I need a blanket...

I think I'm done writing about the trip, for now...at least until I get my pictures developed.. I had a very productive week...I caught up on the laundry...worked overtime and finally caught up at work...and I gathered up all the disposable cameras we took to NYC and put them on top of the piano by the front door.
I'm trying to avoid a repeat of the shame that I have over last year's field trip to Chicago...I'm sure we probably have very nice pictures of that trip, but I wouldn't know, would I, because I've NEVER GOTTEN THOSE PICTURES DEVELOPED, EITHER...
I have just a tiny little problem with procrastination.
Whatever.
Moving forward...for the past month it's been 70-80 degrees...everything is in full bloom...it was summertime here!  Then this freak cold front moved through...high winds...thunderstorms...hail...a funnel cloud touched down in downtown Louisville...and behind the cold front, oh no, it's so cold!  It's like I'm back in New York!
30 degrees yesterday and SNOWING, when it reached 80 the week before.  That's the Ohio Valley for you...
I'm standing in my living room yesterday, and I hear this airplane flying low over my house, and I think, "Hmm, that's weird."  It wasn't until I got in the car and turned on the radio that I remembered it was THUNDER OVER LOUISVILLE, the kickoff to the Kentucky Derby Festival, starting with the air show downtown over the river,and culminating in the largest fireworks display in the country last night.
We never go down there...last year, roughly 750,000 people flocked to the riverfront for the festivities..the crowds and the traffic getting home always seem just too daunting.  This year, though, because it was SNOWING, there was not that big of a crowd at all...I tried to convince D that this is the year we should go, since there'd be hardly any traffic getting back home, but he told me off pretty good...something about freezing to death/am I crazy/what's wrong with you...we didn't have one of those silver survival blankets like one of those crazy people down there...LOL!
So we were at home, watching it on TV, as usual...my favorite part is the music...my daughter likes to watch out the window, because we live close enough to downtown that she can see the sky glowing even though she can't see the actual fireworks...
"I see green, are they doing green now, Mommy?"...
"Yes, honey..."
"Ooh, red, I bet they're doing red now, aren't they..."
"Yes, sweetheart..."
"Ooh, yellow..."
This is the point where I break down and say, will you please come and watch it on the TV? Please please please... LOL!
After the show's big finale, it lives up to its name, as the shock waves from all the explosives downtown move through the city...it really does sound like thunder, and as it moves through the house, it actually shakes the walls...
Thus the annual two week party that my city lives for is kicked off...
All this for a two-minute horse race.
Here we go...

Spaces and the Lady...

We drove the rest of the way through Pennsylvania.  We drove through New Jersey.
In the distance we could see a skyline...
Yes, our leaders said, that is New York City.
Everyone oohed and aahed...the kids got their cameras out and started taking pictures, while the parents gazed thoughtfully into the distance...
It's like we were seeing two different things.  The kids were seeing the Big Apple, the Empire State Building, and an exciting adventure at hand.
All of us adults, having grown up seeing pictures of a very familiar New York skyline, could only gaze at it and think, "That isn't right..."
We couldn't see anything but the empty spaces.
Ground Zero was the first place we went to in Manhattan.  The area where the World Trade Center once stood is surrounded by buildings still being repaired...or buildings still standing but were so damaged that they're still in the process of coming down, piece by piece, all these years later.
But mostly you can't see anything but the empty space...
...
We went to the Statue of Liberty after Ground Zero...
that was a very good idea...
if Ground Zero made my heart hurt,
well,
the Statue of Liberty made my heart swell with a wonderful emotion...
What is it about her?
Is it because she's tall?  Is it because she's beautiful? 
Is it because she's GREEN?
Or is it because she represents freedom and a safe haven to oppressed people everywhere?
Yes, that's it! 
Those ideals that she stands for are pure and good, regardless of politics and borders and nationalities (I threw in that nationalities part because there were an awful lot of Japanese tourists on the ferry with us...they were just as excited about her as we were!).
Well worth it...

I'm back...

...where all things are green and leafy and most importantly, WARM...
...someone forgot to tell me that not only would the trees not be leafed out yet in New York...
...it was also at least twenty degrees colder there than it was here (I'm thinking now that I actually live in The Deep South, and just didn't know it.  Is Kentucky The Deep South?)
As my daughter says, "New York was SO COOL, in both ways!"
More to come...:)

Hello, world...

I wonder how a week goes by and I don't write in my journal...especially when every day something happens and I think, "I must remember to write this in my journal!"...but by the time I get here I'm just. so. tired.
The visit to the pediatrician went very well this week, my daughter was prescribed a different dose than what she is taking now, and it made a huge wonderful difference in her behavior Wed. - Fri. when she took the medicine...but by Saturday, the medicine bottle had disappeared...
That's what it's like to be us, things just...disappear...
So now I have to call the doctor Monday morning and humbly ask him to write out another prescription.
I spend a lot of my life being humble due to mistakes being made, things being lost, etc.  It's a learned skill that I didn't used to have, but I've since developed it quite well over the years!
It looks as if the New York trip is ON, since I sent the money in on Friday...so I guess we're going!  Manhattan in April...just me and my daughter...wow...I'm so SCARED! 
I'm sure there was much more I was going to talk about, but since I'm falling asleep in my chair I'm going to wrap up this pitifully small entry and hope to do better later...after sleep...I'm always chasing after sleep and never seem to catch it!

Some week...

...and after lots of sleep and medicine I think I've nearly recovered from the flu or whatever it was that I had.  Please God!
I really can't believe it's been a week since I've posted anything...but then again maybe I can believe it, the past week seems to me a blur of going to work, collapsing in bed, going to doctor appointments and making phone calls...
Monday I took my daughter to the ENT and the prognosis is...well, not better...so she's scheduled for surgery on the 15th, to get the stuff off the eardrum, inspect the eardrum to make sure it's still intact from the 'ear patch' surgery she had a couple years ago, and the doctor will also take some cultures from the ear, hoping to find out why it's not healing.
Was it October, or November, when she first got sick? I never ever would have imagined it hanging on until March and resulting in surgery...I'm honestly scared.
Tuesday was the visit with my daughter's counselor...things going backward...we have to visit her pediatrician this week.  We also visited the eye doctor, updated her prescription, and got her two new pairs of glasses.  Stylish purple ones, of course!  And when she gets her braces, she has already picked out pink ones...can you picture it...purple glasses...pink braces....she is sooo twelve! LOL!
I also called the university Tuesday and withdrew from my class this semester.  My daughter is having way too many problems right now... I hated to do it, for all the work I've put into it so far and the money that it's going to cost me, but I only have one daughter, and she needs me more... I wish there was some way I could work only part time, but unfortunately that isn't possible.  So something had to give, and school was it!  Maybe next semester...
Friday D and I went to see an Easter pageant held at the huge church on the other side of town...There was probably about 12,000 people there!  I'd never been there (I'm a South End girl!)... The pageant was huge and awesome and inspiring and sad... everyone left a better person, which is a good thing because, logistically, 12,000 people trying to leave at one time was a nightmare, we sat in traffic a looooong time... but all the better, that was more time to sit and think about Love...
Saturday I got the letter from my daughter's school, letting me know the final totals, after all the fundraising, for the New York City trip, and that the amount is due March 2.  WHAT?  You mean, this Wednesday, March 2?!
Gee, thanks for giving me that long 4-day notice!  $1012.37 in four days, sure...
Today (Sunday) I had to go to the funeral home...My aunt's best friend died.  She was only 48.  My aunt is devastated...they were lifelong friends...I went to the funeral home and held my aunt and just said "I'm so sorry", and that was all it took for us to start crying...
So tonight, I'm going to wrap up this not-so-cheerful entry (sorry), finally, and go to bed...my daughter went to bed over two hours ago and she is still awake and moaning about not being able to sleep...the only way she's going to go to sleep, I think, is if I turn out all the lights so she knows that I'm asleep...
Is there anything...simple...about anything?
Well, today, I noticed something funny about my pear trees.  I went and inspected them and...yes...they have little fuzzy things growing out of them!  My pear trees think Spring is on the way!
Please, Spring, come fast, and bring Summer with you...

New York in April?

My sleep patterns are all messed up...since my doctor put me on a million different medicines, my eyes shut at 11 p.m. ... and then I wake up at 4 a.m. ... and then I try to go back to sleep, and then oversleep...
And today, my daughter doesn't have school which SHOULD mean an extra hour of sleep for me (yay!), but instead, here I am, wide awake... :(
I've been way too busy lately...I can't help but think, if I had gone to school this semester like I was supposed to, how in the world would I be managing it?  Even scarier, how will I manage it in January?  Best not to think about things like that, though...Better to just blindly move forward and assume things will work out...they usually do...
Well, my daughter brought home, FINALLY, the information on this year's middle school field trip.  After last year's less than stellar time (for a recap, see here), I'd decided that it didn't matter WHERE they were going, we were not falling for it again.  The thought of watching my tender 12-year old girl be ignored by all the snobby girls who go on the trip (because, as we discovered last year, only the snobby girls go on trips like this, the regular nice girls stay home) is NOT my idea of fun.  But then she brings home this year's destination: New York City...
See, I'm weak, and a traveler at heart, which is a bad combination...
I've been to eight different countries and twenty-three different states...I've been to Windsor Castle and the Black Forest, I've been to the Badlands in South Dakota and Pikes Peak in Colorado...but I've never been to NEW YORK CITY.
So what am I going to do?  She's already begging me, "Please, pleeeaaaasssseeee, Mommy, can we go? Please?".  I've reminded her of how things went last time, but she keeps assuring me that the snobby girls don't matter, as long as we have each other (does my girl know how to work it or what? LOL!). 
I just have a bad feeling that I'm going to cave, what with her constant pressure and my avarice to go somewhere new.  Is caving such a bad thing?
I'm already going around humming songs like "New York State of Mind"...