Radio silence

So it's been a week. A whole week without posting. I've been traveling for work and then drowning in my own backed up life and work to do lists. In other words, I've been swamped.

But while I was on a trip that took me to the Florida and back in the span of 3 days, my mom and dad took the boys to Portland for spring break. It is the longest they have been away from us since they were born. I was a little worried they were going to be too much for the grandparents to handle or that they'd melt down after the initial excitement of the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house wore off, but I was wrong. Each time I called they were happy to talk to me, gave me the briefest of updates on what they'd been doing then got off the phone to get back to doing other more important things. It sounds like it would hurt my feelings a little, but honestly it was a huge relief knowing they were happily occupied, not spending much time worrying about where I was or when they'd be going home.

The business trip was a success, at least by my measure. I won't bore you with the details, but I came back reassured that things were going well. Even if I did nearly flash the most senior manager we met with when a button popped off my brand new blouse midway through a meeting. Yes, as I sit discussing future plans with a customer, the button on my shirt located right between my boobs decided to take a mini vacation. I felt it pop and reached to discreetly close it only to realize that it had not just opened, it had flown off leaving a nice gap in my shirt. So mid-meeting I was trying to find an unobtrusive way to a) cover my ample bosom and b) keep it covered for the rest of the day while c) searching for the lost button so I could reattach it once I was back on my home turf. I managed to button my cardigan over the gap all while not attracting any more attention than absolutely necessary. In fact, when I mentioned the incident to a co-worker who was sitting almost directly across from me, he swore he had no idea I'd tried to air the girls in the meeting. He also reassured me that no one noticed then confided that the first day of the trip he'd spent a portion of the morning with his fly undone.

I got back to Seattle very very late on Wednesday. Or if you want to get technical, I got back on Thursday morning, very very early. I staggered home, crashed out hard and the dragged myself out of bed on Thursday for a full day of work. In the evening, Mr. Dog and I took advantage of our temporarily kid-free status to have a date night at a local Italian restaurant. It was heavenly. Heavenly until the end when we were among the last few tables in the restaurant occupied, the only other table being an exchange student and his host mom hashing out the "rules" for his house. This included her repeatedly telling the hapless student that he under no circumstances was allowed to have sex in her house, but if he wanted to drink beer or wine at her house, she'd happily buy some for him. Other choice topics were "sleep-overs"- apparently they are not wild parties, they are just when you want to get up really early. (Yeah, I didn't get that one either) and the possibility of staying out past his curfew for some organized event, for example he was going with a group of friends to see an 11 pm movie and afterward wanted to go out for "ice cream cones", though I can't imagine any place in the city that offers ice cream at 1 am. I think the thing that disturbed us both the most, apart from the fact the host mother seemed to be batshit crazy in general, was her choice of restaurant for this conversation. I mean this restaurant was kind of high end for teens, and most of the other tables were couples enjoying a romantic night out. Add to this the fact she was being way too freakin' loud for the general conversation level of the dining room, and Mr. Dog and I were giggling like crazy over this conversation.

After work on Friday I drove to Portland to meet up with my family for Easter weekend while Mr. Dog continued work on the house for the weekend. We're getting so close, I swear I can taste it. Well, maybe not taste it, since I don't really know what a finished foundation wall would taste like, but you get my drift. So I'm tired. Exhausted really. And that's more or less what you've been missing.