My parents arrived right around dinner time on a Thursday evening. And of course, I was in the middle of a cooking catastrophe. I had planned to make meatloaf (one of my favorite meals) that day and when hubby called and asked what we were having, after I told him, he made the comment that he sure wished he could help me with the menu planning because he can always count that at least one night a week we have meatloaf and another night we have grilled pork chops. Now, one reason why I hate Monday's is because that's the day I go to the grocery store. It also happens to be the day it literally takes me two hours to come up with a menu for the week. And I'll admit, yes, I'm guilty of making the same things repetitively. I can't help it! However, I don't beat myself up because I know if it were up to Greg we would have tortilla soup and chicken burritos at least once a week! But, I digress. Back to the meatloaf. Since he made that comment I decided to make the meatloaf like one of his grandma's makes. It happens to be the recipe on the back of the Lipton onion soup mix. I thought I had all of the ingredients. Until I started to make it. One ingredient was ketchup. I had ketchup...just not enough ketchup. So this is how my parents arrival went:
Note: a prior phone call from my mom, who was lost in my neighborhood (seriously who would name all the streets in a neighborhood the same name?) resulted in me telling her to just "come on in because I'll have raw meat all over my hands" when she got to my house.
Mom: "Hello, we're here!"
Me: *frantically* "OK, I'm having a little catastrophe! I don't have enough ketchup! *banging of ketchup bottle on the counter top*
Mom: "Uh-oh"
Me: "I gotta go to the store! Make yourselves at home!" *dashing out the door*
Yup, that is what life is like in my house. Sounds exciting, huh? Needless to say, I finally got the ketchup and dinner went off without a hitch. Oh, except Greg decided that he liked the old way I make meatloaf better because it's less greasy! (I am proud to say that I haven't cooked meatloaf since then! I'm working on it!)
The next day, Friday, Greg and I had a lot of errands that were pertinent to be taken care of. Unfortunately they took up most of the morning and my parents had opted to stay at home. That afternoon we just hung out around the house. I did ask my mom to help me with a project though because *surprise* I just wasn't motivated to do it. I know I could have, but the idea of having my mom help me just sounded much more appealing. That project was to make new pillows and pillow coverings for a rocking chair that Greg and I were refurbishing. The rocking chair has kind of a funny story. I'm probably about to get in trouble by Greg's side of the family for telling it, too! But, years ago Greg's dad gave us the rocking chair that his mom used to rock him in when he was a baby. Greg told his dad that he didn't want it, but his dad wouldn't hear anything of it. We both thought it was ugly (sorry) and therefore we always kept it in the garage of every house we ever lived in. Let's just say that by the time it arrived in Colorado it had definitely seen better days. The fabric was covered in dust and I was a little scared to sit in it because the bottom was made with lawn chair strips. But, Greg and I decided to give it a little TLC. We ripped all the fabric and cushions off and chucked them. Then, I wood filled all the holes and marks that were in the wood. Next, Greg sanded it and painted it white. He also re-stapled the lawn chair strips to make them sturdier. After that it was up to me to make pillows. That was easier said than done because the rocking chair is kind of an odd size. I did find one pillow that worked for the back and ended up just demolishing an actual bed pillow to make the seat cushion. The hardest part was finding upholstery fabric in this little town. In the end, I got creative (which is a stretch for me) and bought a fabric shower curtain and just used that!
By the time my Mom was at my house I had partially finished one pillow. All I needed to do was stitch the fabric closed. Luckily, my mom saw what I was about to do and told me how to do it so it would look more "professional". I knew there was a reason I was procrastinating! I let her take over the actual sewing and went about tearing up my bed pillow. We worked on them for a little while longer and then decided to finish them up the next day. My parents are pretty cute in the sense that despite the fact that they are in their 70's and late 60's, they go on a date every Friday night. Usually dinner and a movie. So Greg and I thought they might enjoy going to the one screen movie theatre here in town. I was a little worried they would have already seen the movie playing, because movies don't usually show up here until they've been out for a month or two. Luckily, it was a kid's movie, "The Tooth Fairy" so they hadn't seen it. It was actually pretty cute! After that it was time to go home and hit the sack!
Saturday morning was again a lazy day at the house. Luckily, it also gave my mom and I chance to finish the pillows. I was beyond happy! It felt so good to have another piece of furniture in place in the nursery before my baby shower the next day!
That afternoon I drove my parents around to do some sight seeing. We went to the wind farm south of town (Greg opted to stay home...that's the last thing he wants to see on his day off!). Not because my parents hadn't seen one before, but because at this wind farm the property owners put wooden windmills next to the big wind turbines. It's kind of funny! I always think, "past meets present" when I see it.
From there I took them to Two Buttes. From the highway it looks completely flat (like all of SE Colorado) but once you get in there it drops down to a canyon and there's a water hole there. It was a little chilly out so we didn't last there for very long. I forgot my camera, so here's a pic I took at "the hole" the first summer we came to town. If you look real close, you'll notice that's actually a person jumping off of the cliff into the water. Legend has it that divers have gone down and cannot find the bottom of this water hole. That's what all the locals say anyway!
The rest of our day was spent at home hanging out. If you read my blog about my baby shower, you already know that on Sunday we took them out to lunch then came home for the festivities. The baby shower was a lot of fun and I was happy that my mom was there to celebrate it with me.
They left early Monday morning. If things work out well, they will be making the trip back up here in just 5 weeks to meet my sweet baby boy!!
P.S. In case you're wondering why I didn't post any pics of the completed rocking chair...that's because I forgot to take one of it by itself. And a before picture would have been nice, too, huh? Oh well! I finished decorating the nursery this weekend so stay tuned for pics and you'll see the rocking chair there!
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