ZZZZ

[lesliepear]

What a busy weekend! And hot also (unusual for around here, it usually rains Memorial Day weekend).

I took off Friday so Mark and I could go with Alan on his class trip to the zoo. He did pretty well. The class had to wait a bit for the butterfly exhibit to open because a politician was late getting there and Alan got restless. After we toured the butterfly exhibit – they went to the dinosaur exhibit. That was basically a maze of panels with information on them. There was one spot where you could put on dinosaur feet and walk in sand – Alan just like going in the sand. Then we saw the rest of the zoo – Alan enjoyed it more than our last visit when he was in zoom through mode. Afterwards his class had a snack and then they headed back – no time for the train. We took Alan home with us instead. On the way back I picked up a free rental car as mine wasn’t going to be ready until Tuesday due to the steering wheel column repair.

Then in the afternoon, I headed down to my SIL’s to help her disconnect things and move stuff. I also stopped at Lowes and Target – did a little me shopping and brought her some handy stuff. Traffic was a mess going that way to Jersey City. We moved some stuff that afternoon, I unplugged lots of electronics (she had lots of electronics – her late SO was a techie). Even though she was moving to the same apartment on the other side 2 buildings down – it was a big schlep. And the new apartment has 1 big and one small closet, the old one had 2 big closets, so she was decluttering like crazy. We ate Chinese – and then when I was about to load my car with castoffs and dropoffs, a thunderstorm hit. So I didn’t get home till after 11 PM. I ended up stopping at McDonalds for coffee to keep awake. I was very glad that the rental was basically the same as my car, except blue as it wouldn’t have been a good day to try a different car.

Saturday morning I got a call my car was ready (nice surprise). So I headed back to dealer, put my stuff I needed to take elsewhere into my car, drove the rental back (2 blocks) and got a ride back to my car. Returned stuff to Target, stopped at Shoprite, then headed home. Later we went to lunch at Lodi Buffet (the one with the fish) – and then went to Kmart and Dollar Tree. Kmart had 3 of the Hot Wheels Cars we were looking for (I got a 20.00 gift certificate for Fisher Price/Mattel stuff for returning a defective toy which expired 5/31). We passed on them at that time…thought there were more elsewhere. (It turns out those were the only 3 I saw all weekend…probably because they were sort of buried). Alan took a nap, got up late and went to bed late. So we had a quiet evening at home.

After waking up too early on Sunday morning we went to get more stuff – went to the Farmer’s Market, Corrados, Big Lots and Dollar Tree. (a different Dollar Tree) – then to Toys R Us to see if we could find the cars. They didn’t have them at all. So I figured we (Mark and I) would stop on my way to SIL’s at Walmart and try there. My MIL was watching Alan as her apartment (old or new) was in no condition for him to play in. We ended up getting 2 of the bigger Shake and Go cars for Alan – all the hot wheel sized ones were gone. And since they were Fisher Price, I did discover that the sound could be TURNED OFF!

At my SIL’s we carried and boxed and bagged. Mark took a nap for a bit. But we were all tired and grumpy and hot after a while. Mark and SIL had a little fight, which I missed. I also wanted to make sure SIL didn’t throw anything out that she’d regret – not to declutter for decluttering sake only.

But one funny thing happened while we were emptying the apartment out. Jackie’s SO died 5 years ago somehow falling off a train (we’ll never know what happened). At our wedding 2 months afterwards, the top of the wedding cake collapsed suddenly. We’ve always joked it was her SO as he loved sugar. One of the latter things we emptied was the cabinet over the fridge – the hinge was always broken on it so it hung crookedly – and no one every really uses those cabinets much. A little while later Jackie and I were talking and we heard a big BANG – the door had fallen off after all the years – I think her SO was telling us something again!

Came home tired, exhausted and frazzled close to 9 PM. By the time we got stuff into my MILs car and ate dinner and all went to bed, it was after 11. But Alan loved the cars we got him!

Monday I did laundry. I also had to unload the car from the night before (we’d brought my vacuum down to help), I was also straightening some papers up off the inbox (aka dinning room table). And I was planting 2 plants on the deck when the buzzer rang and the first of our friends came. I wasn’t feeling so social at that point…I was still ech from the day before. But eventually everyone came and we went to the street fair which I posted about earlier. After the fair, Mark went with 2 friends to Trader Joe’s and Alan and I stayed home. I needed it. Alan didn’t nap, but he was happy watching tv.

The last event of the weekend was dinner at my cousins in Ridgewood. My cousin and his SO were there and his 3 kids (15, 12, 9). Alan had lots of fun playing with them – he is getting much more social. It’s been neat watching them grow over the years – I remember when the youngest was a 3 month old baby! The 5 second cousins (3 in NJ, 2 in CA) on my mom’s side will be Alan’s cousins since he won’t have any first cousins. Alan didn’t eat much, but was pretty good natured. He did apparently tear a page in an old (antique) book my cousin had that he was “reading”, but my cousin didn’t mind.

I dropped Mark and Alan off and went to get milk at Shoprite. I thought it would rain, but it didn’t. When I got back my cousin on my dad’s side called, so it was a while before Alan got to bed. My MIL had also dropped off yet some more (requested) stuff from my SIL’s place (I think she’s done). So Alan got to bed late and was grumpy this morning.

We have one more friend stopping by tonight (visiting from CA). I’ll be glad for a few quiet nights at home so we can declutter OUR place and now that SILs moved it should be more peaceful.

Comments

[butterflymama3.livejournal.com]

Your weekend sounds even busier than ours. Don't you wish for some time alone to catch up on what you didn't get to do for yourself? We were so busy this weekend that nothing got done at our house at all. Which means that tonight is going to be laundry, dishes, etc.

[silent-ic-river.livejournal.com]

Busy, busy you.

[rodluvan.livejournal.com]

It sounds you had very busy. You have hot, but we still have cool weather it is +9C now.