Sorta Quick Takes

1.  I'm back -- Well, mostly so, anyway. We're all mostly back.   Everyone's technically fit to go to school but we're still tuning up every morning with a symphony of sniffs and coughs. Don't you hate that?   It's always a judgment call, deciding when it's both wise and acceptable to send  the troops out into public... but we figured, since:

1.  most of the school already had or has the same flu bug,
2.  nobody has a fever,
3. everyone seems reasonably able to keep their heads up off their desks,

                        and

4.  they felt well enough yesterday when they were still home that I was forced to repeatedly remind them to: 

          a)  Calm down!
          b)  Stop running in the house! 

                         and

          c)  For crying out loud, chill out or I'm taking you all over to the school! 

Well, I figured with a little coaching, they were ready to get out of my face back on the school wagon.  Except for Cathy and William, my homeschoolers, who are still here with me doing schoolwork and coughing and sniffing in a caucophonous duet, with their Dad and me chiming in with occasional jazz coughing riffs.

 But we're definitely on the mend, anyway.  Thank-you so much for the well-wishes and prayers!  Hope everyone out there is staying (or getting) well!

2.  Heard our first meadowlark of the season the other day.  And the school children came home with spring bulb sales forms to order from -- hyacinths, crocuses, bluebells, tulips, daffodils....  Be still my heart!  So, though we're expecting another snowstorm this weekend, we can console ourselves that, yes, indeed, snow and cold notwithstanding, nothing can keep spring from its appointed rounds.  Shew!  (Thank-you, God!)

3.  Came in yesterday from dropping Cathy off at her Thursday art class -- mind you, it's not a very long distance: twenty minutes there, ten minute stop at the grocery story, twenty minutes back.  Left Dan home to babysit.  And, honestly, I knew that leaving my husband and youngest child home alone together was not going to get the lunch dishes cleaned or the clothes folded.  I knew that.  But, still, really...  I couldn't help the involuntary reaction when I got home, opened the door and looked into the turned-upside-down living room, "Holy Cow, you guys!" I shrieked exclaimed.  "I was only gone an hour!"

To which William replied with a little shrug and a sigh, "Yeah.  We're a mess, aren't we?"

There was a little smirk there, too, pulling at the corners of that toothless little mouth of his, the little snot.
(gglggl)
I guess it's a healthy little man who knows what he is and accepts it.

And makes his mother laugh about it.


4.  Part of the mess: 

Above you see part of the contents of the little box of animals we inherited from my Uncle Art.  Over a lifetime, he collected many things, including  millions of these little plastic figures.  Birds and fish and lions and elephants and rhinos and buffalo and mountain goats and snakes and walruses and kangaroos and little plastic fences, etc., etc., etc...  William spent much of the day Thursday organizing and categorizing and talking about them nonstop. Made a mess.  But C'est la vie!   C'est si bon!

5.  Cathy, Theresa, and I had a girls' night out last night, went shopping first, then, gift card in hand, stopped by Chipoltle's for dinner.  Tried the new Chicken Pozole Soup.

It's a keeper.  We give it three thumbs up.  Just spicy enough, thick and nourishing.  Yum!  We love giving a Colorado native franchise our business and prefer their natural ingredients over fast food any day.  And, can't beat the price for the quantity and quality: under $20 for the three of us. 

6.  Update on Dominic, our sickly seminarian:  The agreement between three different medical professionals is that he is having some malfunction of his thyroid and adrenal glands, that have caused the blood pressure spikes, followed by fatigue.  We're not sure why there is a malfunction at this point, but it's being treated with meds and a careful attention to diet -- mostly to keep his blood sugars even.  He seems to be doing better, by any accounts I get -- but then I'm not really sure because Dominic lost his phone charger and the best I can do is try to get messages to him through our friend and Dominic's fellow seminarian, Carlos, or through son, Jon who is in Omaha now looking for a job.  A new phone charger is in the mail to him, as well as his Nikes and the sunglasses he left at home.  (They never depart without leaving us a few souvenires, doncha know...)

7.  And, last but not least, a gratuitous picture of my grandson:



Gavin James, two and a half months old



Here's where to go for lots of Quick Takes!