It's been a busy week! What with planning for the 10/31 Halloween party AND for starting NaNoWriMo on 11/1, I haven't sat down to write a blog entry since I got back.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I went on an impromptu trip to Va. to see my mom. My sister had mentioned her declining health and I was worried.

The good news is, it wasn't a stark change. She barely got up and walked around last time I saw her; this time I never saw her get up. (She did mention going to the bathroom once but it was when I was asleep.) She has spent most of her time on the couch for the past decade, so it's only a slight change that she spent ALL her time there.

She has trouble using her arms and legs and doesn't have much of an appetite.(That said, I think I got her to eat a fair bit while I was there!) And her hearing is going, so I had to really raise my voice for her to understand me. But her personality is the same -- sweet, social, gossipy, mundane -- so if she's in a lot of pain, she's some kind of zen master at managing it.

That said, I don't see her getting any better, so I can see why my sister thought I should visit.

It was a good trip overall, though getting to the airport was insanely stressful because the carshare had a flat, then NT couldn't get into the 2nd carshare because he'd unknowingly deactivated his fob by asking to switch car access to his bus pass. My neighbor got me an Uber, but then I had to run this poor driver all over finding the kids, and I lost sight of my DRIVER at one point when I picked AA up from kindergarten, and I was staring into windows until he finally rolled his down and told me he was my driver. Stupid face blindness! But we got to the airport about half an hour before boarding and the flight was fine.

I was flying Spirit, so I packed super light. It was actually freeing to not have to worry about heavy bags! Me and the kids had backpacks and I had 2 booster seats for car rides.

Since my ticket was $200 less than the next cheapest, and I knew my family would provide most of my meals, I splurged on drinks for me and the kids the way there, and on snacks and drinks the way home.

While in Va. I also got to see one sister, two nieces and a boyfriend, AS's mom, and my dad.

AS suggested I get together with her mom since she hardly ever gets to see the kids. She doesn't have a car right now so my dad took me to pick her up and drop her off so she could hang out at my parents' house for a couple hours. I think she was over the moon; she doesn't have family in the area so it was nice for her to feel part of a big family group. And AA & SL are her only grandkids, so that's a big deal. She was getting on her phone and telling her sister and others, trying to get the kids to talk to them. She even made ME talk to her sister in Connecticut, whom I've never met or spoken to! LOL. She wanted me to come in her apartment and see some upholstering and other furniture rehab she was doing, so I took pics to show AS. Her electricity was out and she said it was just because she messed up the online billing. I hope that's all it was, because we just sent her $700 last month!

My dad is doing great; he was planning a road trip to Ohio to see his brother, see a guy he's editing a basketball book with, and meet a distant cousin who was related to this old-time baseball player we're related to. (My dad wrote a book about that guy and wants to do an updated edition.) He's showing his age, for sure, but he's also super active (walked a 5k before he came to get me from my sister's on Saturday!) and has lots of projects.

My mom seemed happy to have a bustling house full of people Saturday. She raised 5 kids and babysat tons of kids for decades, so she's used to a big noisy group. After everyone left/went to bed, we stayed up and chatted, and I learned some new things about her childhood (little anecdotes) that I hadn't heard or at least didn't remember hearing.

On the way home, Spirit had a CC offer where if you applied, you got some bonus points automatically and got to count that trip's miles. And if you got accepted and made one purchase, you got more bonus miles. Supposedly, you get the equivalent of 4 one-way trips. So I'm hoping I could visit my mom again in December and have the kids' tickets paid for by this offer and only have to buy one round-trip ticket. We'll see. I'm still waiting to get anything since I filled the application out.