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Our children hit the Strohl’s house like a little hoard of water-weary pirates. They quickly made themselves at home and proceeded to ransack and pillage. Most of the pillaging was of finished craft projects made from supplies provided by Donna. Although they also acquired further supplies for future projects here at home. The first of these projects was fuse beads which had the advantage of taking a long time to complete. This meant that the quantity to bring home was fewer. The suncatchers were a different story. Kiki managed to paint 20 of those in a single day. Gleek nearly matched this output. The boys did a single car each and called it good. Gleek also acquired a spare clear plastic merry-go-round designed to be colored. She got this merely by asking for it. The tactic was sufficiently effective that when it came time for us to go home, Gleek asked to take home some of the Strohl girl’s toys. I told her no firmly, but she did get a little easter chick as a going away gift. The other kids each got one as well.

The Strohl house was not the only source of new stuff. Kiki scored a copy of Girl Genius from Phil Folio himself. He even signed it for her. She squealed in delight. When we visited Wizard’s of the Coast Stacy gave us piles of Neopets cards and DuelMaster cards. The kids tore divided the piles with glee. I tried to stash all the cards away to keep them safe, but various children kept demanding them. Patches was particularly adamant about wanting his cards. He still carries around a little stack of Neopet cards for portions of each day. He loves to sit and sort them. None of my kids have a clue how to play the games asociated with the cards, but they’re sure that the cards are super cool. Some of the stuff we acquired we actually paid for. Gleek bought a stuffed seahorse at the aquarium. Patches bought a scuba diver play set. Link bought a game called “Don’t tip the Penguins!” Howard wasn’t to be left out. He bought a set of Girl Genius welding goggles. The kids all covet those goggles.

I’m not above doing a little pillaging myself. When I visited Kreely, she gave me free run to peruse her bookshelf and borrow a stack. I tried to be careful and selective, but part of me just wanted to shovel books into a box and run off with them. I now have a lovely stack of books waiting for me to find the time to read them all. This is a wonderful improvement over wandering through the house, bored because I’ve nothing to read.

So, lots of pillaging. But at least we’re polite pillagers. We always got permission first.

The ransacking was also by permission. Mostly it took place on the night of Thursday March 29. That was the night of the Schlockfest. The adults all hung around upstairs talking and eating yummy food. The kids all stayed downstairs watching movie after movie. They did make frequent forays into the kitchen to grab food and retreat. By the time the evening was over the downstairs was a jumble of toys, costumes, movies, chips, spilled drinks, and assorted other smashed or crushed food items. It definitely had the morning-after-a-wild-party thing going on. The next morning all the little pirates were required to help un-ransack the downstairs. I tried to make sure that it was put back as nicely as it had been before we arrived. I’m not sure I totally succeeded. Donna had everything so beautifully clean and organized. I’m just not sure everything got put back where it should have gone.

Now that the pirates are all at home I think I’ll make them all write thank you notes. See, we’re polite pirates.

My intention for today was to continue blogging about Seattle and to do some yardwork. Instead I was lured into the world of possibilities inherent in curtains. I browsed in Walmart’s clearance aisle and found beautiful curtains. Or rather a single panel of beautiful curtain. Unfortunately to hang them in my house I need a pair. I quested to a second Walmart to see if I could get lucky and find another panel. No such luck. (HomeTrends Crewel. If you happen to see them, email me and tell me where.) While I was browsing curtains I picked up some other possibilities for other rooms in my home. I’m not sure any of them will pan out, but I have a receipt. Then I realized that if I re-arranged the girl’s room I could give them some additional space and potentially I can hang canopies over their beds. So I dove into that project. Remembering my intention to do yard work, I finally put the supporting cross pieces on our grape arbor. The job on that is kind of sloppy, but hopefully in two years it will be so covered in grapes that no one will ever know.

In all, my brain was busy spinning plans all day long. Not once did I quietly create a space for continuing to blog about Seattle. I need to make myself slow down some, but making my home prettier is so much fun. It is also expensive. I need to take back some of those curtain panels which aren’t really what I want after all.

Our last two or three major road trip have all included vomit in the car. Usually we manage to bring the flu with us and generously give it away to all my relatives. I think I might change our family name to Vector. We’ll be the Vectors. When Patches came down with flu 10 days prior to our Seattle departure, I considered it inevitable. I was actually a little glad. Perhaps this time we’d be done with the vomiting before the trip. But just in case I packed a bucket in the car.

That did seem to be the case. One by one the flu mowed my children flat. One by one they got better. Then we left for our trip. On the day we left, I honestly thought we were all better. I did not think that anyone was still contagious. Then we arrived in Boise and I realized that I was not feeling well. Nor was Howard. And Link was still running to the bathroom a lot. Apparently I was in contagion denial. By the time we left Boise, we were all well. Unfortunately within 8 hours of our departure my sister’s entire family was mowed flat by the flu. They were still recovering on the following Monday and we decided to drive straight home rather than risk re-infection. Also my sister sounded so tired on the phone and I didn’t want to give her any more work.

I feel guilty about making them all sick. I’m tired of bringing new and exciting illnesses to give to my relatives. But I’m really glad that none of us were sick during our stay in Seattle. We enjoyed the trip. And the just-in-case bucket was not used once.

My kids have been excited about the trip to Seattle for more than a month. They announced “We’re going to Seattle!” to anyone who would listen. But for all their anticipation, they really had no idea what to expect. When we arrived at the Strohl house, Patches and Gleek’s fondest dreams were realized. There were kids to play with and new toys and a dog and cats. Kiki’s joy was focused on the dog and a promised dip in the hot tub. Link got out of the car and found himself faced with a strange house full of strange people, cats which would make him wheeze, and a large, friendly, bouncing dog. Link wanted to get back into the car and drive back to Boise.

The next hour for Link was filled with fear and anxiety. He shut himself into one of the downstairs rooms and lay on the floor crying quiet tears. He’d been so looking forward to the trip and now he’d arrived and it was full of worrisome things. At first I did not realize what Link was doing. I was busy talking with the Strohls and getting settled. Then I looked around and only found three of my four kids. The Strohls, wonderful hosts that they are, took the dog to go stay at a neighbor’s house for awhile. I carried Link upstairs and sat him on my lap. I didn’t force him to talk to anyone. I didn’t try to make him happy. I didn’t try to show him all the cool things about the house. I just required him to sit where he could begin to acclimate rather than huddling and feeling miserable. Within 15 minutes Link was starting to feel comfortable. Within an hour he was down on the floor playing Legos with the Strohl’s son. The next morning we reintroduced the dog, which gave Link a little renewed anxiety, but not much. He had another moment of anxiety when we returned to the Strohls after two days in a hotel. But over all he adapted well and once he was comfortable he had a great time.

Watching Link’s anxiety and helping him overcome it made me realize that Link doesn’t get exposed to new experiences as often as he should. He is content to play at home or with a few familiar friends. He makes friends slowly as people become familiar. Most of our trips involve staying with relatives. Link’s whole life keeps him in a comfort zone. When he is forced outside that comfort zone, he reacts with fear and anxiety. The world is not always going to provide him with comfortable experiences. If I do not teach him how to deal with things that make him anxious, I will have failed him as a parent. I need to consciously expose Link to things which will be good for him, but which he doesn’t necessarily want to do. I need to choose these experiences carefully. The important thing is to teach him how to deal with anxiety and fear, not to make him miserable. We’ll be taking another family trip to new places, possibly next year. That is good, but I also need to provide smaller experiences here at home. I’ll have to do some thinking to figure out what they might be.

We arrived at my sister’s house in Boise on Monday March 26. My sister’s house is a familiar and comfortable place. The kids all disappeared to play with cousins and I had leisure to look around at the things my sister has changed since I was last there. She has done quite a bit of re-decorating. Her front room in particular has taken on a very comfortable and finished feel. I noted in particular how most of her wall decorations were things other than framed pictures. She had candle holders and floral arrangements and wire artworks. I really like that. Now I want to do more with my walls than just hang framed pictures on them.

Then on Wednesday March 28 we arrived in Seattle. The Strohl’s house is beautiful. Every room was clean and had objects in it whose only purpose was to add beauty to the room. But the house was also definitely arranged for people and kids to live in. I did not feel like I had to carefully not touch anything. Donna also had candle holders and wire things on her walls. The guest room where we stayed had a canopied bed and a little table and chairs with a fountain trickling quietly in one corner. It was like a peaceful little sanctuary. Several times during the visit I retreated down there to just sit and soak up the tranquility. A chorus of frogs sang outside my window only adding to the beauty of the place.

I sat in that place and thought about my house. My house isn’t beautiful. It has some beautiful things in it, but mostly the house itself is a container for my things. I realized that I want my house to be a Place. I want it to have character. The only way for it to acquire that is for me to put some time and effort into making it beautiful. I need to do some remodeling. Nothing major, just repainting and adding small touches here and there. Also I need to do some cleaning. I realized that if I’ll just scrub things a little more often, that will go a long way toward making my house more beautiful. I made plans to start on the scrubbing as soon as I got home and to evaluate how much money we can afford to put toward home improvement projects.

Then on Tuesday April 3 at 2 am I arrived home. I walked in the front door and was greeted by warmth and the smell of home. The surroundings were uncluttered because I’d picked up before we left and I was able to settle into this place that is mine. Being home again made me realize that my home is not ugly. It is a little worn and needs some renewal, but it is a good house with potential to be a wonderful house. I still remember having a delivery guy glance in our front room and ask if we are artistic people because our front room seemed artistic. I like that. I want my home to tell about me. I want my home to be welcoming and comfortable and beautiful. And like anything else, I’ll only achieve that as far as I’m willing to put in some work to make it happen.

Since our return from Seattle on Tuesday I have been asked “how was your trip?” more times than I’ve bothered to count. Usually that question is immediately followed by “Did you have fun?” These questions seem easy to answer, but they’re not. How was my trip? Did I have fun? Well there was definitely some fun involved, but I can’t say the whole trip was an unmitigated delight. I could have done without getting lost 3 of the 4 times I drove in the Seattle area. I learned a lot the challenges of combining a family vacation with a business trip. Some things worked other things didn’t. The kids and I got to go new places and see things we’d never seen before. Seeing those places with my kids was really good, but it was a very different experience from going by myself. This trip was not often relaxing, but it was definitely a good thing to do. I fully intend to do “vacation to new places” again, although I think next time I’ll arrange for Howard to be on vacation too. He worked the convention all weekend.

All the places we went and things that we saw sparked a bazillion thoughts in my brain. There were many blogworthy ideas and events. Thus far I haven’t blogged any of them, but I took notes and over the next week or so I’m hoping to go through them all and get the entries written. I’ve discovered that I really need mental space to process my experiences and to write about them. During the whole trip to Seattle I ran from event to event until I crashed into bed at night. Even in the times that I scheduled as “down times” for the kids, I was still on duty watching to make sure that kids didn’t drown in the hotel swimming pool or squabble over property rights. It wasn’t until the long drive home that my brain was able to process all the things that happened. I drifted half asleep while my mind wandered then I’d wake up and make notes about my brain wanderings. Then I’d drift some more, then write more notes.

Upon my arrival home I had to unpack everything and re-settle us all into being at home. That was Tuesday. Yesterday I had to spend all day catching up on accounting and the quarterly financial reports required by the state and federal governments. Today I am going to do some spring cleaning and I’m going to do some blogging. Fortunately the spring cleaning keeps my hands busy, but allows my brain space to roam and compose entries. So the two things should go well together. Perhaps when I’m done writing all the entries I’ll finally have a concise answer for “How was your trip?”

I have washed 12 loads of laundry today and there are still about 3 loads to go before I am done.

Today I am drifting and sniffling and coughing and assimilating an overwhelming pile of experiences. The sniffling and coughing are because of my cat allergies. The house where we stayed had cats. The drifting may be a result of coming down off of the allergy medication load or it could be because I spent 14 hours in a van yesterday. We pulled in at 2 am this morning.

Despite being drifty I’ve been working steadily on unpacking and laundry. By Friday I want there to be no remaining evidence that we went on a trip other than happy memories and a few new things stowed away neatly where they belong. I also intend to scrub out the interior of my fridge because we forgot to dump half a gallon of milk before we left. Mmmm. Yogurt.

The pattern for today has been work a little, then sit while I identify what I need to do next. Then I close my eyes for a minute. One minute stretches to 5 or 10 while my brain wanders. Then either my thought train winds to the end of its path, or some external noise reminds me that I have more things to do. I get up and do the next thing. Repeat.

Most of my brain meanderings today have been pondering on redecorating my house. Not just pondering, but planning. In my head I am picking out paint colors and cupboards and baseboards. I know that I won’t have money for any of this for awhile, but my brain stubbornly keeps demolishing things and rebuilding them better. I’m not sure where my brain thinks I’m going to have the time to do all of this remodeling either. Mostly I’m letting it plan, because then the plans will be there waiting for me when I do actually have the time and money.

“Decorating my house” was on the list of things that I don’t do. Apparently a piece of my brain has decided that need to change. But not today. Today I am doing laundry and stowing suitcases and sanitizing the fridge.

I’ve never chauffeured myself around in a strange city before, which is probably the source of my blithe assurance that it can’t be that difficult. I would probably have been just fine if I had not assumed that general directions would lead me where I wanted to go. Silly me. The 10 minute trip from hotel to convention center took nearly an hour and a phone call for help from our local friend.

Kiki was attempting to help me navigate and was reduced to a hyperventilating, huddling, bundle of pre-teen tears in short order. That was harder to deal with than being lost. Especially since we were never far lost. I had a very solid sense of where I needed to be, I just needed to find the right roads to get me there. Oh and those roads needed to not be One Way in the wrong direction or closed for construction.

We did not actually stay very long at the convention. We stopped by to say hello to Howard and the Blank Label crew. We also stopped at the Girl Genius booth long enough for Kiki to go gaga and get handed a fee copy of one of the books. Howard gave a Schlock book in exchange.

Then we were off to the aquarium. I found it with no trouble at all because I’d researched in advance. The trip from the aquarium to the hotel should not have been a problem, except that I was looking at the wrong hotel on the tourist map. I went straight to the location, but it wasn’t the right hotel. Once I actually located our hotel on the map, getting there wasn’t a problem.

The lost-while-driving experience is engrumpifying because getting lost isn’t something I do. I plan ahead. I use my good sense of direction and I get where I intended to go. Honestly I was only truly lost once. The rest of the time I wasn’t where I wanted to be, but Ihad an idea of what to do next. The one lost moment was sitting in the parking garage for not-my-hotel and having no idea where to find my hotel. I didn’t want to need help, but I called Dan once again to help me find my hotel. While he was looking it up, I rummaged through the van and finally located the map with our hotel circled on it. Instantly I could see a clear path to the hotel. I had Kiki call Dan to tell him “never mind” and we drove straight to the hotel.

The next time I lose my way in a city, I think I’ll try to do it without four bored and over-tired children in the car. That would make a we’re-having-an-adventure mindset easier to maintain. I can think of few things more annoying than a chorus of “can’t we just go to the hotel?” when that is exactly what I’ve been trying to do for 45 minutes.

We are now in our hotel. We’ve reached the point in the trip where Howard has to work and I’m on my own with the kids. I’m not certain what the kids and I will do tomorrow. There are some options that don’t involve driving in a strange city, but I’m not sure they are the preferred options.

I hope that we can manage all of us in one room without causing problems for Howard. If we can’t, then tomorrow I’ll have to de-camp and take the kids to the Strohl’s house.

The Schlockfest party last night went really well. I was glad for the chance to visit with our contingent of local friends.