Updatey goodness
So, I admit it's been a while, but life has been a little crazy and I have not yet managed to catch up.
The week before this was the giant celebration-palooza of my Dad's 85th Birthday, my Mom's 70th Birthday, and their 45th wedding anniversary. What this meant is that they took all of us kids on a 5 day cruise to the Caribbean and before we were done, there were 13 of us on a very large boat together. I love my family, but gosh was I happy to be able to retreat to my room with my dear husband. Also? I am definitely not ready to have three very active young boys in my life. I don't know how my sister handles it. Especially because her husband was not able to join the party due to work, so she was going it alone so to speak. Well, alone except for all of us pitching in! The weather was perfect, a breezy 85ish every day with plenty of sun. I hear the rest of you had to deal with snow, sleet, hail, the world ending and all that. I was able to finish the movie tribute for my folks that I had embarked upon with suggestions from LJ-land and it was a great success. I ended up with a 45 minute video and was able to reserve a private room for the unveiling. Even better? It was a complete surprise to my parents. I had hoped to get more of their friends to say things, but some people are funny about getting taped. Regardless, a lot of great people said a lot of good things and I got the happy tears that I had hoped to get. The 2.5 hour sit down dinners every night where a bit much, especially for the boys, but we all survived those and the close proximity of a large number of rather large personalities. The boat stopped in Grand Cayman which was nice, but we did not get to do our excursion to Stingray City due to high chop. The next stop was Cozumel, Mexico which we did not see at all because we did a day long tour to Tulum, old Mayan ruins right on the ocean. It was beautiful, although I am sad that my pictures truly do not do it justice. The sky was sooo blue! And the photos don't show that at all. It was also extremely hot and I felt drained by the time we got back to the bus. That being said, I'm really glad I got out there to see them. On the day we left the ship, I started to come down with ship plague, but attempted to soldier on. By the time I got back to cold New England, ship plague had taken me and I had a 100 degree fever on Sunday night.
But.. before that, I managed to see Next to Normal with conspiratrix at PPAC. The musical was absolutely amazing and it hit a solid punch. I would be interested to hear what people who have actually dealt with mental illness would say about the show. I think I cried through a good quarter of it and as we discussed during intermission, the only thing that made me keep watching despite how tough the subject matter was, was the amazing music. It was just incredibly well done. And it was great to have brunch at Local 121 before the show and catch up on conspiratrix 's trip to China! That sent my brain reeling back to my own trip there, what, 13 years ago? It was a great day despite my body slowly failing me. Monday morning, I went to the walk in clinic and was diagnosed with an ear infection, sinitus, and bronchitis. Awesome. But at least that meant I could try to start getting better. Unfortunately, I had a cooking class that night with my sister at the Sunnyside in Warren. This was my Christmas present and I really wish I had been feeling a bit better and had been able to smell everything because it was a great class on Easter Dinner. They gave us as much wine as we wanted and although there was no hands on portion of the class, the chef went over how to do stuff and then we got to try it. Yum! I am now looking forward to trying it out for a real meal as I've heard their breakfasts are the best thing on the East Bay.
And then I dashed down to the mid-Atlantic for an overnight business trip. I did not feel 100% going down there, but somehow managed to do everything I needed to do. But gosh, I really don't like being away from home at night. It's just lonely and sad. Looks like I might have a couple week long trips in the next couple of months which is doable, but not enjoyable. I got home last night around 10:30pm to snow flurries, but all I thought about was my own, wonderful bed. And now it's Friday!! Thank goodness. I have few plans this weekend, so I might actually be able to recover from this ship plague which would be great. Weekend weekend!!
The week before this was the giant celebration-palooza of my Dad's 85th Birthday, my Mom's 70th Birthday, and their 45th wedding anniversary. What this meant is that they took all of us kids on a 5 day cruise to the Caribbean and before we were done, there were 13 of us on a very large boat together. I love my family, but gosh was I happy to be able to retreat to my room with my dear husband. Also? I am definitely not ready to have three very active young boys in my life. I don't know how my sister handles it. Especially because her husband was not able to join the party due to work, so she was going it alone so to speak. Well, alone except for all of us pitching in! The weather was perfect, a breezy 85ish every day with plenty of sun. I hear the rest of you had to deal with snow, sleet, hail, the world ending and all that. I was able to finish the movie tribute for my folks that I had embarked upon with suggestions from LJ-land and it was a great success. I ended up with a 45 minute video and was able to reserve a private room for the unveiling. Even better? It was a complete surprise to my parents. I had hoped to get more of their friends to say things, but some people are funny about getting taped. Regardless, a lot of great people said a lot of good things and I got the happy tears that I had hoped to get. The 2.5 hour sit down dinners every night where a bit much, especially for the boys, but we all survived those and the close proximity of a large number of rather large personalities. The boat stopped in Grand Cayman which was nice, but we did not get to do our excursion to Stingray City due to high chop. The next stop was Cozumel, Mexico which we did not see at all because we did a day long tour to Tulum, old Mayan ruins right on the ocean. It was beautiful, although I am sad that my pictures truly do not do it justice. The sky was sooo blue! And the photos don't show that at all. It was also extremely hot and I felt drained by the time we got back to the bus. That being said, I'm really glad I got out there to see them. On the day we left the ship, I started to come down with ship plague, but attempted to soldier on. By the time I got back to cold New England, ship plague had taken me and I had a 100 degree fever on Sunday night.
But.. before that, I managed to see Next to Normal with conspiratrix at PPAC. The musical was absolutely amazing and it hit a solid punch. I would be interested to hear what people who have actually dealt with mental illness would say about the show. I think I cried through a good quarter of it and as we discussed during intermission, the only thing that made me keep watching despite how tough the subject matter was, was the amazing music. It was just incredibly well done. And it was great to have brunch at Local 121 before the show and catch up on conspiratrix 's trip to China! That sent my brain reeling back to my own trip there, what, 13 years ago? It was a great day despite my body slowly failing me. Monday morning, I went to the walk in clinic and was diagnosed with an ear infection, sinitus, and bronchitis. Awesome. But at least that meant I could try to start getting better. Unfortunately, I had a cooking class that night with my sister at the Sunnyside in Warren. This was my Christmas present and I really wish I had been feeling a bit better and had been able to smell everything because it was a great class on Easter Dinner. They gave us as much wine as we wanted and although there was no hands on portion of the class, the chef went over how to do stuff and then we got to try it. Yum! I am now looking forward to trying it out for a real meal as I've heard their breakfasts are the best thing on the East Bay.
And then I dashed down to the mid-Atlantic for an overnight business trip. I did not feel 100% going down there, but somehow managed to do everything I needed to do. But gosh, I really don't like being away from home at night. It's just lonely and sad. Looks like I might have a couple week long trips in the next couple of months which is doable, but not enjoyable. I got home last night around 10:30pm to snow flurries, but all I thought about was my own, wonderful bed. And now it's Friday!! Thank goodness. I have few plans this weekend, so I might actually be able to recover from this ship plague which would be great. Weekend weekend!!