Project 365 Catch-up, Week 11...

You may have noticed that I am behind in my Project 365 posts, and you know, in any posts at all.  Well, it's been a busy few weeks around here.  

Work picked up, which is good since I thrive a little more with busyness.  But, Tony also took off for a week to Atlanta, leaving me home alone with the kids.  Every time he does this, I feel more for single moms.  It's so hard to not have any down time, you know?  Tony got back on Friday night, but we left for a spring break road trip early the following morning.  And, in the middle of all this, the basement flooded-ish.  Yeah, it's been a little busy and stressful.

So, as Tony and Olivia play "Beat the Parents", with me shouting answers, or whispering them to Mia, I have done a little photo-editing and am putting together this blog post and a few more to overwhelm you over the next week or so.

Thursday, March 13: Olivia hard at work, doing her homework.

Friday, March 14: Apparently, no pictures were taken today.  But, I'll make up for that in the next week or so.  I told you we went on vacation, right?

Saturday, March 15: Mia after swim lessons, chewing on the towel.  I mean, it is lunchtime.  I guess swimming makes her hungry.

Sunday, March 16: We went to breakfast at IHOP.  Here's a pic of my two dark-haired beauties.

Monday, March 17: It was my job to take the "extra" shirt to day care, and my reasoning was to take a shirt that wouldn't be in normal rotation.  Hence, the Halloween shirt.  Sure enough, by the time I picked her up on St. Patrick's Day, she was wearing her Halloween shirt.

Tuesday, March 18: Tony was sending me pics of what he was eating in Atlanta, so, I felt the need to send him a pic of what we were eating that night.

Wednesday, March 19: Mia's dance class' costumes came in and they got to try them on to make sure that they fit.

Is it spring yet? (Project 365)...

This was a long week.  We ended our last week with Missy Mia being a bit under the weather.  Just a bit.  But, the weather was getting better, and I dared to get my hopes up that Spring was on the way.

March 6: Mia stayed home for the second day.  But, her fever didn't resurface, which was a good thing.  Below is the result of Benadryl, given to help her stop itching at a patch of eczema on her neck.  It knocked her out. 

March 7: The Snow was starting to melt, and soon we'd have more daylight at night.  Yay!

March 8:  My handy dandy coffee cup.  I was really just enjoying the play of light and shadows.  This most likely was taken while Mia was taking a nap.  She woke up from said nap, came downstairs and had pink eye.  An hour and a half later, as we waited for prescriptions for antibiotics - topical, eye drop, and oral - because she had strep, pink eye, and had scratched the strep into her skin causing a rash called impetigo. 

March 9: Thank God for antibiotics.  She was already feeling better.  And the weather was, well, not great, but WAY nicer than it's been so we went out for a short family walk.

March 10:  Did you see this?  NO COAT!! It 's warm!!!..ish...

March 11:  Look!  Most of the snow is gone!! But...we are under a winter storm warning....

March 12: ...And this is what we woke up to.  It started out as rain.  Turned to snow.  Which means ice and snow sticking to everything.

 Later on the 12th, I picked a kitten up from preschool.  She "meowed" for the picture.

Adventures of a traveling mom...

As we started our decent into the city, I was exhilarated to look out the windows of the airplane.  It's a sight to see, descending into a large city at night, the lights on the buildings in all colors of the rainbow.  The lights of the suburbs and roadways stretching out as far as the eye can see.  There is really not a sight like it, and it made me miss my kids, again.  I was thinking about how I wished they were there with me to see this incredible sight.  Would they love it as much as I would?  Would they want to take pictures like I wanted to?  Would they just look quickly, take it in, and go back to their other activities?

Who wouldn't miss this face?

As we were getting closer to those lights I started to think about how I could make sure that I was off the plane before my seatmates across the aisle.  While I was sitting at the airport in Cleveland, waiting for the departure time, and then waiting again as the plane was delayed, I noticed the foursome that was now across the aisle from and behind me.  They showed up with no luggage, two men and two women.  One of the women, clearly leading the way came up to the attendant at the desk and was able to purchase tickets on the plane, on my flight.  They seemed in somewhat good spirits, for travelers. I wondered about them, and where they had come from, why they were going to Chicago. We seemed to have a large number of last minute passengers and I wondered if other flights had been cancelled, where those flights had been destined to go. Seeing the demeanor of this foursome, I had somewhat hoped that they would not be seated near me, virtually ensuring that they would be.

When we got on the plane, they were impressed with how small this commuter plane was, 1 seat, an aisle and then 2 more seats that made up a row.  The one brother in law that was behind the other felt the need to take a picture of the brother in law in front, as his head pretty much touched the overhead bins.  They were laughing and happy, acting as if they were much younger than they looked, texting, Facebook-ing, laughing at each other.

...and this smile?

As the plane came to the gate, all I could think about was getting off of that plane.  I had left the house before my kids were awake, kissing their sleeping heads goodbye.  It was now past their bed time, and I wasn't even off of this annoyingly delayed flight.  And on top of it all, my phone picked today to no longer recognize a charger which meant that I was not able to call my kids since I was trying to save a small amount of battery time in case of an emergency.

Trying to get off the plane as fast as I could, I stood up as soon as we made it to the gate, hoping, willing that the flight crew would open quickly and let us out.  They did not, and I ended up sitting down again.  I felt awkward and self-conscious and sure that the sudden silence from the other side of the rows meant that they were exchanging knowing looks about me and looking down on me for how much I wanted to hurry, how obvious it was that I was trying to trump the niceties of the "you go, no you go" part of deplaning.

As awkward as I was, and as silly as it was to try to will the flight crews to move faster, I wouldn't have changed my actions.  I got off that plane before the party of four did.  I made it out of the airport before they did.  I got in my car and sped home, making it there in record time to once again kiss sleeping children and have a quick conversation with one sleepy husband.

Sick of Winter - Literally - Project 365 Weeks 8 and 9.....

It's been a long time.  I've been taking pictures, most days, but we've been fighting a whole lot of sick.  Something viral (I believe) has attacked my family, making us exhausted, cranky, exhausted, congested, angry, etc.  You get the idea, right?

February 20 -Thankfully, a warmer day, but that caused the snow to begin to melt and evaporate which caused immense clouds of thick fog.  It felt a little like I was going to drive right off the edge of the world.

February 21 - We've been stuck inside so much that dress up is the game of choice, also, force hugging your sister.

February 22 - Hannah's Rock 'n' Roll birthday party was postponed until today.  Please put your hands together for Taylor Swift (Mia) and Adele (Olivia)!

February 23 - A girls night of Mexican dinner after spending the day cleaning.

February 24 - Olivia is showing off her mad coloring skillz.  And later, Mia and I snuggled while we watched "Brave".  There is a rainbow theme to these pictures.

February 25 - This was the day I actually called off sick to work and spent the day binge-watching "Psych" from my bed.  No pictures were taken.

February 26 - My focus was still not at 100%, and neither was my camera's.

February 27 - The dog was enjoying some rare, bright, warm and beautiful sunlight.

February 28 - The last day of February, and the sunset was pretty awesome.

March 1 -Started the day with big sis teaching little sis how to make bracelets. Next we went to the library, and then to Target.  The "statue" is outside of our library, a view from the children's section.  And the Target picture is what happens when a 5yo wanders the party aisle while her mother talks on the phone.

March 2 - We were so busy the day before, that we were worn out again and pictures were not taken.  Or, I got caught up in one of my library books and spent the day reading and forgot all about pictures.  I'm sure you'll figure out which one actually happened.

And yeah, the book was really good.

March 3 - An awesomely grainy, badly lit picture of Tony, but also my only picture of the day.

March 4 - Traveled to Cleveland/Akron for the day for work.  This is what Chicago looked like from the air at about 8:30 AM.

March 5 - Once again a sickie.  She stayed home while I worked.  At this point, the Tylenol had kicked in and she wanted an apple - peeled and cut up and in a bowl.  She thought I could do that at the couch.

I hope your winter is ending soon, and ours too.  This family needs to get outside and clean and air out this house.  Spring can't get here soon enough.