A bit of advice from The Geej:

When your mom comes home from a trip to a city where there's an H&M, and she's sort of gone nuts buying you cute new clothes there because her entire state doesn't even have an H&M, the best thing to do is to try everything on at once. Even if that means you're wearing a skirt, two dresses, a rain slicker and matching hat, and two pairs of new day-of-the-week panties on top of the panties you were already wearing.

Trust me: It's a good look.

Love,

The Geej

Five words I thought I'd never have to say:

I am stuck in Detroit.

The schedule for the next few daze*

Thursday

Wake up, get ready, get my kiddo fed, ready, lunch packed, etc.

Straighten up house as much as possible.

Get to school by 8:30-ish. Hopefully I'll be able to leave without The Geej throwing a full-blown hissy fit as she did this morning.

Get to work by 9:00-ish

Team meeting at 9:30.

Team photo after team meeting.

Finish editing 13 page document.

Get all stuff together for work trip (more on this soon).

Wait for mom to call around lunch time.

Go meet mom and her cousin who's visiting from Holland downstairs in The Store. Tour them around The Store.

Go to lunch with Mom and 2nd Cousin. Don't really eat anything. (You'll see why in a sec.)

Wait for call from Mr. Wonderful telling me his plane has landed.

Go to 2nd lunch with Mr. Wonderful because he'll be really hungry. Again, don't really eat anything.

Go get The Geej at school. Listen to her squeal with glee when she sees that Mr. Wonderful is with me.

Go home and hang with The Geej for a while. Make her some dinner. Get myself ready to go to dinner at swanky restaurant with Mr. Wonderful (this is why I really don't want to eat much during the earlier part of the day).

Take Geej to La Turista's to play with Peach and Olive for a while.

Go have nice leisurely dinner with Mr. Wonderful at swanky, romantic restaurant. Stuff my face. Drink wine. Enjoy myself.

Pick up Geej.

Take her home.

Put her to bed.

Put myself to bed. With Mr. Wonderful. Hubba hubba.

Friday

Wake up.

Say goodbye to Mr. Wonderful who leaves to go to his big job interview. (This positive thoughts, people.)

Get the girl ready for school, which will include her first day of DANCE CLASS!!

Get myself ready. Sort of.

Take Geej to school.

Go get my freakin' hair cut and colored because y'all, my roots are utterly ridiculous.

Rendezvous with Mr. Wonderful for a post-interview lunch and perhaps a matinee.

Go shop for something yummy to cook for dinner. Hopefully on the grill. I love a man who grills.

Pick up the Geej.

Go home. Make dinner. Hang with the Geej.

Put the Geej to bed.

Go to bed.

Saturday

Wake up.

Get ready.

Pack for work trip while Mr. Wonderful packs to go home.

Dah arrives.

Mr. Wonderful and I leave for airport.

I rendezvous with coworker at airport. We go to our gate and board a plane to Michigan.

Mr. Wonderful goes to his gate and boards a plane for Colorado.

Land in Dallas. Get on Connecting flight to DETROIT (Motown).

Land in Detroit. Get rental car. Figure out how the hell to get from the airport to our hotel in West Bloomfield.

Check in.

Connect with coworker's friends who live in Detroit area.

Have dinner. Drink wine. Hang out.

Go to hotel. Go to sleep.

Sunday

Wake up. Get ready.

Meet up with two other coworkers to tour stores.

Tour three stores. Meet various people. Be delightful and pleasant.

Have dinner with coworkers.

Tour final store.

Go back to hotel.

Hang out with travel-partner/coworker, going over next day's presentation.

Watch "Rock of Love" on VH-1 if hotel has it on cable.

Go to sleep.

Monday

Go to the only store we didn't tour the day before.

Give presentation/training from 9:00 - 10:30.

Have lunch.

Go to airport. Turn in rental car.

Catch plane to Dallas.

Land in Dallas. Catch plane to Austin.

Land in Austin at 7:00pm.

Get home just in time for The Geej's bath and bedtime ritual.

Unpack. Shower. Collapse.

Tuesday

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be taking the day off on Tuesday.


*In other words, please forgive if I don't blog for the next few days... I'm going to be a little busy.

Please tell me she's getting this out of her system now.

Because I don't want to be a grandmother before 50.

Here she is with Sally (of course) taking the maiden voyage in the new stroller. We had to toss the old stroller because she simply wore it out. It was all kinds of broken, and we had a mini-crisis on our hands because of it. Yes, that's a faux Baby Bjorn she's wearing on her chest (came with the stroller, dontcha know), and in it is the rarely-photographed "swimming baby," Britney. (My mom named her. I sweartogod.)

And today, a coworker of mine with a first grader gladly bequeathed me two gently-used babies, just as big as Sally. They didn't have any clothes on because her daughter had wanted to keep the clothes to put on her stuffed animals. Oh well...Geej likes 'em nekkid anyway. So these new babies were waiting for her in the car when I picked her up from school today, and after first wanting to name one of them "Bumblebee," we landed on the names Molly (on her head) and Polly (on her left). Apparently, they're twins. And Sally is their sister. Would you please look at how happy she is?!

And have I told y'all that she'll only wear dresses now and starts dance lessons this Friday (her request). Holy crap. How did I end up with this girly girl?

Another milestone is passed...

This weekend, I took Geej's carseat out of the back seat and replaced it with this:
It's the Evenflo "Big Kid" booster seat. It's actually pretty cool, if for no other reason than it can be pulled in and out of the car no problemo (unlike the car seat, which required an act of Congress and lots of muscles). It also has little lights on each side, in case she wants to read Shakespeare or something while we prowl the streets at night. I swear, I got tears in my eyes the first time I strapped her booster. She's just so damn BIG all of the sudden. It's like each one of these little milestones we pass means that the baby I remember is a more and more distant memory. Sigh.

On a TOTALLY unrelated note, as I write this, there are only 7 more hours until Justin Timberlake's big HBO concert. Cougars, UNITE!

According to The Geej...

...all you need to go to the beach are the following items (pictured below):

• An umbrella
• Lots of "money"
• A bib
• A book
• and, a towel "for the sand"

You know what's scary? She's pretty fucking dead on.

By the way, she gathered all this together and then announced, "Mommy, I'm ready to go to the airport and get on a plane to the beach. And I'm bringing Sally."

But of course you are, angel. Of course you are...