After more than two years, I finally had a real vacation.  It wasn't a cruise, but it was nice - I didn't take my work laptop!  Avery and I joined up with my sister S and we went to Texas to visit our sister J for a week and two days.  We did a wee bit of shopping, way too much eating, and did a bit of touristy stuff.

In no order whatsoever, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo, and yes we saw the baby elephant and baby giraffe.  We went to the stockyards and watched the cattle drive, and poked into Billy Bob's for a drink.  We hit a playground... and more.  My sister snagged a bike off of the marketplace, so Avery was ripping it up and down the driveway.  If we had another week we prb could have taken off the training wheels.  It was pretty darn (unseasonably) warm (high 90s) while we were there, up until the last day when it dropped to the 60s.

When I got back this afternoon I found that my lawn was not tended to as I had anticipated... so I launched into emergency mode.  I mowed what I could before the mower batteries died (that at least covered the front) and then ran the weed eater over most of the back yard to get the bulk of it cut back.  I raked and filled a large garbage can.  I will mow to even things out and address the high spots in a day or two, but I did buy myself some time.

From there I had to hurry to cook some frozen chicken and french fries, per Avery's request, and dive through the shower before running to dance class.  They FINALLY got her dress for the recital, so we had to be in make up and ready to get the outfit on for pics.

Church is super happy to see us.  I had someone coming to see and play with him each day as they tended to him.  The dogs come back from camp in the morning.  I am whooped.  It's been a very long day.  But I do want to cuddle with the kittie while the dogs (read:  Zero) aren't here to make this harder to do.

Shady AF.  I'm going to add this to the list of times where actually HAVING health coverage (or dental in this case) actually results in shit costing more.

When you get a statement of benefits that indicates several hundred dollars as "This provider has agreed to not bill you for the difference between the PROVIDER'S CHARGE and the ALLOWANCE for this service" but they sure as hell DID charge you that several hundred dollars you would think that the insurance company would want to know.

Nope, instead they said "that is between you and your dentist".  Seems a little fraudy to me.

Happy mother's day to all!  Avery and I were up early this morning to go to church.  We were out to celebrate my niece Kate's college graduation last night, making it impossible to make that check in yesterday.  It looks like things are warming up, but the yard is pretty darn soaked, so I am not sure I can mow.  I guess that means I might have to just chill in the hot tub while Avery plays on the swing set.

I am trying hard to relax a bit an back off of the crazy amount of extra work.  This bought me the time -- and miraculously the motivation -- to do a little bit of sorting and tidying yesterday morning.  Avery's downstairs books have all headed up stairs and her games are now in the bookshelf area of her toy box.  Several kitchen cabinets were pulled, cleaned, and sorted.  I pulled the last of the little kiddo stuff from there.  Progress!

At last I have 3 sweet 100, 1 sun sweet orange, and a 1 roma tomato plants.  I got them into the pots on Saturday night.  I am hurrying to type "have" instead of "had" because of the crazy-ass dog.  I may need to bring them up on the deck so I can keep a better eye, at least until they're larger -- but that definitely makes watering a bit more complicated.

I did have the buckets up on the retaining wall to keep them out of reach of said crazy-ass dog.  But when the rains came in on Sunday I wanted them under cover (under the deck).  I did set up chairs and a small barrier around them in an attempt to deter.  This morning I went out and saw the sun sweet orange was plucked from the bucket.  I knew it wasn't a rabbit or other animal... I know who is to blame.  So I searched the yard and found it half decimated.  It is back in the pot, but my hopes are low.  Thanks for eating the equivalent of a $5 bill crazy-ass.

I never did get anything else planted.  The onions and chives I attempted to grow died off.  It is most definitely too late to start anything else from seed.

As of yesterday the cat no longer wants to leave his room and will jump out of my arms in order to stay upstairs.  I have no idea what happened that I missed... but I am none to pleased and can only assume that the crazy-ass dog did something that now has Church leery.  He is still walking with his tail straight up and looking confident, he is willing to play and remains lovey with me -- so I at least don't think it is that he isn't feeling well.

On Friday morning Saffy had me up in the wee hours to the sound of vomiting and again an hour later.  They say nothing gets you out of bed faster, but I still wasn't quick enough and had to clean up a spot on the carpet both times.  I was half asleep when the third round began a mere half an hour before my alarm was set to go off, so I managed to jump up in time.  At that point I decided to stay up -- and fortunately that was the end of the issues.