Change of plans

For several weeks the plan had been for the kids and I to drive to Maryland after my dentist appointment this afternoon. I was planning on spending the day at Mount Vernon with them tomorrow. Yesterday I started taking down Christmas decorations because I didn't want to deal with that on January 2. I also made split pea and ham soup and also potato soup so Paul would have food for dinner while we were in Maryland (in addition to some leftover rigatoni and meatballs and beef stew). Then I checked the weather forecast. I was checking it to make sure we wouldn't be encountering snow/ice while driving down. I didn't see any of that in the forecast, but I saw that it's supposed to be very cold here in PA and in MD during the next week. The high for Maryland is to be 24 degrees on Thursday. Although some of the activities I had planned for us to do on Thursday would be indoors (chocolate making demonstration, mansion tour, etc.), many of the activities would have been outside (camel chat, fifing demonstration, etc.). Having recently spent 2 hours outside in the cold waiting in line for the National Aquarium tickets earlier this month, I had no desire to visit Mount Vernon if the temperature will be in the twenties. I would like to take the kids there sometime in 2018, but I'd rather go on a warmer day. So now we are planning to drive down tomorrow morning. Wendy's family will be driving to Maryland from Williamsburg on Friday morning.

Yesterday I did a wide variety of tasks such as cleaning out part of the refrigerator, dusting the tops of the kitchen cabinets and top of the refrigerator, putting away Christmas gifts, made two kinds of soup, did five loads of laundry, did a load of dishes, worked on a conference proposal that is due in two weeks, etc. This week is my only week where I have a break from both homeschooling and the university. Next week I'll get back to homeschooling, which will limit how many hours I have to work on writing lesson plans, syllabi, etc. January 22 is going to be here before I know it.

Paul was building Legos with Ian yesterday morning, but then he started not feeling well and spent the afternoon and evening either in bed or in the bathroom. He might have IBS like his mom and one of his cousins. I had forgotten that the same thing happened last year in December when he ate too many cashews. Hopefully it is permanently etched in my mind from now on to NOT buy him cashews. For years I've bought big containers of cashews for my dad, Paul, and Paul's dad for their birthdays and Christmas (all three of their birthdays are within 15 days of Christmas). I also got him peanut M&Ms. He has been eating a lot of the cashews and peanut M&Ms the past few days and he paid for it yesterday. I feel badly for him because when I first met him a few of his favorite foods were fish (a variety of kinds), lobster tail, cashews, macadamia nut cookies, and candy with peanuts in it (such as Payday candy bars and peanut M&Ms). Over the last 16 years he first developed an allergy to seafood. The only seafood he can eat now is canned tuna, and it seems he also needs to avoid nuts. I need to come up with a new gift idea for him before December 2018 rolls around! At least he can still eat peanut butter cups Swedish fish, and Cookies and Cream candy bars (his other favorite kinds of candy). He must have been feeling better today as he went to work this morning.