Well, I'm off work starting today and Mark got home from the rig last night. We're spending today getting ready to leave first thing in the morning for our drive up to Ohio and Michigan. Been online today trying to find a reasonably-priced hotel somewhere near my daughter, but there doesn't seem to be ANYTHING that I would consider "reasonable." When I go up alone, I always stay with Wendy so I haven't really booked a hotel for a while, and the rates have gone up. Waaay up. But I guess that's just like everything else -- your mind is boggled at first, but eventually you get used to the idea, and ultimately the price comes to seem "normal" again. Like gas prices.
Okay! I finally DID find a hotel up in Englewood that was actually quite reasonable. And it's kind of centrally located. We plan to check in up there by Saturday afternoon.
While we're there I want to go visit my good friend, Cass (Cassandra Graham). We've been friends for what seems like forever -- since we were both 19 years old. I feel like she's family. She's out of town, but will be coming home while we are there, so we will definitely be going down the visit her and check out her new Wombat Art Works gallery. The woman amazes me. She became a painter as an adult after her first marriage ended. Then she specialized in wildlife painting for a number of years. I have a painting in my office that I adore:
Then she started doing jewelry - check out her Wilde Jewels web site. Can you BELIEVE the intricacy of those things! I always particularly loved this "French Vanilla" necklace. Amazing. Now this year she has begun creating "dolls" -- although they are like NOTHING I would have thought of if someone had asked ME to make a doll! Guess that's what "creativity" means, huh? Something I have NONE of. Anyway, I can't wait to see some of those dolls in person. They look so amazing in those photos on FB. One of my personal favorites is "Tallulah" -- of course she and Vinnie - another "senior," sold almost immediately, so I won't actually get to see either of them. Darn!
Then on Wednesday we'll be heading up to Michigan to visit Mark's Aunt Connie who is in her 80's, as well as a number of Mark's cousins. The huge assisted living facility where she lives now has nice guest rooms complete with kitchens at a very reasonable price, so it's nice that we won't have to worry about where to stay while we're in Michigan. We plan to have a "family reunion" of sorts with all Mark's relatives up there. I've never met any of the family from Michigan so it should be fun.
Poor Joey has come down with another skin infection, though - talk about poor timing. But thankfully our friend Torri, who's going to be caring for all our animals while we're away, is an anesthetist at the Vet School at LSU, so she is going to get him seen by the dermatologist there before we head out so we can get him started on his medication. She's going to take him over to her house while we're gone instead of leaving him out on the back porch here as we planned to do. That way he won't get bitten AGAIN by red ants. I think his skin problems are probably due to an allergic reaction to red ant bites, because both times he's gotten skin infections, I noticed that he had bites on his belly first. So when we get back home, we're going to have to treat the entire dog yard with some of that professional ant killer that the bug man who treats our house gave us to take care of that. Of course that will mean we'll have to "walk" the dogs outside the dog yard until the stuff gets rinsed off by the rain so they won't get any of that potent poison on their feet and then lick them. But the ants do HAVE to go.
And so do I . . . back to work getting ready.
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