21.5

I hope I don't screw things up with a late night tonight!  Happily the 5 I regained is coming off with only minimal effort on my part.  Big breakfast, early and light dinner is the key.  Plus I am doing weights and crunches daily.  I have not walked all week other than mowing, so much for my great plans to be back at it.  I feel better when we walk, too.  Maybe tomorrow...LOL

Today I am driving Daddy to my sister's to see my nephew graduate high school.  It does not start until 8 and is over 2 hours away since I will have to drop Daddy off at home on the way back in, so it will be a really late night for us.

Tomorrow, Matt and the kids will be at Adventure Science Center for a geocaching event at 9 in the morning, so the first part of our weekend will be off balanced and I will also get to spend a whole day alone-the first this year!

I love my kids, I do not mind spending all day every day with them, it's a joy and I would never consider sending them to school or otherwise 'away' for the day.  But...at some point I realize I have either been with kids or with Matt every moment for months...every now and then, I need to be alone with my thoughts-to see if I even have any that are not family-concentric.  hahaha!

So this will be an interesting weekend.  First, I get to spend a few hours alone with my father.  I am not sure I have done that since I was 20, though I lived with Daddy from 16 on.  My mother and brother will be at the graduation, so the 5 of us will be together for the first time in...20 years?  Mother did not come to my graduation, Dale did not come to grandmother's funeral or my wedding and those are the 2 events I can recall mother and Daddy and Belinda at since then.   Dale, Belinda and I have not been all 3 in the same space since Thanksgiving of 2007.  I will honestly, go to each of their houses and personally strangle my kids if they end up as disconnected as my family-and Matt's family.

I have already told the kids they will just have to expect my interference for the rest of their life, that their kids will cheer when they hear Grandma is on the way over.  Because I will be on the way over 3 times a week if they are close enough and have big sleepovers with all of them every month.  I can't imagine anything more important than my children and future grandchildren, I can't understand how the kids have all 4 grandparents and yet they spend more time in a week cleaning the guinea pig cage than they do in a year with any one grandparent. I have the best kids in the world, dammit.  How sad their grandparents own pursuits and choices have left them strangers.

Anyway, Mr. Holmes is waiting on me to get over there and get a new tire on the van so the one I have that is oddly balding despite a recent balance job will not explode and kill us all over the weekend.  I have to admit, I am already feeling really stressed that Matt will have my van and all 3 kids-4 of my very favorite things-all together and away from me.  He said, "You mean FIVE favorite things", but I don't intend to leave my camera in there, too!  Gosh!