Packed and Ready to Go!

Very uncharacteristically for me - I am ready to go!  We are leaving til tomorrow morning, but my suitcase is packed, complete with toothbrush!  I have no idea what happened to me, but it is such a nice feeling to know I don't have to have a last night before we go panic!

Lucky too, since Mom wants to take us out to dinner and Whitney needs a babysitter tonight!  I am fairly certain we can squeeze both things in too.  The dinner was not a surprise and we had hoped Whitney could join us, but she has a new manager who seems not to understand that Whitney is a single parent and cannot chop and change her work schedule in the middle of the week.  The manager even suggested using "her parents" to take care of Corbyn!  Call me old fashioned, but being taken for granted is (marginally) acceptable when it is your own kids doing it, but when one of their employers begins to take us for granted - it is just wrong!  I know Corbyn's other grandma - Jane and her mother - Nan, will step in the gap we are leaving, but I wonder if they know just how big that gap can get sometimes?  I am not impressed with the sound of this new manager and wish this did not happen days before Alan and I leave the country.

I always try to enjoy Corbyn a bit more when he is with us on the rundown to us going away.  It seems a bit selfish when I think about how much my parents missed by us living so far away, but I know in those 2 weeks there will be big changes in Corbyn, in his vocabulary and possibly even his outlook on life.  He is so much fun now, I can't imagine the changes but I will look forward to seeing him when we get back.  Just one example of how funny he can be:  on the way to nursery school yesterday, we were going to get something to eat at Morrison's.  With Whitney's schedule, I have to pick him up one hour before he needs to be at school.  On the way there, I reminded Corbyn that he could not get a magazine (he likes to get the kiddie magazines with toys on them).  I told him he doesn't read them so no point in buying them.  Corbyn indignantly informed me that he DOES read books.  So I had to remind him, yes he reads books, but he does not read magazines.  Then I had to remind myself he is only 2 and we are discussing his reading matter!


"Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said." ~Author Unknown

I am as tall as a blue whale's heart!

We are still getting ready for our cruise next week!  Part of going on any trip is the pain of packing.  It is doubled for me, especially after a pretty disappointing summer in Scotland.  I have loads of nice summer clothes and usually can't get enough wear out of them in one season here.  So there are many more clothes I want to take and many I am going to have to leave here for another time.  I read a quote one time that said when packing for a trip - pack your clothes and get out your money then take away half the clothes and double the money!  I think more than half the clothes are going to have to go!

This is one definite going with me! And as soon as I see another of these little dresses, I will get it too. This one came from St Maarten.

One benefit of having two spare bedrooms is that Alan and I each have a room to put our suitcases and plan what we are bringing.  My packing room is Whitney's old room or our "nicer" guestroom.  Since the other room remains Martin's room at least until his internship year at ESPN is over, it is really the only guestroom! 

I have managed to totally trash this room setting out absolutely everything I want to take with me!  I am now at the point where I am clearing this room.  Last night, while clearing it, I found a Christmas present I either forgot to give Corbyn or that Whitney did not take with her when they moved out.  It is the cutest little(?) wall chart to record growth.  I loved it because it measures things in what you as tall as.  Corbyn is just about as tall as a 4 year old now (that was not taken from this chart!) so we have missed the time when he might have been as tall as an Oscar or maybe even a King Penguin.  I can't wait to see what he will be as tall as when we get him over on Sunday!  And this wall chart goes really high so I am curious what Alan will be as tall as!  But I am thrilled to be as tall as a Blue Whale's Heart!  I knew Blue Whale's are big, to say the least, but if I am as tall as their hearts, just how big is the body that can hold something that big!

 “Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.”

Finding a Title

I didn't realize what a big part of my blog is to the total experience of our trips!  I more or less stumbled on doing the first one due to hefty jet lag and nothing else to do.  Now I regularly refer back to the blogs I have done when planning another trip or even when watching a tv program.  Like last week when Billy Connolly was in Williams, AZ on Memorial Day!  I knew we were in Williams close to Memorial Day and was able to look at exactly what we had done and when we were there.  (not on the actual day, but on the weekend anyway - and the year before he was there.)  I think if I did a regular blog, it would not be so easy to find exactly what I would like to look back on.

Alan and I are just about to leave for another cruise!  Even finding what to do for this year's holiday was a struggle because it would be easy and comfortable to always go back to places we have enjoyed before. I know Alan would be happy to go back to Niagara Falls on a regular basis and I would love to just go home and be with family for a week or so.  But as long as I am still working, our time is very limited.  I also believe we need respite from all the responsibilities we have here.  Although Martin and Whitney have left home, we are still not footloose and fancy free!  We are still tied to Whitney 6 days a week with a minimum of either transport for Corbyn to get to his nursery school or child minder or having Corbyn overnight every Sunday (which is great fun), my Mom still lives with us (she does take care of herself but still needs to be checked up on) and, of course, our dog, Bailey! 

It took months of negotiation for us to agree on where to go and cost was an issue too - otherwise it would have been the Alaska cruise!  (this has now been put on hold indefinitely - far too expensive to do it the way we would like to).  We even considered just travelling a week or so through England, ending up in London to visit Martin.  However, this transatlantic cruise jumped out at us and sounded fantastic!  We will leave Southampton and have 8 days at sea!  Not all at once though - 3 days then Madeira - 5 days then 4 Caribbean islands!  Including St Maarten!  Alan and I really enjoyed the sea days on our last cruise so this cruise really appealed to us, and going Transatlantic just sounds amazing to me.

Two views from last year - to get in the right frame of mind!

There are two major hurdles to getting my head around this trip though - the obvious one is how to pack! This is not a tropical holiday, or is it?  What is the weather like being at sea for so long? Will there be any hurricanes we need to skirt?  All that sort of thing, and having to fit in one suitcase!  In the old days, one suitcase would have been full of shoes! 

The other hurdle was finding a title for this blog!  I started worrying about it a week ago!  Nothing sounded right....I looked all over for sayings, quotes from poems, anything. Then my experience yesterday made me come up with this title!

I was supposed to go to Arran for a day of work but the weather was deteriorating dramatically and the ferries were on amber alert - meaning they could be cancelled anytime.  My manager, Nina, and I talked it over a few times on my way to Ardrossan to catch the ferry.  Pulling over every time and that was putting pressure on me to get there on time, but the discussion needed to happen. At one point I even asked Nina if I got stuck on Arran could she put me up? (of course and I would have loved that too).  Looking at the weather this morning, I now realize if I had gone yesterday, I would have gotten stuck and not been able to get home today either! 

This reminded me of not getting to Grand Turk last year.  We could not dock due to high winds and fast currents and no tugboat available.  This was the only island where I had booked a trip and I was really looking forward to riding a horse on the beach and then swimming with it.  Not meant to be.

So I am making a point not to get too excited about any one aspect of our up and coming cruise.  All things are weather permitting and that is how it should be!

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain." ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow