My brain is full of thoughts. I intend to dump them here at random. Coherence is optional.
One week from tomorrow I’ll be handing kids off to my relatives. This would be stressing me more, except that I have so many things to do in the next week that I haven’t had time to let the thought sink in.
I’ve been so busy this past week that I’ve hardly had time to miss Howard, something I usually spend a lot of time doing when he is gone. Also it was four days after he left before I remembered that I’d intended to write little notes and stick them in his luggage for him to find while he was gone.
Kiki has girls camp starting next Tuesday. I’ve done nothing to prepare for this except glance at the packing list. I hope that I have everything on hand and last minute shopping won’t be necessary.
Today at the grocery store I finally spent $4 and bought the eco-friendly fabric grocery bags. So far I really like them. They are stronger and bigger than plastic bags. They’re easier to carry from the car to the house because the handles are much longer. They’re square, so food packs into them nicely. They were a little harder for the bagger because they have a tendency to flop over until they’re filled. I think I like them better than both paper and plastic bags. Now I have to see if I can actually remember to take them back with me to the store.
Patch came in from riding his bike with a flushed face. He sat next to me on the couch and said “mom?”
I looked at him and said “You need a drink of gatorade.”
Patch nodded.
I got up from the couch. As I was standing up I said “And you need a hug.”
Patch had been headed for the kitchen, but he spun in place and threw his arms wide. “Yeah!”
Someday he’ll be too little to hug me while I carry him to the kitchen, but today he was the perfect size for it.
Today I found a link to Cake Wrecks. It provided me more than an hour’s worth of delighted reading.
I got all the magnet orders into the mail and placed a re-order because we are now temporarily out of magnets. Howard has a pile with him at Comic Con, but any left over from there are slated to be carried to World con.
Howard is having a great time at Comic Con. This is a lovely contrast to last year when the event was nothing but stressful. I love having him call me and spill thoughts about who he talked to and how the booth is doing. It looks like we’re going to turn a profit on this venture. This is good. Howard is also having all kinds of potentially valuable conversations.
Kiki and Link just arrived home. When they walked in the door, I realized how much I’d missed them even though they were only gone for one night. Being away from the kids for Worldcon is going to be hard. It is also going to be fun. In fact my looming trip to World Con is so fraught with emotion that I found myself having trouble talking about it with neighbors the other night. In a small talk situation, it is hard to explain that I am nervous and excited and stressed all at the same time. It is going to be a wonderful vacation from my regular life. It is also going to be exhausting and emotionally wracking to be wearing my professional face all day for 5 days straight. I’m going to have a great time hanging out with Howard. I’m going to have moments where I just want to crawl in the van and go home so that I can see my kids. I will cry when on the phone with the kids. Gleek will call me in tears at least twice. Probably more like 5 or 10 times. Those phone calls will increase in frequency the longer we are separated. There will be times when I call the kids and none of them will be interested in talking to me because they’re too busy having fun. I will be sorry when World con is over. I will be glad to return to my normal life. There will be a hundred other thoughts and emotions, some of which I am expecting, others will ambush me.
Now that I have all the random thoughts pinned down by words, I may have space to plan dinner. After that I need to lead an assault on the mess that is our family room.
I love my canvas grocery bags. I can pack 5 2-liter bottles of soda upright in one bag. I need to buy a couple more. I originally purchased mine at Harmon’s but since then I’ve only been able find similar bags at Roberts which is okay because they were about $5.
Trips are fun, exciting, stressing things. I hope you enjoy yourself more than you stress out.
I got my bags at Albertsons. They aren’t canvas. They’re some sort of light weight nylon. I’ve also seen bags at Staples, but I’m not sure of the price on those.
I think I will enjoy the trip more than I stress, but I’m going to come home both exhausted and invigorated.
Got a lot of good laughs at the Cake Wrecks site. Forwarded the Japanese “Poo” cake on to Chalain. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.
Yes. The poo cake was quite fascinating. I’ve no doubt of Chalain appreciating that one. For me the creepiest by far was the baby cake.
I love those fabric bags! I push them on every one when I’m at work. As an incentive to use them, we give a 5¢ credit for every one you remember to reuse. Every time. After 20 visits, you’ve paid for the bag in savings.
Keep them in your car. After you unload the groceries, fold them up and put them back in the car. It will help.
I’m glad to hear that at least one store checker loves the bags. One of my concerns about them is that they’ll be annoying to the checker who has to pack them. It won’t stop me from using them. Nor will the concern that the checker and people behind me in line will consider me some kind of eco-nut for not just using the free store bags.
Leaving them in the car is a good suggestion. But I’ll have to buy more if I want to do larger shopping trips.
See how many you need first. You bought four… You’d be amazed what you can get into four bags. I’d take only those and see if you need one more before you get it. I see people come in with bunches and get half a cart of groceries… and I’m packing it all in two bags and only using two because I separate the cold things and produce out (my rule is that if it needs to go in right away it goes in the ‘cold’ bag…. if you can leave it in the car for an hour in August, it isn’t cold)
At my store, most of us love them…. they’re slower to pack, a little, but they’re economically and environmentally sound and they hold so much more!
I’ve got a cargo bag in the trunk of my car, if I remember to bring it in to the store good. If not I tell the bagger, no bags. I’ve just about got the kids at Hannaford’s in Alton trained. 🙂 This means that instead of my small people trying to unload the groceries in bags that are heavy enough that they’ve got trouble with, they can pick up three or four items at once and carry those in then come back for more groceries.
I know that one can turn plastic grocery bags in to knitting material. And somewhere I saw a pattern for a net bag. I want to make a few of those for lightweight small things like yogurt tubs and hard vegetables like carrots and onions.
Did a second grocery trip with the bags today. I still like them. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll hold off on getting more bags for a bit.
Interesting. I don’t have the patience to knit, let alone to knit using plastic bags, but it sounds like a fascinating project. I hope it turns out for you. I may have to try that “no bags” thing sometime. It would certainly make it easier for the kids to help unload.
http://yarndemon.googlepages.com/netshoppingbag is what I’m looking at. Instructables has a method for cutting/”spinning” the plastic bags.
It isn’t that I have the patience for knitting, it is that knitting is something that keeps my hands busy while my mind is elsewhere. I’m glad there are so many ebooks these days because it is much easier to read from a screen while knitting than reading from a paperback book while knitting. (Yes, I can knit without looking at what I’m doing. Amazing the muscle memory one develops after doing the same motions for 2 decades. 🙂