Surviving Without Casey

The kids and I have been on our own for a bit now, and there are 11 days to go until we are reunited with Casey. I have been trying to keep ourselves occupied as much as possible, and I'll try to remember what in the world we have been doing.

The day he left, we drove to PDX to drop Casey off; I held back tears as he walked to his fate at the groping station security gate. And then we proceeded to drive back to Salem, but not before stopping to visit my grandmother in North Salem. I left Haddon there since he didn't want to leave and since he hasn't really spent all that much time with his Nanna Bigler. So off Norah and I went to our home where we threw everything we needed the things I remembered to get, and hopped back into the car to head to Silverton where my mom lives. We had dinner with my mom, and I'm not sure what she was thinking, but she didn't have any salsa in her home. So, I coaxed Norah into getting back into the car and going to Safeway where we got salsa.

The next morning I went to my mom's church, and then back to Silverton and spent a good amount of time there. We wanted to head home right as a monsoon struck, and so we held off a bit, and then left.

When I got home there were 3 messages. Oops. I forgot to tell everyone where I was. Sorry Lute side.

Monday we played with Casey's mom at her house, and in the evening ate dinner with Casey's older brother and family. The kids were horrible at bedtime, and I was looking at the long time alone with despair.

Tuesday was errand day. I had to drop off papers for my grandmother at an office, and then took four sacks of clothes for consignment, and then donated stuff to Goodwill where the gentleman manning the truck told me I was bossy. Whatever dude. When one takes 3 and 4 year olds out on errands, you'll give out a few commands here and there- or a lot, repeatedly. Into Wal-mart we went for diapers, and had to go home because mommy had had enough that morning.

What really got my goat on Tuesday was the trip in the afternoon for milk. Safeway thinks it's a funny joke to only have two checkers open when half the clientele is in line to be checked out. It's also funny that out of 6 self-checkouts, only 4 were operating. Well done Safeway. Without going into too many details, I ended up marching out of the store carrying 2 gallon jugs of milk and my 30-pound son. Again, well done Safeway.

So I resolved that today had to be a better day, and it was. The farmers' market trip went smoothly, thanks to my mother-in-law's help. Attending Wacky Wednesday at my friend Jamie's home went fine, and we even had a break in the day when I actually had to wake up my children and prepare for a trip to the Riverfront Park to play in the fountains and have dinner with Nanna, Aunt Candace, cousins, and even Great Grandpa and Grandma Miller! Totally wish I had pictures of that. Haddon was only a little less daring than his 14-month-old cousin, and Norah just went for it!

Checking Out Mr. Snail with Tayler

Now, if I can just get through bedtime... then we will be on our way to surviving without my dear husband.