Home again, home again; jiggety jig...

So... I have been hiding away in the mountains of Nevada for the past week. I have to say... hiding is fun sometimes ;D... but it got to be too much hiding, and so we had to come home. I missed home... North Carolina really does feel like home and I love it!! But, we had a great time visiting Tony's family in Nevada. His parents live in an undisclosed location-- which I will never tell, lest it becomes discovered and more people move in and ruin it for them-- ha, ha!! They live outside of Virginia City, NV; up a big steep hill from Reno, NV and it is a fun getaway. We spent our week playing in the snow, mud and rocks. We spent three days skiing (the boys made two of those days) at Mt. Rose, and Sugarbowl in CA; we bowled, went out for Thai, Tony made a UNR basketball game with his brother, and I caught up on some reading. And of COURSE, we found a way to stop in at the bookstore while we were there... We did other things, too; but you get the idea :)

We even made it back without too much hassle-- our baggage on the other hand, did not. It should be arriving tomorrow morning sometime. Not so thrilled about that, but it is not really high on my radar right now. Unfortunately, I'm already taking inventory of my week, calculating the hours in my days and the amount I need to cram into them... and my little internal calculator just blew up-- guess I'll have to spend another week on vacation!! HA! And of course, you know the "coming home" drill-- look through all the mail, listen to all the phone messages, delete-- I mean, READ all the emails... Then try to make sense of it all. Well, my happy surprise mail I got to open was my passport in the mail-- that wasn't supposed to come until the end of March or even April. My UNHAPPY mail was the State of Maryland telling me that they couldn't process mine or Tony's fingerprints because the prints were "illegible", and we must have them redone. They kindly included a training letter that I guess we are supposed to "offer" to our local officers in case they need extra "training" on how to take fingerprints??? Of course the training is offered in Maryland and so really it is for MARYLAND officials-- yet somehow we received this bit of information... whatever. The best part is they cashed our checks-- they didn't actually do anything, but they still cashed my checks... Nice. So, now I get to call them tomorrow and try to make sense of their chaos...

My other unhappy mail was a letter I have been waiting for from our family coordinator from our agency which she was supposed to sign and have notarized so we could then go have have it sent BACK to VA for certification... this would be a second attempt on this particular letter-- the first one was notarized wrong and therefore rejected by the Commonwealth of VA. When I finally got the second one, it looked good at first and I thought it was HAPPY mail-- but it turns out that the notary forgot to put her seal on the document-- kind of important when you are notarizing something!! I'm glad I caught it BEFORE I sent it back for try #2! Guess I have to get this paper figured out, now, too. But... I just got back from vacation... I am refreshed and ready to handle all these minor challenges!!

Now, while I was in Nevada, I had time to try to process some things-- like running and why there is such a lack of it lately and how much I hate that and what I am going to do about it. Now, we have a plan ("we"-- meaning Tony and I) to get me running again... I figure maybe if I post it, then I am more accountable and more likely to be guilted-- I mean, motivated to follow through! The goal is 20 miles a week. I almost went into sharing my plan-- that is probably boring for 99% of you :)... BUT; I am GOING to get over this running slump!! Sooner rather than later!

I know I processed lots of other things-- but that is for me and God alone :) Trips are good... home is wonderful... my life is full and rich and blessed!