Friday, September 16, 2016

Rachel and Becca


Rachel and Becca turned 23 on Tuesday.  We celebrated with a dinner out at the Cheesecake Factory. My last post about them was right after their graduation.  What about since then?

Rachel is still living at home, still looking for a job.  She waitressed a lot of hours at the Piper Tavern at the beginning of the Summer, but then gave up her regular hours at the time of our trip to London.  She fills in occasionally now, but mostly is home binge-watching television or meeting up with her friends.  I'm hoping she finds a job soon.  She really wants something in or around Philadelphia as she wants to move to the city and try on city life.  Fingers crossed!

Becca finished her Internship at Doylestown Hospital Cardiac Rehab.  She is now back at Bucks County Community College, working to get her Nursing degree.  We've agreed to continue supporting her through this next round of education, assuming she does well this semester.  It's kind of make or break on that front.  Becca works as a nanny for twin 21 month old boys on Monday and Tuesday, has class and lab on Wednesday and clinical on Thursday. She uses Friday to study and work on the Kinesiology class she is taking online. It is a full schedule.  And then she does her best to spend as much of the weekend as humanly possible with boyfriend Kyle.  She's also found a very supportive study group which is something new for her, but is already proving helpful. They've managed to teach her long division!  She's the youngest student in her group - most of them are in their 40's and 50's.  I think she has become their pet project.

So, we aren't quite empty-nesters just yet. And we are still settling in to having them home full time.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

London and Edinburgh

I went! And I've been back home for a month already. That doesn't even seem possible...  Here's the highlights:

Tower Bridge. Learned that it isn't the London Bridge! Went up to the glass walkway thing and looked down. Freaked out one of the family members. Lots of efforts made by certain family members to get the "perfect" Instagram worthy photo here. (On MULTIPLE occasions). We also saw Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, Big Ben... you know, all the basic touristy stops.
 Buckingham Palace. That tour was a LOT of walking - it ends somewhere around the back and it felt like miles to get back where we started.  Tried to watch the changing of the guard, but by the time we were done the tour the crowds were so thick it was literally impossible to see anything.
This is what started it all.  If you have a chance, GO! The play was fantastic and well worth the price of admission, including the expensive plane fare to get there.
 Stonehenge.  Everyone wants to know was it bigger or smaller than you imagined?  I'd say it was right on par with what I expected. And I'd love for someone to figure out why the folks who did this went to all the trouble when they were nomadic... It was cold and windy up there and we weren't dressed for it. But enjoyed it anyway!
Salisbury Cathedral. It was raining when we went in, but looked like this when it was time to leave. The building is absolutely gorgeous. Spent a nice couple of hours here.  They have the magna carta on display.
 Tea at Bea's of Bloomsbury with my blog friends. Me, Mrs. Wookie, Alexa, Jacky, and Fiona.  It was so wonderful to meet all of them and I felt so honored that they would take the time out of their schedules to travel to London to see me!  Jacky made me a beautiful mixed media montage of London and Fiona gifted me with the cutest little tissue holder (that came in very handy up on Arthur's Seat).  But the best gift of all was just getting to sit and chat with them for two hours. It was over so quickly!
 The remains of Duone Castle in Scotland - one of the sites for filming of the show Outlander.  I walked in some of the same places as Jamie Fraser (played by Sam Heughan).  Really cool.
View of Scotland from the top of Edinburgh Castle.  This is where we started our last day in Edinburgh - after hiking up the Royal Mile to get there.
And this is the view of Scotland from the top of Arthur's Seat.  This is where we ended our day after touring several places along the Royal Mile (Mary King's Close, Holyrood Palace, lots of gift shops).  I trained all spring and summer to be able to make this hike and I DID IT! Admittedly I huffed and puffed and cursed my way to the top and arrived red-faced and breathless.  Hit a personal best of 26,659 steps this day (over 11 miles) and a lot of those steps were uphill. But the view was so worth it and I think even my family was a bit impressed that I'd done it!

London was fun, but far too busy and fast-paced for my tastes. I feel like I can say I visited, saw most of the important sites, and have no need to rush back.  Scotland was more my style. The scenery was gorgeous and since we only had two full days there, I feel that we hardly scratched the surface of what we could have seen.  I'd love to go back and spend time in both Scotland and Ireland.  We also found that staying in small flats with a family of five and doing everything together was, well, maybe just a touch more family togetherness than we were all prepared for!  The flight home was blessedly uneventful and I was back to work the next day (what was I thinking???).  I can't believe it was already a month ago.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

My Mother

I absolutely cannot believe it is September already! This summer has been crazy busy and I have so much catching up to do here, so many things to share.  But my life hasn't miraculously slowed down (I wish) so the updates will have to be short and sweet as I can fit them in between everything else.

I've made a list and hope to tackle one subject a day.  No promises.

First up.  I just got back from Texas where I was visiting my mother prior to her surgery.  She's had a re-occurrence of her very rare form of cancer called soft tissue sarcoma.  This time it has taken up residence in the right lobe of her liver.  She has a few more tests yet and then a surgery date will be set to remove that half of her liver.  Those of you who are prayer warriors, please add her to your prayer list.  Her name is Sandy.  I know she will appreciate it!

While I was in Texas we had a quick meet-up with Melissa before she took off on her own adventure. So here we are - Sandy, Sarah, Cheri, and Melissa at the Frisco Mercantile enjoying an hour of artsy inspiration!

Til next time!