On a Merry-Go-Round!

Ever feel like you are spinning away on a constant merry-go-round?

Boy, the past couple of days have been like that for me -or so it seemed anyway!

Between Mandy being away in Nevada for 5-6 days visiting with her dad and me being the one to oversee watching Kurtis, keeping what I could do to keep the place running semi-decently during that time, I really did get way, way behind in reading others blogs. I had been trying to keep things under control so that when I would try to read those posts I wouldn't be swamped with oodles of posts but somehow or other over the weekend, I lost control in that respect. Yes I did that -again!

By the time I sat down yesterday and tried to get the Reader cleared out I had almost 300 posts waiting for me to attend to and that my friends, is a tad overwhelming to see that much reading sitting there, just waiting! I thought I would never get that number whittled down but finally by late, late last night I had it down to about 8 posts that were left for me to read. I was beginning to think that everyone and their brother had put up new posts between midnight Saturday night and early Tuesday a.m. and that maybe I would put a request out on my blog for people to slow down a bit on the posting so I could catch up.

But I didn't do that and I'm not asking that today either. Well, okay -maybe just a little bit of a slow down perhaps? Nah. I just need to get my act together, organized and just do it! And I also need to apologize to for being this slow and uncoordinated about reading and commenting then too. I know, everyone does like to get comments because then you know that things are okay with other folks and your blog stuff is working pretty much the way it's supposed to do then too!

But let me tell you a bit about my little merry-go-round life the past week!

On Saturday, my daughter Carrie and her son -my "prince" Alex, came up for supper after we we went to the local high school to meet up with my son, his girlfriend and her daughter so we could all go see this year's production by the Drama Club of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." In these hills, this is a big deal as our Drama Club really is -for a very small, rural school district -first rate! And this year, was no different from previous years in that the director and the kids really did shine in their production! Fantastic play, it was.

Aunt Carrie had wanted to take Maya with us to see the play so she had asked Jenn-Jenn, the lady with whose family Maya was staying while Mandy was away, if we could arrange to take Maya with us. However, Jenn had asked Maya what she wanted to do and Maya had decided she wanted to see the play on Saturday afternoon by attending with Jenn and her daughters instead of her going with us. And that was okay with us too -whatever would make Maya the most content is one of our mutual goals ya know.

But after they had gone to the play in the afternoon, Jenn decided to bring Maya down so that she could spend a little time with Aunt Carrie and her cousin Alex too. Unfortunately, Maya wasn't any too happy with that deal and when they arrived here at the house, she went into a full-blown meltdown on her instead! It took a great deal of cajoling and struggling with Maya to just get her out of the car and into the house and even after that, she continued on and on with her meltdown.

Now Maya and her meltdowns, sometimes you really do have to just sit back and laugh about the things she says and does during them because sometimes they are just downright funny! And that was the case Saturday night when as Maya was stomping, kicking, screaming and crying, in her fits of anger, she ripped down several of those little colorform things (Easter designs in this case) that Mandy had put up on the glass panes of the back door and she rolled them up in a big ball and threw them in the trash can. Upon tossing them, she turned to the rest of us here and announced in a very loud, very authoritive voice, "There! I just cancelled Easter!"

Boy, I was surprised at that announcement cause I just didn't realize that she had the power to do that trick, ya know!

Then, not getting quite the reaction from us that she had expected, she proceeded to sit between the living room and dining rooms and as she pointed to each of us seated at the table, enjoying supper and calling each of us by name too, she stated that "I don't know you!" and "I don't know you" and on and on around the table she went with that. Then grandson Alex piped up to her with this "Well Maya, how come if you don't KNOW any of us here then how can you call each of us by name too like you did!"

Man, she shot him a look of "I Keel You" (like the ventroliquist's dummy says -Jeff Dunworthy, is it maybe?) when Alex said that to her! Too funny!

I especially loved the Cancellation of Easter though, don't you?

Sunday just flew by and it was late when I sat down to work on my embroidery stuff. I figured with what I had left to do on that project I should have been able to have it completed -finally -by maybe 2 or 3 a.m. Monday morning.

And it looked for most of the time that I was gonna be able to meet that deadline too. That is until I realized that I was going to run out of the one color of floss needed to finish up.

But then I thought -no problem -because when I had purchased this particular kit, I had liked it so much that I had ordered two of the kits. So, that meant in the second kit, I had more floss there and I only needed a strand about 18 inches long in order to finish the one I'd been working on, so I opened the other kit to swipe that much floss from it.

But as I went through the different floss colors I realized there was something off kilter here! Wouldn't you just know it but the 2nd kit was missing the very color that I had just run out of from the first kit! How improbable an event is that? What was really screwy too is that in the first kit, when I went through and organized the colors, it too had been missing a color in that kit but it just so happened that I had that particular color in my own floss inventory/stash so I had just used my own material there. I would have ignored that one color being missing (since I already had that color on hand) completely but when the second kit came up show of another color and I had just run out of that other color on the kit I was working on, well I was a tad upset then.

So Monday morning I called the manufacturer's customer service number and complained. So now, they are sending me two skeins of floss in the two colors I had been shorted. Okay it's not any major expense to replace them for them or for me -only about 40 cents per skein of floss -but it is a major savings for me that they are doing that because otherwise I would have had to take the time to drive to either DuBois or State College -a distance of 35-45 miles, one way, a loss of an hour's time to drive over, an hour back, plus time in the store shopping, etc., -all things I really didn't want to do. So it was nice that they are sending that stuff to me for "free" now, isn't it?

Today, was not the normal day that my monthly lunch bunch gets together -usually it is the last Thursday of the month when we meet -but this month, because Kurtis has an appointment at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville tomorrow, the girls moved our lunch ahead a day so I could be able to join them.

And we had a very nice get-together too, we did. I always enjoy these gatherings. Today, one of the girls (Rose) made the comment about how they always tease me and yet rely on me too, to remember dates and ages and little things like that from our history together and she said in her mind's eye, she had thought last month after our meeting that maybe someday years from now, we'll still be getting together and will have to ask me how old each of us is then too!

The way my memory is rapidly evaporating though, I don't think they'll be able to rely on me for that information then! Hope they are all writing these important dates and facts down to save them for posterity, ya know!

I'm still trying to reach the surgeon in Pittsburgh or his physician's assistant -that would be the surgeon who did the colostomy on me 3 years ago and the person I need to contact to find out what he thinks should be done for me now -hernia repair or no hernia repair -hysterectomy here (locally) or hysterectomy there (Pittsburgh). I've called his office on several occasions over the past week and asked to have him or his PA return my call but thus far, I've heard nothing. So I am still wandering around in the mental darkness of my mind I guess you could say! Wish they would call me back so we can discuss this further or if I have to schedule an appointment to see him, to get that much done and preparations moved forward a bit that way.

And then there is Mandy -who returned home last night, arriving about 11:30 p.m. I'm really very relieved to have her back home for many obvious reasons. Yep, I am.

But by the same token, I told little Kurtis last night as I was holding him, rocking him, cuddling and snuggling with him, that maybe his Momma should take little trips like this one more often because it made Kurtis really receptive to my holding him, cuddling him, snuggling him!!! Most of the time when Mandy is here, he wants nothing to do with anyone but her for those things!

And obviously, I enjoyed that part of her being away on vacation the absolute most of all!