Yesterday I made my flight resevations to fly back to California. I also made flight reservations for my cat, Georgia to fly to California. It costs almost as much for a cat to fly as a person to fly I found out! And then they get crammed in underneath a seat! Oh well. She'll probably have more room in her carry on cat carrier that I spent $75 on at PetCo. I got the American Airlines pet carrier as they guaranteed that it will fit under the seat in front of you. I wonder if that's only if you fly American Airlines or Continental (like I'm going to be doing)?
Today, I started saying my goodbyes to my family. We all met down in Normandy to tour the George Dickel Distillery to spend some time together as a family. Dad drove down from Tullahoma, Roberta came in from Shelbyville, Chris and family came in from Hillsboro, and Scot and Sandy drove down from Smyrna. All this because I asked them to. (NOTE: Mary couldn't make it because the one person "who never gets sick"- got sick! I told her to stay at home; nobody wants her nasty germs!). It was a great day. Larry and Robin opened up their house to us after the tour so that we could have a picnic in the living room. It only got up to 36 degrees today... a bit on the cold side to be outside having a picnic!
I will go over and say good bye to my Mom, who didn't make it down to Normandy for the distillery tour. She isn't into cold weather. I remember one time she told our pastor that when she died, she hoped it was going to be warm where she went. Pastor looked at her for a second and then said, "Marilyn, I think you're talking about the wrong place"! Glad the Pastor had a great sense of humor!
I will need to go by and say good bye to Jack, our neighbor. Bless him, I'm going to really miss him when I go back to California. He's 94 years old and I know he won't be around for much longer, but he's the grandfather I haven't had in years. He tried fixing our space heaters for us and was so disappointed that he couldn't fix them. I was pretty much "Jack- if you can do it great. If not, it's NO big deal". But to Jack it WAS a big deal. When I've made chili, beef stew or other soups, I take over a big bowl for him to have a couple of meals with. He never fails to return them washed and with a big compliment on the cooking. He got my very first pecan pie I ever made. He was so tickled that I gave it to him. He finished it off in less than a week!
I will go by and say good bye to Mike's aunts and uncle. I haven't spent as much time with them as I wanted, but the weather in the past month or so has left a lot to be desired! We did spend time with his aunts when Mike was here for Christmas. Saying good bye to them will be hard, too.
I've gone the past few weeks and have taken photographs at the places I wanted to go to before I left for California. Rutledge Falls, downtown Manchester during the snowstorm, Hands on Science Center, George Dickel Distillery, Arrowheads to Aerospace Museum and some of the more beautiful sunsets we've had in a couple of months.
I'm so excited about going back to California, but leaving my family to go is going to be harder than I thought. I've gotten used to having them call me and say, "What are you doing?" and then proceed to invite me to do something with them. Dinner, son's basketball game, go pick up some books/calendars/or some trivial thing they have for me, go take some milk/sodas to the parents who didn't want to have to get out and drive in the snow. Being there when Dad had his surgery and staying with him all day and evening. Yeah. It's going to be hard to leave this and them behind.
The tears sting as I think about this.
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