The Big, Red Porch

I went to visit my Grandparents this weekend. It was a warm and happy weekend. But, when it was over and I was driving home I started to feel sad. Sad because I don't see them as much as I want. As much as I should. Sad because they are getting older which means time is becoming a minimum with them. My Grandpa had made me a rocking chair and he surprised me with it when I was there. I love it. I love it because he made it for me.
When I was a little girl we spent many, many weekends in the summer with my Grandparents at their cottage near the lake. I used to get up at the crack of dawn and my Grandpa would always be the one to get up with me. I would sit on his lap out on their big, red porch in the peaceful early morning. We would watch and feed the chipmunks together. When I think of the memories of those early mornings with my Grandpa they bring up a feeling that is hard to put into words. It's happiness and laughter. It's feeling carefree and safe and loved - a love that I think only a grandparent can give. I felt sad on my ride home because that big, red porch is gone and so is that little girl. But, then the millions of happy memories I have of my Grandpa, of my Grandma, bubbled up inside of me, they flashed before my eyes. And I remembered that the bond I have with my Grandparents is something that extends over the miles and the time between visits. It is something that I will always carry inside of me. And I didn't feel so sad anymore.

Jack Bauer is a werewolf

Last night I had a dream that I was at BlogHer and nuclear terrorists came, but then out of no where Jack Bauer showed up to save everyone. Except he was a werewolf. The end.

But, I have actually had much more exciting things happening then finding out Jack Bauer is a werewolf. First, I took the train with my mom to visit my sister in Chicago for four days, which was so awesome mostly because I got to spend time with the two of them. But, also because Chicago is a pretty cool city. That was my first time there. (That is unless you count the time in college when Josh and I went down there with some friends to see a concert and when we got there we realized that we had forgotten our tickets and there were no extra tickets to be gotten and our friends had theirs so we spent the evening wandering around the area near the theater when some shady characters started following us and the streets were basically deserted and we decided, “hey, it might be a good idea to STAY IN THE LOCKED CAR for the rest of the time.”) But, yes. Chicago is a pretty cool city. And I marveled at all of the awesome sky scrapers like the clichéd small town girl that I am. Luckily there were 439098207098 other tourists there so I fit right in. We saw some cool things like “The Bean” and we visited the aquarium and we also went to see “Wicked” which was very enjoyable. (But not very much like the book at all.) Then I came home for one day and Josh and I left for Cleveland to see a concert. (This time we remembered the tickets!) We saw Trey, Mike, and the Benevento Russo Duo. (Or GRAB as some of the cool kids are calling it.) And the concert exceeded expectations which made us happy. The venue we saw them at was smallish and right behind the stage you could see the river and beyond that the city of Cleveland. They played a mix of covers (including an instrumental jam of Billy Jean which rocked) and originals. Oh and a few acoustic songs with just Trey on guitar and Mike on the banjo. When they pulled out a bluegrassy version of Wilson during this everyone went wild. And so yes we totally enjoyed ourselves. The next day we drove from Cleveland back over to Chicago where we saw them again. This time we were slightly disappointed because they played approximately half of the same stuff they did the night before which is very unlike what we were expecting. But, they did play some new stuff that rocked and some of the songs from the night before I was happy to hear again. All in all it was a good show.
Exciting thing number two is that during all of this our ugly bathroom was transformed into a pretty new bathroom. Seriously, you know the show on HGTV “America’s Ugliest Bathroom”? We so could have won top prize. It was that horrible. Horrible! But, it is not horrible anymore and might even be my favorite room in the house. I have been drinking lots of water so that I can spend extra time in there adoring the newness and non-ugliness.
Yeah for vacations! And yeah for new bathrooms! And so that has been what I have been up to for the last couple of weeks. (Which totally does not explain why I have not posted since MAY! Gah!)