Book Review: Always for You: Jack by Alexis Morgan

This quiet romance didn’t have the high level of passionate angst that a lot of the books I read have, but it was cute and sweet, with some seriousness and sadness, and had a general contemporary literature feel.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

One-Sentence Synopsis
A Special Forces retiree fosters an abused boy and falls for the boy’s tutor. For a full synopsis, see this book’s Goodreads page.

Facing a Loss
Right from the beginning, this book stabbed me in the feels. Jack is home with his two brothers after the death of their father. He’s decided to stay home and take over his father’s business and spend time with his grieving mother. It’s not what Jack wanted to do, but a knee injury has forced him out of the military. Since he only contracts for a friend and his brother’s are still career military, he opts to stay.

Abused Kids
A couple weeks later, a young teenager shows up offering to help clean up a worksite for some money. The same teenager is found badly beaten in a ditch shortly after that, and Jack is called to help him since he’d given the kid, who seems to have no family, his business card. Having been fostered by his mom and dad when he was young after being in an abusive situation, Jack wants to help give the boy, Ricky, a comfortable and loving home.

Family First
The foundation of this story feels like the relationship Jack builds with Ricky, and there’s a strong theme of family. However, rather than feeling like an afterthought, the love story fits well, more like a puzzle piece. Caitlyn is hired as Ricky’s tutor to assess his education and bring him up to the level he needs to start school in the fall. Right away, she and Jack are attracted to each other. But Caitlyn is getting over a failed marriage with an ex who made her feel like she wasn’t good at anything, so she’s slightly skittish at first.

Doing the Right Thing
There’s also the fact that Jack and Caitlyn have to be careful when it comes to dating, as they don’t want him to feel ignored or shut out because of their relationship. In fact, everything everyone does is very carefully done to make sure he’s made to feel welcome and loved by a family that cares about him rather than the situation he’s coming from. I liked the way the characters were portrayed. They act ideally, but they still make mistakes despite their best intentions.

The Romance Factor
I enjoyed the romance between Jack and Caitlyn, but it was definitely mellow and there wasn’t a lot of conflict between them. 3/5

The Steam Factor
There’s some kissing and some heavy petting, but this one is perfect for readers who don’t like a lot of detail and open door sex. 2/5

Final Thoughts
This was a nice, chill read that cleansed the reading palate from some of the more intense stuff I’ve been reading. I liked the family dynamic and the fact that I shed a few tears. I liked this first one in the series and will be waiting for the next two books which center around Jack’s adopted brothers.

Organizing My Knitting Stash

Part of this whole knitting process has been to pare down my stash, but the disorganization of it was driving me crazy. I didn’t know what I had and was blindly grabbing when starting a project. Also, I’m not well-versed in textures. I know what worsted and fingering weight are, but I was a little unclear on sport and DK, and the difference between chunky and bulky when it came to matching yarn with a pattern.

On Saturday night, I finally pulled my stash out to organize and catalog everything in my Ravelry account. I haven’t utilized Ravelry much in the past, but it occurred to me that if I had a record of all my yarn, figuring out what to knit would be a whole lot easier.

A mess of yarn: my complete stash as pulled from my closet.

When I first piled it on the bed, the project seemed daunting. I realized that my stash is nowhere near as big as those of some knitters. Mine fits in my closet, and I know people who have whole rooms dedicated to their stash. But I’ve developed a minor aversion to clutter, so even this little bit feels like it needs to be used.

The process really didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I found a process that worked for me, which included pulling 5 skeins at a time, taking pictures, logging them into Ravelry, then fitting them into one of my 2 bins. Some of the yarn, like the the scraps and acrylics, went into their own plastic bags and then into a cloth bag I had available.

The “after” picture.

Talk about feeling accomplished. The whole process took me about 3 hours, but there was also some time I spent winding some yarn, which, in hindsight, I probably didn’t need to do (and also triggered the idea that perhaps I could use a swift and ball winder sometime in the future). The challenge now will be to find projects to knit with the scrap yarn that I didn’t catalog, as I only put yarn I had information for in the Ravelry stash.

My organization project also yielded a bittersweet moment. Going through my stuff meant finally pulling out an afghan my grandmother started before she passed away. The partially finished granny square project and remaining yarn had been given to me, but I’d stored it away. At the time, the loss of my grandma was still tender, and I wasn’t ready to work on this.

It’s been several years since she passed, but strangely enough, the afghan still smelled like her perfume. It brought back some good memories, but it also made me really sad and brought to the forefront how much I miss her and my grandfather. But now that the hard part of facing the project is over, it’s now in my plans to finish it up and keep it as a reminder of her.

I’m setting a stash goal for the year. By the end of the year, I’m hoping to have all of my stash pared down to just the 2 tubs (no bags), and that includes anything I pick up at yarn hops and our new yarn store, which I’ll talk more about after it opens up. Let’s hope my current knitting frenzy evens out but keeps steady so I can use up some of that yarn.

A.

Sunday Productivity and a Hat for Me

The past few Sundays have been lazy. I haven’t felt too guilty about it, but some weekends it’s nice to get something accomplished. Yesterday I managed to get things done around the apartment, but we never ventured out, which is kind of silly considering it was nice yesterday and today was super cold. But sometimes things just work out that way.

A smallish chunk of time was spent at work today making up hours ahead of time for volunteer meetings I have this week. One would think working on your day off would be rough, but not so much because I find my job fun most days. Which doesn’t mean Monday will be easy, because it never is, but at least I can relax this week when it comes to making up time.

I called my brother to wish him a happy birthday. I’ve officially had a little brother for 32 years. Time flies.

I went to Stitch n’ Bitch tonight. I took a bit of a hiatus for a few months because I wasn’t knitting at all, but I’m getting my groove back. Our location rotates, so tonight we were at Hastings Hardback Cafe which is kind of my go-to location for everything because I like their coffee and I’m comfortable there. And wouldn’t you know it…I finished a project.

I’d originally set out to knit this one for my nephew, but honestly? I think I really like it for myself. I don’t wear hats well, but I think this one looks kind of cute and it’s comfy on my head. So he’ll get the next one I do, which I went ahead and cast on for this evening. I’d better prepare myself…8 1/2 inches of 2 by 2 ribbing is coming.

I’m finishing off the night with some blogging and movies, including The Dark Crystal and Zoolander, though I probably won’t finish Zoolander because I’m getting sleepy. But I’ve seen it about 22 times, so no biggie.

You might be wondering why I’m blogging all of a sudden after going for months with nothing. I have no answer. I go with what I’m feeling and for some reason, I was in the mood to blog tonight. I even have a few scheduled for the next couple days…so yay again for Sunday productivity!

A.

Thanksgiving Weekend

The Thanksgiving holiday was a relatively quiet one for us this year. On Wednesday morning, we left early to drive to Illinois to visit J’s grandmother for a few days. It was just the three of us, so things were pretty low key. We had some great food, watched a lot of the Game Show Network and the Food Channel, and I got some knitting and some reading done. We did venture out for a quick shopping excursion on Black Friday to buy J some clothes. Shopping traffic had died down by the time we got there.

A few things I learned this weekend:

1. Frosty the Snowman was fun when I was a child, but as an adult, I found myself asking deep questions. Like why did anyone think it was okay to hop on a train with a snowman? And how come Santa Clause spoke rabbit? And why was the magician jaundiced  but not in a hospital?

2. I will probably never be a fan of The Big Bang Theory. I never thought the stereotypical nerd poking was funny anyway, but the cheap fat joke pot shots and the fact that I find almost all the characters to be jerks pretty much confirmed my opinion.

3.  Newscasters can be sadistic. After watching a group of them on an Illinois channel laughing at Black Friday shoppers being trampled, I was slightly disturbed and have decided not to go into broadcast news. Ever.

4. I wish I had the Game Show Network just so I could watch hours of The Chase. I totally have a love/hate thing for The Beast. I like to see him lose to the contestants, but he’s so funny!

I also learned that some of my walking back pain is coming back, so I need to start moving again to make sure that doesn’t become a problem. I’ve gotten lazy over the past several weeks, and it doesn’t take long for things to go south again. I think if I can do a little bit of walking every day, I can get back to where I was a few months ago.

Also, since Grandma J didn’t have any regular soda in the house, I made it through three days with no pop. Since those first few days are the most challenging, I’m using them as the start of trying to go soda-free again. So far, so good. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been tempted, but I also know that I feel better when I don’t drink it.

We came home on Saturday so we could use Sunday to run errands, go grocery shopping, and put up our Christmas tree. Sadly, on the way to where our tree and decorations were stored, our car overheated. so plans were sidelined. Luckily, our mechanical friend and hero came through and helped us troubleshoot the problem. I think we have it mostly resolved, but we’ll be keeping an eye on it. We didn’t end up going back out, so the goal for this coming week and next weekend is to get those errands done and decorate for Christmas.

Tomorrow starts the new job, and I have very little anxiety or stress about this. Here’s to hoping it goes smoothly and is as good as I think it’s going to be.

A.

 

Road Trip To Texas

This blog will take a little more of a personal turn than the last one did. Since Dallas Comic Con is a huge thing, I wanted to give that recap its own space. However, there were other parts of the trip that happened, and I wanted to give them a little bit of air time too.

We left after work on Thursday with the plan to stop halfway and stay the night somewhere. The drive was nice. We listened to Welcome to Nightvale, which is weird and random enough to be enjoyable for both of us. We also got to use our fancy new K-Tag through the tolls. Up until recently, you had to buy the K-Tag and then buy the tolls as well, but since we didn’t travel enough to actually warrant a tag, we never got one. At the Kansas Sampler Fest, they had a booth. As it so happens, K-Tags are now free! When you sign up, they take your debit information and take a monthly payment based on how many tolls you use. If you don’t use at least $10 in a month, it rolls over to the next month. Since that was definitely more our speed, we signed up.

We stopped in Oklahoma for some Braum’s (because I love Braum’s and we don’t have one here), then kept on until we found a hotel. We had no luck in Guthrie and then we almost had no luck in Edmond. I’d wanted to use some of my Wyndham points for a free night, but it didn’t happen because there were no Wyndham hotels where we stopped. Yes, I know I failed to plan, but I wasn’t entirely sure when we’d be ready to get off the road. We stopped later than I wanted to anyway, and most hotels were booked. We found one empty room at a Hampton Inn and paid way more money than we wanted for it. But now we’re Hilton rewards members, so we might be able to use that to our advantage at some point in the future.

The room was comfortable and we were back on the road earlier than we’d anticipated. In fact, the second part of our drive was a lot shorter than we’d planned for. Besides the fact that road construction wasn’t horrible, we were also driving during a low traffic time. There was only one place in Fort Worth where traffic slowed to a crawl and it didn’t last long.

Our first day was spent visiting with family, eating at local restaurants, and grabbing a couple geocaches in the area (which meant we scored our Texas souvenir…whoo!). Our second day was Dallas Comic Con and a trip to Whataburger.

We left early Sunday morning and made the long trek back to Kansas. However, we got in a couple roadside stops. In Davis, Oklahoma, we stopped at a place that makes fried pies. Think hostess snack pies, but better. I got a cherry pie and Jon got pecan. We passed another one up near Tonkawa. In hindsight, I kind of wished we’d stopped again. They were so good! We also stopped at a local diner in Blackwell, OK to have lunch. The regular fast food joints get old after awhile, and we usually find great food at good prices at the local places.

We actually made good time getting back home, but I was tired and sore for a few days after from walking around the convention and from sitting for so many hours driving. It was a blast though, and I’m glad we made it down. Road trip season has started, and this was a great way to kick things off.

A.

Hangin’ Out with Mom

It was another longish drive back to Kansas on Sunday. We left early but still made a few final stops to finish out the visit. We also stopped for food and a geocache.  Jon and I managed to keep ourselves from going geocache crazy, but we needed a few stops to stretch, so it gave us a good excuse to do so. We found one along the highway that hadn’t been found in over a year. I was glad it was still there.

We made a stop in Rose Hill to visit the in-laws and grabbed one last geocache on the final stretch home. Online, there was no other logged find, so we thought that maybe there was a chance we’d be the FTF, but no dice. The FTF just hadn’t logged it. Still, it was a good cemetery cache, and the area was beautiful. It was one of the first ones we’ve been to with crypts, which always strike me as such peaceful structures.

Dinner was easy roast beef sandwiches, and we watched a bunch of YouTube videos that Mom hadn’t yet seen.

Monday was our day out in Manhattan. We had to do laundry first thing in the morning, so we got that going while we went and ran other errands. Mom had a bunch of photos printed at Walgreens, so we picked those up, vacuumed the car, took it through the car wash to get the red clay off, and picked the laundry up. It probably wasn’t the most exciting start to the day, but it helped us kill time until things started opening.

We went to Goodwill first and poked around. For the first time in years, I actually found clothes there that fit me. I found a pair of pants, two shirts, and a pair of walking shoes since my other ones are already wearing down.  Down the sidewalk, we checked out Tuesday Morning. I’d heard about the place, mainly from stories of people finding great discontinued yarn there, and I knew Manhattan had one, but I’d never been there.  It turned out to be a really cool store. It was like a smaller Big Lots, offering discounted closeout items.

Once we got our first round of thrifting out of the way, we went to the Flint Hills Discovery Center and then picked Jon up for lunch at Cox Bros BBQ. Afterwards, we commenced with round two of thrifting by heading out to the Grand Ol’ Trunk to poke around. By this time, I was getting tired. It didn’t feel like a lot of walking, but my feet were telling me it had been.  Instead of looking for more shops, we went out to the scenic overlook so I could show Mom the view, which seemed fitting after she visited the FHDC.

We once again found ourselves with time to kill, so we went on a drive to look at more scenery. My original intention was to find Pillsbury Crossing, but I missed the turn. Still, the drive was nice and we stopped for a geocache, which my mom actually found. I don’t know if she’ll become a geocacher, but it was cool that she made the find on that one.

We stopped in at work to say hi, then tried to find a premium cache near the stadium with no luck. After we picked up Jon, we came home, made more sandwiches, and watched Frankie Go Boom and Cabin in the Woods.

This morning we got up, finished Cabin in the Woods (we were too tired to make it to the end last night), and took Jon to work. Our first stop was Menards, as we were on a mission to find Mom some overalls. They didn’t have any, but they did have a lot of Christmas decorations, including Risky Business Santa, which amused me more than it probably should have.

We completed our overalls-finding mission at the supply store across the street, then headed back to Wamego to give a more extended tour and visit the Oz Museum. It was my third time there, but I actually stopped to read more of the information on this visit. Mom liked it, and I learned more about the artifacts than I had on previous visits.

We headed toward KC a little earlier than planned, but we stopped off in Topeka and had Cracker Barrel for lunch. I love browsing their store, even though I don’t usually buy stuff (except a few snacks every now and then). They had some neat holiday things. They also had massive candy bars and Pez dispensers. I didn’t take many pics, but they had Peanut Butter Cups that were a pound each.

We arrived at the airport much earlier than we needed to, but Mom wanted to make sure her bags were under the weight limit and that she didn’t need to send anything back with me to mail. I drove around looking for parking but had no luck, so in the end, I pulled to the side and gave her hugs in the fire lane. I’m not going to lie….I’ve been sad and teary eyed since leaving the airport. I hate goodbyes, and I cry every time I have to go through them, but it’s especially hard saying bye to my Mom. I never feel like the time we get to spend together is enough. The time we did have was awesome, though.

Now I have to try to slide back into routine, which is going to take a couple days. I got a jump on that by putting away laundry, catching up on email, and getting this post done, as well as uploading the rest of the week’s photos. Tomorrow it’s back to work and back to working on several projects I need to finish before Monday. It’s going to be a very busy next few days.

A.

Road Detours and Farm Memories

I’m behind a couple days, but I will get everything posted. Tonight we’re chilling with movies at the house, and we’re currently watching Cabin in the Woods, one of my favorites. Mom hasn’t seen it, so she’s getting her first viewing in exchange for her showing us the movie Frankie Go Boom. It was hilarious. If you’re a fan of Sons of Anarchy, this will either make you laugh or deeply disturb you. But now, since I’ve seen CitW, I’m going to get the Saturday post up while it’s on.

The drive to Oklahoma was long, as expected, and geocaching made it longer. I welcome the stops to stretch my legs and keep my tailbone from hurting, but sometimes it just makes the day longer.  We started with a DNF, then recovered with 2 finds in Tonkawa.

Later, after getting on the turnpike, we attempted to find another one (it turned into another DNF). We thought it would take us back to the turnpike, but instead, it took us through a series of small Oklahoma towns. I was a little cranky about this at first, but the random change in route lead is through some great scenery and an impromptu stop for some peanuts at a roadside stand.

Look at that Oklahoma red clay!

We tried coated Israeli peanuts that were delicious. We also picked up some buffalo flavored and Japanese peanuts. I’m not a fan of buffalo flavored anything, but I helped put a hurt on those other two.

The wildlife was out that day. We saw a coyote, a deer, and a road runner.  I’d never seen one before, and he was adorable. My mom had seen one that day too, and my grandma said they’d been more social lately. I would have got a picture, but he took us by surprise and was pretty quick.

We relaxed at my grandma’s for a little bit and had some dinner before heading out to see my aunt and uncle on “the farm.” The farm isn’t a family farm anymore, but I have really good memories of visiting there when I was a young kid, of spending time with my great grandparents, helping my grandma collect eggs from the chicken house, and playing with the farm cats that ran around the property.  I remember a mean rooster than attacked me and my grandpa’s cattle dog who didn’t like me very much (though older family members say I wasn’t nice to her as a child, so I think that was probably understandable).

The farm house and several of the buildings are still standing, so we took a walk around to look at everything and take some time with the memories.

  

One of the local farmer’s still farms cows in the fields, and we were able to walk right out into the field with them to take some pictures.  Whenever we’d turn around, there was a group of them keeping an eye on us, like they were just daring us to make a sudden move. They were cute.

We also visited with my aunt and uncle for a long time. Visiting the farm is always bittersweet. There are so many good memories, but they’re of lost loved ones, so with the reminiscing always comes sadness.

After we were done there, we decided to try to find a nearby cache, but like some of the other caches in Oklahoma, it wasn’t as “nearby” as we would have liked. We didn’t end up finding it. It got dark, so we headed back to grandma’s to get some sleep before the drive back the next day.

A.

Reunions, Nostalgia, and Chocolate Shakes

I had originally wanted to get up super early this morning and do some geocaching before we went to Jon’s high school reunion. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I hit the snooze for an hour, feeling the need to sleep in. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but we both needed showers and then we were just slow getting around. We grabbed Drew and went to Sonic for a late breakfast, and by the time we were done, it was time to head to the reunion.

It was a potluck lunch, so we stopped and bought two eight piece boxes of chicken at Dillons.  We brought food, but we didn’t actually eat there, which was partially on me because I was having some anxiety. I also just wasn’t hungry due to the late breakfast we had.

The reunion was being held at a large cabin on a farm near where Jon went to high school. It was a pretty area. In hindsight, I should have walked around more, both for exercise and just to enjoy the view.

 

Instead, I sat around and visited with the other wives I knew and watched videos of Jon and a bunch of people I didn’t know. Which is really the thing about reunions…if it’s not your class, it’s just kind of weird and awkward. I think I was lucky that I knew a couple of people, but it was still a little bit uncomfortable.  On a more positive note, though, it made me remember my own high school years. Being that I don’t live in Michigan anymore, it’s unlikely I’ll ever get to one of my own reunions, but I still have great memories of high school. Part of me is okay with not going back.  Reunions sometimes dredge up the bad stuff too.  I have such good memories of my four years, and I’d kind of like to just keep those as they are.

We stayed for a couple hours before leaving. The reunion was going to continue at a local bar later that night, but we didn’t end up making it back. After the lunch, we found two geocaches in Derby and grabbed some lunch at Talliano’s. We hadn’t been there since before I moved to Manhattan. It was a buffet, but it was cheap enough for me to justify not eating a whole lot.  After lunch, we headed back to Rose Hill. I had a toothache most of the day and was ready to take some pain killers and curl up for awhile.

Back at the house, we watched The Muppets and hung out with Jon’s dad for awhile.  He always makes us choose what to have for dinner, even though we don’t have a preference and we hate choosing because they always treat us and we don’t want to pick something overly expensive. So I suggested we get burgers from the local burger joint and just chill at the house. They seemed cool with that, and I had another meal that wasn’t disappointing.

We went out geocaching again after dinner but got a late start due to having to come back to get a pen and picking up Drew. I thought getting more in the area would be easy, but we had a little trouble. The first one was under a bridge, but there was caution tape all over, so we weren’t sure about going in too far. We thought we saw something, but it would have involved reaching in and grabbing, and with all the creepy crawlies, I wasn’t doing that.  We found the next one, but it was dark by the time we tried the third one, which incidentally was also said to be a tough one. We looked all over and couldn’t find it, so we called it for Rose Hill geocaches, especially because this town is full of nanos, which are hard to find when it’s light out.  We stopped to watch a spider unspinning his web, which was actually a bit of a fascinating process, even though I’m not a fan of spiders.

Drew suggested we take a trip to Derby to get a Braum’s shake. A Braum’s chocolate shake is one of my favorite things. I should be glad we don’t have a Braum’s in MHK, because I’d be out of control with those things.  We took advantage of the extra trip and found three quick LCP caches to add to our list.  Before heading back, we stopped at Dillons for grapes and a package of pens for us to keep in the car so we have them on hand when we go out geocaching.

It’s been a long day and I’m sleepy. We’re talking of trying to get up early again tomorrow to hit some more caches, but not sure if it’s going to happen. Tomorrow is another long day, with a drive home, a Pathfinder game, and handing out con information at a Movies on the Grass event. Hopefully we’ll be home in time to get some good sleep for Monday morning, because I need to get a lot of stuff done this coming week.

A.

All About the Car…and Some Other Stuff

To anyone who follows closely, sorry for not posting last night.  Things with the car were stressful, and by the time I actually sat down, I was too tired to put together a coherent sentence.

Before we hit the gym last night, we stopped at the HyVee gas station to get some water and a pre-gym snack since I was starving and hadn’t eaten a lot during the day. Coming out of the parking lot, the car did this weird thing where it rumbled, like it was going over a rumble strip. I thought maybe the terrain was weird, and the car didn’t shake in a scary way, so I continued on. After the gym, we decided to grab Chinese for dinner, and coming out of the parking lot, it did it again. By then I was a little freaked and unsure what to do.

We ended up going back to my friend’s house to eat and Google some possibilities.  I tried to relax, figuring I’d take it to the shop the following (this) morning, but of course, I just sat there and worried and shared my worry on FB.  I got a recommendation, some words of encouragement, and some ideas of what it could be. Erica chimed in and mentioned that Terry knew stuff about cars, which I think she’d told me before, but I’d forgotten. So he offered to take a look at the car for me last night so I wouldn’t have to wait until morning.

After taking it for a test drive and trying to recreate the shaking, he couldn’t pinpoint anything. We did some tire maintenance and kind of figured my other FB friend was correct in saying that it could be the traction sensor going off. To be honest, I’ve had the traction thing go off before during the winter, and it felt just like that. We decided to monitor it, but we didn’t want to put our plans on hold, so we decided we’d go ahead and take our trip to Wichita. I realize that sounds a little irresponsible, but I’m not a fan of sitting around and doing nothing because something bad might happen. That might bite me in the butt someday.

We went back to the house and finished the movie we’d started. The friend we were pet sitting for gave us a free On Demand code, so we rented Pain & Gain. I really enjoyed it, but the initial goofiness took a pretty dark turn halfway through.

A big thanks to everyone who helped and gave feedback. I sometimes get disillusioned with FB, but then people are awesome, and I remember why I’m still hanging in there.

After a double check this morning, we confirmed that nothing was showing as wrong, so we’d be heading to Wichita. I got out of work early, picked Jon up, took our ward to the pet resort for the weekend, and headed to the in-laws. We decided to geocache on the way. I broke down and bought a premium membership so we could use the function that finds caches based on a travel route. We’re still not entirely sure how to get it to work flawlessly, but Jon saved a few for us to find. We ended up finding four, including two cemeteries. They were pretty quick, and we made it to Rose Hill in decent time. I would even say that the drive seemed quicker than it usually does.

We chilled at the house for a little bit before going out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. We took my dad-in-law’s truck, and my history with that truck has been shaky, considering it’s a big truck with a big step to get into.  Tonight, though, I owned it. Got in and out with no problems. Yay, fitness.

At BWWs,   I played some trivia and had the chicken chopped salad, which was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that Jon traded me a couple of his parmesan wings for half of it. Which was fine with me, though the parm wings were spicy. I also did not do well at trivia, but it was just for fun, so no big.

When we got back to the house, the guys (Jon and my brother-in-law, Andrew) and I went geocaching. Rose Hill is full of them, and we managed to snag four more before it got too dark. Three of them were nanos. I spotted the first one, and Jon spotted the second two. Drew found a micro key case. We searched for a fifth one, but had no luck in finding it. The area was torn apart, so I’m not even sure if it was still there.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a full walk in, but I feel like we were active with the geocaching, so I’m not going to feel guilty about it. Now we’re just relaxing and I’m taking care of some things on the internet. We’re probably going to have an early morning and possibly a late night tomorrow.  Jon’s reunion is during the day, and I have no idea what we’re doing in the evening. I’m hoping to hit some more geocaches around here, but we’ll just have to see what happens.

I was feeling overwhelmed this morning with everything we had to do and with a little worry about the drive, but we had no car problems and I’m now feeling much better. Ready to tackle the weekend and enjoy whatever comes, no matter what it is.

A.