Tired...

Today is the 20th anniversary of my mom's death. Don't go getting all morbid and sappy, it's life. However, I forgot all about it until this afternoon because the power went out at midnight last night. Yesterday we had an ice storm and many of the trees are losing limbs because of the weight of the ice. The grass outside is now a field of thick upside down icicles, it looks kinda neat. I brought Jake to bed with me to keep him warm at 3am when he woke up and I didn't sleep very well after that. He woke up for good at 7am, still no power, and I waited until 8am to call Christy. Her house still had power so I headed over at 9am. While I was leaving the apartment complex, I saw two Ameren UE (the local electric company for those of you who don't live here) trucks turning down the street towards the outage and I noticed that it was really only the apartment complex and a few houses around there that were out. I wonder... with so many houses out of power in the St. Louis area, maybe they came out here so quick because the police department next door might have been out of power too... who knows, it doesn't really matter anyway.

My test to determine if power was restored was to call the apartment office since they have an answering machine and it did not answer when I left, but answered by the time I got to Christy's. Hmmpf! I wasn't about to turn around when I had just packed up the car walking around downed ice branches with Jake and Zorro and in to the mud and icy grass to pack the car and get there. They invited me to hang for a bit. John had prepared a roast the night before and cooked it while I was there for lunch. Mmm! It was SO yummy! He also made green bean casserole and homemade scalloped potatoes. Jake started getting fussy from teething and he refused to take longer than a 20 minute nap, so we packed up and got home at 3pm. I fed him and he promptly went to sleep, he's so cuddly and cute... and he smelled like the roast that John made, I just sat there and inhaled him for a few minutes longer before I put him in his swing for his afternoon nap.

Gas is down to $1.98 a gallon!!!!!!!!! Woohoo! I haven't seen gas prices THAT low for a couple of years! At Costco it's even down to $1.97!

Mike plans on arriving here on Wednesday for good. His last day at work was Friday, he trained the new guy every afternoon for a week. And the new guy is going to make 20k more a year than Mike did, that SO pissed Mike off, and me too. That's more than the company advertised as the rate of pay for Mike's position. At least that gives us hope that maybe Mike can find a job that pays that well here, cross your fingers or pray for him, whatever your preference.

Mike will leave Phoenix Monday morning and stay with his mom and her husband in Texas for a day to visit with his aunt and cousin on Tuesday. Then he'll head up here Wednesday morning and arrive sometime that evening. I think I'm going to realize that I missed him more than I let myself admit... it's been getting kinda lonely with only Jake and Zorro the last couple of weeks. And it was nice to hang out with John and Christy today. In addition to looking forward to seeing and hugging Mike, etc, I am looking forward to being able to sleep in while he catches up with Jake in the mornings. And having someone to go out to eat with occasionally.

I found this video program that allows Mike to see Jake through my webcam, we couldn't get it to work with AIM for some reason... maybe because Mike does not have a webcam on his end, I dunno... Anyway, I had Mike's mom install it and she got to see Jake live for the first time yesterday. She won't be able to meet her first grandchild until after he is already one year old when she and her husband drive through St. Louis to visit his children this summer.

Jake just woke up from his afternoon nap, I'll blog more at a later date. ~Adria