November 29

At nine this morning a town car arrived to take Josh to the airport. He'll be in Atlanta till late April, working on Vampire Diaries. He'll be home for a few weeks over Christmas, so this first separation is really a test run. We all got a little teary, but I had a project ready in the kitchen to distract the girl: peppermint bark.
For lunch we ate Asian Noodle Soup, made from scratch, including the garlic broth. Very very yummy. I love that Lauren loves this kind of food as much as I do.
Then we headed out for an adventure: a train ride into Hollywood to see How The Grinch Stole Christmas at the beautiful, historic Pantages Theatre. I didn't take my camera; it's heavy and I thought they'd object to me taking it inside, though as it turned out, no bags were searched. The musical itself is B-grade and only some of the performances were excellent, but the costumes were fun and we enjoyed our outing.

I made time for a little hand sewing tonight. These $3 thrifted work pants (yay, love that!) were too long, so I hemmed them while Lauren peeled potatoes for dinner.

Weekends are going to be very different around here with Josh gone. Up till now, he and Lauren have mostly hung out together, leaving me free to sew and cook. The girl does not (yet) have many things she likes to do alone, nor does she have friends she wants to be with outside of school. So the two of them would go out and shop, see movies, eat fast food, and do all sorts of things I never or rarely do.

So it's going to be an adjustment for all of us. Lauren will miss Starbucks, In&Out burgers, the nail salon, the mall, and the movies. But she'll gain hikes, museum visits, picnics, art time, sewing and knitting lessons. I'll have less time to myself, but I'll get out of the house more.

It's all good, right? Especially the peppermint bark.