In any case, I can’t abide the idea of Alyssa and Ryan sitting at school, alone, surrounded by classmates whose grandparents and various other relatives show up to spend the morning with them, so Dan and I are going to go in the place of their non-existent grandparents. At least they won’t have to worry about tripping over our canes or getting tangled up in our oxygen tank tubing. ;)

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It’s true that I’m a city girl — something Dan teases me about on occasion — but while I did grow up in Philadelphia (we moved to Middle Of Nowhere, USA in October of 1997, when I was 14), I was also in Girl Scouts, so I had pretty realistic expectations of what to expect at Hawk Mountain and of a hike. So I dressed accordingly: pedal pushers (my one “city girl” concession: I know jeans are more practical for traipsing around in the woods, but it was supposed to be close to 80° dammit!), light-colored t-shirt with a light-colored cami underneath to absorb any perspiration, comfortable and ultra-supportive bra, comfortable Converse sneakers (in retrospect my Skechers’ thicker soles and deeper tread would have provided a bit more protection and more stability whilst scrabbling over rocks and boulders, but at the time my Inner City Girl reared her fashionable head and crooned, “But the Conserve sneakers will look so much cuter with your dark denim pedal pushers!”, and I listened to her), hair off my head with a wide wrap-style band (held in place with hair-colored clips, heh – how DO you keep those suckers in place otherwise?! Without the clips mine will eventually slide back and snap off like rubber bands.). While Dan focused on packing food, I packed plenty of water, and a few Capri Suns, and I also tossed in sunscreen, and most importantly: bug spray (which I forgot to spray on us. Duh.).

Since our group consisted of seven adults and six special-needs children + Alyssa, the original plan was to hike to the first mountain outlook, see how the kids handled that, and go from there. As it turned out, they handled it just fine, so what we thought might have been a short hike in the woods turned into a three hour trek that totaled, “round trip”, over two miles. A lot of that was picking our way over rocks, climbing over rocks, and in some areas scrabbling up inclines. Oy. I had a few “oh shit” moments when I was scared shitless that Ryan or one of the other boys was going to tumble over the edge of the mountain, but thankfully they all heeded our stern and only slightly desperate commands to “Go no further!” and “Don’t go past that rock!” and “It’s time to come back!” and “If you fall over I am not coming down after you” and “DON’T YOU DARE MOVE A SINGLE INCH FURTHER OR SO HELP ME GOD.” It’s always a good day when you take six autistic boys for a two mile mountain hike and emerge from the woods unscathed, with the exception of a minor scrape or two. And here’s a funny moment: I spent all day dragging myself and various kids over rocks and boulders and up and down the side of mountains, and I do just fine, even when I had a 10 lb backpack strapped to my back and a six pound camera slung across my body. Nary a single trip or even a tiny teeter. Yet when I go to walk down a step, a man made step with a railing and everything, I stumble and almost fall down and break my damn neck.

After we were finished with trekking through the woods, checking out the various outlooks, and enjoying the gorgeous views offered at each outlook (I don’t think I have ever been so high or have ever been able to look so far out, except maybe in a few choice locations in Pittsburgh, and of course when I was flying to/from Type-A-Mom in 2010), we all settled down for lunch, with us parents overseeing the kids’ eating, and trading drinks/snacks back and forth to compensate for what we each forgot to bring along. Ha. Then we headed into the gift shop to let the kids pick out mementos, and then we herded everyone to the cars and headed off for a stop at a Cabela’s on the way home.

Cabela’s. Ugh. Sporting goods store on steroids, hello. I really dislike the store simply for the sheer amount of dead animals on display. Now, I’m not a member of PETA or anything, but the sheer number and types of animals on display are appalling. I can overlook the deer, even though I find it unsettling. But lions? Polar bears? Buffalo? Lynx? Monkeys? Rhinos? Elephants? So not necessary. The blatant and obviously proud display of all of those animals makes me not want to drop a dime in that store, even though Dan was having a total mangasm in the guns section. Oy. Thankfully, we didn’t spend a lot of time there. Dan was tired, the kids were getting antsy and were tired, and my head was pounding (I don’t get it – gorgeous day, no barometric changes, so why the migraine? Altitude changes? That’s the only thing that comes to mind…).

Needless to say, after such a long day, we had an easy, early night. Dan took a short nap while I showered and then gave Alyssa and Ryan each a quick bath. Then Dan ran out to pick up pizza, and after we ate and cleaned up we all hung out in the living room. Dan and Alyssa played Castelvania together, while Ryan and I laid together on the couch discussing owls and playing Cross Fingers on my iPod Touch. By 10:00pm we were all in bed.

Today was a much-needed sleeping in day, after my silly children popped up at 6:00am. I dragged myself out of bed for good a little after 9 (my thighs seriously protested the movement after yesterday’s hike). It’s been an easygoing day. Alyssa gave me her Mother’s Day gifts (so sweet! I love homemade gifts the best. ♥), Ryan gave me his again even though he gave them to me originally on Friday (silly boy just couldn’t wait), and we went to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch.

Speaking of Mother’s Day – Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers and mothers-to-be! ♥

Right now we’re all just hanging out. I think Dan is making pancakes for dinner. I want to go shower and put some pink dye in my hair, as today is really the only time I’ll have time to do it – these next few weeks are going to be busy busy busy.

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Coincidentally, tomorrow morning Ryan’s Boy Scout troop has a hike planned at an outdoor trail/bird sanctuary that is an hour or so away from us, so the oil change, tire rotation, and the impromptu topping off of the gas tank on the way home were all perfect timing.

With that said, I am heading off to shower, then to start Fifty Shades of Darker, and then off to la-la-land, because my alarm is set for 6:00am. On a Saturday. Ick. But it’s supposed to be a beautiful day, and you know I’m taking my camera (and a few lenses) with me! ♥

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Spring has decided to explode all around us. Literally. I opened our back door this afternoon to put Leah outside and was greeted by a literal shower of flower petals and tiny leaves and little buds and god knows what from all of the trees and bushes and flowers and various other plants that are all around us (we are surrounded by farms, fields, and woods). Dan took Ryan to Boy Scouts this evening, came home, and I swear he dragged spring in the door with him, because not five minutes after we were cuddling together¹ on the couch my throat started itching and my eyes started watering. That was nearly half an hour ago and my throat still feels clogged and I can’t stop coughing. Argh. At least the migraines have gone away… allergy-induced fogs aren’t conducive to work, but they’re much more pleasant to live with.

Currently reading: E L James – Fifty Shades of Grey

I’ve been sucked in. I’m slightly embarrassed (but not so much as to not write this) to admit that I read about 80 pages, then dragged Dan into the bedroom for some glorious somewhat-book-induced sex.

I just pulled cat fur from my eyelashes. That’s no surprise, seeing as how this morning I tackled Kirin with the ShedMonster, and when I was done I had a pile of fur next to me, and more fur all over me. Though to be honest it wasn’t much of a tackle, and more of a massage. After the first few strokes Kirin decided he lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvved the ShedMonster, and laid on the floor purring away while I went to town on him.

Not a bad job for a $12 product (Target).

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

One productive thing I did today was put together a preliminary to-do outline for BlogHer 2012. This year I’m going not just as a blogger, but also as an official representative for EdenFantasys. I’m also going to be manning the booth at the conference. Yikes! I’m just a little daunted by the task ahead of me. Don’t get me wrong… it’s fun, I know it sounds like fun, but it’s also work. A lot of work. It’s stressful. It’s time consuming. It’s exhausting. Last time (2010), it was so much work, time-consuming, and exhausting, that I came home with bronchitis. Hopefully that won’t happen again. ;)

Dan went out to dinner with his former boss, so it was just me and my migraine, and the kidlets and I. I made garlic-flavored breaded flounder, sweet potato puffs (like regular “tater tots”, only better), and mixed vegetables. I liked all of it, Alyssa only liked the vegetables, and Ryan only liked the breading on the fish, but whatever. I grew up eating some meals that I wasn’t anything more than indifferent or tolerant of, and that’s just how it goes sometimes. It’s unrealistic to expect to love or even like everything. Just eat it and be glad it’s not something that you actively dislike.

After dinner, we drifted off to do our own things, though I originally intended on us all settling down to watch a movie and eat blue-colored microwave popcorn (that sounds SO good right now, except that I just brushed my teeth and used teeth-whitening mouthwash). But Ryan told me he was “bored with everything”, and Alyssa wanted to go play Minecraft. I suggested a few activities for Ryan, who finally settled on building with his train tracks after we read a book. Alyssa asked me for help with adding Dragon Mount to her Minecraft installation. Add what to the what? Sorry kid, but you’re asking the wrong parent. Need to troubleshoot an XHTML compliancy issue? Can’t figure out a floating DIV issue? Want to play with lenses and bokeh Photoshop actions? Come to Mama. But computer game add-on mod stuff? Daddy’s where it’s at. I took a crack at the mod add-on – following the instructions of a YouTube video – but I failed apparently. Meh. I gave it my best shot, when I didn’t feel like giving it any shot at all, and thankfully Alyssa didn’t seem to be too disappointed. At that point it was 7:35pm and my head was extra throbbity, so I was like, “Whoops, it’s bed time! I’ll have Daddy try to get it working tomorrow while you’re at school, and hopefully when you get home tomorrow afternoon it’ll be all ready for you to play with dragons!”, and that was that.

I’m still Imitrex-less (though I have a sufficient supply of vitamin B-12, thank you), so I think tonight is going to be a Tylenol PM kind of night. Normal sleepiness plus the extra kick of drowsiness provided by the sleep-inducing goodness in Tylenol PM will hopefully be enough to override this migraine and lull me to sleep. Nighty night!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty