Maggotorium Monday

You know, for a short week last week (Monday was a holiday) it seemed pretty long to me. Fortunately, my selective memory has blocked out most of it. All I really remember is being too busy and too tired. LOL

The daughter is away for a conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia this week. This conference ends on Wednesday and she had the bright idea of us meeting in New Brunswick on Thursday for a mommy and daughter getaway plus visit to my sister who lives in Saint John.

Thanks to the miracle of Airmiles, we were able to make this happen. The daughter left late afternoon on Saturday and I’ll be leaving at *gulp* 4:30 a.m. Thursday to get to the airport the required two hours before my flight at 8:30 a.m. I sure hope there’s a MacDonald’s at the airport – I’d even settle for a Tim Horton’s for my coffee.

Anyway, needless to say the weekend was all about preparing for my trip. I made a list on Saturday morning and tried to prioritize it, but the weather was so nice I kept getting distracted. I decided against lugging my lap top all the way there – the only thing I’d really need it for is Facebook and I’m sure Facebook will survive without me for four days. :-D

My father-in-law gave me this handy little gizmo that you charge up and then you can use it to charge other electronic devices, so I dug that out and plugged it in. It seemed to take an obscenely long time to charge, so I’m guessing it really will hold enough juice for my phone, my tablet, and my Kindle. But I made sure my devices were all charged up anyway.

While the set of luggage we bought a few weeks ago came with a carryon bag, it seems a little unwieldy and since I really wasn’t going to have much in it anyway, I decided to take my new leather messenger bag instead.

However, because it’s so new it’s also rather stiff. I asked the daughter’s advice about softening it up and she told me to throw it on the floor and jump on it! That sounded just a little extreme, so I Googled it and believe it or not that was one of the suggestions. Okay, not exactly that, but it suggested whacking it with a rubber mallet. I opted for the more (to me) sensible suggestion of using leather conditioner on it.

I was actually kind of surprised, but by Sunday night I had pretty much everything on my list crossed off. All that’s left is the packing, which can wait until Wednesday night.

Did I mention I haven’t flown in something like 30 years? And I’ve never flown alone before. And I’m a little antsy about all the changes in airport security and what you can and can’t take with you on the plane – did you know you can’t even take a water bottle (unless it’s empty and then what’s the point?).

So…tune in next week to hear all about my adventures in flying.

Unless, of course, my plane gets hijacked by terrorists. :-D

Misbeseem Monday

misbeseem ~ to be unsuited or unsuitable to

Last week was a week, I tell you what.

The daughter had a conference in Texas of all places, and since she was going to be in the neighborhood, more or less, decided to spend a few days visiting a friend in San Diego afterwards. This meant that the grandbaby and I got to spend some extra time together last week. Make that a lot of time. ;-)

I knew about this well in advance and made lots of plans ahead of time. But you know me and planning for things ... this was no different. *sigh* The original plan was, the son-in-law would drop the grandbaby off at our house on his way to work (early morning). I had crafts and other activities planned for us to do until we had to take the hubby to work (mid-morning). On Wednesday I was going to have hubby take the day off and we’d take grandbaby to Riverside Park, which is a park and free zoo in a city north of us.

However, that was not what happened.

First of all, I hadn’t planned on the brother-in-law taking last week off (hubby and BIL own their own business jointly). Not only did that put the kybosh on the zoo trip, it kind of screwed up the rest of the week too.

Instead of being at work for 10:30, hubby had to be there for 9:00. So instead of son-in-law dropping baby off, I went and picked her up and we came back here to pick up grappy and take him to work. From there it was pretty much a case of ‘now what?’

Monday the weather was kind of iffy, so we went back to the daughter’s house with a big bag of craft stuff. I had paper, and washable, non-toxic markers, and stickers, and all sorts of wonderful things in my bag of tricks. Grandbaby seemed to enjoy painting Hello Kitty pictures with water the best.

Tuesday we went to the drop-in play group we go to on a regular basis. I thought it would be even more fun to get there early for a change. It wasn’t. It was boring as all get out. Most of the kids we’re familiar with and the regular day care workers were all involved with the Day Camp. After an hour the grandbaby was bored enough that she was asking to leave. So we went shopping instead. :-)

Wednesday we slapped on the sun screen and went down to the beach. The nice thing about going to the beach that early was that we got one of the free parking places. Don’t get me started on residents having to pay for parking at our public park and beach.

Grandbaby got to try out her brand new bathing suit although she didn’t exactly get it wet. She slid down the pirate ship, got pushed on the swing until my arms were ready to fall off, and had a great time playing on the splash pad ... until someone turned on the water. LOL

We went down onto the sand where a couple of lovely ladies told us to help ourselves to the beach toys they’d brought for their grand kids - who were more interested in playing with their body boards in the water. We’ve got about three quarters of our beach back and the water for the first few hundred yards is extremely shallow. I tried to get the grandbaby to at least go wading with me, but she was having none of it.

Thursday the weather was kind of iffy, so we gave the play group another chance. This time we went a little later in the morning and we had a much better time. Friday the son-in-law had the day off, so that meant I did too. But of course Thursday afternoon I noticed my throat was a bit sore and my nose was a bit sniffly. Isn’t that always the way? I took some cold medicine when I got home, but it was too late.

My favourite moment of the week was when I went to leave Wednesday after the son-in-law came home and grandbaby threw her little arms around my legs and said: “No go Grammy! I keep you!”

Is it any wonder she has me wrapped around her little finger?