She's Baaaaaaack!

No, I have not passed into the great beyond!  I was, however,  at my daughter's in Grayslake, IL, unintentionally, for a whole month!  I got into projects and time passed, one thing leading to another, and suddenly my granddaughter's Miss Zion pageant was only a week away, making no financial sense for me to drive home and back for it in such a short time.  I missed the pageant last year.  Didn't want that to happen again.

 

I went up very early in August, two days before my granddaughter's 11th birthday (on the 6th).  Here is a partial list of what I did:

 

*Made a chocolate and bacon birthday cake (Robin's request) and put cream cheese/Nutella frosting on it.

*Attended Robin's birthday dinner with all parents, step-parents, and two grandparents at Olive Garden in Gurnee.
 

*Shopped for a dress for Robin to be used as the base for a duct tape dress that she wanted to make....then shopped for duct tape.  (Two separate trips.)

*Assisted with the duct tape dress, which took several days.  (This was mostly Robin and her mom.)

*Went to the kids' home in Zion, IL, to look at a couple of pageant dresses--one an evening gown that needed a little work but made Robin look absolutely gorgeous (and way too grown up).

*Found a crochet pattern online for a shrug to wear with one of the pageant dresses.  Shopped for just the right yarn.

*Crocheted the shrug.  (This took about 2 days, if you don't count the time I had to rip out rows because I wasn't happy with my execution of the directions.  Haven't crocheted in years!!!!)

*Canned a half-bushel of peaches, with Meg's help.  We did 18 pints of slices and 6 pints of freezer preserves.  (This took most of a day with one of Denis's co-worker's in the house for a work session.)

*Took the children shopping to Five Below in Vernon Hills so Robin could blow some of her birthday gift card.

*Read the book Harris and Me to the grandkids over a week.  They loved it!  (So do I.)

*Did the whole family's laundry twice... because I could....

*Cooked meals and did dishes--ongoing and forever!  (Megan had been diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome in her right hand.  She needed help!)

*Processed and froze 8 HUGE zucchini squash purchased from a little farm down the road. 

*Hemmed part of Robin's pageant ball gown.  (Just for safety, in the back.)

*Helped Robin with one chapter of her summer book for a Gifted/Talented class in middle school this school year.  (She had already read it.  Just wanted to re-read and asked if I would do the honors for that one chapter.  Plus, we talked about the characteristics of the genre of that book, etc.  Never hurts!)

*Met the family when they came out of the theater after seeing Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, only because Robin had to go to Zion for soccer practice, but Ryan didn't want to go there, so I picked him up and brought him home with me while the rest went on.

*Held the fort while the parents went to various doctor appointments.

*Helped to host Denis's work partner from Colorado.  (Denis had not been able to be at work while Eric was in town, due to back problems, so he was invited here to work.  We did our best to impress him but had the kitchen torn up with peach processing!)

*Washed Ryan's hair.  (Why do I include this??  Ryan takes showers on a regular basis, when told to.  When he emerges, the sides of his hair are wet, but the top is usually mysteriously dry, and it never looks clean.  One day, I told him I was washing his hair in the sink...and I did.  Thereafter, his hair shined and smelled good--proof that he really doesn't wash it when he showers!!)

 

On Friday, August 23rd, we drove the grandchildren back to their custodial home in Zion,  Their summer break at Mom's was over.  School starts Tuesday.  Back to reality for all of us.  Kinda sad...

 

Both children reported some "excitement".  Ryan plugged the vacuum cleaner into an outlet in his bedroom and sparks ensued.  There was a mini-fire.  Daddy came running with a fire extinguisher.  All was well but it scared the children.  Such is life in an old home! 

 After the children left, things at my daughter's got dull and lifeless.  We all hid in corners of the house for recuperation.  Meg and and Denis attended the children's open houses at school on the day before their first day of school.  I just became a vegetable.

Judy and Phil Heffelman, my friends and the grandchildren's paternal grandparents, decided to come up for Labor Day Weekend, to attend Robin's pageant.  God bless them, they (or he?) can't handle the fear of city traffic, so they took I-74 all the way over to Bloomington, IL, the up on I-39 to Rockford and over to Zion.  A trip that normally takes me 3 1/2-4 hours via the tollroad took them 7 1/2!!  They decided to bed with us.  (This is a little hard to explain to people familiar with divorce situations who expect the parties to be "warring".  Not so in our case.  Nathan--my former son-in-law [and family] have an open invitation to stay at my house if they need/want to be in Plainfield because his parents [Judy and Phil] don't have available space for them yet.  And Judy and Phil have an open invitation to stay at Meg's--their former daughter-in-law-- if they want to visit because Nathan doesn't have available space for them yet.  I think it all works out.)

Last weekend, I got a new look at my grandchildren.  Ryan is softer--quicker to say "thank you" and "sorry" without prompting.  Quicker to hug.  Better around his step-sister, and she around him.  (Done with mirrors and smoke??)  He is adorably good-looking, but shy.  (I look for that to change!)

Robin is simply no longer a child.  Long and lean and beautiful with stage presence I didn't think possible, she is a winner!  She did not win the pageant but we couldn't have cared less.  She was a shining star--so much more natural than the girls who were "memorized" and  sickly- sweet with their memorized speeches that someone else wrote for them.  If she was disappointed that she didn't win, she didn't show it.  Words cannot express how proud I am of that young lady!

So now I am home, trying to catch up with all of the repairs that seem to be hitting me in retaliation for my having been gone so long. 

As one of my nephews would say, "Yeah buddy.  Peace out."