Spring Break Lament!

What happened to spring break? Is it over already? Where did it go? What did I do with all that time? Well, I'll tell you!

Saturday, the first day of break, my friend Ruthie came over and helped unpack about three (3) dozen boxes of books! Not only did she help with the books, she brought lunch from Wendy's AND made dinner in the crock pot!

I spent Sunday unpacking a little bit more and packing for my trip to Arkansas. Orion and I left around 2:00 that afternoon. About two hours later than I had hoped. We arrived at Shannon's house at 6:00. We joined Shan's entire family for dinner at Pizza Hut. We had fun. It was lovely. But Orion drank too much caffeine at dinner! I was not a watchful mama and I paid that evening with less than four hours of sleep trying to get HIM to sleep. Ugh.

Monday dawned early. We were up at 5:30 and out the door by 6:15. We made our way to Fayetteville where I found a parking spot on campus (I was there by 7:15!) and hiked up the hill to collect some more data for the dissertation (!gasp!). Orion waited in Peabody Perks, the coffee shop, while I did my thing. He chatted with faculty, staff and students while avoiding his homework. Once I finished I sat with him for a while and we worked on his school work. We had a dinner date that evening with Michael and Robin and couldn't decide if we should go back to Shan's (an hour away) and sleep or just tough it out. We decided to tough it out and save on gas money and drive time. So we spent the day visiting with Amber and Lux and hitting the local thrift stores. It was a gorgeous day and we even spent some time flying a kite at Gully Park. What a blast. I had received some bad news about a young friend of mine and we had hoped to visit her, but she was not allowed "non family" visitors so we dropped a note off at her house for her before heading over to have a fabulous Mexican meal with Michael and Robin and La Hacienda. Yum! It was 9:45 by the time we got back Shan's and we were plum tuckered out! But the best news was that Shan had decided to take a mental health day on Tuesday to spend with us!

Tuesday was another fabulous day! Absolutely! We woke up. Got dressed and jumped in the Honda and zoomed out of town. Shan bought us breakfast at McD's and we were headed down to the Buffalo River in no time. The weather was perfect. Sunny, mid sixties, blue skies! We spent several hours sitting on the bank of the river looking for Odin Stones. I took my shoes off and stuck my feet in the icy water! It was pure bliss. We then headed up to Osage to visit with my friend Newton Lale at Osage Clayworks. Orion made a few pinch pots while Newt 'threw' about a dozen dinner plates and we chatted about all sorts of things. What a perfect day! We came home via Route 62 through Eureka Springs and Garfield so we got to view the changes to E.S. and the growth out at Beaver Lake. We were plum tuckered out when we got home. Shannon made fabulous tacos! I cannot wait to try her recipe myself. Shan's family joined us for dinner Tuesday too! Did I mention that Tuesday was perfect!

Wednesday I did nothing. Shannon's dad picked Orion up at 5:30, in the morning, and they did farmer things all day. I slept till about 8:30, showered, did laundry (mine and some of Shan's) and finished the first season and started the second season of Grey's Anatomy. Shannon enticed me to stay that evening with the promise of making Chicken Shannon (a recipe John created some 15 years ago for Miss Shannon herself!) as I hadn't had it in forever! We visited the local grocery after Shan got home from school and I prepped while Shan cooked. We fed another host of folks for dinner that night too! Shan's sister joined us and Shan's friend from school, Kelly, and her daughter Summer. Orion went to bed early, but I stayed up to watch more Grey's Anatomy!

Thursday Orion and I made a leisurely trip back to Missouri. We stopped at several flea markets in the Eldorado Springs area. I purchased some nifty '70s glassware that goes perfectly in our new house. We made it home about the time John finished work. After dinner I got a second wind and unpacked boxes, mostly in the kitchen this time, till 2:00 a.m.

Friday I was slow to start. Sore from the hard work. But I had to get up. The flooring guys were supposed to come. Orion and I spent that morning in the garage unpacking more boxes of books and all sorts of forgotten treasures. The flooring guys arrived just after noon and I no longer have carpet in my bathroom (ewww!). I have a lovely, bright linoleum. Much better. But those guys sure did stir up the dust. The bad news is that I still don't have flooring in the foyer. Seems the door is too low or the floor is two high. So there's some debate about how they plan to fix that.

I went to the grocery store early Saturday amidst a flurry of flakes. Huge, fat, wet snow was falling from the sky at an amazing rate! But it was warm and it melted by noon. The rest of the day, some eight hours, was spent working in my library. I foolishly thought I could just toss books onto the shelves and that I would organize them at another time. I couldn't stand it! I caved. I ended up alphabetizing (by author's last name) my two bookshelves of young adult literature and my one bookshelf of popular fiction. Four other bookshelves were organized by subject/category. Astronomy, religion, art, history, philosophy, dictionaries, literature, poetry, and the list goes on. I have three stacks, roughly four feet tall each, of children's picture books that need to be organized (most likely alphabetical by author's last name, but non-fiction will be categorized by subject area), another bookshelf to be assembled, and about six more boxes of books in the garage! Nearly everything else has been unpacked. Now I am just in the process of shifting it from one place to the next.

Sunday... I spent today wondering where in the heck my spring break disappeared to and chastising myself for organizing books instead of grading papers (ugh!). Today I cleaned both bathrooms again and finally got my shower curtain up! I will get to shower in my OWN bathroom tonight. W00T! The house is coming together. I still have curtains to hang. I've not even made it to the basement to unpack the games or goodies down there.

Now I must mention how helpful Orion has been throughout this entire move. He carried boxes and boxes and boxes to the new house. And he's carried nearly every box in from the garage for me. He removes the empty boxes and brings more to be unpacked. He has swept and vacuumed and match me step for step. Thank you, Orion!