Freaky Thursday and Friday

This is old news, but what a couple of days we had on Thursday and Friday. The sort of days that make life worth living, but make you cry in the process.

J&R and D&P were visiting, so we had to prepare, but I had prior commitments for Friday so anything that I needed to get done for the visit, I had to get done on Thursday. That meant any sort of cleaning or yard work and cooking. Yikes? I figured that no drastic changes were going to happen on the barn, and the yard was mowed and the leaves raked so it looked fine, until that darn storm came and messed up the yard, but you have to expect these sort of things in Vermont. I did a quick and ugly job of sealing the deck from the weather, which meant stapling plastic sheets over it, and then there was the cooking.

Now I'd never really cooked for the whole family. J&R are easy because two more people isn't much of a stretch, but now we were going to be six adults and two kids. How much is enough? We planned on a meat as well as a vegetarian offering, just to make it interesting, and decided on chili (local beef) and pumpkin soup. Corn bread and sandwiches for the filler.

Now the sandwiches were easy, because everyone could help themselves, but since I was not going to be home on Friday when they arrived, it meant I'd have to made the soup and chili on Thursday. This works out fine because they both do better after a days rest. I woke up early on Friday morning to make the cornbread and brownies, and then had to leave to get the kids.

Now about a month back I told HH that I'd watch her kids, mainly because they are nice and they get along with A&N. Say no more, but with Friday being such a difficult day, I figured she'd understand and make other arrangements. No such luck. When I told her my in-laws were coming, she stared at me with a look that said, "Yeah, and... ?

So there was no getting out of it. For all it's worth, A&N were thrilled to pieces about it, so we went with it. Another problem was that I had to finish my review of one of these products, and I had only gotten a rough draft down. I figured I'd finish it at HH's. I hadn't heard from her in days and was beginning to worry, and it ended up being AG, her ex, who finally called me on Thursday night to arrange the pickup. Like I need this sort of complication?

The day was fine. I wasn't on our home turf so I packed a bag full of activities for the kids to do, and we ended up spending the most time on the thing I had to write a review on, so it was helpful. You gotta love serendipity. The kids played the whole day, and I wasn't sure what to feed them but found some spaghetti in the cupboard and went with that. The kids are really good at playing on their own, so I could hole up and write. I couldn't get on their wireless, however, because it required a security code. They live in the country, who's going to steal their internet?

Anyway, I finished the piece, HH came home a little late, and we bolted out of there in the hopes of catching mom and family at the airport, but crazily enough, we actually passed them along route 5 going to the highway, so we turned around and followed them home.

Great seeing them, BTW, and it was a fun weekend. More on that later. Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Daria Mana for the pic.