MAKING MEMORIES!

I made it!  I held off this horrible cold/flu nastiness and had a great day running around the playground playing with my granddaughter, taking pictures and having a really excellent visit.  My youngest son Tom almost chose to stay in bed instead of joining us but before we walked out the door he was dressed and ready to play as well!

Our schedule got a little altered ~ which is fine, we are spontaneous and free spirited so we went with the flow of the day jumped out of the park and had some lunch together and ran into some friends in the world so I got to show off my granddaughter whom I brag about all of the time.

She made a friend in the park who coincidentally was lunching where we were so we had the four of us at our table.  We went back to the park after lunch and played some more ~ it was a busy afternoon at the playground and one of her classmates, Emma arrived at the park so I got a little reprieve from the chasing/playing and chatted with Emma's Gramma, who was also enjoying the company of her granddaughter for the first time alone as well.

Thomas bailed on the second park run and phoned me around three to remind me of the time ~ since we only had until 4:00 the Art part of the day was shorter.  Ainsley had arrived with a nice Artist kit full of everything one could need to create.

I decided that we did not have time to paint the Halloween decorations and we would use that to barter with for a future visit and opted for water coloring instead.  I have a beginner watercolor kit with tubes of watercolors which were foreign to me, being more familiar with the cakes of watercolors, so we set up a tray and laid out papers and set to work playing with the paints.

It has been a very long while since I have created anything with paints, pastels, chalk, ink, pen or anything visual besides this blog.  I used to be very creative artistically.  So I set the "kids" up with paper and brushes and went to download our park pictures before the "parents" arrived.

The playground pics came out awesome if I don't say so myself ~ we had a great time and it showed!  The best part for me, however, was when Jeff and Lisa arrived and Ainsley did not want to go home!!!  That was my cue to set up another visit and miracle of miracles the next available time I had was a time when they have an Anniversary Party to attend which means I get my granddaughter overnight in a couple of weeks!

My day was not finished, one more obligation for the day ~ volunteering at the Barrington Stage Company pouring wine in the lounge at the Main stage during intermission of Clybourne Park.  I  decided to take a rest to revive.  It is tiring when you are playing for a couple of hours ~ not just sitting on a bench watching your kid play ~ but sliding and climbing and lifting and chasing ~ in my less than 100 % health condition I was beat!!

It was a 8:00 showtime ~ so I took a shower and walked out the door around 7:30.  The place was packed! The show was great ~ two acts with an intermission in between.  The lounge was not very busy and I gave out three waters and poured 0 glasses of wine.  The 15 minutes flew by and soon Brad and I were cleaning up and I was back in my seat for Act 2.

I headed home, arriving at about 10:30 and made some dinner and hung out with my son for a short while before heading off to bed.  The best day!!!  I had one more obligation for the weekend ~ so I did not want to get run down too much.

I woke up pretty late for me on Sunday and my head was killing me!  I guess the over production of mucus is round two of this nasty cold.  I am working on staying ahead of it and not run myself down too much! Meanwhile my son is still sick.  If he is any indication of the life span of this thing I still have a way to go before it is gone.

I have roughly three hours to take a shower, do some errands, make it back home to figure out what I am going to wear tonight to pour drinks.  I am boycotting the dishes in the sink and anything that equals excess exertion of energy.

I made the mistake of looking at my calendar for next week and I again, cannot afford to be sick all week. Too much stuff going on!!!  I may have one day where I have nothing happening and I am sure that one will be busy as well!  Ah well, the price we pay!  I would not trade my life for anything despite the challenges and it's flaws!

I do know that I want to play with my watercolors some more and find my coloured ink as well....