Dana and Leo came to visit us last weekend! Yep, when Brenda and Bug were still here. They were supposed to have gone back to California by then, but since they extended their stay we had a full house. Which was totally fine with us, that is often how we roll.

First item on the schedule Saturday morning was for Dana to go to an eye exam. For complicated and boring insurance reasons, she had to come to DC to do it. Once that was taken care of, we headed out for some sightseeing.

Of course, the Cherry Blossom Festival started that weekend, which meant that there were tons of people downtown. We didn’t really feel like fighting the crowds, so we stuck to the Virginia side of the river. Our first stop was at the Air Force Memorial, which is so simple but very cool. The three silver spires stretch into the sky, like flight paths given physical form. I have a couple of personal connections to the Air Force—my Grandpa Adams was in the Army Air Corps, and my Uncle Allen was in the Air Force—and I was thinking about them as we walked around the memorial site.

Troy looking at a brochure, Annalie squishing something on the horizon between her fingers.

Dana doing a little photobombing.

I was trying to get Bug to walk towards me so I could take a photo, but she was scared and insisted that her mom come lift her off the wall. Annalie offered to show Bug how it was done, but even then Bug was not interested.

Of course by then we were all feeling a bit chilly, so it’s understandable that Bug wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. As you can see, we were up on a sort of bluff that overlooks the river and downtown DC and it was pretty windy up there. The girls had to snuggle up to Troy for warmth! Then Brenda and I were laughing, so of course they hammed it up and hugged him even tighter and more theatrically. No wonder Annalie and Bug get along so well. They both, shall we say, are of a dramatic bent and usually respond well to an audience.

See?

I tried to get Leo to come down and be in the photo with Troy and the girls, but he wasn’t interested in doing anything other than scooting slooowwwly along the wall. I love the photo I caught of Dana’s expression at being unable to hurry him along. Haven’t we all felt this way about our kids (or significant others, or siblings, or co-workers) at one time or another? But in the end I caught Leo smiling anyway.

I took a shot of my reflection in the very shiny top of a fire hydrant between the memorial and the parking lot. It was, of course, the day after 7 Days had ended. That’s when I always seem to find the best shiny surfaces.

Our next stop was Arlington National Cemetery. We were barely past the visitors’ center when Dana realized that she was going to have to drag Leo around, that he wasn’t in a walking-around mood. She told us to go ahead, that they’d meet us back at the visitors’ center when we were done.

We originally planned to go see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns, but due to me misreading a map and Troy not taking the hint when I shoved the map at him and said, “I’m terrible with maps like this. Here, you read the map,” we headed to the Tomb of the Civil War Unknowns instead. By the time we figured out our mistake it was too late to make it to the ceremony, which wouldn’t be repeated for another hour. So we just took a different route back to the visitors’ center and enjoyed the blue skies and sunshine.

When we were still trying to get to the ceremony, we took the Custis Walk uphill, which was kind of crazy of us. It’s basically a long, long, long staircase. It’s a fairly gentle incline, but it’s still many many steps, and we were trying to hurry at the time.

I was alternating between hurrying to keep up with Troy and Annalie, and hanging back to walk with Brenda and Bug (you can see them behind me in the photo of me above). When I slowed down, I’d take photos of whatever caught my eye. Like, say, this grate in the sidewalk that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Why can’t we have more of that in this world? Or maybe that’s just an American capitalist tendency, to worry more about the amount of time and money it takes to build something, rather than all the people who’ll have to look at something ugly for the next however many years. Big-box stores, anyone?

For the record, I’m in favor of capitalism and I love shopping at a variety of big-box stores. I just rarely like looking at their outsides.

This gravestone of Edward Maynard Day’s caught my eye because of the inscription: “Distinct as the billows/Yet one as the sea.” I wonder if old Ed was in the Navy.

Oh look. A signpost pointing us in the direction of the real Tomb of the Unknowns. Might have been handy if we’d seen one of these when we were headed in the wrong direction!

Even though I’ve been to Arlington Cemetery several times, I never get over how the gravestones just stretch on and on into the distance. Also, isn’t it funny how spring buds are often autumn-colored?

We made a point of explaining to Annalie and Bug when we first got there that we had to be quiet and respectful; that even though a cemetery looks like a park, it isn’t a normal park, it’s a place where we go to remember people who have died. And Arlington is a place where we especially remember people throughout our nation’s history who were willing to sacrifice their freedom and lives to help keep the rest of us safe. They both took it in and did a great job of being as quiet and respectful as an almost-6-year-old and a 4-year-old can be.

We met back up with Dana and Leo and headed home after that. The rest of the weekend was spent mostly just hanging out, cooking, playing, talking, relaxing.

I made granola bars, what I think was my best batch yet.

Annalie went to the store with Troy for some reason, and they came home with these cardboard popcorn boxes that Annalie had convinced Troy to buy. Annalie ate various snacks out of one of them: potato chips, carrots, goldfish crackers…but oddly, no popcorn.

Leo was very camera-shy all weekend, and I had to get creative to get him to smile for the camera. He had been teasing Bug by saying, “Bug is 5 years old!” and then laughing when, every time, she got annoyed and replied, “I’m NOT 5, I’m 4!” To get him to look at me and smile for this photo I asked him how old Bug was. Still looking away from me, he said, “She’s 5!” I replied, “Noooo, she’s only 4, you stinker!” He cracked up, and I got my shot.

Brenda made veggie-ladas (basically chicken enchiladas with lots of veggies in them) for dinner, and they were delicious. I helped a little. (Brenda blogged the recipe here!)

I had leftover rice in the fridge, and wondered if I could use it to make Spanish rice, even though usually Spanish rice is made with uncooked rice. So I asked Madge, who I happen to know makes a mean Spanish rice. She gave me some tips then said, “I hope it doesn’t end up a gooey tomato lump. Let me know how it turns out!” You’ll be glad to know, it turned out beautifully. I blogged the recipe in case I ever want to do it again or any of you want to try it.

After dinner there was some snuggling going on. There was some reading going on too, but I didn’t get any photos of that for some reason. Dana started innocently reading a book to the three kids, and the next thing she knew they were all running back to Annalie’s room for more books and she had read a half-dozen books. It was really quite adorable.

Next morning, we had aebleskiver for breakfast, as we often do with guests. We also had bacon because BACON. And strawberries, because the local grocery store had them on sale all last month for a ridiculously good price. We’ve been eating lots of yummy strawberries lately!

Kids pretty much always approve of aebleskiver because they’re encouraged to dip them in sugar. This time we also had whipped cream on hand for the strawberries.

Not to mention bacon, which was a hit with everyone. Did I mention the bacon? Bacon.

Sorry! It’s getting late and I’m getting a bit loopy, but I’m determined to finish this post before I go to bed. I will bang my fingers relentlessly on the keyboard till I’m done, much as the woodpecker hammers his beak on the tree…oh, speaking of woodpeckers, here’s a photo of one eating from our birdfeeder. We’ve been seeing lots of cool birds. Dana isn’t a bird, she’s just out there on the deck trying to get Leo to come out of the cardboard castle and pose for a photo.

Somehow I managed to catch him both smiling and facing the camera. I think it was a combination of surprise and continuing to take photos after he’d turned away. He turned back to me, laughing at his silliness in turning away, and ta-daa!

That Leo is so crazy. Also, so cute it’s crazy.

Here are all three kids completely mesmerized by SpongeBob Squarepants. What is it about that show? It seems like kids of all ages and temperaments will sit totally still to watch it. They must be embedding hypnotic messages in the animation or something.

Anyway. It was a fun weekend! We saw some sights, we ate good food, Dana got the chance to meet Brenda and Bug for the first time, and we squished a lot of visiting into a short weekend. Best of all, we know we’ll get to repeat the experience again soon, now that we live just a few hours apart.

Bug: What does it feel like to be you, Annalie?

Annalie: Well, let’s see…it feels good, comfortable, happy. Actually I really like being me!

B: Blue car!

A: Blue BAR! Hahahahahaha!

B: …Where’s a blue ball? I don’t see any blue balls.

B: Wiggling your butt always helps! Make the lights turn green, wiggle your butt! Keep wiggling…

A: Nope. I’m not feeling it.

B: Annalie, how does it feel to be you, in your body?

A: Hmm. It feels like a squirrel, a glob of mud, a book, the wind, a corndog, annnnd…a cheeseburger.

A: Let’s go super fast!

B: No, I don’t like going fast.

A: But we’re in a racecar!

The good news is, you’ll get to see photos in a couple of weeks instead of in six to eight months. Usually when we move our goal is to be completely unpacked by the following Christmas, but next week Brenda (and Bug) are coming to visit and help us unpack! I’m very excited about it, which is a first for me. I hate unpacking. I get overwhelmed trying to think of where I want everything to go, so I do nothing. Well, not nothing. I unpack and organize the kitchen right away, and then I stall on the rest of the house.

Given all that, you can see why it was SO COMPLETELY AWESOME when Brenda house-sat for us a couple of years ago and asked if we minded if she unpacked a few boxes while she was there, and then went and unpacked and organized the entire house for us. I told her that I would fly her to all our future homes if she wanted to help us unpack them all, and she enthusiastically accepted. That is why she gets free birthday cakes for life, people. Well, that and being one of my best friends. You know what I mean.

I’m sorry you won’t be seeing pictures of the house just yet. I’m sure I’ll get some of the “before” photos up on Flickr eventually, so keep an eye on my Flickr stream. Meanwhile, here’s a conversation that took place this morning as we were driving around trying to find a McD’s with a PlayLand:

“I guess there’s an election tomorrow.”

“On a Wednesday? Where did you hear that?”

I pointed at the election signs clustered on the median. “It says ‘Vote March 2nd’ on those signs right there.”

“That’s today. Which makes sense, because it’s Tuesday.”

“Oh. Oh! In that case, happy anniversary!”

Troy laughed. “Uh, happy anniversary to you too!”

Annalie piped up from the backseat. “What anniversary? What are you talking about?” I explained that it was the fourteenth anniversary of the day we got married. “Oh. Uh, Mom?”

“What, sweetie?”

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t get to buy you and Daddy an anniversary present.”

“Aw, thanks, but that’s okay. It’s been kinda crazy with all the moving and stuff, hasn’t it?” Annalie agreed. I winked at Troy and said, “Besides, I’m sure Daddy has a fabulous anniversary surprise for me. I can’t wait to see what it is.”

Without missing a beat, Troy said, “What do you mean? Isn’t the 14th anniversary the McDonald’s anniversary?”

Happy anniversary, Troy! Fourteen years, eight moves, six states, one Canadian province, two years of grad school, three cats, six years of parenthood, and countless remote controls…and you’re still the one who makes me laugh. Thank God for that!

p.s. New banner! What do you think?

What is your name?

Annalie.

How old are you?

Five. And a half.

Where do you live?

In San Diego.

Do you have any pets?

Yep.

Do you want to tell me about them?

Yep. You see, there’s two of them and they’re cats, and their names are Katy and Lily. Katy has blue eyes and Lily has green eyes.

Who do you like to play with?

Bug.

What’s your favorite cereal?

The yogurt one. [Strawberry Yogurt Trader Joe O's]

What’s your favorite vegetable?

Strawberries and blueberries.

But those are fruits.

I know, but those are the ones I like. I guess I like carrots…actually, corn.

What’s your favorite drink?

Sprite.

What’s your favorite snack?

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And popcorn with butter and sometimes salt.

What’s your favorite toy?

Dolly, my dolphin.

What’s your favorite TV Show?

Fairly OddParents.

What’s your favorite movie?

Hmm…pause! [She was asking me to pause the interview because she needed to think about it.] My favorite movie is…a TV one: the Phineas & Ferb Christmas special!

What’s your favorite game?

I like to play catch a lot, with my Gramaw.

What’s your favorite book?

The one about a long time ago, the one I got for Christmas.

You mean the Little House on the Prairie books?

No. It was about the stories a long, long time ago, like Jesus and the flaming bush…

Oh, the Bible? Your Bible storybook?

Yes! That’s it.

What’s your favorite restaurant?

The place in Maryland that has hot dogs.

You mean Five Guys?

Yeah! Five Guys.

What’s your favorite holiday?

Christmas, because we give, and it’s really fun, and we get new stuff and we give some stuff up for other people who don’t have very much money.

What’s your favorite animal?

Horses.

If you could change your name, what name would you choose?

You know which one, Mommy. [in unison with me] Sarah!

What do you love about each person in our family?

I love that Daddy is really really funny, and he goes to work every day so I don’t get to play with him much. That makes it even more fun, ‘cuz I don’t usually get to play with him.

While I’m boring, because you see me all the time, right?

[A diplomatic silence is maintained, as Annalie scrunches up her nose and smiles at me.]

So what do you love about me?

What I love most about you is that you care about me a lot, and you are glad that I like going in the water now, so that way you can go in the water now, and go in the stepping area, and I can go in the water about up to my knees, or my feet. So we’re both happy!

What do you love most about yourself?

That I like cooking and painting, and I think a lot of things are funny.

Where would you like to go on vacation this year?

I would like to go on vacation to…Hawaii.

Really? Why do you want to go to Hawaii?

Because it sounds like a fun place to go to.

Where did you hear about Hawaii, do you know?

Um, it was actually in the movie Ice Age. You know, where that squirrel falls in the ice and he floats all the way to Hawaii.

What are we doing that’s a big change this year?

It’s a big change that we’re going back to…it’s a big change… [Annalie picks up a toy guitar and begins singing.] It’s a big change where we’re going back, we’re going back to Washington Dee Seee-eee-EEE! We’re moo-oo-oo-oo-OO-oo-oo-oo-VING!

Why are we doing that? Did we just decide, “Eh, we’re tired of California, we’re gonna go now”?

[Still singing] Because my fa-ther’s in the Na-a-a-a-vy!

What are some of your wishes for this year?

My wish is to help people and clean up the world. And I wish that Daddy would come home very very soon.

Good news, Daddy is coming home soon, in just a couple of weeks!

Oh, all right!

Thanks for the interview, Annalie!

Annalie’s self-portrait, age 5y8m

Inspiration for this interview originally came from New Year’s Interview for Kids at Blissfully Domestic (via The Crafty Crow). I don’t scrapbook, but I have a blog, and I’m not afraid to use it!

I did this interview in 2009 too. When I compared Annalie’s answers a couple of them were exactly the same. I guess she is my kid, so it’s not too surprising that she knows her own mind.

I was thinking of Joe’s awesome self-portrait with his nephew in the last 7 Days run when I took my self-portrait today with my niece. I had a hard time getting as good a shot as he did, but it was fun trying.

Ben, Angie and AK came over today for an early family Christmas celebration. We ate and opened presents and passed the mostly-awake baby around. I finally got to see her with her eyes open! She even smiled for me a few times. I didn’t get a picture of her smiling, but I do quite like this one:

She looks like she’s saying, “Eh? Whazzat?”

Annalie was so super-duper hyper-excited to open presents that she got a little overwhelmed a couple of times. Once she thought she’d run out of presents to open and was upset. Another time she exuberantly hugged my mom in thanks for a present she’d just opened, and when I said to her, “Hey, that was from me!” and we all laughed a bit, she fled the room in tears because she thought we were all laughing at her. Poor kid. All the anticipation and activity at Christmas makes me feel like crying sometimes too, and I’m 29 years older than she is. She calmed down quickly both times, though, and was fine.

My friend Rachel built this dollhouse and a bunch of little dollhouse furniture. Annalie was happy when she opened the dollhouse, thanked Rachel, and cheerfully said, “Maybe when we get home we can get some furniture for it!” Then she opened the box with the furniture and hollered, “FURNITURE!!! This looks like it’s gonna be the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!”

At breakfast at the hotel one morning, Annalie brought her dry-erase tablet with her and was busily writing and drawing when I glanced over and saw that she’d written something like: “Grama plez cum sit wi th mee.”

“Annalie, that’s a sentence! You just wrote a sentence!” I told her.

“It is?” she asked, pleased.

“Yeah, and it’s spelled almost right! I can tell exactly what you meant, which is fantastic!”

She immediately said, “Well, how do you really spell it?” I helped her correct her spelling, then kicked myself for not taking a photo of it before we corrected it. Oh well. I’m still proud. And so was she.

The other day, Annalie and I went to a Chinese place for lunch. Annalie usually likes Chinese food, but she was stubbornly insisting on this day that she wanted nothing to do with rice or broccoli or water chestnuts. So I ordered her a bowl of egg drop soup.

When our food was brought to us, Annalie cautiously sniffed the soup. “It smells good, but it looks kinda gross. Hmm, maybe if I can’t see it then I’ll like it.” She slapped her hand over her eyes and brought a spoonful of soup to her mouth and took a tiny sip.

“Hey, I do like it! This is pretty good, as long as I’m not looking at it!”

“Mom, I have an idea! You should take a picture for Daddy, since he always eats egg drop soup. He would be so proud of me that I tried it and liked it.”

And then I got a great fortune in my fortune cookie. It’s really more of a truism than a fortune, but I liked it so much I didn’t care. I brought it home and taped it up in my kitchen so I can read it often and think about it.

Only you can change your life. No one can do it for you.

Annalie is going through a bit of a testing phase right now, as kids do from time to time, just to make sure the grown-ups are paying attention. Lately she’s been testing the rules, testing the boundaries of good behavior, and testing my patience. It’s frustrating but normal.

Considering the testing, I shouldn’t have been that surprised the other day when I found a smiley face the size of a quarter drawn on our couch in marker. I was surprised, though. Annalie has been using washable markers since she was a toddler, and she’s always been pretty good about using them only on paper or other approved surfaces. Occasionally she goes a bit crazy and draws all over her legs or arms, but that’s generally allowed in our house because hey, washable.

After I saw the markered smiley face, I called Annalie upstairs and asked her to tell me about it. She admitted to having done it almost immediately. I told her I was disappointed because she’s old enough to know that drawing on the furniture is never okay. She shrugged and said she was sorry, but the flippant way she did so only made me hotter under the collar.

I struggled to maintain my temper as I had her help me clean up the marker. I also explained that the consequences of not remembering the rules about where to use markers meant she was going to lose her markers for the next couple of days. She wasn’t very happy about that, because I had just bought her a cool new marker set, but she sighed and said she understood.

Then I told her, “I’m really quite upset about this, Annalie. I don’t understand why you deliberately did something that you know is against the rules. I think you might have an extra punishment, but I’m going to have to think about it for a while.” Again she shrugged, before asking if she could have something to eat.

After I fixed her a snack, I emailed Troy to tell him about the Markering Incident and to ask if he had any ideas. I didn’t really expect to hear back from him anytime soon, since he’s basically on the opposite schedule from us on the other side of the world right now, but I felt better once I wrote it all out. Then I took to Twitter and asked if anyone had any thoughts or advice for me.

Almost everyone who answered me suggested that I have her clean it up and take away the markers, both of which I’d already done. At least I felt reassured in those actions. I still felt like this was something that warranted further action, like it was a no-brainer rule that she had to have deliberately broken. After consideration, I decided to have her go to bed an hour early. Annalie hates going to bed early, so I thought it would have an impact. Also, she’d had a busy couple of days and I figured she probably did need the extra sleep.

When I told Annalie that as punishment for markering on the couch she would have an early bedtime, she immediately wailed, “Oh, WHEN will you stop PUNISHING ME!?” I stifled a laugh at her melodramatic response and told her that we’d still read and cuddle before she went to sleep, it was just going to be an hour earlier than normal. She grumbled a bit, but when we finished a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods and I turned off the light, she curled into me and was fast asleep in about two minutes flat.

Yesterday I gave her the markers back and reminded her of the rules. She immediately said, “I know, only on paper. I’ll remember this time.” And she did. She was drawing on her little pad of paper on and off all day yesterday with those markers, and we never had a problem. I breathed a little easier.

This afternoon Bonnie had invited us to a homeschoolers’ knitting group/playgroup. We were both looking forward to it. Annalie had been sniffling and sneezing the past couple of days with a little cold, so we’d been sticking close to home. Today she was feeling much better and we were both looking forward to getting out of the house. Annalie was excited about seeing M and E again, and making some new friends. I was packing up a crochet project to bring with me when I turned around and saw that Annalie had used a marker to draw on the front of her dress.

“Annalie, did you just draw on your dress with a marker?”

She glanced down at her dress, then looked back up at me sheepishly. “Yessss…”

She knew she was in trouble. I sighed, then told her to gather up all her markers and put them in the zipper case. When she was done she handed the case to me, and I told her the markers would be off-limits for a few days again since she had forgotten or ignored the rule to only draw on paper.

Annalie’s response was an almost-jaunty, “Okay, mom!”

I hesitated for a moment. I knew what I had to do. I wanted to get the message across to my little boundary-tester that it was NOT okay to marker on anything but paper. The most immediate way to do that was…

“Annalie, I’m really sorry, but we’re not going to be able to go to the playgroup now.”

Her face crumpled. “What!? But I wanted to go meet some new friends! I haven’t gone to a playgroup since we lived in Maryland and I really want to go to this one!”

That nearly broke my heart. Sometimes I hate having to be consistent. Especially times like this when punishing Annalie meant punishing me too. I’d really been looking forward to that knitting group. But from her reaction I knew I’d done the right thing. I told her that I knew she really wanted to go, but I also knew that she knew the rules about markers. I said I hoped that the next time she was tempted to draw on her clothes or the couch or anything else but paper, she would remember how sad she was to miss out on the playgroup this week. I assured her that we could still go next week.

Annalie’s sadness quickly morphed into anger. She stomped off to her room, declaring her need for private time and her intention to never ever go anywhere again with me. I rolled my eyes and privately debated keeping the markers put away at least till after next week’s knitting group.

A few minutes later, Annalie called to me from her room. I went downstairs and stood in the doorway. She was busy playing with an electronic game and didn’t even notice me at first. When she did look up, she asked if I could bring the book down to her room and read to her for a while.

We spent an hour or so lying on her bed, me reading the rest of our book out loud while she quietly played, occasionally snuggling up next to me to study an illustration of Ma and Laura making cheese, or Pa watching a doe and her yearling fawn from his perch in a tree. When the book was finished, Annalie asked if she could swim, so we filled up the pool and she swam and splashed for a good hour while I read and made notes on something I’m editing for a friend.

We ran some errands: the craft store, the grocery store, Starbucks. Back at home Annalie put on her pajamas and brushed her teeth, and we watched an episode of Chuck at Annalie’s request. We sat on my bed as I read two chapters of Little House on the Prairie while Annalie pretended to wash and cut my hair. I turned out the light and Annalie twined her legs and arms around me, her head pillowed on my arm, just as she’s done since she was a baby. She requested sleepily that I sing to her.

Despite the Second Markering Incident, it was a good day.

We got to Maryland on Tuesday, arriving at Lynn & Bernie’s house around dinnertime. That night, Annalie got sick. Most of the day Wednesday she spent lying in the guest bed with a fever, sipping ginger ale and watching movies on our portable DVD player (thank God I brought that thing). Occasionally Dylan or Morgan wandered in and watched with her for a bit. Good thing neither Lynn nor Bernie are paranoid about germs.

I couldn’t reschedule my haircut appointment, so I hoped for the best and took Annalie with me to the salon on Wednesday morning. She seemed to rally a bit while we were there, chatting with Libby, sitting in one of the empty chairs and making faces at herself in the mirror. But when we got back home, she once again crawled into bed and asked for ginger ale. Poor baby.

I was hopeful all day that her illness would be short-lived. Annalie rarely gets sick, and when she does get sick it’s usually milder and over with faster than other kids. She got Troy’s super-duper immune system, I guess, not my lazy one.

Troy could spend a week in close quarters with a dozen sick people and would probably only have time to say, “I’m not feeling well,” and sneeze once before his immune system would kick into gear and presto! he’d be well again. I, on the other hand, could walk through a gymnasium with a surgical mask on while rubbing antibacterial gel all over my hands, and if one person all the way on the other side of the room sneezed, I’d be drinking tea with honey and blowing my nose and sleeping next to a humidifier for weeks.

Once when we’d been married a few years Troy was telling me he felt all hot and dizzy, that he was sure something was seriously wrong with him. I felt his forehead and told him he felt like he had a fever. He said, “No, no, you don’t understand. I feel really hot, and when I stand up I feel all weak and like the room is wobbling or something.” I said yeah, he was describing what it felt like to have a fever.

He still looked skeptical, so I said, “You’ve had fevers before, right? When was the last time you had a fever?”

“I dunno,” Troy said. “Maybe when I was 7 or 8? I’d have to ask my mom.”

I merely stared at him in disbelief. I’ve probably had over a hundred fevers in my life, I told him, due to my sinuses’ tendency to get infected at the least sign of a cold virus. “You haven’t had a single fever in over 20 years?” He shrugged sheepishly. “Well, trust me, I know fevers,” I assured him. “You have a fever.”

He still felt like something was really wrong, so he went to the health clinic and waited for his turn and waited in the exam room and after the nurse took his temp and blood pressure and looked at his throat he waited for the doctor and was poked and prodded and then he got dressed and waited some more. The doctor told him—can you guess?—he had a fever caused by a virus of some kind. Yeah, I like teasing him about that day and reminding him that he should listen to me next time. (Love you, T! I also love your fabulous sense of humor!)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh, right. Annalie was sick all of Wednesday and I hoped it wouldn’t last long.

And you know what? it didn’t. On Thursday morning she woke up bright and early and practically bounced out of bed with a smile on her face. She came running into the living room and threw her arms around me, announcing, “Mom! I don’t have a fever anymore! I feel FINE!”

That day we walked the dogs and went to the sprayground and ate Chinese food and swam in Morgan & Dylan’s pool and generally made up for being stuck in bed all day Wednesday.

Today we packed up our stuff and said thanks to Lynn & Bernie and Morgan & Dylan for being fantastic hosts. Then we met Bekah & Jack for lunch and moved our stuff into Cassie’s bedroom. Annalie hung out with Jason and the kids and played and danced and ate an enormous dinner while Bekah and I went to paint some dottery at my old stomping grounds, Paint ‘N Pottery. Except it’s not called that anymore. The woman who used to own the studio sold it, and it’s been renamed and remodeled a little, but it’s still the same awesome place to paint that it always was. I started on a couple of mugs and Bekah kept working on an Easter plate that she started last time I was here visiting.

It wasn’t fun that Annalie was sick while on vacation, but after our eventful start to this trip we probably needed the day of rest. And now we’re ready to rock and roll! Bring on the fun!

Does your post office have an Automated Postal Center? Mine does, and I love it. It’s hardly ever being used so it makes my post-office trips much quicker. So as usual, I planned to use the APC to mail these two birthday packages.

When I went in, I saw there was one woman at the machine and about ten people in line for the counter. I still had to get a priority box for Annie’s presents and put all that together, which took me a few minutes. Just as I finished, the woman at the machine seemed to be finishing up, waiting for her receipt to print. I thought, Great timing, she’s done!

As she was taking her receipt, she turned and saw me standing there and said, “I still have all these left to do!” She gestured to a shoebox full of manila envelopes, probably about 15 of them.

I thought she was offering me the chance to go ahead of her, so I smiled and politely asked, “Would you mind if I mailed these two real quick? It’ll only take a minute!”

She scowled. “No! I told you, I still have all these left! I’ve been here ten minutes doing this already, I still have all these to do!”

Rather taken aback, I replied, “Uh…so you won’t let me mail these two things? It would literally take me one minute.” And it would have. I use that machine so often I don’t even have to read the questions. I automatically know which part of the screen to tap.

She snapped, “No, no! You may as well go away!”

Now, this woman was probably perfectly sane. She certainly looked normal, just your average dressed-for-comfort middle-class grandma. Maybe she was having a bad day, or maybe she didn’t like using computers and that was making her cranky. Perhaps she has a phobia about being watched. Whatever the reason, even though she’s probably not crazy, she was certainly acting crazy. Still, I made an effort to remain civil.

“Well, ma’am, I have to stand in line either here or over there. I can wait till you’re done, it’s no problem.”

She shot me a nasty look before turning around to resume her mailing. I waited for a few seconds, but when she glared at me over her shoulder and mumbled something under her breath, I thought, Maybe I’ll just take these over to the Postal Annex….

So that’s what I did. Luckily it’s right across the street from our post office. They don’t have a self-serve machine, but they have ample parking (our post office shares a tiny parking lot with the library and it’s always packed). What’s more, the people who work there are always very pleasant, and there are fun office and stationery supplies to browse through while you’re waiting in line—and I’ve never had to wait in line for more than a couple of minutes. It doesn’t cost any extra, whichever shipping service I use. Best of all, I’ve never once encountered a crazy person there.