Ending with a whimper instead of a bang

Well, we have our house back to ourselves.

The flights were all on time this morning. Vince and Thuan headed back to Chicago. Tinton took off to Denver to spend January with his girlfriend before he meets up with Nirand in early February in France. Nirand was headed to see his parents in New York and then on to France to get their dig ready.

Liv wept, but not too much. She confessed on the way home that she was looking forward to things getting back to normal. It was nice having such wonderful company, but it will be pleasant too, to wander around in my pjs again and not feel as if I have to keep the house stocked in good groceries.

We had planned to go our separate ways this afternoon, Bing to her workout and to her school to get her classroom ready for Monday and Liv and I to go shopping for some new jeans for her since she is on a growth spurt and all of her pants are now suddenly high water.

The plan was to meet back home at 3 to go out for pancakes and then grocery shopping.

Around 1:30, I nearly slipped and fell as Liv and I emerged from Target with her jeans in hand. There was a slim coating of ice on the ground.

We barely made it home before it became truly dangerous to drive. Another ice storm.

Bing came slithering up the driveway a half hour later and a joint decision was made to skip the pancakes and opt for leftover chicken sandwiches instead.

Groceries could wait until tomorrow.

We are now cozily ensconced in our newly emptied nest (and the last of the Christmas decorations were taken down to the basement this morning, so things look really bare) and all quietly doing our own things. Bing is reading her WSJ and listening for the dryer to stop as we changed all the sheets in the house today. Liv is deeply immersed in her Christmas book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard and is dreamily munching on a chicken sandwich. I hear the crunch of her dill pickle, too, occasionally, as she takes a deeply loud, satisfying bite of it now and then.

And I am blogging and planning on spending the afternoon reading my book.

I miss those boys, but not all that much.

Tomorrow, we will go eat our pancakes and go grocery shopping. Make our lunches for Monday, when Liv and Bing will slouch back to school and I will head back to work.

I am trying hard to adjust to my new glasses. I chose these, in red and these.

I can hardly believe that the holidays are finally over and that until late January, when Liv and I travel to Lincoln to see my sister, Jessie's daughter enter into gymnastics competition....we will be idle.

Idle is such a nice word, isn't it?

Are you like me? Do you feel like you spent December running around like a chicken with it's head cut off?

So...here's what I am thinking to get my creative juices flowing again (and hopefully yours)...I think that we should all write a blog about how we met our true loves. It may not be the one we are with now, it may have ended badly...there may have been more than one. But, I am curious. How did you meet one of your best loves? I want to hear all about it. Either leave me a post or tell me that you blogged about it and I will come and visit.

And I will tell my Bing story. Although, to be honest...it's a tired old tale and one that everyone has read already. But, there may be a few details I have held back until now.

Just sayin'....

So, the gauntlet is down, suckers.

Any takers?