Random header image... Refresh for more!

careening out of control

You know that feeling when you are, or you think you are about to, fall down a flight of stairs?

That “heart-pounding, can’t catch your breath, your world is spinning completely out of your control” feeling.

Yeah, that pretty sums up how I’ve felt for the last two weeks. I’d say since my birthday, things have felt like they are constantly getting away from me and I’ll never catch up.

fall-festival-truck

For instance, my birthday was Thursday the 27th, on Sunday the 30th, we had our neighborhood Fall Festival. I was in charge of it. I was in charge of it two years ago too but it didn’t feel like as big a job as it was this time. Granted, my committee was larger and more available in 2014, but this year it felt like a two-woman-show when it should have been a ten-woman-production. I worked for weeks leading up to it and for 16 straight hours on the day of.

nail-drama

As if being bone-tired wasn’t bad enough, I tore, chipped and cracked three fingernails of my 2-day-old, absolutely perfect, best-ever manicure! The photo shows the left hand before and after with the index fingernail ripped clean off. On the right hand, if you look close, you can see the tear in the middle finger and by the end of the day, the ring finger was broken off too.

zz

The next morning, Halloween, I was up with the sun to get everything “Festival-related” cleaned up and put away and get ready for our traditional Halloween pizza-grilling festivities. Trick-or-treating with Zak and Zoey was so much fun!

calendar

My continuing birthday-celebration-mode complicated things further, as I had lunch and dinner dates still lined up the week after. Not that I’m complaining! I am not! I’m touched and love being loved by my friends and family, but this year, the timing took its toll. Yes, that is a screenshot of my calendar for the week. It may be too small to read, but you get the idea.

class

The next day was the first night of my 3-week cooking classes at Les Gourmettes. Shopping, prepping and teaching occupied all hours from dusk to dawn on Tuesday.

vote

Add to that, on Thursday morning, Connor and I went to take part in early-voting and waited for 2 hours! I don’t have time to sit for 2 hours! But we did and we voted.

The one thing that had weighed especially heavy on me was a charity dinner I was cooking for guests at the Frank Lloyd Wright Price House on Saturday night. It was five courses; a signature cocktail, 3 appetizers, soup, salad, main course with two sides and dessert for a total of 10 recipes, most of which had three components to each dish. For instance, the dessert was a bread pudding with sautéed apples and crème anglaise and the soup had an avocado cream garnish and cheese puffs. Thankfully, my friend and colleague, Kim Howard spent a good part of the morning in the kitchen with me. Thank you, Kim!

flw-door

I had, at the same time, been looking forward to and dreading it for months.

There is a feature on Facebook where it takes all your photos from one day and makes a fun video. You can click HERE to link up to my FB page to see the video I make of my exhausting and exhilarating day.

Now that the dinner is under my belt, I can concentrate on getting the Halloween decorations put away and getting Thanksgiving decor up. I can focus on the second class in my 3-week series, which is Tuesday. And then, best of all, zero in on my mother-in-law’s 90th birthday celebration! We fly to Wisconsin at the end of the week and meet up with the entire Hopkins clan (less one handsome nephew who is a professional soccer player in Sweden) for a fun-filled Birthday Weekend at a lodge on a lake.

I can not wait!!!!

drone

P.S. To keep with the theme of careening out of control – I finally took the drone out of the box that I bought months and months ago. I watched the “how to” video with Connor, took it to a park and immediately got it stuck in a tree. When I say immediately, I mean within 40 seconds! Dave drove home to get the pole from the pool net and we got it down but broke one of the arms of the drone in the fall. Out Of Control!

C’est la vie.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save


Print pagePDF pageEmail page

7 comments

1 Tram Mai { 11.07.16 at 8:20 AM }

And I’m sure it didn’t help that I was asking you to do all these “life changers” for 12 News!! But you handled it like a pro, as you ALWAYS do!!!!! Thanks for a blast on Halloween night too!!! xoxo

2 Betsy { 11.07.16 at 9:16 AM }

makes my head spin ! You are amazing

3 Pat Hopkins { 11.07.16 at 11:32 AM }

You really are non stop! And now you’re apparently going to cook for my birthday. What an amazing daughter-in-law! xoxoxo

4 Diane { 11.07.16 at 4:18 PM }

LMFAO, I just zoomed in and read some of your calendar, does Sunday actually say, “For God’s sake-Get Halloween put away!!! Take down Christmas light. Get out Thanksgiving.” You actually yell at yourself on your calendar – you’re killing me! And did you actually have to go to a funeral in the middle of that extremely stressful week? Girl, you rock!

5 Linda Hopkins { 11.07.16 at 4:48 PM }

Diane, you’re killing ME! Yes, you are correct on all counts. I do reprimand myself on my calendar when needed. No, even though I do, I still didn’t get any of those things done on Sunday since Sunday is when I was crashing the drone. I did finally get Halloween put away today (Monday) and get Thanksgiving out of the shed. It will have to wait until Wednesday to get put up though because I have a class to prepare for tomorrow. And I’ll have to get down the Christmas lights on Wednesday too. And yes, I did have to take my dad to a funeral last Friday. The fun never ends around here.

6 Linda Hopkins { 11.07.16 at 4:49 PM }

Mom, can’t wait to cook for you because YOU are an amazing mother-in-law and Grandma, best ever! xoxo

7 Linda Hopkins { 11.07.16 at 4:49 PM }

Tram & Betsy, 🙂 xoxo

Leave a Comment