Last Thursday, we went to the N.C. mountains with my side of the family. There were 10 of us. My parents, my brother and his wife, two nieces and a nephew, Jeff, Biscuit and me.
We rented a nice house that was on a gravel road off of a twisty-turny-curvy two-lane mountain road. There was a creek that ran through the side yard, a fire pit down beside the creek, a foot bridge the kids thought was great, a big ol' gas grill, a big porch with chairs and a swing ... and that was just the outside.
Inside, we had three bedrooms, a living room with leather furniture, a dining table that sat 8 of us, a huge kitchen and two bathrooms. The place was stocked with dishes, pots and pans, linens, everything we needed. We took a bunch of food and ate all but one of our meals there at the house.
My Mama had to have a chat with me because I was getting all freaked out about our plans while we were there. I always find the house we stay in, so I guess I feel like I should make plans for all the outings, too.
I found a free concert in the yard of a historic house for Friday evening. I called, and the woman I talked to said we could bring a picnic dinner to eat while the music was going on. I figured we could buy burgers or pizza or chicken or something to take with us instead of having to deal with making and packing sandwiches and stuff. The concert was 20 minutes from the house we were staying in. We loaded up two vehicles with people and chairs and headed out.
We started to see sprinkles of rain about halfway to our destination, and by the time we got to the site of the concert, the streets were flooding with water gushing out of manhole covers. Plans for Friday were ruined.
I had forgotten to pack a pair of long pants for Biscuit, so we ran by to get some. I found a cute pair of khaki cargo pants marked down to $3, then I figured while we were there I'd pick up a few essentials we'd forgotten -- namely band-aids and marshmallows. Then just before we got ready to leave the store, I thought, "All the kids have been drinking milk, so I'm going to buy more."
That sounds perfectly reasonable, but as I was pushing my buggy toward the door, I realized that we were heading to a restaurant next. And it was 9,000 degrees outside. And the milk wouldn't last until we had dinner and drove 20 minutes back to our house. We had made our dinner plans less than 20 minutes earlier.
I'm not sure why, but I got so mad and frustrated. The plan was to hear music while we had dinner, then hit a grocery story. But there I was with a half gallon of milk and nowhere to store it until we went back to our house probably an hour and a half or so later.
Being ever the practical one, Mama grabbed the bag and my receipt, and we headed over to the customer service desk. Mama said, "My daughter just bought this milk and didn't remember that we're not going straight home. Can we get a refund?" The customer service lady was really nice about it. She gave me a refund with no problem at all.
I don't know which feeling was stronger -- embarrassment that my Mama took me to the return desk and handled the situation for me or relief that she was there and could help me realize that it SO wasn't a big deal to get the problem fixed.
The next day, I had planned for us to go shopping in a little town near our house. We got to the general store and decided to get ice cream for the kids. It was a little after 4 p.m., and everybody was sitting on a screened-in back porch when the owner came out and said, "I'm sorry folks. I'm leaving for the day, and I need you to move to the front porch." Everybody looked at everybody else, got up and headed for the front porch. We looked at the sign on the door. It said the store's hours were 9 a.m. to 5-ish p.m. I never was good at math, but it seems to me that if you tell people you close at 5 p.m., it's probably not good business to run your customers out at 4:10.
And somehow, that seemed like my fault, too.
I have no idea why I was feeling guilt over all of this stuff that wasn't anywhere near being in my control, but Mama finally put a stop to it.
While everybody was standing around in the kitchen and living room that evening, she said, "Okay, everybody. Next year, Kim is going to find the house we'll stay in. Then she'll look on the Internet and find a list of possible things to do. Then when we get to the house, we'll all decide as a group what we're going to do. She is not responsible for making sure everybody has a good time. Everybody can handle that for themselves."
The funny part is that I was the only one holding me up to such high expectations!
Here are a few pictures of where we stayed:
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