I'm back!

My laptop has been in the shop, so I have been unable to blog for more than a week. Blake took the laptop to one of the IT guys at work who has his own business on the side. He opened it up one night but couldn't do anything because half the screen was black. Blake said, "Oh yeah, Colleen says it does that, but all you have to do is poke the screen in this one place and the black part goes away." Oooookay, so he tried again, but this time he still couldn't do anything because the battery would die every few seconds. Blake told him I also had a secret for that--all you have to do is unplug the cord, wait 5 seconds, and plug it back in ... the laptop always has to be plugged in. He just returned it in the same condition he got it. The laptop has died twice while I've written this paragraph. So I think I'll buy a new battery and go from there. It's just so slow I can hardly do anything. It's sad when I can check my email or facebook 100x faster on my phone than on my computer.

Well it has been a very busy couple of weeks. Last week at work was crazy. One day I drove to Murray, Ky, which is a really, really long way from here, for a conference. Then a couple days later I hosted a program at work, then I worked one evening at a trade show. There were 3 out of 4 days there when I barely saw my kids while they were awake. I have vowed to myself that I won't do that anymore. If I have to work one evening, I will take the morning off. If I work way more than my regular 40 hours, I will take a day off. I'm fortunate that my boss is very encouraging of that, but I have learned the lesson the hard way. Last week I was exhausted and just missing my family. I get so excited about my job because it's exactly what I want to be doing and there are so many opportunities to do great things. But I need to pace myself for the sake of my family.

I also almost went blind last week. Well, that's a little dramatic, but it felt that way at the time. I was putting together a cardboard sign at work for a program the next day, and I rammed the corner straight in my eyeball. Didn't even flinch! Aren't you supposed to have natural reflexes that make your eye close? Mine did not. It HURT. I finally got my contact out, and it was ripped. I couldn't open the eye and couldn't drive, so Blake had to come get me. This was Nate's first day of school and I planned on picking him up, so we did that on the way home, with me covering my eye and wishing for a patch the whole time. Lucky for me I have a friend who is an optometrist, and I went to her house, where she saw there was a tear on my eye. She gave me some drops and told me to put another contact in there to act as a bandaid to protect it. She said to go home and lay down in the dark and take the next day off work. Yeah right on both accounts! I wish! :) The next day I went to work wearing sunglasses and wore them all day. It was great hosting a class, inside, at night, wearing sunglasses. If I hadn't explained what happened to everyone I talked to, they probably would have thought I was nursing a hangover. :)

Oh, another stupid thing I did last week. When I went to Murray, I had to get up at 4:30 am and drive there in time for a conference, then drive back that evening. On the way out of town, I stopped to get gas. I will say that I rarely get gas for myself--Blake is so good at keeping it filled for me. But I'll also blame lack of sleep. While it was pumping, I went inside for some caffeine and a snack, came back outside, and drove away ... with the pump still in the tank. Everything was okay! The car was okay, there was no gas spewing everywhere. I was hoping no one saw that smooth move, but two guys came running over to check on things and made sure to tell me how lucky I was. Oops.

Because of working so much last week, I was able to take a super long Labor Day weekend! I took Friday off to pack and we got an early head start to my parents' house. What should have taken 4.5 hours took an agonizing 6 hours--and the last one was sheer screaming by both kids. We were glad to get there. Saturday morning I got to visit with my friend Darla who I haven't seen for years and meet her adorable baby. Then later in the day, the Bowen family descended on my parents' house! My dad's parents, 2 sisters, and his brother and his wife and 2 sons came to visit. We had so much fun! Nate LOVED his cousin Trace ... a little too much. He followed him around like a little puppy. Trace was great with him though. We ate a lot and went shopping and sat around a fire ... good times. Georgia was attached to my hip the entire weekend. She wouldn't go to anyone or even ride in a stroller while we were out! Must be on mama's hip.

Monday before we left, my parents played a round of hide and seek with Nate. He cracks me up! While my dad counted, Nate ran to the other end of the patio and just covered his eyes. Awwwww. My mom hid him behind a chair, and when my dad said, "I wonder where Nate is ...", Nate piped up, "I'm behind the chair!" :) While my mom counted, my dad took Nate up the hill behind some trees, and you could hear Nate giggling uncontrollably the whole way up. Once my mom hid in a big trunk, and she seriously startled him when he lifted the lid and saw her! The last game, my mom counted while Nate just ran around in circles giggling then ran over to a tree and, with his back facing us in full view, put his hands over his face. SO CUTE.

On the way home, we decided to break up the trip this time by stopping at the train museum near Cincinnati. A little boy's idea of heaven is eating pizza and a Thomas cookie while watching trains roll by. Only about the last half hour of the drive was absolutely miserable.

So, we brought home two kittens. My mom's cat had a litter of seven, and she'd given away all but the last two. I figured we'd be talked into bringing one home, but she somehow talked me into bringing home both of them so they wouldn't get lonely. I don't even really like cats! I'm such a sucker. They really are cute though. The intention was for them to be outside cats, but they've spent a lot of time indoors today. They wanted to come in, so I thought I'd let them in for a little visit, and next thing I knew I had lost them upstairs. I spent half the day hunting kittens at one point or another. Georgia LOVES them. A little too hard. Nate named them Baby Allie and Baby Smoke because one looks just like its mama Allie, and the other looks just like my mom's other cat Smoke. We might change the names, but for now it's really cute.

I was so happy I got to take today off to recover from my long weekend! That's the dream! I did laundry and put things away and went grocery shopping and took a nap! Now I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow.