Stuff going on

Gettin a little bogged down in the details these days.

Am relieved that no one was hurt in LR with the tornadoes and so far I haven't heard of any property damage suffered by friends and family, although I've seen some harrowing pictures. So grateful that everyone is safe--particularly when the lead story one day this week on abcnews.com was "Tornado rips through Little Rock"

Skip is battling the debacle that is the new terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. What a mess! He was supposed to leave last night, but weather and terminal problems kept him here until this morning. He missed at least one meeting, but I think he got there in time for the one he really needed to make.

Our dishwasher is broken again and trying to get that fixed without Skip here to call or speak to the repair people means we need to involve our landlord in the process of coordinating. My food, dry cleaning and travel German doesn't work too well with dishwasher repair.

I am planning to go to Prague this weekend with friends, and even though I cleared it on the calendar a couple of months ago, I only cleared the weekend. Wasn't thinking that when Skip started planning his work trips to London that he didn't get in until late Friday night and would have to leave again Sunday evening. Now I have three different families involved in helping with Maddie so I can get away for one weekend. I'm hoping that it's really a lot of fun, because it's certainly been a lot of trouble!

Having an indoor garage sale on Wednesday trying to get rid of odds and ends. There is no Goodwill here, so I don't really know what to do with stuff that's too good to throw out, but not worth hauling to England. There are bins for clothes donations, but not for other things like kitchen stuff, books, DVD's, magazines, etc. We're also trying to sell some larger items that we don't want to take as well.

Am also trying to train my replacements to do the layout for the American Women's Club magazine. Two women who really want to help and learn are taking over, but we're starting from ground level and building up, so that's going to take some time. And I'm running out! I also have to get two more issues out before our departure.

This weekend we met some friends at one of our favorite restaurants, Myer and Freeman. It had rained all day, but in the late afternoon, the sky cleared and the temperature actually rose, so Skip and decided to walk and cut through the fields behind our house. We were at the restaurant about 10 minutes when my nose started to itch and my chest got tight. My skin started to feel itchy and I excused myself to the bathroom to find hives all over my stomach. One of our friends who drove hurried me back to the house where I quickly chewed some of Maddie's children's Benadryl. Whatever caused it, the Bendryl fixed it, although my chest hurt all day on Sunday. Not going to be cutting through those fields again anytime soon!

Mom and I are almost finished with the sequel to Was the Funeral Fun? She's doing some massive editing and I have one more chapter to write.

Maddie's big news is that she has moved up to chapter books at school. Now instead of reading a small book each night and making a comment on it, she'll read a chapter each night and complete a series of activities over the course of a week. She's very excited. I hope she's always this excited about her homework!

Won't see Skip until next Wednesday night. By the time he gets home from London, I'll be in Prague and when I get home, he'll have already departed.

And in late breaking news, the Maddie has just lost the tooth that has been loose since February!