February 18-24, 2019

Sending out Birthday Wishes for twins, Caroline and Clayton Bozyk!  They each celebrated their birthdays on Wednesday.

We had a nasty snowstorm that day. I went in to work by 8am before the snow started and returned home by 4pm when it turned to freezing rain. Just in time to shovel the driveway with Allison. Tom missed out on all the fun. On the Sunday before, he had flown out to San Jose for the week to work. On Weds with the incoming snow and ice storm, I recommended Allison bring her computer home the night before and work from home. It made for a much better day. She was back in the office on Thursday, and off to a Girl Scout Gold Award meeting that evening.

I had to reschedule my Weds morning dentist appointment(the office closed for the day and they rescheduled everyone). My dentist wants to redo one of my old fillings-removing the metal filling for the new epoxy.  It can wait.

On Friday morning, Allison and I were out early for my YMCA swim aerobics class. We brought along Allison's previous college roommate, Jen. Allison and Jen have been working out together in the evenings at the Y. Tom and I have started downsizing our lives which included the family membership to the Y. Now just Allison and I are signed up since Scott is not at home as much, and he and Tom prefer to work out on the our treadmill at home. I love having some company at my swim class, and Jen really enjoyed the new experience.

Allison also joined into a Dungeons and Dragons game with a fellow GS counselor friend. She even purchased her own dice set and spent time on line researching her character and the rules of the game. She had such a good time she spent a few hours playing on Friday and Sunday night. She is looking forward to a monthly get together.

We also enjoyed a Girl's Night Out on Saturday at the Hippodrome Theater watching "The King and I". Allison had never seen or heard of the musical and I felt obliged to continue to expand her cultural horizon and musical repertoire.  We got a good price on tickets and good seats in the balcony. Although we had a hard time understanding Anna's son and his bad attempt at a British accent. But the songs were great. And Allison loved the story. So of course on Sunday I had to put on the 1956 movie version of The King and I starring Yul Brenner. She really enjoyed that version too!   And before attending the play on Saturday,

I enjoyed an early dinner with my friend and previous co worker Anne. We had a great time chatting over dinner at the Outback and catching up since our last visit before Christmas. I even had time for a haircut before Allison and I went off to the play.

I also had a very busy weekend taking care of my mom's personal business. I mentioned that the renter moved out of the Bozyk Florida house in September and the house was on market for sale. After several failed attempts at a sale, we finally had an offer that stuck. I scheduled mom to meet with our broker and a notary to sign all the paperwork on Friday afternoon and they very nicely faxed it off for me. Afterwards, mom and I enjoyed a concert at her facility along with some snacks. I then spent Sunday piecing together her tax forms. Looks like I am missing a few items so I will need to make a few phone calls and contact her accountant. My work is never done! I also discovered another account in my Dad's name from some recently forwarded mail. Now I have to follow up with opening the account in mom's name.

February 11-February 17, 2019

Happy Valentine's Day!  Tom decided to start Valentine's Day early by bringing me some beautiful roses, candy from Hershey and a special surprise in a small box!  He actually gave me my Valentine surprise the weekend before, but I decided to wait to open my gifts until Thursday the 14th. However, I did take a few of my pink roses into work at the beginning of the week. They smelled so good, and I thought the work clinic could use some color.  My fellow staff members thought the roses were so nice, they decided Tom should buy me flowers every week! I found that humorous!  He picked up the roses a week before Valentine's Day because he said they were on sale!  Either way, I really enjoyed having them. And by Thursday I was sampling my Hershey chocolate and opened up the surprise which turned out to be a Valentine bracelet!  I also stopped into the grocery store the night before to pick up some cookies for my fellow staff members and some chocolate strawberries for Allison.  The cookies and the strawberries disappeared fast!

Allison and I ALSO packed up a Valentine Goodie Box for Scott, and Allison sent her Grandma and Grandpa Seitz another bird drawing for the Florida house. This time a Sandhill crane.  She drew a picture of a crane as a Christmas gift and we all decided the Florida house needed a pair of birds. Valentine's Day seemed a perfect time to send it.

 I presented Allison with a Valentine Goodie box as well, but Tom and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday. Since we were both off work, we decided to catch an early movie. Tom wanted to see Alita, Battle Angel. He had read the book series and wanted to see how close they came to following the storyline. According to Tom, they did a good job, although threw in a twist with the boyfriend. Mainly it is a Computer Generated Imaging (CGI) movie. A bit like the Avatar movie. But it was fun, especially for me since I had no idea what the movie was about. Afterwards we headed out for an early dinner at one of our favorite restaurants that was having a weekend Valentine's Day dinner special. I enjoyed a wonderful salad with Seafood pasta and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Yum!  Tom is sticking to his low carb diet and had a huge wedge salad with roasted chicken. After dinner we spent the evening walking around the outside mall as well as the nearby inside mall. I still was not feeling great, so we called it a night.  I told Allison she should visit the outdoor mall with her friends since they had an outdoor ice skating rink set up surrounded by fire pits. They also have several restaurants and shops to visit. Allison meanwhile was out with her friend Jen on Friday night as well, also catching a movie. The girls decided to go see The new Lego movie. Allison said it was good, but the first Lego movie was better.

We extended our Valentine's Day celebration into the weekend. Tom thought it would be fun for all of us to see a Hershey Bear Hockey game, so off we went on Saturday afternoon. Naturally, the game was sold out when we arrived. Only when I try to go. This has happened in the past, usually when I try to attend, but Tom did not recall. I prefer that he attempts to purchase tickets ahead of time-it is a long drive(2.5 hrs) not to see the game. And Hershey Park is not open! Tom also prefers to go early in the afternoon so he can assure he gets tickets, but not this time. I don't think going early would have mattered. The Bears have been playing well and winning lately, so more people show up. As it was, I spent the afternoon running around getting paperwork together to send off for the sale of the Florida house. Looks like it may actually happen this time.

The renter moved out of the Florida house in September last year. The house is in pretty bad shape, and has some expensive repairs including a new sea wall on the canal in the back of the house. It was built in 1968 and would probably be better torn down and a new, higher place built on the lot. We have had several offers that fell through and I think we finally got one to stick!  We'll see soon enough.

Meanwhile, we were up in Hershey PA with no tickets to the hockey game. We still had some time to run into Chocolate World and pick up some discounted Valentine candy(yum!).  We also wanted to eat dinner-very hungry by now. We decided to try The Bear's Den in the Hershey Lodge. We thought we would even be able to watch the game on the big screen tvs. We found the hotel and the bar/restaurant inside. Very cute-decorated like the arena with lots of hockey paraphernalia. The  only bad thing is that the games are not televised or at least not played on their big screens, but their radio commercials make you think they are!  We spotted a few other Hockey fans in the restaurant that also missed out on the game apparently. We enjoyed our dinner, looking at all the hockey stuff and afterwards, buying a few of their bar glasses. Our bill even came with a handful of Hershey kisses!  Afterwards I enjoyed a Hershey Mocha Latte for dessert. And it was fun to walk around the Hershey Lodge Lobby area-we especially loved the big, stone fireplace. Apparently, you can have a chocolate bath in their spa. (Always wondered about that).

So we headed home after our Chocolate experience. On Sunday, Tom was up very early for a flight out to San Jose for work. Allison spent the day visiting with some fellow Girl Scout Counselor friends as well as going out to eat, and I took Mom B to the hairdresser and had her over for dinner and a movie at our house after running to Costco. (I am also very happy to have The Walking Dead back on tv on Sunday nights!). 

February 4-February 10, 2019

So I spent 3 days sick in bed and emerged on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit better and quickly started washing all the bed linen and blanket throws. I did not want to share this with Tom and Allison, or my mom. Turns out, my Mom got sick all on her own with a very bad cough. I had her stay home from the Senior Center that week, and did not take her out the following weekend. Instead we caught a movie at the little theater in her apartment complex. We saw the Ray Charles movie. I have seen it before and really like it. Mom seemed to especially enjoy the music, but it was surprisingly long. We sat there for 3 hours and she missed dinner service. Fortunately her food was still in the heating tray, so I served her in the dining room. Afterwards I had her open her Valentine gift. I picked up some flowers, chocolates and a new flowered shirt. I also put up some Valentine decorations in her room.

Since I missed two days of work and don't have any sick time yet, I decided to make it up at the end of the week and worked Weds thru Saturday. Which worked out well since I was scheduled to work that weekend anyway. But Saturday was a very long day since I was the only OT on the schedule.

And it turns out my boss was sick all week as well as a few other therapists. So it wasn't just me and I was not playing hookie from a night of Super Bowl partying. I did have to juggle my work week on the first day back however. Mom had a dentist appointment on Weds morning. So I went in to work for an hour in the morning and then went and picked up Mom for her dentist appointment. We picked up lunch to go and then I dropped her back off to her place before heading back to work. A very busy schedule for my first day back from being off sick.

Meanwhile, Allison and Tom were doing their best to avoid me and my flu/cold?.  Fortunately there was plenty of food for them both since I had been busy shopping and cooking the week before. They decided to catch the $5 movie on Tuesday night. Allison took Tom to see the Spiderman movie, Into the Spider Verse. I had already seen it so I was not missing out. They did not have the $5 movie, but took $5 off on the more expensive movie experience complete with surround sound and vibrating seats(not that they wanted to see a movie like that, but they had no choice). And they charge more for these movie experiences. On Saturday night, the two drove up to Hershey, PA to catch a Hershey Bears Hockey game. They left early and stopped into Candy Land(Tom was doing some early Valentine shopping!). They also stopped into an outlet store and Allison picked up a pair of dressy, kakhi pants and a blue blazer for work before heading to the game. The Bears won in overtime and Allison and Tom report it was a very exciting and fun game. Maybe I will be able to catch a game with those two sometime. 

Allison also finally was able to volunteer on her Friday off with the Northrop STEM group at a local Baltimore school. The team of about a dozen female mentors met with a group of girls from an inner city school to introduce the students to a science and engineering project. They taught the girls about the binary computer language by making matching beaded bracelets. Allison said she was having more fun than the students! Tom used to host STEM educational presentations sponsored by Northrop at  Allison and Scott's parochial school when they were young with presentations like making spaghetti and gum drop towers and bridges, paper airplane races and egg drop containers. Allison is happy to carry on the tradition!

While she was visiting the school, I had to get off work early on Friday to take Cookie to her yearly vet appointment. Mainly Cookie is doing well at 9 years old, but she has been fighting an ear infection all last year. We are trying another medication that is inserted in her ear and they will reassess in a month. She was also due to her yearly shots, but we are splitting them up. She will get a few more when she returns in a month. Cookie is just happy to visit with all the other dogs at the vet clinic!

I have also been enjoying watching the birds discover our window feeder over the kitchen sink. It is fun to see the birds fly up while washing the dishes. They are always fascinated to watch what I am doing too!

This week we celebrate Eric Seitz's Birthday(father of Claire Seitz)! Wonder if Eric brought home a big birthday cake for himself. Happy Birthday Eric!

Jan 28-Feb 3, 2019

Happy Ground Hog's Day!  We were certainly glad to hear that Phil the Groundhog is calling for an early spring. It can't come too soon!  Especially for Scott. He has had an intense winter up in Kalamazoo. So much so that they actually closed the University! They had horrible ice and snow with actual temperatures below 0 degrees. And to top it off, the wind was blowing causing blizzard and white out conditions.  Even with the horrible weather, the University attempted to keep school open, but most of the students could not get out to their classes as the roads were pure ice. They even had a 24 car pile up on the freeway midweek near Kalamazoo. A lot of the students/professors and staff commute to the school or take buses to classes and the roads were impassable. So it was school on and off all week. They even recommended the students pack up extra meals from the dining halls to take back to their rooms so they wouldn't have to venture out in the bitter cold too often. Scott was happy to stay in his dorm room and catch up with homework as well as computer video games.  And stay warm!

We also had some snow and ice in Baltimore, but nothing like Michigan!  I was out shoveling our driveway a few times, but the weather was not so bad to keep us from getting to work.  I was happy that work slowed down a bit so I could get out early and run some errands as the weekend rolled around. We have been trying to treat our neighbors to dinner for Thank You for having them watch our house and pets while we were gone at Christmas. I figured Super Bowl Sunday would be a good day to have everyone over, so I started shopping and cooking on Thursday and Friday. I was glad I went out early since the weather started to turn again at the end of the week-ice and snow. I missed all the shopping crowds, and actually ran into a few of my previous coworkers as well as some new ones. So it looked like I had a great start to the Super Bowl weekend.

We actually had a warm up on Saturday. A pick up truck pulled up in front of the house in the morning and a gentleman asked if we would be interested in topping our birch trees in the front. As it was, I have been looking at different companies to see if we could get a price quote on trimming the trees this winter. When we had to cut down the Bradford Pear trees in the backyard, the company recommended we top our birch trees so they grow up rather than out. And it is usually a bit cheaper in the winter to trim the trees. The county has been busy trimming all the maple trees along our streets recently and I even asked if they did residential work. We are so happy to see them finally trim the trees along the street.  I am really tired of having to replant grass seed in our front yard since it has become so much more shady in the past years. And also under our 3 birch trees. Plus one of the birch tree trunks was starting to lean towards the house and over the garage. So we had all 3 trees trimmed and the large tree trunk cut down for a reasonable price. Tom was very impressed with how quickly the trimmed the trees and cleaned up all the mess. We were also impressed to watch them climb up the trees! It will be interesting to see how the trees look this spring.

I had also planned on spending Saturday afternoon at the large outlet mall near our house with Mom Bozyk. I asked Tom to come along to help load/unload her scooter. I had some scrub pants to return and I thought it would be nice for mom to get out and cruise the mall in her scooter(it is a huge mall), and maybe go out to dinner. I had a few errands to run with Allison first. I needed to drop off a care package to the post office for Scott, and Allison had a package to mail to Gma and Gpa Seitz. We also had a few grocery items to pick up. I was trying to see if I could bake one of my favorite recipes from my grandparents. Pastizzi's are ricotta cheese filled pastries, like meat pies, from Malta. My grandmother used to make the best tasting cheese and ground beef filled pastizzi's and I found a recipe online that I thought would be amazing to try. I was busy making the dough in the morning, but needed a few more ingredients for the filling. Unfortunately, by the time I finished the errands with Allison, I was starting to feel sick. I didn't want to pass on a cold to my mom, so I opted out of the trip to the mall with her

. Instead I ended up wrapped in multiple blankets on the couch with the chills that night.

By Sunday morning I could not get out of bed. I stayed there for 3 days. I caught something pretty bad-guess it was my turn to be sick. Sadly we had to cancel our Super Bowl party. I felt so bad since we had invited everyone over to our house and I made all the food. Allison decided to take some of the goodies and headed over to her friend's house to catch the game. Tom decided it was the most boring Super Bowl game he had ever seen. But he loved the Buffalo Chicken dip.  Plus we were not really rooting for the Patriots and of course they ended up winning. So I guess we did not miss much. Except for me since I missed two days of work the following week.

January 21-27 2019

Happy MLK Day! Turns out, Scott had the day

off from school! It is a Holiday at Western M. He really enjoyed having a 3 day weekend. Last week he attempted to change his calculus class. His new professor was out sick, but Scott was able to contact him via email to get caught up in his class. He had to take an exam last week on the first day in the new class which he was not prepared for since he had not been in the class before and it was run by a substitute. (his previous calculus teacher!). He is hoping to have the chance to retake the test and spent his long weekend catching up with the new class homework.

I also had a Holiday, but worked anyway(double pay!). Allison and Tom did not have a Holiday and also went to work. Allison had a very busy week ahead of herself. She was invited to dinner at her friend's house where she house and cat sat! Her friend Sophia was home from traveling with her University choir having performed in Dallas, TX recently. And over the Christmas holiday her group performed in China! She certainly is a very busy girl and sings Opera. Allison was watching her cat as well as the family cat while staying at their house.

On Thursday, Allison had another GS Gold Award review meeting to attend. On Saturday, Allison was asked to sit on an interview board for the Girl Scouts vying for 5 positions for the Distinguished Women's position. The committee started with 300 applicants and had 12 girls to interview on Saturday. The program allows high school students to follow business women from the Baltimore area around for a work day. And as gratitude for Allison's time, they have invited her to the reception for the Distinguished Woman's Event. Normally, it is a $100.00 ticketed event, so she is excited to go this May. She will also attend the Gold Award ceremony in June and recommended that our Girl Scout choir sing at the event(and maybe I will be her guest!).

On Saturday and Sunday I was also busy with a Girl Scout event. I volunteered to help with the yearly Roller Skating Event. On Friday night, our committee met at Starbucks to go over the details of the event. We had about 400 girls total attend the event for both nights. Saturday night was a bit crazy-we only had 2 hours and it took about 30 mins to get everyone in the door. Troops are supposed to sign up ahead of time, but we had leaders walking in with extra girls and adults that still needed to pay. So it slowed down our registration process, and we had quite a few complaints. And to top off the evening, a girl fell at the end of the event and broke her wrist. Naturally. Fortunately on Sunday the event was 3 hrs long and went much more smoothly. And no broken bones! And afterwards, I loaded my van with donated cleaning supplies the Troops brought to give to several churches that help settle families into new homes. I will be dropping the supplies off during the week.

While I was busy working at the Roller Skating Event on Saturday night, Allison and Tom drove up to Hershey PA to attend a Hershey Bear Hockey game with our friend John. On Friday, Allison and I took time to attend the Pet Expo with Cookie. It is nice to go to an indoor event with Cookie and let her roam around without us freezing on a walk around the neighborhood! Plus Cookie enjoys visiting with the birds, bunnies and the goats!  As well as all the other dogs! Allison and I enjoy checking out all the items at the booths for pets(and some things for people too!).

Tom, Allison and I also took some time on Tuesday night after work for the AMC $5 movie night. I wanted to see the movie "The Upside" which I was not sure if Allison or Tom would like, but I really wanted to see it. It turned out to be as good as I thought it would be, and Allison and Tom thought it was actually a lot better than they thought. I liked it because it is about a wealthy quadraplegic and an unusual nursing aide he hired based on a true story.  Allison and Tom enjoyed it because Kevin Hart plays the aide and he is very funny. Go see it!

Also sending out a Very First Happy Birthday to Claire Seitz who turned the Big #1 on Martin Luther Kings Day! Can't believe how quickly she has grown!

Jan14-Jan 20th

So I am officially back to work-full time at 30 hours! I am working for the same company where Mom B is staying. Wonderful! I have my old work schedule back-4 days a week, Mon-Thursday. I get all benefits because it is considered a full time job. The staff are jealous, but it is what the company wanted-little more than part time but not exactly full time. That way I don't take away the hours from the 40 hr /week staff. But I am a steady employee, and one more person to share weekends. We have to work one Saturday a week, which is fine. Sometimes it is not as busy and you don't have to work at all. Plus they have a weekend therapist so we are just back up. I am excited to have a new OT home and have been busy bringing in some of my supplies. The place was getting quite busy and they actually wanted me to work last week, but I needed some time to get things done before starting full time. Like going to the dentist. I figure I would have plenty more chances to pick up more work. And I did-they asked me to work Friday during my first week of work. Now I just need some more black scrub pants and a new shirt since we wear uniforms. At least I have an official name badge now!

Allison was also back to work after being out sick all last week. She really did not take sick time however as she brought her computer home and worked from there. Unfortunately, I cannot do that in my line of work, but she was able to and feeling much better over the weekend. Just in time to house and pet sit for friends. She spent the weekend at our friends house watching their two cats. One of the cats was a stray kitten that their daughter brought home from college. The family headed down to Florida over the Holiday weekend(Martin Luther King holiday). We had some nasty weather come through, but Allison was able to drive to their place Friday night and came home on Saturday for dinner. Then we both went over to the house for awhile for me to meet the kitten and feed them and play with them for awhile. Allison decided to come home for the night. She was having a hard time sleeping in their big, empty house. And the kitten kept waking her up, jumping on her feet every time Allison moved in the bed! But she headed back over early Sunday morning to spend the day until the family returned.

Allison has been very busy these past few weeks with volunteer opportunities for both Girl Scouts and with Northrop. She was asked to be on the GS Gold Award committee which meets twice a month to review GS Gold Award projects and deny or send them through.  She really enjoys the new position. She was also asked to be on an interview committee for the GS Shadow Girl program where GS high school students are chosen to follow a businesswoman in our Baltimore area around for the day. Allison had the opportunity when she was in high school to shadow Jeannette Partlow, owner of Maryland Chemical Company and it was the best experience of her life. She ended up doing her summer internship at the Chemical Company when she was in college and has made a wonderful friend and supporter from Jeannette. So Allison will be on the committee choosing girls for the same type of experience. And she is still signed up to help out with the after school science programs offered by Northrop once a month.

She also spent her time catching up with college friends home on break. Here on the east coast, universities don't start their spring semesters until February. So the kids have the whole month of January off. Which is nice because they have a one month winter school semester available for taking travel abroad classes, or retaking classes they may have failed. Allison once spent the winter term at Salisbury repeating an Accounting class with a different professor and did much better the second time around, although it was very intense with classes 4 hrs long each day. But at least she understood it better and got a better grade.  And she did not have to take a full semester, just 4 weeks.

Not so for Scott. He just finished his first two weeks of his Spring term at Western and was not happy with his calculus instructor or the schedule. He needed to retake the initial calculus assessment exam given to all students since he scored so low, but students are allowed to retake the test up to 3 times and only needed a C to pass. He did so poorly mainly because he has calculus and physics back to back, and the class before calculus was running late so they had less time to take the test. And he could not stay later like the rest of the students since he had to leave for physics, so he did not have a full hour to take the exam. He did much better on the retake, getting a B and passing. But now he is looking to change classes. He really doesn't want that scenario to happen again where he is rushed through an exam. And he enjoyed the instructor, but she was very intense and moving quite quickly through the work. This is Scott's first experience with Calculus and he really wants to understand it(and do well!). So far he seems comfortable with the rest of his classes-two engineering classes and physics.

On Sunday, I was also busy catching up with Girl Scout events. Our choir's Sing A long Event was rescheduled due to the bad weather last Sunday afternoon. We had a great turnout and as usual, it was a lot of fun. And since I knew I was going to be busy on Sunday, I took my mom out on Saturday for a hair appointment and lunch.

We also keep trying to get our neighbors over for dinner to thank them for watching our house and pets while we were away. But everyone is so busy. The next door neighbors that had to deal with Picka our cat were not available when we got back from Florida for us to take out to dinner. Gloria had just taken a nursing job assignment in Naples, Florida. We had wanted to take them out to dinner, but they were traveling down together since Gloria needed a few days to set up an apartment and she also needed her car on this assignment. Usually the company pays for everything, but not this group. So she was traveling with her husband, Dan, who just happened to have some time off since he is a government employee and was on furlough.

They both drove down to Florida and Dan took a plane ride back. So on Sunday we had him over for dinner, along with our friend John D from California and to watch some football. I figured we could get both guys to come over on a Sunday night since Monday was officially a holiday for both of them. Tom made a wonderful prime rib roast and we topped it off with Key Lime Pie in honor of Gloria(suffering on the gorgeous beaches down in sunny Florida!) She has not had much luck lately with local nursing management jobs and would have loved to retire, but their youngest son decided to attend grad school out of state, so they needed the extra cash. And we still could not get our other friends over that watched Cookie for us. They were visiting with their son who came home from college on his long weekend holiday. Since when do college kids get Martin Luther Kings Day off?  Apparently Scott has the day off too!  I was also surprised to hear that it is a paid holiday for me as well at my new job! No matter, I still planned on going in to work. I just get paid double.

Jan 6-Jan 13 2019

So Tom and I packed up my mom and we headed out of New Orleans on Sunday morning. We had a 10 hour drive ahead of us and Mom B was not up for that long of a ride. We decided to stop when she pooped out, which was North of Orlando.

Tom thought the ride along the Florida panhandle was boring. We wished we could have had more time to explore Mobile, Alabama and the Naval base as well as the historic ships, but we just could not fit it into our schedule. We were amazed at the damage done to all the trees from the hurricane that went through last year. Crews were still out cutting up trees and loading up piles of debris along the freeway in Florida. We also drove through Central Florida and were amazed by the all the many lakes north of Apopka. Very beautiful area and they are busy building a new freeway across the state in that area.

We stayed overnight and had a 2 hour drive in the morning on our way to Sanford, Florida on the East side of Orlando where we picked up the Auto Train heading home. We had time to pick up some lunch at Subway before boarding the train. It was not as crowded heading North as it was traveling South. We had a very nice female train attendant that brought us our dinner and made up our beds. Unfortunately the train ride was much more jerky, and once again, Mom B did not sleep much. She kept waking up with each bump and trying to climb out of her bunk bed. But we made it back to Maryland and dropped mom off at her apartment in time for lunch. Looks like they replaced the windows in Mom's apartment while we were gone-very convenient except that they had to put the apartment back together.

Meanwhile we headed home to unpack the van and do laundry. Allison had headed back to work but was not feeling well. She came down with a very bad cold and ended up staying home the rest of the week. She missed a volunteer opportunity at a local school that she signed up for through Northrop. Maybe next time. She did manage to make it to our Girl Scout jamboree committee meeting on Sunday. I missed that meeting and a GS choir practice.  I was supposed to  attend the GS sing along the following Sunday, but bad weather was moving in and they cancelled since our parking lot was not plowed. So they rescheduled for the following weekend.

I spent part of the weekend undecorating my mom's apartment by putting away her Christmas decorations. I am glad I downsized her decorations-I did not need as many trips to the storage unit. However, I have not downsized our Christmas decorations and we have slowly started putting it all away. I was grateful to have Allison help me start putting items back up in the attic.

She was feeling well enough by the end of the week to join her friends while celebrating her college roommate's  birthday with a trip to a Cat Cafe in DC. Apparently you have to make reservations ahead of time, pay for the experience and they only accommodate a small number of guests at a time. They don't serve food, just drinks. So the group grabbed some lunch at a nearby bakery before heading in. And apparently you are not really allowed to pick up and hold the cats, except if they are lying in their beds. Then you can place the bed on your lap. Sounds a bit strange, but the cafe is working to adopt out the cats, and apparently is very successful. And Allison really enjoyed the experience. As I mentioned in a previous blog, our cat Pika passed away at 19 years during Christmas vacation. It is a strange feeling being in our house without her. I think I feel her absence the most. We knew she was not doing well, and we really felt bad for her. So we had some time to prepare for the loss. But it is strange not hearing her mew or tripping over her in the kitchen, or having her snuggle up on our legs to stay warm while we lay on the couch watching tv.  So I think Allison especially enjoyed having some cat time.

While Allison was out visiting with cats, I was visiting with my mom. I decided to take her to the mall for lunch and a little shopping. I was trying to see if there were any further Christmas deals out there, including a trip to the Hallmark store. I also needed to pick up a specialty picture frame from JCPenny for a family photo for her work desk. And it was on sale! Unfortunately, Mom B cannot walk too far and I really can not manage her scooter very well by myself(loading and unloading).  I have her use her rollator, but she really can only walk short distances, so we rest alot. But we enjoyed the day out and lunch at Chick Fil A! And I picked up my picture frame and some Channukah cards(on sale!).

On Sunday, we had our first big snow of 2019. Tom was excited to get out his snowblower. He did a terrific job clearing the driveway and sidewalks. Because of the snow, the Girl Scout Choir event was cancelled however. (Next Sunday).

And Allison was trying to catch up with some of her college friends still in school, but out on winter break. She postponed her visit to the following week.

We'd like to send out a Happy Birthday wish to Mom Seitz who celebrated her big day on January 6th, The Feast of the Epiphany and the official close of the Christmas Season and 12 Days. Happy Birthday Mom!