I am SOOOOO tired. So, I had a birthday (ick) on the 15th of this month. DH treated me wonderfully (as always) and I had a wonderful time -- and so did he (wink wink nudge nudge - LOL) but I digress... That was Friday. On Saturday, we drove to Beaumont to visit my 87 year old grandmother (who is going thru the "come get all this stuff marked for you so you'll have it if I die soon." moments.) So, we drove the 4.5 hrs (w/my niece in tow) and got into lots and lots of hurricane rain. Weee! Long story short, we took the niecester out to Galveston-area because the poor child hasn't been to a BEACH in her whole life. Never saw the pounding surf rushing across the sand and ebbing back out again. SO... we decided to drive an 1.5 hours out of our way on Sunday AM (with my 87 y.o. g-mother too!) so she could experience this. She liked the sand squishing between her toes *grin*... I knew she'd love it. Took loads of pics... the child is soooo easy to please and so happy. She's truly an angel. We drove past the cemetary where my brother (her dad) is buried on the way back and we put flowers on the grave -- beautiful flowers that she'd picked out special just for daddy. I cried. She cried. It was sad... but it's getting easier to deal with the pain of my brother being gone. This was the second year since he'd passed (massive heart attack age 40) and while I wouldn't quite call it "easy" to deal with the pain of losing him, I'd say it WAS getting easier to handle the overpowering lonliness and grief of not having him around. I suppose you get used to the emptiness in some way.

Anyway, I wrote a little bit on my NEO (Alphasmart) on my way down to Beaumont, but the rain and winds were kind of distracting since I was co-piloting. :) But I managed a little more at night when it was time to go to sleep. LOL. I shoulda been asleep, but I was tap-tap-tapping on my keyboard.

Well, I'm tired and sleepy and work comes too early. I'll update my counter tomorrow and catch up on all the goings on I missed this weekend later on...