I’m doing a bit of remote blogging today. I am seven hours away from home – in the mountains of Virginia. The fall foliage is stunning, as you might expect. Hopefully I’ll have some great pics to post next week (only have the camera on my phone and no cable for uploading – bummer!). Chris is working, and I am quiet. I have been alone all day today, and I love it. I am one who desperately needs regular doses of solitude and silence to soften and unzip; the only problem is that it doesn’t happen regularly (my own fault for grossly overscheduling my life).

Today is one of those days where I just want to store up rest and patience and gentleness for weeks to come. Like I would love to sleep as much as possible here and have that translate into two weeks of feeling well-rested. Unfortunately, that’s not the deal. In fact, what usually happens is that I return less patient than when I left because I’ve supped on a couple of days of selfishness and it’s quite difficult to immediately jump back into mommy-mode. There’s just no time of transition; someone needs milk, another needs to potty, this one wants to go to the store to buy something she has seen on TV, and that one wants you to color and read a book NOW, etc… Can anybody else identify? So thankful for my sweetheart girls (I swallowed my heart this morning when I walked in the market and saw a pack of crayons – a momma’s ache, wanting to be physically near my little ones but understanding the value of some time away) and so thankful for this neat little trip, but a little bummed that I can’t capture the fragrance of tranquility and release it from its dainty bottle on a day of chaos in my future.

So this place we’re staying is interesting. It was built in 1766, so – you know – it’s old. I love historic, so that’s cool – but you’re not suppose to wear jeans in the Great Hall (lobby – in case you were wondering). Chris and I arrived in the Great Hall last night at 11:00 pm both in jeans. And guess what the staple of my wardrobe for our stay is – uh, huh – jeans. Chris was like, “People, welcome to the twenty-first century; everybody wears jeans everywhere.” So we’re wearing our jeans, and honestly so is everyone else and shorts. No one’s respecting the Great Hall; people show no decorum these days. Sigh.

And there’s like 30 ladybugs that live in our room. Most of the time on the ceiling. Although one just joined me on the laptop not too long ago. Thankfully they have good manners. And they’re lady-like, not creepy bugs. They call that charm. I guess…

AND – NO VENDING MACHINES! I can pay $3.50 for a Diet Pepsi in a can in our room. Whoa! I like nice and all, but it ain’t nice (and neither am I) when I can’t get a drink. It is not cool to mess with me like that.

We played paintball this afternoon with Chris’ colleagues, and it was so fun. I was awful at it; I did not hit one person in four games. So fun though. Got a great picture of me with a pink paint ball splattered in the front of my hair. Also collected a nick on a knuckle and a hematoma on my elbow. So fun though…

And we rounded out the evening with three games of bowling and room service at the bowling alley. The first game, I had the worst score of the whole group of us, but I got my groove on after that. Shout out to lil’ ole me for breaking 100 on the second game (I scored a humbling 39 the first round), and I definitely garnered the Most Improved Award.

An amusing 24 hours, to say the least…