7 Quick Takes (Vol 45)

It is great to be back into the routine of things and to be thinking all week about my Quick Takes. I missed it last week even though you all didn't know I was gone. So without further "ado"

-1-

Ummmmm, someone in my neighborhood needs to be working a tad harder on their spelling I am thinking. We aren't in West Virginia after all.

-2-

When HHBL and I take one of our "bigger" trips I spend a great deal of time journaling (not that I don't do that at home, I do). I get a small notebook at Wally Mart, there is one specific kind that I like. I get a special pen and I write and write and write. I do this because I want to remember every aspect of a trip. I want to remember what I did, what I heard, what I smelled (those are always good) and just.....just.....everything.

But then I come home and I have to type up all those notes so that I can put them in my journal. And the parental units always want to read about what we did. And it takes FOREVER for me to get them done. It takes forever, not because I am a slow typist because I am fairly fast. No it takes so long because I am so wordy. Wordy, wordy, wordy that is me. I have to write about the things that I see out the hotel window or the car window or the bathroom window. Whatever suits me.

But even though I complain about all the typing and stuff. I always am so glad that I have those notes when I go back and read about a trip.....but right now my fingers hurt from all the typing. I think I need ice cream to help.

-3-

I drank more pop last week than I had drunk in the previous 6 months for sure. I am not a big pop drinker but when you are in a country or countries where the tap water might kill you then when presented with something that is bottled and hopefully cold you jump at the chance. I have to say that the pop isn't always cold. I was having a meal in Nyahuka, Uganda about 10km from the border with Congo and I ordered a Fanta. The fellow walked over to the refrigerator and took out my Fanta, popped the top and brought it back to me. I took a big swig and.....HEY this thing isn't cold. And then it dawned on me. This town, way out in the rural part of Uganda, doesn't have electricity. I know this but it didn't occur to me that just because the pop was coming out of the refrigerator did mean that the refrigerator was actually working. Sigh.

The problem with drinking all that pop is now I have to battle my dormant or not so dormant now pop craving. I love regular Coke, I mean I LOVE it with a passion. But if I indulge then I just want more so I just try to stay away from it. It is like starting from square one again.

-4-

I think that HHBL and I are going to have to "blow" leaves one more time before we are done for the season. No we are not throwing up leaves, that would be down right nasty. We have a lot of trees and with trees comes Fall lawn maintenance. It was a nice day on Tuesday so we came home from the office early and spent 4 hours blowing all the leaves that had fallen off into the woods and the ravine. It will take another 4 hour stint and then I think it will be done. However, it looks like rain is in the offing for several days and that will impede our progress.

Using my leaf blower appeals to my order loving nature I can tell you. I can be precise and neat and ooooooooooooo it is giving me shivers just to think about it. There is something about seeing wide swaths of clean lawn that just makes me happy.

Yes I know I am wired wrong. I just go with it.

-5-

We had some friends stop by last night to pick up a box to take to The Shoe Queen. Ken and Marilyn have several progeny who also attend Wheaton College and they are going out for Parents Weekend, which starts today. HHBL and I are not going.....we are bad parents....

OK, got off track there. I just love Marilyn and I wish that she lived next door. We just think alike and we like some of the same things and we are both nurses. So we are standing there and talking and we get on the subject of Ebola virus. Marilyn and I both love talking, thinking and reading about communicable diseases, she because she specialized in that for many years and me because I am just wired wrong. So we are going along talking about Ebola, the subject having come up because last week HHBL and I spent two days in the town where the last Ebola outbreak was documented in 2007. And our poor husbands are just standing there staring at us like we are weird or something. No, we are not weird we are just enthusiastic thank you very much. You never know if you are going to encounter Ebola and it is best to know all that you can. So there.

-6-

Do you know what this is? This is a beetle that viciously attacked me last Monday night. Viciously I tell you. I will tell you the story next week sometime but I wanted you to be prepared for it, to have some big can of bug spray around just in case and to keep the children away from the computer screen lest they become frightened and develop neuroses and never want to go to Africa, or specifically Uganda when they grow up.

It could happen you know.

-7-

You know what one of the hardest things that I am having to deal with now that all the progeny are out of the house? There is no junk food around here. There are no chips, there are a few pretzels but not many. Nothing!!! I just didn't realize that it would be that difficult. We aren't a tremendously junk food oriented family but I always had a little something in the pantry. But not now.....If you were a bag of Cheetos at the moment you would not be safe in this household I can tell you. I want Cheetos very badly at the moment in all their greasy, highly processed, artificial orange goodness.

It is hard growing up.

Be sure to click on the Quick Takes picture above to speed through cyberspace to see what all the other Quick Takers are doing. Do.It.Now.