Some of the places that I visited last week:

Blue Grotto Sushi and Tapas

Five Seasons Brewing (Prado)

Azio's

The Colonnade Restaurant

The Hearth

I had a wonderful visit with my family and was pleased to do this child free. I missed the little rats, but this is only my second solo trip in nearly eleven years. It was refreshing to know that I can still function as a an individual outside of motherhood.

Shrapnel and home surgery

This past week it was spring break. Since my husband and I work opposite shifts, I took our daughter to work with me so that he could sleep. A couple of months ago, she injured her finger in a bizarre accident involving an air hockey table and the dentist's office. The result was a pointer finger with the nail gone black and hooved.... She has worried over this nail, because it was ugly, and wondered many times when it would fall off. You will recall that Daniel did this same thing to his big toe, several summers ago, with a stone wheel at my mothers... Weird children.

Anyway, on the last day she was at work with me, she announces that she sees an opening between the gross nail and the newly grown, bumpy nail underneath. Before I can respond, that wee little child just ripped the darned thing off.... like it was no big deal. AND IT WAS... because it was GROSS!!! She has big ol cajones!

After we returned home, my wooden floors decided to give a piece of themselves to me... through my foot... A large splinter embedded itself in my heel and landed on a nerve that traveled through my body and into my brain. Ted was able to pull it out, but there was a piece that was holding it's ground. Just happened to be the piece that was on the nerve. So after Ted tried and failed, I visited my mother. She broke out the trusty sewing needle, a pair of tweezers, and her Rite Aid reading glasses and commenced to surgerizing my foot. My children watched in awe... she tried to persuade Daniel to help her remove the shrapnel, but he was having none of it. So I turned around (this involved bends I no longer considered myself capable of), grabbed the tweezers as she squeezed it out of it's foxhole and plucked the offender out!! And to make sure I didn't suffer from gangrene, she swabbed it with the only antiseptic available..... LISTERINE!!!

Don't mess with the women in our family.... is apparently the moral. We will rip off our own flesh and beat you to a pulp! BAHAHAHA

Days like this

Spring has sprung, and my, ain't it grand? On days such as this, when there was a gentle kiss from the heavens in the form of a cool breeze, cloudless blue skies, good health, funky kids,.... ahhhhh.... that's what I'm talkin' bout.

These are the days that I could spend every moment on my wide front porch, admiring the beautiful trees on our street, listening to the happy yells of children in the yards, watching prowling cats hunt squirrels, the chirp of the birdies, and the 1950's feel of it all....

These are the days that technical junk and all that comes with our modern life just melt into the background. On my porch, with my tall glass of milk and my turkey sandwich, everything is just fine.