I pretty much vanished for the last couple of weeks. Partly due to relatives in town (we know who loves us by how often they visit. Hint, hint, relatives.) Partly due to being the Relief Society President when half the ward decides to move at the exact moment the other half goes on vacation. I know you guys really love it when I complain about how busy I am and thus how exhausted I am. But I will spare you the details. Here are the highlights of the last two weeks:

My mom moved back to Utah after living here in Austin for two years. People always ask what it’s like having my mother live close by since she is rather . . . high maintenance. It  is a million times easier than having her come and stay with me for two or three weeks. When she stays with me for a long amount of time there are invariably fights; she and I, she and Mister and sadly Mister and I as well. There is stress involved for all parties (well, probably my mom isn’t stressed). She likes to have things just so and just so is always something very strange. Like half-drunk giant glasses of cocoa sitting around all day. Said cocoa must be drunk through a straw. And not just any straw. It must be a really fat straw that is also somewhat translucent so that she can see the cocoa going up. Not sure why, but that’s how it is. No doubt my mother will answer this question in her blog reply.

There is also her bizarre schedule of staying up late, sleeping in and various naps. Our family doesn’t really work that way and it gets complicated when she visits. But when she lives in her own place nearby she can sleep whenever she wants, leave strange beverages sitting on her counters and it makes no difference to us. She is one of those people who finds plenty to entertain herself and doesn’t come over all the time. She’ll drop by for dinner, have a nice time and go home. It’s lovely for all of us. So it makes me sad that we won’t be getting pleasant mini-doses of her any more. Instead she wanted to be near my sister in Utah who, with three small children, is in the part of her life when she really needs grandma Boppie around.

We spend last week packing boxes, throwing away as much of her junk prized possessions as we could get away with and loading up her moving van. She and my sister waved goodbye on Saturday morning and pulled in to Utah County last night.

Also, I spent days cleaning and organizing my house. If you have out-of-town guests and clean your entire house, except for one small part, that is the part that they will invariably see. So I cleaned everything including my huge messy closet. Here’s the flip side of that rule, though: if you clean something super well, nobody will see it.  I cleaned my closet and bathroom within an inch of their lives. And nobody ever went in there. But at least they’re still clean. I’ve been trying to stay on top of it and keep the rooms from turning into the trash barge of my house. They’re my favorite place to throw things when I have to do a stash and dash because company is coming.

My husband’s brother, his wife and their teenage daughter came from Portland for an entire week and we ate like pigs and did fun touristy stuff and it was great. They had to sleep in the boy’s bunk beds but it’s a lot nicer than making them stay in the guest room and share one lousy full-sized bed.

Probably the most exciting news around here is that it has rained! A lot! And often!  But because this is Texas it rains like crazy for a little while, the rain goes away and it’s sunny and warm. And then the next day it’s sunny and warm for a couple of hours, a storm rolls in and then it’s sunny and warm again. It’s really a lovely way to have rainy weather. None of those days of dreary, cold weather like in Oregon. Our relatives were very impressed.

A few days ago I went to a book signing by Alexandra Fuller whose books I recommended here a while back. In the tiny picture on her books she looks very pretty. But most female authors look relatively pretty. That’s kind of the point, I guess. Alexandra Fuller was, in real life, drop dead gorgeous. Model gorgeous. She’s also terribly clever and skinny so I felt utterly out of my league and didn’t say a single word to her as she signed my book.  I very rarely get tongue-tied, although I did ask if I could take a picture with her (I especially like the way my arms are twice the size of hers.)

Also, my laptop is still broken. Mister has taken pity on me and given me a real computer with an actual monitor. It’s pretty lame. Laptops are way better. I hate being on a computer where I am trapped in one place. Due to my computer situation and all the other stuff I’ve done, I have read zero blogs. I feel really bad about this. So if I haven’t commented on your blog, I’m sorry. One day I will get my life back.