And so the day that started out really, really bad ended up being really, really good.

The potential was there. The potential for a horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad day. It started at 6 am when my alarm went off and I seriously considered breaking my date with the treadmill. It was way too early and way too dark and way too cold to be out of bed. But I went down and served my sentence of forty some-odd minutes.

And then I had a nasty run-in with the scale.

I'm not going to go into details, but let's just say that this week some major effort was put into getting that scale to move in the opposite direction. To no avail. Trust me when I say that it was not good. What I felt like doing was stuffing my face and then crawling back into bed.

All the makings of a lousy day.

But instead of getting worse, it just kept getting better.

Glenn was off today, so we went out to breakfast after we got the kids off to school. Some uninterrupted face-to-face time over my favorite but often unappreciated meal of the day.

While at breakfast, Glenn decided he wanted to look for shoes. My husband wants to go shopping? How awesome is that? And I decided that I wanted new jeans to fit my rapidly and inexplicably expanding body. So we went shopping. And I bought jeans. Retail therapy--always good.

A friend had surgery last week, and another friend and I took a bunch of food over to her. We ended up staying for three hours. Nothing like a little service and some heartfelt conversation to cheer you up.

Then there was pizza and movie night. I know, I know, enough with the pizza and movie night already. But tonight was especially good. (Probably most of all because it wasn't at my house!) Our discussions covered everything from the Biggest Loser (did Melissa really throw the weigh-in?), to the State of the Union address, haircuts, Washington D.C. tourism, and gallbladder attacks. We hashed and rehashed (and in some cases hashed again) until we could hash no more. So very satisfying.

Once we got home, the girls and I watched Project Runway, and then we escorted the children to bed. A nice, quiet house. A hot chocolate night cap. With the hazelnut flavored creamer I swiped from the restaurant this morning. Heaven.

As I sat there next to Glenn and we sipped the divine creation that is the chocolate-and-hazelnut combination, I realized that this was a pretty doggone awesome day.

And there was nothing that some loathsome, lying, defective scale could do about it.

Looking for a 200-year-old cemetery. At dusk. By ourselves.

This post courtesy of a guest blogger. My sister Jill.
And by guest blogger I mean I totally copied and pasted
the whole thing right off her blog.
Because I just couldn't have said it better myself.
It's all true, by the way.
Except for the washer and dryer part.
I never saw those.

My sister, Amy, and I have been working on our family history and recently discovered that our ancestors on my mom's mother's side lived in Cadiz, Ohio, and that this small town is only two hours away. Inspired by our other sister's spontaneous and exciting trip to California, we decided Friday night that Saturday we were taking a road trip. We left the kids to our husbands and started out on the open road, initiating Amy's new van and prepared with the GPS, protein shakes and bars and bottles of water (ya know, just in case this trip turned out to be an episode of I Survived.) Our first stop was the Cadiz library where we found a book with sketches of the Hitchcock Family Cemetery, where our Hitchcock ancestors are buried. Exciting! An older gentleman was in the library with us and asked us which family names we were researching. We told him and showed him the sketches. "Oh yeah. I did those," he said nonchalantly. He told us how to get there - 3 miles north on route 9, look for the biggest barn in Cadiz on the left, the closed road on the right then hike up the hill. Amy and I knew we had to check it out. We saw the barn! Then the closed road! It was thrilling. We parked the van then walked along the highway to where we thought we saw a trail. Cars where flying by and I was getting a little freaked out. Two women walking on a lonely highway? Perfect horror movie script.

Route 9. The cemetery should have been up the hill to the right.

I turned to Amy and said, "If Dad knew we were doing this...." But I was armed with my camera and my cell phone, which I double... and triple... checked for reception as we trudged up the overgrown hill. Good thing I wore boots; ballet flats never would have held up on this adventure. But all we saw were empty soda cans, old tires, a washer and dryer (??) and lots of deer poop. No headstones. There was a house close by and we debated asking the residents if they knew anything about the old cemetery but decided to head back to where the van was parked and go around the back of the hill. We ducked under the gate that blocked off the road (rebels we are!) and we found a soggy trail leading up to the hill and I got excited. This had to be it. But, we came to a clearing and didn't see anything. We walked around a bit more but the pokey branches and bushes made it difficult. We headed back to the van because it was getting pretty dark and my level of anxiety was quickly rising. We heard men on ATVs off in the distance which made it even worse. But we did not want to give up! We were on a mission! We decided to go to the house we saw earlier but the muddy, unpaved driveway made us nervous and I think the reality of how dumb we were being finally sunk in. Two women. At night. Approaching an unknown house. So, we called it a day, stopped at Wendy's for a Frosty and headed home. Lucky, for us, someone else was able to find the small cemetery back in the '80s and took some pictures, which we found on findagrave.com.

My great-great-great-great-grandfather's final resting spot.

Although we didn't get to see the cemetery, it was exciting enough to be in the small town that our ancestors settled in 1803. It doesn't seem like much has changed since then either - just a McDonald's and a stoplight - so it was easy to picture how life may have been. It was fun playing dectective with you, Amy! Next research destination: Tennessee!

Thank you, Jill, for doing all the dirty work.
Especially the climbing-up-the-muddy-hill-with-me part.
And oh yeah, recording-the-adventure-for-posterity part, too.

The NBA could use this kid.

Here are 5 of Andrew's 7 points in his game Saturday. He scored almost half of his team's total points and is 50% from the free throw line. Not too many NBA superstars can say that.







Unfortunately, the team is now 0-3. And of course, that is all Andrew can focus on. But the make-up of the team is much different this year and they don't quite have the height they used to have. Nor do they have the number of second graders (it is a 1st/2nd grade team). So Andrew is doing his best to bring the team along...and I'd say he's doing his part.

We love to cheer on our very own superstar!

Sommetimes you can't make it on your own.

It just hit. Just this very second. Well, actually it hit around 5:30 this morning when I turned off my alarm clock and decided to stay in bed.

The winter blues are here.

Now before you start going off on your misconceptions about the sun never shining in Cleveland, let me inform you that it is quite bright outside today. It may be below 30 degrees, but it is a beautiful sunny day. And not the only one we've had since November, either.

My head is toying with thoughts of a cold, my voice is trying to high-tail it out of here, my body rejects any type of clothing not made with fleece and elastic, and huge, thick, warm, blankets have an irresistible attraction to me. As in, it is really hard to get them off.

I don't know. There was the rush and stress and excitement of Christmas. I thought it might hit then, when everybody left and the tree came down and there was no more excuse for feeding my face with as many treats as I could get my hands on. But instead of down time when the kids went back to school, it seemed I was busier than ever. For a couple weeks I didn't have a chance to think about being sad.

Then we had a four day weekend. Saturday and Sunday were lovely. Glenn and I saw our first movie sans kids and sans babysitter. Sunday afternoon included a much-needed nap. But then Glenn left me. His three day business trip just happened to coincide with the two days in a row the kids had off school. You know, things went well, in all reality. Despite a rocky patch that ended up with all four kiddies in their rooms at 6:45 one night, the kids did great. Still, it was lonely without my other half, and I needed him home. He happily obliged last night, and I was feeling much better.

But then he left again. The man had the gall to leave for work again this morning. How dare he? Not getting enough Glenn time paired with not having anything scheduled this morning has sent me into a midwinter tailspin.

What to do? Nothing but get my hiney upstairs and get ready for the day. I will put on nice clothes simply because I have to go to work later, but I promise you--in the half hour I have between coming home from work and rushing back out for piano, grocery shopping, and Scouts this afternoon, priority number one will be getting right back in my sweats.

And I won't have to wait until after nine to see Glenn.

Year-long resolutions.

I think I'm going to write a book.

Not a novel. Not a biography, auto or otherwise.

It seems like all you have to do to get published is do something for a year. Blog about it first. Then publish it. Make millions.

Thousands, you say? I'd be happy with that.

These books are everywhere. Have you seen them?

People have used their crockpots, followed Oprah's advice, stopped shopping, cooked their way through Julia Child's cook book (of course), and even simply tried to be happier. Just did it for a year. And then wrote a book.

I mean, seriously.

That's all it takes?

I can totally do that.

How about The Napping House: How one woman finally caught up on all her lost sleep with a year of daily naps?

Maybe The Not-So-Skinny-Cow: Finding out exactly how much weight you can gain with 365 trips to Mitchell's?

Or Disappearing Act: What happens when one mom gets in her car, starts driving, and comes back a year later?

Tempting.

But how about something more realistic?

Maybe I should just start with making sure I hug my kids every day. You know how days can go by without giving the kids a meaningful hug? Oh, you don't? Well, unfortunately that happens around here. Not intentionally, mind you. But I was wondering how things might change if I made sure to give the kiddies a big huge squeeze every day.

Maybe I should just start there.

2011 NY Times Bestseller List, here I come!

Snow angel.

See Brooke.

See Brooke play in the snow.

See Brooke play in the snow all by herself because no one else wants to go out.

See Brooke not caring that she is playing in the snow all by herself because she just loves to play in the snow.

All the time.

Better late than never.

So the boy has been 8 for over a month now.

So it's high time I blog about it.

We had a quiet family celebration. Andrew asked for grilled cheese sandwiches for his birthday dinner. We jazzed things up a bit at had a build-your-own panini. Several options of cheese, meat, bread and other toppings. It was our own little version of Melt, complete with a spreadsheet for people to make their choices. The Barneses brought their huge George Foreman grill over and we went to town. Yum.In December Wicked was back in town. I, of course, would be going. My original thought was to take the girls with me, but when I saw the ticket prices, I knew that wasn't going to be possible. However, I , of course, would be going. But who to take with me? Andrew happened to be the only family member who had not seen it, so I decided he'd be my date.

The day after his birthday Andrew and I got to spend the whole day together. First we went to see his friend who was at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital after a TV fell on him. Yikes. He was very happy to have a visitor and it was nice to spend some time visiting.

Then we headed to Playhouse Square. As we entered the lobby, I saw the Wicked poster around the corner. I had my camera, and I offered to take a picture of the family standing in front of it if they would take one of Andrew and me. Sure, no problem. I took a nice picture of the nice family. Our turn. Except that when I went to turn my camera on, there was no memory card.

LAME.

And a little embarrassing.

Never mind, I said to the lady.

But instead of just walking away, she offered to take our picture with her camera. Yeah, sure, if you're sure. You can just email it to me.

No, she said, write down your home address and I'll mail them to you.

Well, ok. I'm doubtful, but ok. I gave her the info and we went on into the theater.

Now I must say that for a Broadway play, Andrew isn't the best companion. A sporting event, a movie even--he's great fun. But he wasn't all that into Elphaba and Co. Oh, he watched, he paid attention, but at every pause in the action he whispered, "Can we just go home now?" Yeah it was real fun.

But you know what? Wicked is totally awesome no matter what. And a couple weeks later, guess what arrived in the mail?

(Note: this was taken BEFORE the performance. That's why we both look happy.)

The nice stranger lady even sent a couple extra pictures she snapped of the map and the trailer. How nice of her to go the extra mile. And even if the experience ended up leaning towards the annoying side, I am so grateful to have a remembrance of my day with Andrew. Thank you, random lady at the theater!

One more note about Andrew...

He's gone from this...

...to this.

Can you spot the difference?