Road Trips and New Year

I have just returned from a five day road trip to take young Andrew back to college in Minnesota! Tim, Andy and I left on Saturday, January 3. First day we drove 9 hours to Champaign, IL; second day we drove the remaining 8 hours to Winona; third day we got Andy settled and drove from Winona to Minneapolis (normally a 2.5 hour trip that ended up taking us about 5.5 hours with a detour to Belle Plaine to the Coman's for assistance); fourth day I dropped Tim off at the Marriott at the airport in Minneapolis and drove 9 hours to Effingham, IL; fifth day I drove the remaining 8 hours to Roswell.

This road trip included snow, ice, rain, sleet, shitty roads, broken windshield wiper squirters and way too many hours in the car. My butt is the size of the state of Texas and has been molded into the shape of the car seat! I love road trips but can I tell you how much I absolutely, absolutely hate driving on bad roads covered with ice, snow while not being able to see the road...The issue with the windshield squirters was a burned out fuse. Steve and Tim exchanged the fuse that was supposed to operate the Onstar feature and plugged it into the windshield wiper squirter thingy.

It was great to take Andy back to sschool and get him settled. We did the Target run, bought books, paid tuition and visited Mike Charron, Phil Cochran and BJ. I think Andy likes college - I know he likes being away from home. I don't blame him, I guess. Perhaps I have chased him away with the rules and expectations for behavior. I know it's tough to come home from college and have to follow rules where you haven't had too many rules...but, I don't think it's right for the kids to come home and think they can do things here that they do in college. I love my kids and I love for them to be home, but I still get up early in the morning and I work, Tim works, it's important for the kids to understand those things. Now, I guess they are really guests in the house - all things considered.

Christmas was weird but good. I didn't feel joyful or too much pleasure in the process of Christmas. I pulled out very few decorations, only got the tree up the Sunday before Christmas. There were presents, just not a lot. I don't know - every year I get so frustrated with Tim and Mom because they are so negative about Christmas - Mom hates the obligation for gifts, Tim hates spending money and for the last few years he has been sick. I always manage to make sure that things remain upbeat and positive. But this year, they got to me. I hate that and it makes me sad that I let them get to me this year. Although, even this year, after all was said and done, I was exhausted as always. I feel like it is such a big production that no one really appreciates - I feel like I work so hard to accomplish "Christmas" and when it's finally finished I'm truly whipped.

Christmas Eve Mom and I went to church at Mt. Bethel. When we got home from church, Tim, Joe and Andy had decorated the house. Masx and Rishad came over, we had dinner (this year it was horsdoeuvres) and drank way too much. Including shots of Goldschlager! On Christmas Day, we got to open presents with Lesley through the fantastic technology of Skype. Went to the movies Christmas afternoon - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Mom hated it - but she went in with the expectation that she was not going to like it. I thought it was entertaining.

In all honestly, I was relieved when Christmas was over! Weird. I drove Mom back to Texas on the 27th and spent three days goofing off. It was a much needed rest. Drove back on the 31st. Went to Lakes, tried to sleep on New Years Day to no avail, had company come on the 2nd and left for our road trip on the 3rd!

I want to work, I want to get Mango Tree going. It is so important to me to make this work...it's going to happen, I know it and i'm going to make sure that I give this my absolute best! New initiative - Sustenance. More about that later. City of Atlanta is being declared a City of ONE - may be a big event. Talk of being invited to NYC

So...