Linda's Sunflower

We were so excited to have Kaitlin, and her friend Lydia, home for the weekend. Lydia is from a small town outside of Kansas City, and had never been to Wichita. Well, now she has! Not that it's all that exciting, but... The girls arrived home around 6:45pm Thursday. They had to make a stop at the local Sprint store so Lydia could buy a new phone because hers died. We had fun visiting all evening. Friday, the girls came down to the Eagle at lunchtime. We had to run by the school district's office so Kaitlin could order her transcript to be sent to Wichita State. Yes, my little girl is going to be a WICHITA STATE SHOCKER in the fall! And I will be EXTREMELY glad to have her home! We visited my little sister Marilyn and then grabbed a bite to eat. The girls went and saw "Valentine's Day" that afternoon, and then I met them at Red Robin for dinner. Here's Kaitlin as we were checking out how easy it might be to "filch" a bottle of liquor from the bar r...

Had a nice lunch with my friends Cindy and Anne at Chili's today... Abby and one of her weird poses... Looking forward to Kaitlin's visit home this weekend. She will actually be home tomorrow afternoon with her friend, Lydia. We're hoping to go to the zoo on Saturday if the weather isn't too bad.  

Here are the new books I received today from Literary Guild: Worst Case - James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge Too Close to Home - Linwood Barclay Fear The Worst - Linwood Barclay My niece, Lenore, turned me on to Linwood Barclay, and now I want to read everything he's written. I've so enjoyed his books. And of course, James Patterson is one of my favorite authors. Every now and then his books are - shall I say - shallow? But for the most part, I enjoy his writing. Of course, his Alex Cross books remain my favorites. It was back to work today after my week of vacation. For the first hour I had people in my office with issues or just needing to chat. The rest of the day was spent running 100mph and getting back in the groove.

Just do the following: Grab the book closest to you Open to a random page Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author  "Her chin quivered and she almost burst into tears, when she'd vowed never to cry again after she'd been acquitted. That old, heavy weight of guilt sat hard on her heart again." Down River by Karen Harper

It was a glorious week of vacation! I truly needed it! After my trip to Manhattan on Monday, I did some things around the house on Tuesday. Wednesday, I met my good friend, Anne, for lunch at Chopstix. We had a great visit. Wednesday night, I went out to dinner with my friends Melody and Susan. We went to Savute's on N. Broadway. I hadn't been there for a very long time. When I was a kid, Grammy & Wilbur would take us there for special occasions. At that time it was called Rosie's, and it's still owned by the same family. I had a steak, which honestly was rather gristly, but the salad, baked potato & turtle cheesecake were really good. Then we went to see GONE WITH THE WIND at the Orpheum Theatre. I hadn't been to the Orpheum for several years, and the renovations continue. The entrance is beautiful! However, the seats are still uncomfortable. Needless to say, since GWTW is such a long movie, our "tushes" were all numb by the end of the evenin...

So everyone knows that my kids are living in Manhattan and going to K-State. Yesterday, I took a day trip to visit them. Since I do not have a reliable vehicle, and am still looking for a replacement, I opted to rent a car for the day. I selected a "standard" when renting it online through Enterprise, but was quite surprised when I picked up my car. They upgraded me for FREE, to a Cadillac SRX Crossover. WOW, what a gorgeous, LOADED vehicle! Since the starting price of a new one is $35,000 (and I'm sure the fully loaded one puts it over $40,000!) this won't be a vehicle I'll be purchasing unless I win the lottery. But it did provide a sweet ride, and the kids were impressed! Since the kids did have a few classes, I visited with Kaleb & Kaitlin for a while, and took them to Target to pick up a few necessities, including a couple of new pairs of work slacks for Kaleb. Brandon was home from class by the time we got back to their place, so we hung out for a w...

Corby got me this adorable collectible -- Tandem Bears wearing K-State outfits... and he fixed us a wonderful brunch!

I am excited about being on vacation! It was a busy week at work - it always is when you're planning on some vacation! I am still adjusting to my new duties - managing our ACS (Advertising Customer Service) department. So far, so good, but still trying to figure a lot of things out. I have known most all of my new staff for years and years, but it's a bit different when you are managing them... We've had a strange dog in the yard the last few days...not sure if it's a stray or actually belongs to the neighbors behind us...we desperately need to replace the fence behind us - which is shared with our neighbors. Anyway, this dog jumps between the wood fence and we have not been able to catch it...very frustrating. Not sure what we will do. I guess we need to find out if the dog belongs to the neighbors behind us. If not, I guess we will call animal control....No matter what, Cinnamon doesn't really care... Abby and Muffin being silly... Tons of s...

The weekend started off with a nice, relaxing Friday evening. My BFF Melody and I met at Margarita's for some - you guessed it - margarita's and dinner! We had a great visit, and decided we need to schedule a monthly "date" so we can catch up on each others lives. Corby had to work yesterday morning, so I was on my own visiting mom. We had a nice visit, and she was in a good mood. They had some cool entertainment on Friday afternoon - a puppeteer! I made it back home before Corby got home from work. Once he made it home we headed out for our Saturday errand running. Went to Target and picked up a few things, including some new bath towels, which we desperately needed; then had lunch at Hog Wild BBQ. Corby loves that place, but we rarely go there. We did our grocery shopping at Dillons, and had to fight through the crowds. I guess everyone was getting their goodies for today's Super Bowl! Brandon really wanted to come home yesterday. He wants a new phone, an...

Abby and Muffin really miss Kaitlin...they get bored easily. They told me today they are looking forward to Kaitlin's return!

I read eight books in January: 1) Trial by Fire - J.A. Jance 2) Bed of Roses - Nora Roberts 3) Forbidden Falls - Robyn Carr 4) Vanishing Act - Fern Michaels 5) Not My Daughter - Barbara Delinsky 6) No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay 7) Blindman's Bluff - Faye Kellerman 8) Angel's Peak - Robyn Carr I enjoyed each and every book. Barbara Delinsky's book was very timely - it dealt with high school students who made a pregnancy pact. My niece, Lenore, gave me Linwood Barclay's book for Christmas. I enjoyed it so much that I ordered 4 of his books from Amazon! I continue to enjoy Faye Kellerman's action mysteries. She is married to Jonathan Kellerman, and I enjoy his books as well! And Robyn Carr continues to be an interesting read with her Virgin River series books! I've started a new Linwood Barclay book as my first February book - Bad Move. And the reading continues...