Wednesday, November 29, 2006

no one loves you like family

the trip out to PA was a resounding success, himself shot a deer and i visited friends and family.

the new car drove beautifully. for the record, she can go up to 85mph without a whimper. luckily, my normally critical passenger was fast asleep. his only comment, upon pulling into my parent’s driveway, was that we seemed to have made good time.

Monday was spent visiting with my mother during which our conversations included but were not limited to:

my new haircut – she liked it
my new car – she liked but refused to take a ride in it
my diet – she thinks I need to eat better and is concerned that I might have a “leaky gut”
my weight – she thinks I lost weight. I don’t look “as chubby” her exact words, I swear!
my MS prognosis – she thinks I should continue with the copaxone shots. I don’t. we (and by we, I mean me) decided not to discuss this particular topic any further.
the 17 year old next door neighbor- who I used to baby-sit when I was in high school- dropped out of school and had a baby.
Christmas – when will they be coming to see us? we have to wait for dad to decide on this major issue

so basically it was your average mother-daughter visit and although it may not sound like it, it truly was a visit that was satisfactory on both ends.

Tuesday was a day for visiting with family. Mum and I had lunch with the following:

Three aunts, two cousins, one uncle and a wee little 2nd cousin.

It was a time to catch up and for me to bask in the love and admiration of family. Sometimes a girl just needs her family.

In addition to these aunts, uncles and cousins, I also managed to speak via the telephone to: two aunts, one uncle and one cousin.

For anyone who is keeping count, that is 5 aunts, 2 uncles and 3 cousins and one 2nd cousin. All in 12 hours!
In case you are curious about how many cousins I have...at last count we are 23 strong. I don’t know the 2nd cousin count but I think it is in the neighborhood of 20.

I also managed to squeeze in an early morning visit to my friend Jess and her kids. We sat in front of her beautiful fireplace and sipped tea and ate doughnuts with peanut butter frosting and gossiped about our mutual friends.

All in all it was an excellent two-day visit with the only one sustaining any mortal wounds was the deer.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha ha! I'm FIRST! See how much I missed you??

Sounds like a success. I'm afraid the dead-count would be substantially higher were I to spend more than four hours with any of my family. (Children excluded. Although sometimes...)

I didn't know you have MS. Do you ever talk about it here? How is it manifesting itself now? When were you diagnosed? Can I ask more questions? Would you like me to just shut up?

Because I will. Just tell me.

Glad you're home.

Allknowingjen said...

Donuts with peanut butter frosting? I have never heard of such a thing. Now I am on the search.

Anonymous said...

What's a leaky gut? And can one get that if they eat too many doughnuts with peanut butter frosting. Not that it would stop me or anything.

Anonymous said...

Welcome back! I missed you!

Glad you had a great trip. I had to laugh at your mom's backhanded weight loss compliment. My grandmother was famous for these sorts of comments and my mom has taken up the torch since G-mom passed away. :) At least I know I'm not the only one who deals with these sorts of things when I visit my family...

BTW, check this out. It's a duplicate of my Spaces blog, but I figure eventually I'll completely convert. For now, it gives people who don't have a Spaces account the chance to comment and interact a bit.

Editor in Chief said...

That sounds absolutely fabulous!

Anonymous said...

Jen, it was really nice to hear from you the other night, while i was at work, honest, one of these days we will get together !!!! I am proud to be your aunt, but, remember to be careful driving your new car, slow down!!!!! what kind of car is it?????

Anonymous said...

I have the smallest family ever and the idea of having 23 cousins is terrifying to me. Too. Much. To. Handle. And the donuts with peanut butter frosting also terrifies me, but I'm sure enjoy some delicacies that would scare others as well.