Saturday was girl's day at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. It was a recipe for success: 4 great girls, a 4 hour hike on the grounds amongst the most beautiful Fall foliage on a perfect little lake--including a pit stop for ice cream cones under the "square trees"--and a fantastic late lunch at PF Chang's sealed the deal, and i came home a pretty happy camper. Granted, the house was still a mess (i'd decided i'd put it off until Sunday), and Richard was disappointed in Baylor's preformance on the field that afternoon, but generally... a total win.
See below for a few pics with the amazing ladies, and a shot of our ice-cream stop.
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| Sam, Minnie, Me & Jamie-Lou |
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| "Square trees" |
Ahh, but Sunday. Sunday, life took a nosedive to insanity-land.
It started out normally... i'd made the decision to clean the house. Not just the normal straighten, either, but a GOOD, organizing, purging sort of clean. The weather outside threatened to thwart this plan altogether, but nooo... responsible adults do not just go off all willy-nilly two days in a row and play when things need to get done, now do they?! The voice of my mother said "No, ma'am, they don't," so, reluctantly, i threw on a fun, brightly colored apron from my mom-in-law (an attempt at making something awful seem fun), and turned on some upbeat music.
Now, as i have already discovered, i HATE the act of sorting and organizing. It's not like i can't throw things out. I can. And i do enjoy that. But i get overwhelmed quite easily, and frustraited at my indecisiveness. It's a vicious cycle. And it boils down to one thing: i have too much stuff, and not enough space for things i don't need. Add that to my inability to stay on task (it's awful. i like to mask it as "multitasking" but we all know what it is.) ... well, enter my cheerful husband, full of Autumn sunshine and air to ask "what it was i was doing", and it was as if i'd been ignited. Full on Hollis-atomic-bomb style.
Now, the good Lord knew what he was doing when he gave me a level-headed hubby, because once he'd discovered me tearing the house to bits, tears streaming down my face, ranting about how "i wished a fire would just take it all", he quickly formulated a plan. I was obviously beyond rational thinking, and "NO, i did not want to talk about it, thank-you-very-much", (and any mention of what time of month it was would have gotten him severely beaten.) So he did what any smart man would do: He left.
He wasn't gone long, though, and when he returned, he had a beer (my favorite pumpkin one), and a giant cardboard box. With a long hug, and a "Here...maybe these will help" he left me to my miserable task and went out to work on other things. Projects with much easier solutions than the one the obviously crazy person in the house was currently working on. Wise, i tell you. Wise.
Hours later, i emerged from my self-made prison a calmer, more organized person. I'd filled not just one, but several boxes of stuff to purge, and found/organized all the important paperwork i'd been hiding away or shoving into piles for months. Ahhhhhhh! :)
"Better?" Richard asked.
"Yep. Much better."
And we went to have cocktails and a late dinner with the neighbors.
(no pictures have been included of the insanity, for everyone's sake.)
Monday. Oh, joyous holiday off of school... a special thanks to Columbus for this one. :)
With the perfect weather continuing, we decided a roadtrip was in order. It had been a long time since we'd gone on an "adventure drive," which is really just a roadtrip with no known destination, and it's one of our favorite things to do together. So, the decision to head north was made. We grabbed the cameras, and headed off in the car with the fullest gas tank.
As the highways split off, we'd alternately pick directions to take, stopping along the way to take pictures or follow odd signs to trails or historic landmarks. Fall is amazing, and Wisconsin is absolutely breathtaking this time of year, with the corn still standing, and the leaves changing in the background... it was not even something i can adequately capture with a single shot, though i tried. You just have to see it.
Eventually, we ended up near Madison, WI, so lunch near the capital building was in order. As it turns out, Richard has an uncanny ability to scope out the good food in an area, even if that area is unknown to him. The Great Dane proved to be a fantastic place to get good microbrew beer (only available in the restaruant, not bottled anywhere), and an amazing meal. I had a butternut squash stew that just BEGS me to learn how it was made, and Richard had a side of fried plantains with his grilled portabello mushroom sandwich that makes my mouth water just remembering it. We ate so much we had to walk it off before returning to the car for the ride home. Madison is like a northern version of Austin... lots of hippies = some excellent people watching.
We came home via a different route, and arrived back at the house late (and exhausted) but satisfied with the day's events. Our kitties seemed unamused when i told them what we'd seen, and were merely concerned that dinner had been delayed. Oh well. At least some things remain constant in our household.
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| Our little corner @ The Great Dane |
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