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We had a wonderful Christmas. Katie arrived home for winter break on the Megabus (which arrived early, wonder of wonders!), and Megan and Andy made the trek from Maryland. They stopped at the Englerts on the way over, which gave them a nice little overnight break. They got here around 4:30 Christmas Eve. I made a big supper since we were going to spend Christmas Day at my sister's house, and then we opened presents. Christmas Day as we were about to head out to Kathy's, my nephew called to tell me that I-44 was shut down. We thought it was due to ice on the roads, but later found out that a highway patrol officer had been killed when he stopped to help an accident victim. So sad - no Merry Christmas for that family.

We ultimately made it out to Union and had a great time with my sister, her children and assorted in-laws. My brother-in-law was not due to leave Iraq until the 26th, so we had to celebrate the holiday without him.

Megan and Andy stayed with us until late afternoon on the 27th before heading once again to her parents to spend the night before driving back to Maryland on the 28th. We very much enjoyed their visit, and got several rounds of cards and Yahtzee in. Oh, and I should mention that Megan loved the stocking I made for her, so that made me feel good.

Last night Jim and I took Kathy up to the airport and we picked up Skip, her husband. He just spent 8 months outside of Baghdad helping the Iraqis get their computer servers up and running, and training them on how to maintain the system. He was supposed to be there a year, but the contract was changed once he had been there 6 or so months. Because he will have severe tax implications for returning before 12 months are up, he will only stay in the US for 2 weeks before heading down to Belize to stay with his sister for 4 months. What a goofy system we have!

Yesterday I completed the Christmas stocking I was making for Megan. Entitled "The Procession" it consisted of 105 pieces to cut, embroider, sequin and bead, sew together and in many cases, to stuff. Wanting her to have a stocking similar to Andy's (and five others I have made for the family), I purchased a Bucilla kit. The last one I made was in 1991 for Katie. They have come a long way since then, with much more intricate designs and many more pieces. It must have taken me over 100 hours to complete this stocking. I had seen online that a lady will make stockings for you, charging $135. Now math is not my forte, but I paid $20 for the kit and put in a lot of hours of my time. So she gets what? $1.15 an hour for her time??? Yikes!

At any rate, it is now done and it is slightly larger than Andy's, not to mention much more dynamic. It will be interesting to see what he says when he looks at her stocking hanging next to his on the mantle. Will he be requesting a new one for next year? Or will he be sentimental and want to keep the one I made him when he was born?

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, which means the frantic pace will pick up as we head towards Christmas. In light of everything going on in the world around us, I find we have much to be thankful for in our lives. Both of our children are happy and healthy, as are Jim and I, and the businesses are doing well. My long term goal of writing a book was accomplished this year, we took a fantastic trip with Andy and Megan, and we will all be together for Christmas. So this year I give thanks for all the blessings we are surrounded by.

One of the bonus items of going to see my in-laws last weekend is that it forced us into getting our Christmas shopping done - at least for them. It feels really good to say I have that side of the family finished. I've been picking up a few things here and there, and the kids have been sending ideas our way. It shouldn't be too hard to finish things up. What has been time-consuming is the stocking I am making for Megan. I hand made felt stockings for the four of us years ago - the kind with all the beads and sequins on them. Andy had requested that I make one for Megan to go with his.

Her stocking is called "The Procession", so it has Mary on the donkey holding Jesus, with Joseph and the three wise men walking along with her. Oh, and an angel and star for good measure. In the years since I made our stockings, Bucilla (the manufacturer) has added a lot more pieces to the kits. Or perhaps I picked the one with the most pieces. All those little faces and hands to be embroidered and stuffed. Thank God for cheater readers! I've been working on it here and there, and finally realized I had better kick it into gear if I have hopes of her getting it for Christmas in 2009. I worked on it for about 5 hours yesterday and will try to do the same today. Needless to say, I won't be working on any new quilts for the time being!

We are heading up to see the in-laws for a few days. This is an off year, so we won't see them for the holidays. Since they haven't been here since Katie's graduation, we are overdue for a visit. I have my homemade pickles and peach butter packed to take along, which puts me in position of being the favorite daughter-in-law. Wait...I'm the only daughter-in-law...but no matter, they truly appreciate my canning efforts so I enjoy sharing with them.

Kirby just had a bath this morning, with the bonus that he gave me a shower. He'll smell nice and fresh in the car now. He is a bit of an anxious car rider, so I think I'll give him a small dose of Benydryl to help calm him. He's not bad, he sits on the passenger's lap, but he's squirmy and pants heavily which gets annoying after the first hour. He always acts like we are going to drop him off somewhere.

I have sold a couple more books this week, and my printer has pretty much fired me after I dared to complain about 44 of the newly printed books having streaks of black across the pages. Now I'll have to scurry to find a new printer so that I have an adequate supply of books for my December book signings. It's always something...

I took this picture of the full moon last week, and I feel like sitting here howling at it. My books are still at the printer. "Supposedly" I can pick them up tomorrow morning. If you want to know the whole, sordid tale check out my other blog writeformation.blogspot.com. I may be going back to the local bookstore and taking their copies back to have on hand Sunday. I think I'll put a section for printing companies on my peopleareshit.com website.

In the good news category, aforementioned bookstore has sold several copies of the book, I have my business cards printed, the Webster-Kirkwood Times mentioned my book signing in the Calendar section and my book was discussed on the examiner.com website located at http://tinyurl.com/yjtzn6k so positive things happened this week as well.

As I was driving down to the printers for the third time this week I was struck by the irony that as I passed the Johnny Brock's Halloween billboard on I-44 the radio was playing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year". Remember when the Christmas carols and decorations became pronounced after Thanksgiving?

Yesterday I picked up my books at the printer. As the boxes were too heavy to carry in, I brought an armful in with me to admire. As I set them on the kitchen counter, I noticed an unnatural wave in the sides of each of the books. It looked as though the books had been exposed to humidity. When my husband came home, he confirmed that the books did not look right. Of course that ruined my sleep last night. I kept worrying about the books. If they all had to go back, how in the world am I supposed to do a book signing on Sunday? At 4:30 this morning I gave up and read my new Nora Roberts book. Nothing like some good sex scenes to take your mind off your troubles!

I called my production manager at the printers at 8:30 this morning and broke the news that we have a problem. He asked me to bring all the books back, which I did. They will try to use a dehumidifier on the books, and if that doesn't work they will reprint all of them. I reminded him of my book signing, and he said he will have all the books ready by Friday at the latest.

For a followup on the silver lining to this big, black cloud, see my new blog about writing and publishing my first book at writeformation.blogspot.com.

My books were supposed to be ready by Wednesday or Thursday. I waited impatiently until Thursday afternoon to email the printer as to their whereabouts. "They are printed and in the queue to be bound and trimmed. I hope to have these ready by tomorrow." Again I am reminded of the similarities between birthin' a book and birthin' a baby. "Oh, you'll have this baby by Thursday, for sure," comforts the well-intentioned OB/GYN. Easy for him to say, he wasn't carrying the elephant around on his bladder. And the baby had no intentions of coming on Thursday. Why don't these people just say it will be another week, and then when you get the delivery early you can be happy about it?

In fact, I don't need the books by today. But that's beside the point. I want them today. I wanted them yesterday. The sooner I can get a book into the hands of my local bookstore, the sooner I can convince her that my book is worthy of her limited shelf space. Because I have my first book signing on November 8th during the Old Webster Christmas Open House, and I'd love to be able to tell those who don't purchase the book that day to shop at her bookstore for it.

On another note, my birthing coach, AKA Bobbi Linkemer, suggested (strongly, I might add) that I should be blogging about my writing and publishing experience. The topics just don't fit that well with this blog, which is mostly for fun, or with my house history blog, which is mostly to help other people discover the history of their homes. And they certainly won't fit on my MOG Blog, dedicated first to being the mother of the groom and now to being a mother-in-law. So, it is with some trepidation that I announce my new blog, Write Formation (writeformation.blogspot.com). We'll see how many of these I can keep up with.

It's been raining for a year, or so it seems. Today's weather was perfect for taking my boobs out and having them pressed. After all, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Believe me, I was very aware of my breasts at 9:00 this morning! But the dreary weather couldn't keep me down as I headed from the slammogram to Starbucks to meet with a new friend of mine. Anne Collins Milford was introduced to me by a mutual friend from my writing class. Anne has co-authored the book "How to Marry the Wrong Guy". The book has been so successful that it has been picked up by a traditional publisher. Anne was kind enough to spend some time talking to me about what they did right as well as wrong with their first book. I came away with some new ideas on how to publicize my book. And I left Anne with a few stories about a woman in my life who repeatedly marries the wrong guy. Turnabout is fair play!

I feel like a new mom again. Though hopefully this new baby won't cost as much as the other two! After months and months of labor (okay, so it was an elephant pregnancy), I finally was able to pick up a bound copy of my book yesterday. It is just my proof copy, but it looks like the real deal, color cover and all. One of the benefits of using an in town printer is that I can pick things up instead of waiting for them to be shipped to me. One of the downsides is that this printer is not located in the best area of town. A six foot high fence surrounds their property, complete with an electronic gate to keep the unsavories out. The gate was open when I arrived as a delivery van had just pulled into the parking lot.

Once you pass that hurdle, you must buzz at the door and state your mission in order to be allowed entry. After picking up the proof, I was afraid I had come to the Hotel California - "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave". I couldn't get out of the parking lot. Assuming that the gate operated on a sensor, I drove slowly towards it. Several times...I'm probably on a YouTube video somewhere. Fortunately I spied an employee around the side of the building taking a smoke break. When I asked about the gate, she said she would come around and let me out. She had to punch in a code for the gate to open. All of which made me wonder if I was supposed to park on the street in the first place. Sure, protect your employees but let the paying customers fend for themselves.

The first thing I noticed about my book was that the colors were off a bit on the cover. I couldn't quite put my finger on the problem but it just didn't look right. When I compared it to my printout at home, I could see a bit of difference in the color scheme. I know that what I see on my screen, what my designer sees on her screen, what my printer produces and what a professional printer produces can be four different things. I emailed my designer to see if she wanted to take a look. She definitely did, so I drove it over to her house. Actually the printed cover looked much closer to her screen than mine. But she agreed there was too much red on the cover. Ah...too much red, that was the problem.

I contacted my production manager today and explained the issue, and he said he would talk to the art department to see if they could handle the color change. If not, my designer would need to send them a revision. Fortunately, the gods were smiling and it was fixed in-house. I got a revised cover emailed to me this morning, and I gave approval for the printing to proceed. I should have all my babies by Wednesday or Thursday of next week! Does that make me a centuro-mom?

Prague is definitely the most fabulous city I have ever visited. Virtually untouched by any war or natural disaster, walking through the city literally takes you back in time. It didn't matter what our destination was, because everywhere we walked led to exclamations of "Oh my God, look at that!" or "How beautiful!" The architecture is stunning, and the building embellishments are just unreal. It was like walking through a fairytale picture book.

There was one thing that pissed me off, pardon the expression. You literally have to pay to pee. Now I'm not one of those women of an age where the little lady embossed on the bathroom door has to pop off and discuss my "going" problem. I normally have a bladder of iron. But there's just something about knowing a bathroom isn't available that makes you have to go. Even some of the restaurants we ate or drank at required additional compensation if you wanted to use their toilet. Ridiculous! With tourism down 30%, you'd think they would be doing everything they could to encourage us to buy more drinks! I really envied the two little boys whose mom simply pulled down their pants and let them water a tree. Oh, to have the right equipment...

So I found it extremely ironic to come across the statue of the peeing men. You can't tell from the picture, but their hips undulated left to right, enabling them to pee in a curve. Nothing like the sight and sound of men peeing to make you have to go yourself. I think it is a ploy to drum up additional crowns for the local toilet!

We are back from an 8 day vacation with our son and daughter-in-law, and we had a wonderful time. Because plane tickets were so expensive, I decided to cash in nearly all of our frequent flier miles. After all, who knows how much longer American will be servicing the St. Louis area. They barely service it now. We had to fly to Raleigh, NC to catch our flight to London. Seriously...people in Raleigh can fly directly to London, but St. Louisans cannot. Unbelievable... Anyway, from London we met up with Andy and Megan and flew first to Berlin. For us, three flights and 16 hours later, we arrived in Berlin. We couldn't check into the hotel until 2:00 p.m., so we left our luggage with the bellman - oh wait, there wasn't one. Instead we stuck our luggage into an overflowing closet next to the reception desk, and headed down the block to a Starbucks. Sad, but true, and we all needed caffeine.











Following checkin, we strolled down the street of our hotel. Really a boulevard, Kurfurstendamm boasts stores with the names of Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Chanel and Porsche Designs. I suddenly realized I had not brought along enough euros :)














I have to admit that Berlin was not on my list of top 10 places to see before I die. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this because we saw very few tourists other than those from Germany or surrounding countries. At any rate for me I guess that is mostly because I really enjoy seeing centuries old architecture more than new. But Berlin surprised me in many ways, seeming to take great care in mixing the old buildings (the few that survived heavy bombing in WWII) with the new. The city has some very interesting architecture. Taking the bus or U-Bahn around town, we were able to hit most of the places on our "must see" list in the two and a half days we spent there.



































On the 4th day we boarded a train bound for Prague. It took us about 4 hours and for a lot of that time we could have been taking a train across Missouri for all that we could see out the windows. Once we reached the southeastern part of Germany, the train traveled along the river and there were some beautiful bluffs on the other side. We arrived at the Prague train station after dark, and it was a scary place to be, at least at night. We could see a group of men huddled together in the dark off to the side near the exit of the station. Little did we know, those were the cab drivers. They are unlicensed and unregulated in Prague, so you take your chances. Following a harrowing ride to the hotel, we arrived only to find that the hotel only had one room reservation, and they were sold out. It's now 8:30 at night and we don't have a room. Once the desk clerk realized that it was his hotel's error, he quickly lined us up with two rooms in a hotel within their consortium, arranging for a car and driver to pick us up. It was on the other side of the Vltava River, and I think we actually ended up in a better place for the same room rate. After that shaky start, we had a fabulous time in Prague. It is everything I had heard and read about, and much more. Vertually untouched by any war, the area has kept its historic buildings in place and for the most part new architectural design has only been done outside the city. It is a very walkable city, albeit hilly and a little more difficult to travel with its sidewalks and roads made of cobblestones. We walked our legs off for the two full days we had there. I definitely could have used one or two days more in this location. Language was not an issue, the people are very friendly and almost all the menus were in English. My only beef (pardon the pun) is that you have to pay to use the public bathrooms, sometimes even in the places where you dined.





















Leaving a beautiful place is never easy, especially when the alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. to send you on your way. We again flew with Andy and Megan to London, where they headed off on their way to D.C. and we took off for Raleigh. Unfortunately, our flight left 45 minutes late, which caused us to miss our connection in Raleigh. Going through customs delayed us enough that even an O.J. Simpson run through the airport would not have enabled us to catch the flight. Yay - an additional 2 and a half hours to sit around the Raleigh airport! We finally got home about 8:15, which was really 3:15 in the morning for us. Was all of this worth it? Definitely - it was so nice to be with the kids for a week since we don't get to see them that often. But next time I'm finding a destination where we can fly direct!

Tomowow Jim and I are leaving flying to Berlin to meet up with Andy and Megan. Actually, we will meet them in London and fly to Berlin with them. We are spending a few days in Berlin, then taking a train to Prague for a few more days. I'm sure I will have lots to blog about when I get home!

Today I went with my sister to a hearing center so she could have her hearing tested. She recently returned from a visit with her 93 year old mother-in-law, and I think all the shouting on her end made her realize how annoying it is for those of us on the receiving end of her own frequent "What did you say?" The testing center requested that she bring along someone she knows to read words to her. Apparently the results are more accurate when the patient hears the words from someone with a familiar voice. Though as much as my sister talks, I do most of the listening...but whatever. I was game, especially as it meant lunch at a local pizza parlor by her.

The first test was "Hear Kim read". I had only gotten to the third word on the list, which was "fifth". I read it out loud and my sister said "What?" To which I replied, "I have a fifth of booze." The teacher, errrrr.....I mean the tester said that was cheating! I was only aloud to say the word once. If she didn't get it, I was to go on to the next word. Properly chastised, I continued through the list. Next stop was in the room next door. Kathy had to enter a box similar to a phone booth but smaller, and sit facing out. A door with a glass window was then shut. I told her she looked like she was getting into the Easy Bake Oven. We made faces at each other until sent a scathing look by the technician. I then occupied myself studying the graphic of the ear posted on the wall. Let's see - outer ear, middle ear, inner ear. At least someone finally took an organ and labeled it so it made sense. Well, except for the cochlea, which totally sounds like it belongs on another organ. I had enough time to contemplate that as the technician read words to Kathy, raising and lowering the volume through Kathy's headset.

The final step was fitting Kathy with a hearing device to see how she liked the fit. Kathy's ears are very sensitive, and even the small headphones of her mp3 player hurts her ears. So of course that means going to the most expensive hearing aid, which wraps around the outside of your ear, depositing a small mini-microphone looking device into the ear canal. Skeptic that I am, especially when someone works on commission, I wondered if that is the same hearing aid they have everyone try at first? Let the person drive a Lexus and then show them a Chevy? After all, that's what sales are all about. Can you hear ME now?

Okay, so it was actually two women and a dog, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? My friend Carol's parents have a house at Table Rock Lake, so she and I drove down there for the weekend. Kirby the dog went along for the ride. He just didn't realize how long a ride it would be. He's actually fairly good in the car, but he has to sit on someone's lap. Since I was driving, Carol got doggie duty. I tried to warn her ahead of time, suggesting that she drive so I could hold the dog, but she wanted me to drive. Passenger beware, I always say. It's not like the dog is going to lay down on your lap and sleep for five hours straight. I suspect Carol is now even more thankful that she has a cat and not a dog.

We arrived at the lake around 4:00 Friday afternoon, and it was a beautiful day. We threw everything in the house and walked down to the boat dock. We were able to take a nice, relaxing trip down part of the lake before heading back in to make some homemade pizza for supper.

Saturday we ate a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed our coffee and tea on the deck watching the day come to life. In the afternoon a long boat ride exposed me to another section of Table Rock Lake. We never did see the whole length of it. This morning the warmth of the water met the cold air, resulting in an eerie mist upon the water. My photos don't do it justice. It was very cool, pardon the pun.

The most interesting part of where we were staying was the nearby airport. It consists of a grass runway, with the planes taking off directly over the water. One plane landed while we were there, though there were two planes at the airport this morning. There is also a series of 4 or 5 hangers, so perhaps other planes were on the premises as well. I think I'd be wanting pontoons instead of wheels on my plane!

The house where we stayed has no television and only local phone service. It was such a welcome relief to leave behind all the trappings of our hectic St. Louis lives. And you know what? I didn't even miss them.

It was fun spending nearly five days in Chicago with Jim and the other people we know from the ASLA. Our hotel was very nice and less than two blocks from Katie's dorm. We had a lot of great food, and I enjoyed the walking, biking and boat riding that we did. Coming back to reality sucks, though. There is so much to catch up on with work. Darn - I hate when work interferes with play! Because I'll be playing again this weekend (a friend and I are driving down to Table Rock Lake Friday to stay at her parent's lake house for the weekend) I have to kick butt and take no prisoners before then. Jim will be off on a motorcycle adventure, so we have someone coming to stay at the house with the dog again. That means I have to clean the house, particularly the guest bedroom and bath, before she gets here.

Around all that, I am finishing up my book. There are a couple of last tweaks that my designer is working on, and then I'll be ready to get quotes for the printing. I really can't determine my pricing until I know what the printing is going to cost. It's the old chicken or the egg syndrome. You need to have the price on the book before you go to print, but you can't price the book until you know what the printing charge will be. There is quite a learning curve in producing your first book. I just hope all the curves result in a nice, straight bottom line.

Jim and I are back in Chicago again, this time for the annual meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Jim will be doing the meeting thing while I'll be doing the town. His partner and wife came along, so I'll have Jill to goof off with. We flew in today and took the train from Midway Airport to the city. We are staying at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue, a first for us. Ted and Jill did the Priceline thing and ended up with a corner room on an upper floor with views of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. While we are on the top floor of the Hilton, we our room is on the back side with a view of 8th Street. It is quieter than our Michigan Avenue views have been at the Best Western, and we do have two bathrooms in our room, which is unusual to say the least.

We walked through the various parks along Michigan Avenue this afternoon, ending up in front of the Hilton to catch up with another co-worker. As I was calling Katie to let her know we were in town, here she came walking right in front of the hotel on her way back from class. She ended up going to Gino's East with us for pizza. Afterwards we walked her back to her dorm as I had brought her a basket of special cookies along with a bag of other goodies.

Tomorrow the Jill and I are going to try to take a river cruise as neither of us has ever done that.Katie doesn't have class on Fridays so I think she will join us.

More tomorrow...

I got the flu yesterday. Was it the swine flu? I don't know, I was too sick to try and put a label on it. Suffice it to say it was the type of flu where you don't know which end of you should approach the porcelain throne first. It certainly felt like the big, bad wolf was huffing and puffing and blowing my body down to get to the succulent pig inside. Maybe THAT'S why they call it swine flu. Oh, excuse me, H1N1, because that sounds soooo much better than swine flu. "H" for heaving, "1" because that's how much time you have to get to the bathroom, and "N1" because it's not going to be a number one once you get there. Sorry, TMI...

The television in our bedroom wasn't working, and I knew what would happen if I bent over to try to find out what was wrong with it. So I laid in bed all day thinking of all the things that I would rather be doing than laying in bed all day. Isn't it ironic? Any other time I would welcome the chance to take a nap during the day. When your stomach feels like the mosh pit of a teenybopper concert and your head just wants to implode, napping doesn't come easy. My nice little nest felt like a torture chamber instead. Cuckoo, cuckoo...

Jim's landscape architecture company, SWT Design, recently completed renovations on new office space. The original building is a pre-1900's Queen Anne home, to which they added additional design studio space five years ago. When the one story stucco 1920's commercial building went on the market a few years ago, they snatched it up. The design team came up with a way to join the buildings together with an enclosed walkway. Everything about the renovation was as green as possible, with energy efficient windows, use of renewable products, pervious pavers in the parking lot to prevent water runoff, use of rain barrels to collect water, and the crowning glory - a green roof on the stucco building. Not only does the green roof deflect the hot sun, it also has a wonderful garden with various types of plants ranging from drought lovers to tomatoes and herbs. The stairway to heaven is wrought iron and spiral, leading guests and employees up to an urban oasis complete with a sunshade and patio furniture.

All of the other plant materials on site are either natives to Missouri or used due to their ability to provide additional protection from water runoff. The amount of plants used, as well as the small pond they installed, help to provide a habitat for birds, bees and butterflies in an area of the town where concrete is king.

SWT decided to have a zero waste garden party on 09/09/09 to celebrate the addition of studio space as well as their successful year, despite the economy. The invitations were all sent via email so there was no paper waste. A local combo provided easy listening music. The food and beverages were all locally grown or produced, and were served on compostable plates. All the glass, paper and cans used at the party were recycled. About 300 people filtered in and out during the 4 hours of the open house, drawn no doubt by the phenomenal weather and an opportunity to hear good news instead of bad. The party was quite a success, and I think we need to send a message to Kermit, via email of course, that it IS easy being green.

Every year on the first day of school we took a photo of each of our children in the backyard. That continued even as they headed off to college.

It's been a week since we moved Katie into her dorm in Chicago. Though I use the word "dorm" lightly, as she is in a two bedroom, two bath apartment which just happens to be operated by the college. She and Kasey from Connecticut lucked out, with their unit being at the end of the hallway, away from the noise of the elevators but more importantly scoring windows in both of the bedrooms. The main living area of the apartment and the one bedroom boast floor to ceiling windows with, get this, stunning views of Lake Michigan and a small marina. Seriously? Where is the dorm room overlooking the dumpster that most freshmen get? Katie told me that two boys on the floor have offered them $200 a month to change rooms with them. As if! Katie's room is intended to house four students, but so far it is just the two Ks, while the boys are in a one bedroom, one bath unit.

Move-in day went quite smoothly, and in less than an hour and a half we had all of her belongs stored in the room, despite waiting for the elevators to take us to the 19th floor. The worst part was waiting for the elevators in the afternoon, with our arms loaded from the trip to Target. We got her room and the kitchen area set up in that afternoon, and had supper with Katie and Lauren, a fellow WGHS graduate. Then they went off for their evening activities and we walked around the city. After a late breakfast with Katie on Sunday, we made our way back to St. Louis.

For me, the weirdest part of this past week was not hearing "What's for supper?" like clockwork each afternoon. Normally Katie was in the other room every day as I cooked, and it was awfully quiet even with the news to keep me company. However, it has been really liberating to only have to consider mine and Jim's schedules, likes and dislikes. Whole grain bread, fish, cooking on the grill, eating or not eating...

Katie is probably feeling the same sense of freedom, and it has been fun to hear about her new experiences. Life's lessons are being learned every day, from dealing with overflowing toilets to budgeting and planning meals. How quickly our children go "from crayons to perfume..."

Because our dorm move-in time was 9-12 on Saturday, we decided to stay about an hour outside of Chicago Friday night. If my car was going to be loaded down with all of Katie's worldly belongings, I was not leaving it in a downtown Chicago parking garage for easy pickings. So I found the Knights Inn on the internet, and diligently read all the reviews posted by guests. It sounded like an okay place to stay, and the price was less than half of a hotel in Chicago. As we pulled off I-55 and headed towards the large, not to be missed Knights Inn sign, I noticed a plethora of tractor trailer trucks parked near the gas station by the motel. Wait a minute...the gas station was the ENTRANCE to the motel. Hmmmm....I drove by the pumps and under the motel overhang, noticing a definite lack of any cars in the area, despite it being 6:30 on a Friday night. A sign on the motel entrance advised me to check in at the gas station.

As I took the car around the building, all I saw behind the motel in what appeared to be its parking lot were several derelict cars. Oh...and a boarded up window at the motel's entrance. Nice! The three of us looked at each other and decided that it might be better to try our luck with a downtown parking garage than the lot at the motel. I went into the gas station and told them I wanted to cancel our reservation. The woman behind the counter told me that they required 48 hours cancellation or we would be charged the room rate. At least I think that is what she was telling me. She was a little hard to understand. I explained that I didn't like the looks of the parking lot, and that the boarded up window reminded me of the broken down cars out back. She got a little insulted then - one of the cars out back was probably hers. Other guests were staying there, she said - they were just out at the moment. She then went and got one of the managers to talk to me, and he suggested that I take a key and at least go look at the room. They are under renovation, he said, and have just not repaired the window out front. So we looked at the room, which had granite counter tops in the bathroom yet oddly enough a piece torn out of the bathtub. I guess they just haven't repaired that yet, either. Anyway, we decided that since we could park the car right outside our window and keep an eye on it, we would go ahead and stay the night.

On the plus side the complex, and I use the term loosely, had a 24 hour restaurant and it was very good. We had great service and we all enjoyed our meals. When we walked back to the motel, not one additional car had been added to the parking lot. By the time we went to bed, two more cars were there, and by morning there may have been 8 cars in the lot. Some of them we heard arriving in the wee hours of the morning, having attended the racetrack in the area. Around 6:30 in the morning we awoke to room doors slamming and little kids running up and down the halls. The smell of cigarettes permeated the air, even though we were on the non-smoking side of the hall. We definitely did not spend a good Knight at the Inn.

Katie's graduation quilt is finished and waiting to be packed into the car tomorrow, along with all the other necessities of beginning a new life away from the only home she has ever known. The past few days have been filled with her doing laundry, finally taking the time to discard shoes and clothing that are too worn or too small or too unworthy of competing on a college campus.

Last night we went to see Katie's old babysitter, the woman who watched her from six weeks to six years of age. Judy has remained a treasured friend of the family, one who also cannot believe her "baby" is heading off to college. The evening was spent reminiscing, with "Do you remember..." and "Whatever happened to..." filling the air. We laughed as Judy recalled the story of laying a sleeping Katie on the entry foyer rug as she went down in the basement to switch the laundry around. The diaper man rang the doorbell, and while Judy didn't hear him in the basement, Katie woke up and began to crawl around. An alarmed diaper man called the police, thinking the baby had been left home alone. The stories, I think, will warm Katie's heart as the quilt warms her body in the cold Chicago winter.

Tomorrow we'll take our youngest off to the "big city", and we'll return on Sunday to a house filled only with the memories of the laughter and tears of our children. It's a bittersweet feeling, knowing that we have done our part as parents to raise our kids to be confident, self-assured young adults ready to tackle the world, flying from the nest to conquer whatever the world throws at them. Yet having been defined ourselves as "parents" for the past 24 years, it will seem odd not to be in that role on a daily basis. But just as we have enjoyed the new experience of seeing our son as a married adult, and thus gaining a new daughter, I think this time of going back to being just a couple will offer up opportunities for us to explore what roads we wish to travel next.