Susan were not together on the sentiment.

As the sun began its descent, a POW appeared with his bugle. Susan remembered him from her last trip, and the two chatted. He comes to the beach each night to play taps at sunset. He insisted we stay, and instead of going home to welcome Darcy's man-boy who was coming for the weekend, we texted Tom who'd picked him up, and they agreed to head to the beach.

We finished the night with SueG and her kids. We played games and ate cake until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore. Susan's flight required an early wake-up call, and we were all up to enjoy our last bit of coffee and palm trees and sun with her.

We agreed the week had been a good one. A lot of firsts. Tons of fun. Good company. A relaxing, peaceful, and fabulous celebration of Susan's five years of cancer survivorship. Until next time...

Staycation 2019 - Day 5 and 6

Very few people during the week. Most of the summer crowd has headed home to begin getting ready for school, leaving us the beach. It's nice. We went to our beach not far from my house. SueG had never parked anywhere besides the park and was quite happy to learn she could park down a side street for free. New Things!

The water was even choppier than the day before. Susan and SueG's daughter went for a walk since we hadn't gone to the gym. I attempted the water, but fighting the waves wore me out, and so I went on my own walk so that my steps wouldn't be too far off of Susan's. I walked a little over a mile, and Susan wasn't back when I finally found SueG. So much for my steps.

The weather has been great, so the waves were a mystery. On our beach, it 's possible to stand way out to the buoys, but even that far were waves. I attempted to get out far beyond them, but it was crazy. If my Apple Watch were the latest, I could've probably counted my swim as exercise. I was sorry I didn't have a board or a raft to ride the waves.

The sun was relentless. Susan decided we would only spend a few hours every day on the beach, and by the time they returned from their walk, we were all ready to head back to the pool. So far, we'd done well with the sunscreen. Usually, just a sunburnt nose or an ear tip or the tops of feet were burned each night.

The next day we hit the gym again, and then we went to the grocery. Susan is a big salmon eater and has always told me that I just needed to learn how to cook it correctly. We bought salmon and other things to celebrate Tom's birthday later that night, then we went to the beach, parking this time in the lot so that we could get an umbrella as we were all feeling the heat by Day 6.

More choppy water again but not as crazy. I spent a lot of time in the water far out beyond the higher waves. The Susans stayed near shore. The umbrella helped. We stayed longer than our two hours and only left when we knew we had to start cooking for the birthday guy.

Susan did all of the work, and I never saw how she cooked it because I was pooped. She talked me through it from the kitchen. I think I can maybe attempt it later down the road. We had dinner and then celebrated with presents and a carrot cake.

Susan and the girls then went shopping while Tom and I chilled. My SIL can really wear me out. But I'm getting in my steps!

Staycation 2019 - Day 4

Early morning rising. Coffee and conversation. Gym. That was the routine and we stuck with that for Tuesday although Susan also would walk the hood and sit by the pool. The girls' summer jobs ended the day before so we found them at the gym too. I sat down to lift some weights and this was my view. I worried after I took the photo that someone would report me but I was ready with the response of: "Listen, I use to wipe those butts!" Thankfully, no one noticed my secretive photography taking.

As we left the gym, Susan insisted I stop at this market where she'd spied a mural. She wanted her photo taken there and I suggested that we pick up Cuban sandwiches while we were there for lunch.

Susan: "What's a Cuban sandwich?"

NEW THING! I pulled over.

We decided to split the sandwich as they were big but then I spied a Greek salad and decided that would go well with the sandwich. Susan told me no. She reminded me of the plan to eat pizza for an early dinner on the beach. I said that I was trying to eat a salad every day. She told me I could have a salad with my pizza at dinner.

A woman standing next to me leaned over and whispered in my ear.

Her: "Wow, she is adamant that you not have that."

Me: "That's because she walks over 10,000 steps a day and doesn't have to worry about eating salads."

Her: "Salads are healthy."

Susan: "We're going to have one tonight. We don't need two."

Her: "You'd better not get it."

I did. But only because Susan relented when she saw the salad. I left the lady and paid for our lunch. We had to step back from the counter to wait for our Cuban to be pressed. We watched the people with their purchases as they strode to the counter. Susan kept up a running commentary on everyone's choices. When the lady arrived, she went right to Susan.

Her: "I'm getting this roasted chicken but it's only half a chicken and I'm getting a side of veggies."

Susan: "Very healthy choice. Good for you. Unlike that guy whose opting for a bag of Doritos. Not a healthy choice."

Me: "I bet our Cuban is going to be ready any minute now just to get you out of here."

Susan: "Well, he is a construction guy. He probably works that off in an hour so I'm going to allow him that purchase."

Sure enough, our Cuban was handed to us and out the door, we went right behind Mr. Construction Guy with his family size bag of Doritos.

Me: "I apologize for her behavior. She's not normally this way."

Susan: "But his week I'm trying new things."

He ignored us as if we hadn't spoken. Susan posed again for another picture. We left for home and enjoyed Susan's first Cuban.

SueG joined us for a pool day where we played volleyball. The Susan Team was beating the Mother and Daughters Team when lightning forced us inside. We showered, picked up SueG's kids, and headed to Clearwater Beach and our pizza place that SueG had never been to before. Not new to Susan, but still new to those of us in the group. From there we walked the beach to the boardwalk and the pier to watch the sun set.

Day 4 in the bag.