The Last One

Y'all know I've got four boys. I guess you could call them men because the fourth, Jack, will turn 18 this week. The rest are in college and out of the house during the year.

If you've been following me for long, you've seen stacks of shoes by the door, food upon food all over the house, nerf wars, cars, cars, and more cars, not to mention all the sporting events I've attended over the past twenty years.

Those days are starting to really slow down. Cody plays college soccer. This is his last year and unfortunately, he has his fourth concussion. He's going to have to forfeit his last year. I'm saddened for him, but we all know that his health is way more important.

Jack is graduating from high school, but his transition to college has been much easier because he already goes to the local university two days a week and high school three days a week. He's also the manager of Northern Kentucky University basketball team. Not only do we have season tickets (plus Jack gets a few tickets), my sister and her family have season tickets, and my parents. We're going to be busy going to their games.

But this weekend was the last prom I'll ever get one of my boys ready for. Jack and his buddies (girls included) decided to go as a group. It was so fun. Four years ago I took the top photo. The bottom photo was this weekend.

We've been blessed with Jack's group of friends. They are such good kids and all of them will be going their separate ways in the fall. They had a really good time. 

Sunday I had a lot of fun driving back to my hometown of Nicholasville, Kentucky for a baby shower for a very, very special dear to my heart. 

My sweet little Andrea. She's no longer a baby, but she was my neighbor when I was a teenager. I took her everywhere with me and her parents were so much fun. She even stayed in the sorority house with me in college as a bity little girl. Now she's going to be a mommy to a little boy, Lex Wilson Lutton.

Isn't that the cutest name? Andrea's middle name is Wilson. It's a family name and it's so fitting. 

Just a little back story about her parents. When I was student teaching in college I had a small apartment in Lexington. I had zero furniture. They came to see me. The next day a moving truck showed up at my apartment. They felt so sorry for me that they went home and bought all new furniture and sent me their old furniture, which was in amazing shape! I still have the furniture to this day. 

Their generosity didn't stop there. They were always there to talk and they came to everything I ever did. So, Andrea is super special to me and it was so much fun to get to spend the day with my parents, Andrea, her parents and my long time friends. 

How was your weekend?

And they're off....

WOW! I had a super busy weekend. It was filled with fun and fear! 

On Saturday our son Austin was in charge of his fraternity alumni/parent weekend at Keeneland Racetrack.

Now...y'all know I love horse racing and Keeneland. I grew up going to the races and Keeneland is literally fifteen minutes from my childhood home. Friends of my family started Keeneland and still own it today. So...I'm pretty at home there. 

It was opening weekend, which meant there were probably around 40k people there. 40,000 PEOPLE!!! 

(These little jockeys are so cute. They have the names of winners on their little boards.) 

The food line is 1 1/2 hours long to stand in...not to mention the bathroom. You don't think that sounds like fun?? It is! We get there and tailgate on "The Hill." It's the cute name for the grassy area on Keeneland where you can tailgate all day long and never see a horse. But it's the thrill and inside that I love. 

There are two races an hour so there's a lot of down time between the 30 second races. I even saw some friends I'd gone to high school with. It's a lot of fun. AND we got to spend a lot of time with Austin and we spent the night with my parents. It was great!

Then....that say day....Jack and ten of his friends along with four parents drove to Florida ( a 14 hour trip). Jack was driving with three buddies and though it was a caravan, I was still freaked out. I'd been at the races all day and was tired, I couldn't close down my mind with thoughts of Jack and being on the road. 

We ended up texting every couple of hours all night long. When he was driving, one of his friends would text me. Finally around 6 a.m. he sent me a picture of the beach. They'd made it. Not me! I was up all night worried sick on the driving. 

(Jack is in the white shirt. He said they immediately went to the beach and a nice "old" lady took their picture)

We got up and left my parents pretty early, early enough to drive two hours back to our house and go straight to church. No rest though. I spent Sunday doing the business side of the writing as well as maybe napping here and there. 

How was your weekend???

Weekend Round Up

There is one thing that I know for sure about this whole writing gig is that I love to connect with readers. I've had to pleasure of meeting some of y'all in person and I'm sure you'd be able to say that when we met (in person), it was like we'd been friends for years. And to think that it all started on line!

I've been on so many deadlines that I found myself among the non-friendship lane when I dragged my head out of the writing cave. I've missed my daily blog and all the fun that interacting with y'all has brought me.

Over the weekend, I asked my FREE Facebook Cozy Krew Group (join here!!!) what themes they'd like to see on a blog and it was so much fun reading them!

Monday: Weekend Round Up
Tuesday: Crazy Weekly Theme
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:

I'll start off by telling y'all about our weekend. I usually don't write on the weekends because I've got other writing business things to do that I just don't want to do during the week. Do y'all ever just  put stuff off? I DO IT ALL THE TIME!

This weekend I had to update my website, write my weekly newsletter, and get some review copies to some members of my review team.

But the weekend started off with a fun coffee visit from my sister! She came with a box of Tim Bites for my kids and a coffee for me! Gotta love a good sister! And she brought my four legged nephew and niece. As you can see Charlie and Max giving cousin kisses.

Poor Eddy. Actually, I call him poor Eddy because I'd never be as excited as he is when he takes on a new home project. The man can never sit still and binge watch Netflix like me or read a book like me! He's working on building and putting up a new deck railing before summer comes. We love spending time outside and ya know I have my outside office in the summer!

BUT to top the weekend off (this might surprise you) I got my first library card since I moved here twenty years ago. I can hear you gasping. . .

I know...but I have good reason! I generally just buy my books. If I have research, I buy the books to keep. If I have a book club book to read, I buy the book. Since I've got some new authors I've been wanting to try out, I decided I wanted to give the Overdrive app a go around. I'm pretty excited about it! I'm loving the app.

What is your weekend round up? Do you ever use Overdrive?