Life in Weyers Cave

First, let me remindyou that tomorrow is rabbit, rabbit day. We have really had a super time here. Today we went to the Pirate Museum, and the Key West Aquarium, and the Ecology Center. All three were great. My brain is reeling from all I have seen. Nothing very photogenic, because it is hard to take pictures of aquariums. It was great having Bryan because he knows everything and once he starts talking, a crowd gathers around to hear him describe what is going on. Plus he knows the powers that be and we even had one of them come take the shark out of the tank (small shark -- about three feet long) and let us pet him. It was way cool. One cool thing in the pirate museum was a stupid little room with benches around the sides and a place for six people to sit with headsets. You shut the door and push the button. It looked like it would be a waste, but it was so fun. The sounds were SO three-dimensional, and I really think the benches moved with the explosions. Okay, you have to be t...

It was a nine hour drive here yesterday to Key West but we made it uneventfully. We have passed through a couple of the big storms that roll through and really dump, then leave as quickly as they came. Bryan calls them popcorn storms because they look like popcorn on the weather map. Then I was up until midnight getting the laundry done. It is wonderful to see Bryan in his element: happy and confident. Today we met for breakfast, then sailing at his sail club, then for a deep sea dive in his submarine, then to see an old fort and park, and now are taking a quick breather before dinner. I was the one who wanted to get off my feet for a few minutes, but David and Bryan are snoozing pretty well. The submarine was the best. There is a 30 minutes ferry ride, then you have to go from the ferry to the submarine and they are both bobbing in the middle of the ocean. You go down the ladder and sit in front of large portholes looking out into the ocean. The ship was last in Indonesia so i...

It's nice to have a room with a jacuzzi. I think. What is the difference between a jacuzzi and a hot tub?

 

  These are houseboats ON the water.

  This is Bryan with his best friend Richard.

  Stepping out of the ferry onto the submarine and going down in the bobbing ocean was hard1 The guys did a great job steadying me.

  We need to add Weyers Cave 1163 miles

So here I am, in the fancy Concierge suite of a Marriott Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida, trying to scrimp by with the random wireless accessings I get to the internet from a stray wireless signal because I am way too cheap to actually pay for a connection. I found if I sit on the bed, I get the signal, but I can't get it at the desk. David is behind me on the end of the bed trying to access the same signal with his laptop so that he can get his tests graded. Just got an error message saying the signal somehow has a conflicting IP address with another computer. I think that is because of the fading in and out. We left on Thursday and had an uneventful 8 hour drive to Seneca, South Carolina where I went to the spa brother Jeff found. Jeff had recommended that I go to it in order to get a gift certificate for my aunt. It was her 80th birthday surprise party. My brothers, sister and I went to get her a big gift certificate so she can really get the works. The spa is brand new and r...

It was after 11 when the telephone finally stopped ringing last night, and I read until midnight, but I'm just not a late night person. So I put it away, content in the knowledge that I could sleep in this morning because the door was firmly shut and the cat wouldn't wake me up. But I guess the cat has apparently paid off David, because when she pawed at the door in the middle of the night, he was over there like a shot to let her in. I told him to give her water, but he just climbed back in bed. So when the cat wanted water bright and early, it was me she nuzzled and meowed at. This means I had to get up and turn on the spigot, and wait for her to finish drinking, because she only drinks running water. Of course! By the time, I finish, there is so much adrenaline in my bloodstream I can never get back to sleep. Stupid cat! Tonight, I will lock her in the bathroom downstairs. Mwah ha ha! (Maybe I should lock David down there with her.)

Part of me wants to get Harry Potter over with before I leave on Thursday so Dianna can have the book here when she comes back to an empty house. So I read -- then the cat insists on water. We have the loudest meowee cat ever. As an aside, David insisted on keeping the door to our bedroom open last night. I said it was okay, ONLY if he got up with her at 6:30 to get her water. Well, it was 6:00 am this morning when she woke me up, and no amount of beating on him would wake him up. And once I am up, I have a rough time falling back asleep. Probably should have checked out HP then. So then back to reading, the phone rings. Allen is going to join the Special Forces in the Army (okay, he woke me up at midnight to tell me that. I cried most of the night. But now I'm cool with it.) Back to reading, David says he needs medical receipts for the last year immediately or we don't get reimbursed. Back to reading, oops, forgot to check the email. Important emails have to be answer...

  Dianna went off to EFY today, and LOOK at what she left in the house! Not just in the house, but on the island in the middle of the kitchen! Rotten child!

I really wasn't going to read it for a while. I DON'T have to be the first on the block. But Dianna MADE me get it at Costco yesterday. We went out to the car and she put it on the front seat. "Don't you dare hide it while I go return the cart!" she admonished me. Aw, shucks. She knows me way too well. So I carefully took the book out of the cover and put it back in upside-down. She returned to the car and looked amazed to see the book still on the seat. "I thought for sure you were going to hide it anyway!", she said. I put on my innocent angel expression. She opened the book to LOOK AT THE LAST PAGE! How DARE she! But when she saw the book was in upside-down, she looked at me and grinned. "I knew you would have to do something!" I am glad I didn't let her down. All through Costco she had been getting the excited shivers. "We have it, we have it! I can't believe I am so excited about this! We HAVE it! I don't ...

I am TRYING to plan some trips, but not without problems. I will be going to my Aunt's this Thursday for her 80th birthday party (shhh -- it is a surprise) and taking off from there for Florida to see David's parents, then a quick excursion to Key West. EXCEPT that means no one will be here when Dianna gets back from EFY Camp on Saturday and I hate to leave her alone at a time like that. Then I am trying to schedule a trip to Vegas to see Allen with Dianna and possibly David, but trying to get a time that doesn't interfere with the many other duties I have with Ruritans and church. We were going to go to Belgium for three weeks in August/September but that was canceled for political reasons this morning. And we are going to take Gail to Disney World in October. Dianna wants to either go to Belgium anyway or else take a cruise somewhere. We are pretty sad that our trip was canceled.

Another day where I feel like I just spun my wheels. I had an appointment with Dianna at the doctors this morning that didn't make her too happy. Then went to Gail's for four hours where I did crossword puzzles and got new ink for her printer. Came home and worked around the house, cooked dinner, TAT stopped by, I restocked concessions, and the phone rang nonstop for hours. For fun, I did get a half dozen new names on my genealogy. I tried to tie my New England Smiths into the Joseph Smith line, but no luck. Oh, well. I did find a nice lady with the exact same name as my mom in Reno and called her. She is absolutely delightful. Mom has an unusual name, so to get the same first and last name AND spelling was really something. But she isn't left-handed. Her husband wrote the book on my family genealogy so I enjoyed talking with him as well. Oh, and by the way, congratulations to Chantell, who was engaged and married two weeks after her divorce. I have erased the r...

Gardening is NOT my thing, but I really have tried to have one this year. My only plant is one tomato plant. Tomatoes and yellow squash are the two things I love the most when they are good and fresh. I have watered and tended my plant, (okay, Martha actually picked the spot and got it in the ground for me, but I found a stick and bought a cage for it and watered it) and last week I got my second and third tomatoes. It looked beautiful last time I watered it on Saturday. And the tomatoes were heavenly. Yesterday, Dianna came in and said it was dead. Martha was here and thought I hadn't watered it (she knows me well) but I HAD! I guess I watered it TOO much, because it was so healthy looking that someone ATE it! It wasn't Jason the groundhog because it was eaten from the top -- everything that didn't fit in the cage. It must have been a deer, although I have never seen deer in our yard. There are a few leaves and two blossoms left on what was a thriving plant. Dian...

When I brought Dianna back from Trek on Saturday, we stopped an old, old farmhouse and bought some very small plums. They were really more the size of strawberries. I gave most of them to Diane because DJ doesn't like them and I know I shouldn't eat them. So Sunday, we went to church, came home, and I ate three of them. And a tomato from our garden. In fact, I had a tomato sandwich on whole wheat and it was wonderful. Nicole came by and brought tons of food and a few kids. Emma (4), Gabby (8), Ian (11) and Jessica (14). These are wonderful kids who are polite, don't get into stuff, and clean up after themselves. But they are still kids. We had all the computers going around the house and lots of toys out and the poor cat went into hiding. (Emma LOVES cats, as you can clearly see.) They had handed out some bags at church they wanted us to sew for a preschool reading project and Nicole had gotten one, but wasn't sure how to put it together. So after the beautifu...

Okay, so I am eating peanuts as I write this. Dianna got off the trek today. She is sound asleep and saying she has bruises in places she didn't know could bruise. I guess sleeping on rocks is not her favorite bed. But she seemed to have a good time. I was supposed to write her a sappy letter, but had trouble finding the sap so wrote her a poem. Sorry, child, but that doesn't mean I love you less. I just am all sapped out lately. Bryan called and scared the heck out of me making me think he was fired from airline, but instead he had a promotion. Allen had a promotion a couple of weeks ago I don't think I put on the blog. Cathryn, well, no promotion but she wants to find a job doing carpentry anywhere in the country starting in September. She has decided that is her life's calling. But she still might go back and finish her last two semesters of college. No comment. David is grossly overwhelmed with work in Europe and hasn't had a night's sleep in the ...

I had enough fun with the other pictures, that I put in a set of old family pictures. Some are labeled, but many you have to guess. These are all my family. I started out doing David's as well, but it got overwhelming. Guess I need to do his next. My parents each had one sister and no brothers and my grandmothers were really beautiful ladies. Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Cathryn might not be blogging right now (I think she is burned out and needs some time for herself), but I am sure she won't mind if I share these photos with you. Click to play | Make your own Smilebox Thanks to Jessie for her inspiration to try to do the filmstrip and Smilemaker for making it so easy even a Weyers Cave(wo)man can do it! Seriously, very simple. On a sadder note, Bryan is okay, but was in a motorcycle accident yesterday. The motorcycle is probably totaled. No, it wasn't his fault, and he DOES recognize how frequently cars just don't see motorcycles. His attitude is wonderful. But his best friend has gotten a job with another airline and is moving away, which is much worse than the accident! Yesterday I had my Ruritan meeting where I get to stand up in front of everyone and be president. It was particularly difficult because there is a rift going on and I am trying to solve some problems. During the meeting, I had a call from Cathryn, then Bryan calle...

I went out to dinner tonight with some of David's friends from the School of Business. We went to the Japanese cook-at-your-table restaurant in Waynesboro. I decided, since Dianna couldn't make it, that I would get something a little more expensive so that I could have enough to take home to her. So I really splurged and got scallops, shrimp AND salmon. Oh, it was SO SO SO delicious. I ate until I was stuffed and still brought over half of it home. Dianna, thinking the same thing, got a chicken salad at work, ate half, and brought the other half home to me. Great minds think alike (and just yesterday I was dissing her.) It was one of those dinners that you just replay over and over in your mind. Afterwards, I showed off the Red House. It was great, because I could see it through different eyes. Dianna will leave in the morning for trek. The little sewing machines were humming until nearly midnight.

Today, I started with a BIG list of what I needed to do. Dianna insisted on writing it all on the white board. Then every time I started drifting off, she was nagging me to get back on task. Sheesh! She thinks I should keep at one task until it is finished, but that is tough for something like laundry that you have to do in 10 minute spurts as the stuff goes through the cycles. And the filthy kitchen floor kept calling my name. I got about half of it done, which is super. Now if I could just get the other half done without the list GROWING! Of course, without Dianna I probably wouldn't have gotten one single thing done all the way. I had phone calls from all of the kids today AND from David in Belgium. I will sleep contentedly tonight, even though it wasn't all good news. I love my family so much! Even bossy Dianna.

As usual, I didn't get done the things I had planned to do. Too much came up. I made a trip into Harrisonburg and fixed two computers, shopped, had lunch with Dianna at Panera's, and ran other errands. Then came home and filled the concessions and fixed another computer. Now I have spent far too long talking on telephones and need to get stuff DONE. Maybe tomorrow...

Two full days of four extra kids and a few adults, and at least nine skirts, seven aprons, and seven bonnets. I think I will enjoy some peace and quiet tonight -- as I work on a few more bonnets.

Days are running together. Today was my day to work on the Red House and exercise. Whoops. Well, didn't do either. But I DID get to see David off to Belgium, work a little on costumes, help out a friend, and work on a computer for a few dollars up by EMU. I really like working with the elderly best. Dianna is at work. David is gone. I like it quiet. Just me and Glenn Beck.

My mom, although a leftie, taught me you can do anything you want: sew, knit, cook, refinish furniture, make curtains, paint, whatever. I'm really not scared of any crafts or trying new things and, with the notable exception of gardening, usually do pretty well. So where have I gone wrong with my daughters? Cathryn can do a lot, but is hardly a homemaker type. Dianna and the Jarvis girls were sewing costumes for the youth trek today, and I asked her to blindstitch the inside edge of her bonnet. I didn't say blindstitch, I just showed her how. And tried to stay out of the way of the multitude of complaints she blew my way. Half an hour later I looked over, and she had stitched in parts of the brim that don't belong, just kind of randomly hitting whatever material is underneath. I offered to help, and found she has tied a knot in the thread at the needle to keep the thread in place, so you have to work with the whole length of thread. So I tried to pick it up to work on...

David is home. We got in at midnight from picking him up in DC. Dianna and I drove up. We played with the GPS on the way up there and learned a lot about it. It still stymies me. Last night, after picking David up at Dulles, we went to Logan's Roadhouse and sat outside. It was a beautiful night. I went to the Hartmans this morning. They got a new Vista computer which I spent the last week putting together for them. It was hard to load all the stuff off the 98 machine because it didn't want to accept any of the thumb drives. Or the external CD writer. Irritating! Finally, it took a zip drive. They are in their 80's so getting used to the new one is a little different, but they are very smart and will enjoy it, I am sure. It was hard telling them how to resize windows and stuff over the phone, so I went and showed them. Eudora was being stupid and wouldn't let us select more than one person at a time to send email too. It is hard enough trying to teach some...

Dianna and I were so good. First we went to Curves and exercised, then we went to the Red House to work. Now the last time I went to the Red House, the bed looked like it had been slept in and the downstairs thermostat was set to 56 degrees. The neighbors say the house is haunted. Dun, dun, dun. This time, the door to the attic was flapping open, and there is NO WAY it could have opened by itself. Dun, dun, dun. There are some stains on the rug. It was clean when we moved in, but as time went on, they gradually appeared. Dun, dun, dun. Jeff did all he could to clean them, but he says using water is wrong. You should use towels and an iron. Either Jeff or Allen used carpet spot cleaner, because there was some there. But although improved, they are still prominent on the white carpet. So I used April's (thank you) carpet cleaner and just plain water and the rest of the spots came up pretty well. The chemist in me says the previous detergent in the rug was attracting the ...