#74 - The Pilgrimage Home - Aug 15, 2012

I could really get used to sleeping without an alarm clock. I’m getting better at sleeping past 6, and even with the sun up. Breakfast on the deck was simple – Chinese leftovers for me from lunch yesterday, Cheerios for Katrina. Then we packed, cleaned up the place, I blogged for a while, and we left at 11. We decided to come home via Rt 44/55. It’s a nearly straight shot from our house out to Kerhonkson on this road.


It winds through the Minnewaska state preserve, Gardiner, Highland, and some other small towns before it hits the Mid-Hudson Bridge. We used the E-Z Pass for the first time. It worked. Super handy to not need change any more for toll roads.

We stopped at a few places on the way – the little consignment store I stopped at in July on my bike ride, a roadside fruit stand, a view point. It took us about 2 hours, but we got home to find the house was empty.

I ordered some things we needed – new AV cables for the Wii and PS2 because we don’t have a way to get a composite video signal to our new TV, a landline phone because we still can’t find the power supply for our fancy phone, and a set of TV timers for the kids. No more mom and dad monitoring TV time – the kids will own it. The unit has a power plug, and the kids will get coins each day. The coins are each worth 15 minutes of screen time.

Then I went to work – I got into my swimming shorts, grabbed a snorkel mask and the brush, and I swept the pool from end to end. My goal was to get all of the sand and gravel out of the pool, and to eliminate all of the dark spots on the bottom. The dark spots were mostly leaves that had sunk, and I expected to be able to get those with a net. The rocks would have to be swept. So I grabbed the brush and did skin-diving. Down, 3-4 brush strokes, up for air, back down. Back and forth across the pool, pushing all the heavy little pieces to the shallow end.

In an hour, I was done. I had a pile of gravel and sand on the side of the pool, a few small piles of leaves and detritus, and the pool looked much cleaner, despite all the gunk I had kicked up while sweeping. As I finished, I heard the kids come home. Dad and I talked for a while with the kids on the screen porch, Aria cooked dinner of Al Fredo and beans, and I sat down to blog while the younger kids sat down with papa to watch an episode of Merlin.

Nana took Aria to her off-site mutual activity, and when Katrina came to get my keys, we realized that I would have to drive her and Christian to the church for scouts and her meeting. So we left Libby and Jake in dad’s care and left. We got home, and I went right to bed. Katrina joined me eventually, but I didn’t notice. I never do.

I know that tomorrow is going to be challenging at work, and I’m going to need a full day’s energy. And I’m still tired because of that rain storm last night. But I’ll get better.