Notes from ShellyCentral

17 Hotation Photos

Remember last week when I was on hotation with my friend Deb? I never showed you the pictures!

our view from the 15th floor

Us, in the mirror behind the microwave/kitchen area.

The living area.

It was a bit of a food vacation. We ate a lot of good food. The first night was here at Jack Stack's BBQ. Of course I liked my dad's better.

Burnt ends appetizer. Yummy, but kinda too much fat for me.

I don't remember what this was called. It was a mexican appetizer at The Cheesecake Factory, where we lunched the next day.

That night I turned the coffee table into an art table. Yay!

That night we were tired - a perfect night for room service.

A chicken caesar salad is always good.

On the menu this was a winner. Donut sliders, grilled bananas, chocolate. In real life, not so much.

Foggy morning view from the 15th floor.

I wore my pjs down to the breakfast buffet at the hotel.

The lobby at the Sheraton Suites on the Plaza.

For the biscuts and gravy, they used last night's dinner biscuts, with cheese and veggie bits. Not good with breakfast gravy.

We had to stop by the Barnes and Noble, of course.

The next night's dinner was at the Urban Table. The mixed olive appetizer went fast. Mostly because of me.

This Harvest Salad was absolutely the best salad ever I ever had. According to the menu it was watercress, baby spinach, poached pears, walnuts, roquefort, and a lemon mustard vinaigrette. I want to go back just for this salad.

One of the best parts was the hot tub, but I don't have any pictures of that. So warm and relaxing. Just what I needed. I spent a while afterward trying to figure out how I could get one in my own back yard.

It was a fantastic trip. I was just sad there was the overhanging doom of Henry and my Auntie both being so close to passing. I hope we can try it again sometime when circumstances are brighter.

From My Hotation

I am getting all stuffy and that's not good. I'm on my hotation and I do not have time for any sickness!

So I'm in a hotel room 15 stories over the Plaza in Kansas City. Deb has just gone to bed because even though she's on vacation, she has a business meeting in the morning. Big drag, but I guess that's how it goes when you work for yourself. I don't know if I'll be getting up with her or sleeping in after she leaves. We'll have to wait and see if my brain wakes me up or lets me sleep. At home the dogs always wake me up, but no dogs here of course. I feel guilty for not being there with the dogs. And to take care of Danny. Hannah can take care of herself, of course. She's actually having a blast, sleeping in my room with the dogs, using Illustrator on my computer and taking advantage of everything in my art room. Go Hannah. I know she won't get up and let Henry out in the morning though, and I'm afraid he'll just walk around in circles through his pee, or end up laying in it again. Did I say I feel guilty for not being there? Yeah. I am.

It was a fun night though. I got to Deb's in the afternoon and we checked in just after check out time. There's a living room with a small fridge and microwave and a bedroom with two lovely beds. Since we're on the 15th floor we have a great view. We went out on the plaza tonight and ate at a fancy barbeque. My dad owned a bbq in Kansas City while he was alive, but it was a traditional, kinda grungy KC bbq, so the fancy kind was a little weird to me. It was tasty, but not nearly worth what it cost, in my opinion. Still I'm happy that I've checked it out. I love trying new places and new food.

And I have some desert waiting in the fridge! Carrot cake. Which sounds kind of suspicious to me, but both Deb and my brother swear it's the greatest carrot cake ever so I have high hopes. We get free breakfast here at the hotation or I'd eat it in the morning. It's nice just knowing it's there when I'm ready.

Hotation. It's a word we use a lot in my family. Hannah invented it when she was 3 and a half and we were at Disney World. She got hotel and vacation all jumbled up and she'd ask things like "Are we going back to our hotation now?". It was so cute it stuck. Love that girl.

i [heart] scotland

Yesterday i was really missing Scotland.
(I'd be missing it today too, probably, but I've been too busy.)

I didn't really think I'd love Scotland. I didn't schedule many days there, and I was kinda just going because Hannah wanted to. Turns out I really love it.

It was so beautiful, both the country side

and the city (of Edniburgh).

The city was charming and the people were so friendly and charming, there was so much history shoved into such a tiny space, the accents were my favorite - I really loved so much about it.

What I can't have for lunch.

This:

is what I want for lunch.

It was a chilly day on Inis Mor, a tiny Island off the west coast of Ireland. Hannah, Gene and I had been touring around on a pony cart with the marvelous guide, Patrick and his beautiful horse Grace. I've forgotten how to spell her name in Gaelic. We stopped for lunch in one of the few cafes and I ordered the Beef and Guiness stew. I was a little unsure but it turned out to be so so delicious! Mmm, I can taste it now. Kind of. I mean not like I was really eating it, but you know. Sadly I didn't get to eat it all because I ordered the wrong thing for Hannah so I had to share it with her. Still it was fantastic and I am longing to eat it for lunch today!

View from the cafe door:

We visited these shops a little later when it was bucketing down rain.

Re-entry

Well hello there.
I'm back.
I've been back since Sunday night, and it's now Friday afternoon, but it's been a bumpy re-entry. Mostly with the sleep and eating thing. Last night was the first night I was able to stay up in the evening, every other night I was fast asleep as soon as dinner was done. I'm still awake at 3am each morning, but lately I've been able to get back to sleep pretty quickly with the help of Harry Potter on mp3.

Home is lovely. Seriously. There's nothing like wandering around several different countries for 4 weeks to make you appreciate home. There's just nothing like it. The way it looks, sounds, smells. The midwestern way people smile at you when you make eye contact. Knowing where everything is and how to get there. Being able to drive there. Knowing what to have for lunch. Calling friends for free. Unlimited data roaming on my phone. Oh and don't forget my dogs. Hooray for the dogs. And hooray for Henry for still being here when we got back. Go Henry. Long live the king.

Today I started looking through the photos. Neither of us took nearly enough pictures. We both regret it. I want a do over. But I'm looking through them to find the best, so I can put them together with some words and tell you all about it. A 26 day trip report. That shouldn't take me long, right?

So re-entry continues. I'm not sure when I'll be back to normal but I'm sure I'll enjoy it when it happens. Until then I'm trying to rest up and give it time, while catching up on a month's worth of life and chores and news and etc that I have missed. For now I just wanted to say Hi, and I'm back, and I'm sure normal will begin very (too) soon.

In which I ramble a bit.

I am at Dillions. I am thinking of going home, but I thought I'd see what I might have to say on my blog first.

I spent some time this morning driving Hannah to various places to apply for jobs. One place was out of applications. Some places only take applications online. A lot of places have already done their hiring for the summer. After we hit all the places on the list, I took her to her boyfriends for the day and brought myself here for a quiet break. And what I thought might be a tasty lunch but was really kind of yuck. I don't think I like their sesame chicken. It's way too sweet, and way too breaded. I hope I remember that next time. I also hope I remember to get some wet food before I go home or my dogs will be quite cross with me toinght around 6:30pm.

I had a kind of mini shopping spree at the Kindle store. I got a 3 free Jane Austen books to maybe read before I go to Bath. I also bought a few that were on sale for 1.99. That's hard to pass up. I wish I remembered how to archive a book on Kindle. I guess I should google for it. Isn't that the answer for everything these days?

There are only 89 days left till H and I board the plane for the big adventure. I am not kidding when I say I think about it every single day. Sometimes over and over again. Partly because there's still a lot of stuff to do. Partly because I'm so excited about it I can barely stand it. Partly because I'm so nervous and scared of it I sometimes wish we weren't going. And sometimes, all of the above at the same time.

I have bought all of our plane tickets. KC to Dublin (via Minneapolis). Dublin to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to London. London to Rome. And Rome to KC (via Amsterdam and Minneapolis, I think). I have a place to sleep set up everywhere but in Galway. The hold up there is a. it's hard for me to pick from the big list of B&Bs and b. we're meeting a friend there and I'm not sure where he wants to stay. I also don't have reservations for our one night on the island of Inishmor, but that comes in a package when you buy your ferry ride across the water. I still have train tickets to buy. Those seem complicated. And if I'm going to buy/take some day trips, I need to book them soon as well. I pretty much want to pay for and reserve as many things as I can before we get there. I know not everyone agrees, but I think it makes things easier.

I miss my big Mac. There's a chance it's just the power supply that is broken, but I'm not sure how to find out. Danny is always stressed and seems so busy that I hate to bother him with more technical problems to fix, but I guess eventually I'll have to.

I should be writing some email. When I hear of people who have a big pile of email to reply to, I am usually jealous. I wish I had a bunch of email to reply to. But right now I'm thinking of a couple people I owe some kind of response to and I am not doing it. Bad Shelly. I have always liked getting email more than I like sending it. On the contrary, I like sending snail mail more than I like getting it, usually. Weird.

Ok, I'm going to go now. I'm going to change my facebook photo and do some other random stuff, and then I'm going to buy the dog food and go home.

Vlog 27 - About Europe and Fantasy Parties

In which I tell a little more about our trip, and let you know who I'd have at a Gala celebrating Shelly.

Vlog Number 10

Today I was inspired to make a mind map about my feelings regarding the big upcoming Europe trip. I talked about that some. And then I talked about trying out new creative stuff, and how you have to start out bad but keep trying to get better:

 

Talking about Tv

I knew talking TV stuff would be a good subject for my ongoing Vlog experiment!

Part 1:
Mostly about TiVo, Netflix and General Hospital

 

Part 2:
About the other shows I love.

 

I'm going to Ireland.

I am so excited about my upcoming trip I can barely stand it sometimes. Especially today when everyone is thinking about Ireland. I'm going to Ireland! I can't wait to look at it.
In about 174 days now. I say about because I'm still not sure when we're leaving exactly, but sometime in the first week of September. Or maybe the end of August if I can work it.

I mentioned we're leaving out Glastonbury. Kinda sad, because it was certainly the most holy and spiritual place I've ever been. And as a big hippy town, it's a lot like home which is nice after being gone for so long. That gave us a few extra days to do other things. I had thought we'd ride a bus from Galway to Dingle and hang out there for a while, but instead now I think we'll add a couple day trip/tours.

There's one from Dublin called the Wild Wicklow tour. It goes through Glendalough. The pictures people have posted from it are unbelieveable. Mountains and waterfalls and stony creeks. Ruins of ancient monasteries. Lunch in a little pub (full of tourists). I think Hannah and I will both love it. I'm very excited to have found it and that we'll get to check out that part of Ireland.

The second tour I found is more for me than Hannah, but I think she'll love it too. Plus it helps move us along from Edinburgh to London. It's a 3 day trip with 2 nights in B&Bs. It covers Hadrian's wall and the Lake district, the main two places I wanted to add to the trip but wasn't sure how! Perfect. H will be bored at the wall maybe, but how can she resist the beauty of the Lake District? I hope I'll have a chance to visit the Wordsworth cottage, but even if we don't I will love setting my own two eyes on the Lake District. My man Wordsworth called it "the loveliest spot that man hath found".

I say my man Wordsworth, but it's really his sister Dorothy that I'm really a fan of. Her journals have been published and they are so very good. I wish I could make Hannah read them before we go, but I can barely get her to clean her spot at the dinner table. I hope I can make myself read it actually. Sometimes I can barely get myself to put my clean laundry away.

Oh wait. That tour is only given twice a month. I might be able to plan our trip so we're there on the right day, but I also have made plans with a friend to meet up in Galway. I'll have to check to see if he could change. Drag. I guess that's a wait and see. It doesn't really change my overall level of excitement. There's also the thought that we make a stop in the Lake District on our own.

Whatever happens, and I know it won't all go smoothly, I am so excited. I can't believe I get to go. Again. It is going to be so much fun seeing things that are so beautiful and so old and so of historical import. And I hope Hannah will have a great time and it will be the funnest thing we've ever done together.