Mid-August odds & ends

• Thank you for your comments, good wishes & virtual hugs on my last post about Katie, 15 years later.  
• Since I only got back to work on Aug. 6th after two weeks off (including a long weekend) -- and I will be off again for three days next week -- I decided not to take Aug. 7th off.  Huge mistake. It was horribly busy at work, I was stressed thinking about the upcoming party we will be hosting and all that needs/needed doing, and I was still in a post-vacation daze, nevermind trying to cope with the dead baby daze stuff. I had e-mails piling into my inbox one after the other and I just could not keep up. I was floundering. I was making mistakes. I was cursing like a sailor under my breath, something I seldom do anywhere, let alone at the office.  Needless to say, my mind was not on my job that day -- and it needed to be. And then, as the cherry on top of the sundae of my day, I forgot to swipe my transit pass before boarding the train home that night. (Luckily I remembered in time, and managed to go all the way back downstairs into the terminal, swipe my card, get back upstairs to the train and still get a seat before the train left).  Lesson learned. Never again. (And hopefully not something -- i.e., working on Katie-significant dates -- I will have to worry about for too many more years.)
• Dh picked me up at the train station & we headed straight for the cemetery after work. He had already bought the traditional bouquet of pink roses.
• The two weeks prior, we were visiting my parents -- being lazy, reading lots of books (if not blogs), eating fresh garden vegetables (yum!) and being royally entertained/enchanted by The Princess. We have many memories of her mom (Parents' Neighbours' Daughter) at the same age, and now here she is, a little Mini Me, history repeating itself. I will never have my own Mini Me or granddaughter to marvel over, but this is probably the next best thing. : )  We are grateful.
• My parents (72 & 74) are making noises about selling their house & downsizing to something smaller, perhaps a condo, in the next few years. My mother has been talking about this for awhile now, but it was the first time I heard my dad admit that their big (and immaculately kept) yard is becoming too much effort for him. It made me enormously sad. I don't like to think of my parents getting old(er) -- they can still run circles around me & dh ; ) -- but I have noticed them slowing down ever so slightly in the past few years.  Also, although it's not the house I grew up in, they have been there for 30 years, and I did live with them there for about a year, after I finished university but before I got married. It's a nice house, and there are a lot of memories there.
• It also made me nervous, because I still have a ton of stuff from my childhood & school days at their house that I need to sort through and either toss or bring here before they do...!  
• The royal baby arrived while we were there & we got to watch little Prince George's first public appearance live on TV. I am an unapologetic monarchist, and I loved seeing the continuity of family and history playing itself out yet again. I loved that Kate wore a polka dot dress in tribute to the mother-in-law she never knew, and I loved that she didn't try to disguise her post-partum belly. But I was relieved to have an end (if only temporary) to all the hype.
• On the other end of the spectrum, while I was visiting my parents, a young mother in the nearby city apparently drowned both her children in the bathtub and then disappeared. They found her body in the river a few days later. She had been diagnosed with postpartum depression. You may have heard about it;  it was widely covered in the Canadian (if not the American) media.  My aunt knew her family -- they were from the a small town close to where she lives and are related to her sister-in-law -- and of course, in small towns, everyone knows everyone anyway -- and did some baking for the funeral reception. So very sad. :(
• Dh & I went to see a financial planner, as part of his severance package. The good news is that we are still on track for a Freedom 55 retirement for me, if I want to retire then. I may stick around one more year to make it an even 30 years with my company (assuming I don't also get a pink slip :p). Dh had run the numbers over  & over and was certain it was do-able, even after his release from work, but it's nice to have neutral third-party confirmation that you're on the right track.
• Less than one week to go until the big party!  We have been busy getting ready -- albeit not as ready as I would like. :p  My impatiens died a horrible death while I was on vacation & I spent this weekend digging up the scrawny remnants  -- so much for my plans to dazzle my guests with my gardening prowess. Hopefully the food will be good enough to distract them. ; ) The weather forecast looks good. Fingers crossed & knocking wood that it continues. I have a big back yard but I do not have room for 45 people in my house!
• Future posts in the works (in draft form or in my head): reviews of the two books I read before vacation, the four books I read during and the book I've read since then ("To Kill a Mockingbird" -- next week's selection in Melissa's GRAB(ook) Club).
• I've also been musing about the recent TIME magazine article on The Childfree Life and the ensuring media & blogger buzz. So much good/interesting stuff out there! ...so little time...!