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I’m offline for the duration of the stay at the hotel, except for a few snatched glimpses at email using the hotel business center.

One of the disadvantages of being on an interesting vacation is a lack of time/space to post things as I would like to.  Dan has generously provided a laptop that Howard and I are free to use, without which I would be completely offline until my return.  I want very much to write everything as I go, but I am finding it difficult to create the mental space necessary for composing thoughtful entries.  This is not a fault of the house or the hosts, it is just the natural consequence of having many new things going on at once.  

It has been a wonderful quiet morning.  We had a good breakfast followed by a homework time, a dip in the hot tub, and a craft.  My kids are in heaven.

I hate being allergic to cats. I hate wheezing up when I visit people who have them. It is alarming and uncomfortable to have my lungs constrict and my energy ebb. Most of the time I don’t think of my allergy at all. It is a non-issue. But this trip we are staying with the Strohls who have 3 cats. We’ll be visiting with Pi and Kreely who have cats.

I wish I could love and snuggle the cats. I wish I could tussle with dogs. I hate seeming to be fussy or reluctant about animals. But the truth is that I am. I don’t touch the animals because I know the consequences.

I have a dozen things I’d like to post today.  

I want to post about how sweet Patches was in the car during the 8 hours of driving.  Mostly the kids were totally focused on the dvd player, but Patches frequently glanced out the window to comment on the rivers and trains.  At one point he declared his intention to watch for a blue truck.  He wanted one that had both front and back sections blue.  “Watching for a blue truck” has been a past distraction attempt for when Patches was tired and cranky on car trips.  I love that he remembered it and decided to apply it to himself when he was bored.  I don’t think he ever found a truck that met his specifications.  That’s alright we have hours of driving on the return trip to continue looking.

We ate lunch at McDonalds.  The current set of happy meal toys is Ninja Turtles.  The turtles have totally capture Patches imagination. He’s seen the movie trailers a couple of times and now he’s begun to collect the happy meal toys.  He stood in front of the display and made plans to collect the whole army.  McDonalds was an ideal stop for all the kids and it hit at the perfect time because the kids were beginning to be cranky.

Dan and Donna’s house is already proving to be a wonderful place to stay.  I couldn’t be more grateful that they offered to have us.  They have turned over the downstairs for our use.  It is a guest suite worthy of a bed and breakfast.  I look at all the beautiful decoration and I am now spinning plans to decorate my house.  I want my house to be as beautiful as this one is.  Kiki, Gleek, and Patches all made themselves comfortable within minutes of walking in the door.  Link had something of an anxiety attack when he was face with a large enthusiastic dog and knowlege of several cats.  At first he wanted to hide downstairs.  Donna kindly removed the dog which allowed Link to aclimate much more easily.  Link is a much more conservative person than my other kids.  He is uneasy being in this totally new place with totally new people.  Most of the travelling we do is to the houses of relatives.  It is good for him to have this experience, but it wasn’t easy at first.  Thank goodness for legos.  They bridged the anxiety gap and when last I checked Link was playing happily with Patches and the little boy of the house.

Tomorrow we have a tour at Wizards of the Coast and then in the evening is Schlockfest.  I’m really looking forward to both.

Hmm.  This seems to be fewer than a dozen things.  That means I’ve probably forgotten some of them.  Maybe I’ll remember later.  For now I need to give Dan his computer back.

The outside air is cool and moist. The night is filled with frog song. Inside the house is spacious and the guest room we’ve been given is fit to be a bed and breakfast. Our room is stocked with everything from a canopied bed, to a breakfast table, to a shelf full of teas, to a basket full of bath and hand lotions. It is all so thoroughly thought out.

I look around and I wish I had a space like this to give over to guests. Currently our only guest space is a futon couch in my office. Usually the only guests we have are my family. My family will quite happily throw air mattresses on the floor. But I’d love to be able to provide beauty.

I think of my home and I see it with the eyes of familiarity. My home does not seem beautiful, or spacious. I know where all the patches are, the cracks in the walls. I know that the front room, supposedly the nicest room in the house, hasn’t had baseboards since the year we moved in. We removed the baseboards to lay the hardwood floors and never put any back. I see clearly the dark stripes on the paint that mark the locations of the studs behind the wall board. For some reason the stud-backed boards collect more dirt. I wish I knew why.

I could go on listing the faults of my decorating. The core of the problems is this. My house is not beautiful, I wish it were. The reason my house is not beautiful is because I have chosen to spend my time and money on other things. That will probably continue for a time longer. Money is still tight. This expensive trip to Seattle is not going to make it any looser. Perhaps I need to frequent garage sales again. There I might find things which are beautiful and inexpensive. Perhaps I can squeeze enough money out of my budget and enough time out of my schedule to paint some rooms. Just paint would make a world of difference.

Since arriving at my sister’s house I have spent most of my time drifting.  This is partly due to the fact that I finally caught the nasty bug that laid my kids flat one-by-one over the past two weeks.  Fortunately I had a much milder version that only involved lying limply on the couch and sleeping a lot.  This is much better than the version which required the constant companionship of a pot for 12-24 hours.  

So I slept  for large pieces of yesterday.  I’m feeling much better this morning.  Feeling better is good, but I’m still not feeling motivated.  I intend to drift through today paying attention to my kids and reading stuff.  Today I can be a jellyfish.  Tomorrow I have to be back in action mode so I can a pack the car and we can all head onward to Seattle.  In Seattle there will be places to go and things to do every day.  I’m looking forward to new things and new places, but it is nice to curl up today in the comfort of familiar and just drift a little.

We have arrived in Boise at my sister’s house.  I love visiting my family.  I walk in the door and my kids scatter to play with cousins.  I was able to lay down and nap for two hours straight.  It was a much needed nap since we got up this morning at o’dark-thirty to leave.  (5 am)  For the next 48 hours I get to just hang out with my sister and her family.  Then we’ll begin the more adventurous part of the vacation in which we go places we’ve never been before.

Wonder of wonders, it looks like we may all attend church together. Everyone woke up feeling almost normal this morning. In addition Gleek and Patches have taken a bath so they will smell like clean and shampoo rather than like sand and dirt mixed with marker. I think this will be the first time they’ve been truly clean in days. Link is also taking a shower and Kiki intends to take one. So, not only will we all be at church, but we will all be clean for it. It is nice when life occasionally matches my ideals.

After church I need to throw myself into a frenzy of packing. All the laundry is clean, but none of it is folded and none of it is in suitcases. Before the end of today both of those conditions need to be changed. Since everyone is feeling better I fully intend to draft some help with this project. Of course the problem with having kids help pack is that they have very different ideas about what is necessary than I do.

The kids are all very excited for this trip. We’ve been talking about it and counting down to it for weeks. For them “Seattle” has come nigh close to “Disnelyand” for desirable destinations. I hope that the reality matches their expectations. I think it will because mostly I think they’re excited to be going someplace and haven’t put a whole lot of thought into what they’ll do when we get there. This is another area where I differ from my kids. I have put hours of planning into what we’ll do in Seattle. I’ve mapquested all our probable destinations. I’ve printed out info sheets on all the museums, hotels, and aquariums. I put all this information into a three ring binder. That binder will live in our van as a useful reference through-out the vacation.

Departure is tomorrow. So much to get done. I can hardly wait to get going.

This journal officially has a name. One Cobble at a Time. It is currently subtitled “laying a path to my castle in the sky,” but as my life changes the subtitle may change to reflect it. Right now the path to a castle in the sky is very apropos.

The sidebar text to elaborate on the title says: A cobble by itself is just a small stone, but when many of them lay together they create a path. My life is made up of many discrete parts. I have to find ways to fit them all into place so that I can continue to journey where I desire to go. This journal records some of the cobbles that create my path.

So there it is. Many thanks to Howard for the word “Cobble.” The right word makes all the difference.

My entire day has been absorbed by preparations for the Seattle trip. I decided to focus on house cleaning today and packing tomorrow. Of course some of each will leak into the other day, but that is to be expected. Because we’ve had stomach flu in our house this past week, I felt inspired to pull out our Big Green Clean Machine and sanitize some areas of carpet. I want to come home and have my house smell clean. Now there are clean spots in the kids’ rooms. Maybe when I get back I’ll feel inspired to do the rest of the carpet.

I also cleaned out the car. We’re going to be spending the equivalent of two days in that vehicle. It is going to be totally trashed before the end, but I figure it doesn’t have to start that way. Maybe when I get back I’ll clean the van carpets too. They certainly need it.

I’ve worked hard all day long, but there is still so much work left to do. I didn’t make the kids do very much work today because they’re all either sick or recovering. Poor Link has been lying on the couch all day. Hopefully he’ll be better by tomorrow and all well by Monday. Howard is sick today too. Ditto on the hopefully all better by Monday. I really think that they will be. This has been a 48 hour bug for all the other kids.

I’m really going to enjoy this trip. I can leave behind all the business chores. I can leave behind all the house chores. I even finished a draft so I can leave behind all the writing chores. The only thing I’ll have to do is be with my kids, visit with friends, and run the vacation. It will still be work, but it will be different from my regular life. That’s the point of vacation, to do something different.