So maybe you heard that I had a book come out in the earlier part of this month.
Then I spent several weeks traveling to various events to promote the book and meet a whole bunch of you and it was all truly a lot of fun.
And then I planned to come home and relax and get some much needed rest.
But a funny thing happened and the Houston Astros ended up in the World Series. Which is how I’ve ended up staying up way too late for two different nights in the last week watching some of the most exciting baseball ever. On Sunday night alone I experienced a range of emotions that basically went like this:
All that to illustrate that I feel neither rested nor relaxed.
The sports are going to kill me. The good news is that the Astros have taken the sting out of the Aggies crushing performance against Mississippi State. I really can’t even talk about that except to tell you that I turned it off before the game was over. It was that bad.
So what else is going on here besides sports-related angst and excitement?
I can now share that P left for a big hunting trip in Colorado on Thursday, October 19th. I didn’t really want to broadcast that he was out of town while he was actually out of town, but he got back home late Friday afternoon and so if you’re a band of robbers who happens to be reading this, then just know our house is once again armed and dangerous.
It was a lifetime dream of his to get to hunt elk and mule deer in Colorado and he was invited to go by a friend who has a place there. I was so happy for him that I really didn’t process that he was going to be gone for nine days, but figured we would be just fine. And, for the most part, we were. I will tell you that I didn’t cook dinner even one time while he was gone. That part was my favorite.
But Caroline had a soccer game that first Saturday after he left and had some respiratory issues after fighting a cold all week. She barely got through her game on Saturday and then we drove to Austin for a game on Sunday because she assured me she was feeling better. And she did seem to be a little better and even managed to score the game-winning goal which was super exciting.
However, by Monday night she had a 102 fever so she stayed home from school on Tuesday and we went to the doctor where she was diagnosed with a sinus infection and the beginnings of bronchitis. We left with a steroid and an antibiotic and she was back to her normal self by the end of the week.
P pulled into the driveway from his trip about 3:00 Friday afternoon which gave Caroline and me about an hour to hear about his trip and tell him we were glad to see him before she and I left for Houston for the night for my signing at Blue Willow Bookshop the next day. It also gave her time to suggest maybe she could help P trim the shaggy beard he grew while he was away.
It looked like someone had killed a bunny in my kitchen before she was finished.
Then we left for Houston, stopped at Collina’s for some good Italian food, went to our hotel to watch the Astros and then woke up Saturday morning in time for the signing. I had heard about Blue Willow Bookshop for years, but never actually been and I fell a little bit in love with it. It’s very reminiscent of The Shop Around the Corner in You’ve Got Mail and so that sucked me right in. While I signed books and visited with people, Caroline was slowly but surely making a huge pile of books she wanted to buy next to my chair and I cannot resist anything that encourages my child’s love of reading and it reminded me so much of myself when I was her age and found supreme happiness in a trip to B.Dalton Booksellers in the mall to load up on a bunch of new books. Of course I think I was reading a lot of Sweet Valley High and Caroline’s taste is a little more refined than mine was at her age, although never underestimate a good Bruce Patton/Jessica Wakefield plot line.
Now it’s almost midnight which will be Halloween and the end of October and I’m still trying to figure out where the month went. Or, worse, maybe I’m trying to figure out where the last two decades went because I honestly wrote 1998 on a check yesterday. So maybe what I need to figure out most of all is how to make myself relax and get some sleep.
As soon as the World Series is over.