July 11th, 2007

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! We've been fairly busy here, as everyone has been, I imagine! Let me see if I can summarize:

We purchased the house in Rocheport on 06-15-07, and for awhile, were busy with demolition. We are now to the point that Rocheport Planning and Zoning needs to approve our plans for the outside changes to the house, and that could take until next month's meeting. Drew went to a meet and greet last night, but got side-tracked by plans for a new boat ramp in Rocheport. Which leads us to the next item on our agenda...the Missouri 350.

The Missouri 350 is a kayak/canoe race from Kansas City to St. Charles on the Missouri river. It's touted as the longest race of it's kind in the world. It takes place from July 24th through the 28th. Drew and his boss (Curtis) have signed up, and Drew has been busy building the kayak for the last several weeks. It's nearing completion, and then they will start training, and then will participate in the race. They have 100 hours to make the trip, while stopping at eight or nine mandatory checkpoints along the way. Anyone interested in being in the "support crew" should call us...the support team meets the team at the various checkpoints along the way, supplying food, water, and God forbid, medical care. I think my parents are going to be helping in Kansas City, and will hopefully then drive to Columbia to keep Bacchus and me company for the rest of the trip. I think "basket case" may adequately describe how I might be feeling during that time!!

I've been busy at work, getting ready to transition into a new building that will host GED and various other classes every day. For me, it means moving from a building with 100 people, to an office with three other people. It should be considerably quieter, and more productive. I've been making a lot of jewelry during quiet moments at home, and selling it for extra spending money. It's not much, but it keeps me busy.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my friend, Kathy, who died last summer from a brain tumor. We are approaching the year anniversary of her death, and I'm still having a lot of trouble dealing with that. Part of that is guilt that I haven't seen her husband, Shawn, or her son, Lucas during the past year, having been caught up in my own family, for one, and not knowing what to say to him, also. Yesterday, as I was cleaning out my office, in preparation for the move, I glanced through my 2005 calendar (yes, I keep them, just for this purpose), and saw all the casual "dinner with Kathy" notations, that took place before she got sick. There weren't nearly enough of them. Not like the old days, when we got together at Booches, our favorite bar several times a week. We grew up, and she was pregnant in '05, and all of our lives started changing. Gather ye rosebuds, people...

Well, that's it for now. I woke up at 4:30 this morning, thinking about all the things that have been nagging at me lately, begging to be done, and I decided that updating this site could be easily taken off the list. (Check)

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Oh, shoot. I forgot to mention Bacchus, and this is, after all, his blog. So, in a nutshell, he's doing great. He has been toying with words, mostly "Ba ba" and "ma ma", but in a whisper now, instead of out loud. Maybe he's trying them out? He's up on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth, but instead of getting his legs moving in a forward motion, he collapses like a bad souffle. Jessica said that Grayson did that for what seemed like a few months before crawling. I can wait! I'm patient! We're having some general fussiness in the evenings, and I think that bedtime is creeping slowly sooner each night. He's sleeping longer in the mornings, for sure, and hasn't woken up during the night for several weeks. He is much smilier in the mornings (much like me!), and we enjoy several minutes waking Drew up in the morning before we head off to Columbia. I'm not sure Drew enjoys that as much as we do, but it gives me a chance to run in the kitchen and make my sandwich to take to work, or do some dishes, etc.

So THAT's all from here. I miss you guys! (Whoever reads this...and I'm fairly sure that if you're reading this on a regular basis, you would be someone I would like to see more often!)