The Wrong Side of Otley
Topic: This and That

Let's try this again.
These two pictures were taken from that weirdly foggy day I wrote about a few posts back. The one on the left is closer to my house. The one on the right is farther, looking back.
I would like to say a big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" to my longtime close friend Tara.
So, my day yesterday didn't go quite how I'd planned. Things started off well. I needed some wood glue so I went to the local DIY store, Focus. I got the glue, no problem.
I wanted to go geocaching. (If you're not familiar with geocaching, check out geocaching.com.) I'd printed out some caches to find, put the waypoints in my gps, and thought I was good to go. I drove a bit and parked where I thought I was supposed to. I put Ryan in his stroller and took off. I realized that the terrain wasn't really suitable for the stroller. However, we were right next to what I thought was the clue to find the cache: "Big holly bush." Sure enough, there was a huge holly bush. Two, actually. The only thing was, my gps said we had something like 48k to go. That didn't seem right. Ryan laughed at me while I looked around the holly bushes to see if I could find the cache (which I didn't). I walked back to the parking lot and realized I'd parked by the wrong place. So I packed everything up and drove a bit to what was supposed to be the right place, according to the description. This time I loaded Ryan into his backpack (much to the apparent entertainment of a woman staring at us). We set off and I quickly had a feeling this wasn't it, either. My gps still thought we had about 50k to go. I was thinking then that somehow it wasn't calibrated properly. So I trudged back to the car and unloaded everything. There was an ice cream truck parked nearby (I was at a national park and reservoir type place). Even though it wasn't exactly ice cream weather, it looked good, so I shared a cone with Ryan. Actually, it was in the 40's out, which is a lot warmer than it's been recently.
After the ice cream, we took off. Unfortunately I couldn't remember how to get back to where I wanted to be. Since I apparently don't know how to work a gps, I didn't trust it to get me back home. I wound up going the wrong way. I saw signs for the town of Otley, which I know isn't far from a main road leading back to Harrogate. Unfortunately, I wound up on the wrong side of Otley, and more than halfway to the Leeds/Bradford airport. On the bright side, I knew where I was. However, Ryan was getting fussy and I really just wanted to get home, which we did after a while.
A few nights ago something kind of strange happened. Someone rang the doorbell. It was a guy with short blond hair and blue eyes, holding up a piece of paper (quadrille, I think) with a hand written note on it. The letters were spikey and the note basically said who he was, and that he was a Polish art student from Krakow trying to sell his drawings. He had a bunch of 11x14 sized pencil drawings. They weren't bad. I asked him how much. He said ten pounds. I thought, "No way!" I said, "Five." He came back with, "Seven or eight." Part of me thought it could be a scam, but part of me thought he was, after all, out in freezing cold weather after dark, and probably a certain amount of time and effort went into the drawings, so I bought one for seven pounds. The drawings were of things like landscapes and kittens and horses, reproductions of popular images. On an impulse I bought one that jumped out at me. After I closed the door, three things occurred to me:
1 - I ought to have asked if he had any originals.
2 - I ought to have written down or remembered his name.
3 - I ought to have had him sign it.
Oh well.
I still have my cold. It's getting old. Ryan still has his, too, but he's a couple days ahead of me so I'm hoping he'll be over it soon. At least he's been sleeping through the night. For myself, I need to be getting to bed earlier. I've been staying up too late and not getting enough rest.
Today Ryan and I have been back in the UK a month. Seems a lot longer, actually.

ACK!
Mood:  irritated
Topic: This and That
#&%$*@!!!!!!
I had a good entry going and hit the wrong key and of course now it's gone. *sigh*
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!!
Anyway, I don't want to try to reconstruct it now.
I will say what the title was: The Wrong Side of Otley.
(I'm putting that there as much to remind myself when I come back for a rewrite, as to horribly tease!)
When next I write, I will try to cover:
Geocaching mishaps, the Polish artist, and the photo from the foggy day.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Ryan Report
Topic: Ryan
Ryan still seems to have a little bit of a cold, but it hasn't slowed him down at all. Vapor rub at bedtime's been doing the trick.
My mom got Ryan those cute Pooh slippers he's wearing in the photo. Unfortunately he pulled them off shortly after I took the picture.
Ryan likes to sit at his little table. He also likes to scribble. I thought I would pull out an old box of crayons I've had forever. (To tell you how old they are, they were $1.69 for 64 crayolas, and the price tag said, "Sprouse-Reitz" on it!) The crayons had actually never been used. I gave one to Ryan, and the last thing he wanted to do with it was color. I showed him how, but he entertained himself for quite a while just taking them out of the box, playing with them, then trying to put them back in. He also made a game of handing them to me, then I'd put them back in the box, then he would try to take them out again faster than I could put them back.
For some reason the last three nights bath time has been rough. The night before last, Ryan pitched a serious fit when I put him in the tub. The water temp. was fine. I have no idea what his deal was. Last night it was looking like he was going to have a fit again, so I saved us both some agony and just for that night skipped it. Tonight I drew his bath and when I put him in, you would have thought I was trying to drown him from all the noise and commotion. After a few very long seconds, he settled down and played a bit. I really don't know what's bringing this on. I was extra careful with the water temp. Normally Ryan really enjoys his baths.
Next week Ryan has his shots. I'm not looking forward to it. The following week he's got his WIC appointment. Definitely not looking forward to that.

100
Topic: This and That
Happy Groundhog Day!
This is my 100th blog entry. Usually tv shows feel it's a big deal when they reach episode 100, so I thought I would point out the milestone.
So six more weeks of winter, Punxsutawney Phil says. I don't know if that counts in England, but from how the weather's been here, I'd believe it. I took the photo to the right yesterday. I had to go to MHS to run some errands. As soon as I got a couple miles out from Harrogate, everything was covered in frost. It was really weird. The landscape was very monochromatic. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It's been so cold here, but I didn't realize how different everything looked just outside of town. For some reason it really struck me.
I seem to have acquired Ryan's cold. It hit me hard this afternoon. Thank goodness for Tylenol! Ryan's been doing better though. The last couple nights I put vapor rub on him at bedtime, and he's slept right through the night.
I had some more things I wanted to write about, but I am really tired. It's hard to be sick and be the sole caregiver of a little one.

Nessie
Topic: This and That
I forgot two things yesterday. One, while we were at the toy store, Ryan grabbed a toy. What he grabbed was a beanie Loch Ness monster! I thought that was pretty funny. Since I've been to Loch Ness and the beanie was half off, I decided to get it. The other thing I forgot to mention, was that once we were home, I set my eggnog latte down on our coffee table. I was sharing an apple pastry with Ryan. After he took a bite, he real casual-like picked up my latte and started to walk off with it! I thought that was pretty funny!
Last night didn't go too well. Starting around 1am, Ryan was up off and on until around 4am. I think his nose was the cause. He's had this crappy running/stuffy thing going on that just doesn't quit. Poor little guy. I put some vapor rub on his chest. Don't know if it helped, but he eventually went back to sleep, and thankfully he slept in a bit this morning. After a night like that though, we're both tired. My legs are feeling all the running and walking I did yesterday, too.
It is really cold out today. I got myself and Ryan ready to go outside and once we went out, I wanted to just turn around and go back in! However, since we were all bundled up and ready to go, and that takes a certain amount of time and effort, I went ahead and ran down to ASDA. It is definitely one of those days you just want to hang out and drink tea and hot chocolate all day.

Now Playing: Phil Collins, Storytellers on VH1
Topic: This and That
Last night I finished reading the first Harry Potter book. Yes, I know. I am about ten years behind the rest of the world! In my defense though, my next door neighbor coincidentally just started reading them as well, so I'm not the only one! I only ever saw the first movie, so I have no idea what happens in the rest of the books. I've been told by more than one person that they get better throughout the series. I'm looking forward to reading them all.
Today was a busy day. It was overall a good day.
In the morning I took Ryan for a jog. On my way in I stopped at an electronics store that's right around the corner from my house. Larry's sister sent Ryan an activity center. Somehow in transit one of the wires connecting the power supply severed. I was going to try to repair it. I explained the situation to the man working at the electronics store, and he offered to fix the activity center for me if I brought it in. Sounded good to me!
Let me say that just walking to this electronics store was a mini-adventure in itself. It's located in Thompson's Yard, which is down sort of a semi-paved alley that leads to the back of the shops on the main street, entrances to other businesses, and a row of what look to be storage sheds, some of which seems to be used for some type of commerce. For I don't know what reason, I felt safe. Of course I would never purposely take Ryan (and myself!) anywhere dangerous. It did occur to me though as I was walking in Thompson's Yard that it normally wouldn't be the type of area I'd be inclined to wander around.
After that we headed out to MHS to mail a box to Larry.
I had planned on feeding Ryan lunch when we got home, but he was out completely cold. He didn't wake up when I took off his shoes and coat, so I figured lunch could wait. He took a very big nap. He didn't nap much at all yesterday, so I guess he was making up for it. After Ryan woke up, I fed him then we headed out again.
While trying to see if I could get the activity center in the stroller, I managed to sever the other wire to the power supply. Oops. I took it back to the electronics store and the man there told me to come back in a bit and it would be done.
On my way to the shopping center, I ran into my next door neighbor, Denise, and her four kids. They love Ryan! When they saw us, all four of them ran up to Ryan and were showering him with attention. I wonder what Ryan makes of it all! It was nice to chat with Denise for a minute. I hadn't seen her in a while.
I got to my first destination downtown, a toy store. Ryan loves to push his stroller around, but I would rather he didn't. This store had a little Ryan-sized toy stroller on sale half off. Unfortunately, the store sold their last one a half hour before I got there. Oh well.
From there I went to the Tourist Information center. The book I wanted wasn't there. The new edition won't be out until March!
On the way back, I stopped by Starbucks and got an eggnog latte, and for Ryan a cocoa.
I picked up the activity center. The man only charged me three pounds to fix it. I definitely think it was worth it.
As Ryan and I headed home, there was a pretty sunset. We're not often out at that time of day. It was really nice.

Closed
Topic: Harrogate
Yesterday, after the fog burned off, it was sunny all day. Today it was mostly cloudy all day.
There were a couple things in the shopping area I wanted to do, but both places were closed. It's always a crap shoot on a Sunday if something will be open or not. Some things are, others aren't. I wanted to pick up a book from the Tourist Info. center. It's called Harrogate With Children or something like that. You would think a TI center would be open both days of a weekend. Also, there's a toy store Sarah told me about that I wanted to check out. It was closed too. Oh well. Gives me something to do tomorrow. It was nice to get out for a walk though. I made a stop at Starbucks, which led to a pleasant surprise: they still have their holiday drinks. YAY!!! It's the little things.

Ryan Report
Topic: Ryan
(This photo was taken around this time last year. Thought it would be fun as a blast from the past. At the time it was one of my favorite Ryan photos.)
Not sure where to start. Over the last few days Ryan has alternated between angelic and demonic. He's going through a phase where if he doesn't get his way, he starts screaming and pitching a fit. I'm not sure if it's because Larry left, or if the beginning of this phase just happened to coincide with Larry leaving. Anyhow, it's definitely been wearing on my nerves. I try to just walk away from him when he does it, or if that's not an option (such as on the changing table), I try to tell him I understand that he's frustrated and it's ok, or I try to distract him will silly noises. I don't want to jinx anything, but this afternoon it seems to be a little better. We were having a dispute over going up and down the stairs. I finally figured out he was after something specific up there. He seemed to mellow after he got it. I know it's frustrating for him since he can't speak English yet. Anyhow, after he got what he wanted, I put up the baby gate and Ryan didn't protest. I told him he was a good boy. I figure positive reinforcement for his not throwing a fit once the baby gate was up could only be a good thing.
He's napping right now. I've been trying to avoid naps late in the day, but since he hasn't napped at all today, I don't think he'd make it until bedtime.

Just Checking In/Random
Now Playing: 100 Greatest Pop Videos (As Voted by the British Public) Hosted by Jimmy Carr (whoever that is)
Topic: This and That
It's been a couple of days, so I thought I would post. There's a danger that I could ramble, so I will try to keep this short.
Ryan's in bed, but I can hear him kicking around in his crib upstairs. He's really tired, maybe too tired. That always boggled my mind that a kiddo could be too tired to sleep. How does that work???
I tried to go for a run today. After jogging almost four minutes, I decided I was going for a walk instead.
It was weird outside today, weather wise. It was foggy, but extremely locally. There was low fog around my house and part of the Stray, but then not too far down it was completely clear. I took a couple pictures of it I'll have to post. It was like Lower and Upper Uncton.
Not much is up. Talked to Larry briefly. I put the phone up to Ryan's ear and his face lit up when he heard his daddy's voice.

Topic: This and That
I talked to Larry on the phone today. He sounded good. It was nice to hear his voice. He hadn't gone to his orientation yet, so there wasn't much to report. It's kind of nice that I've been to Goodfellow before, so I have a mental visual to go with where he is.
Today Ryan and I didn't do much besides look for a table cloth. Oh, I forgot to mention in the Ryan section that I took Ryan to the Darley Mill Center in his backpack. That place is not stroller friendly, and I didn't want to carry him (he's a bit squirly to try to let him walk). We got a few comments from other shoppers. One person said, "That's the way to go!" and their companion replied, "It sure is, but I'm not giving you a piggyback ride!"
Not too much exciting is going on at the moment. I think I will have some hot chocolate, watch an episode of Lost on DVD, then go to bed.