Kelly Goes Back to School

Sunday morning Kelly and I left bright and early for our drive to Urbana.......Blingdaddy oversaw the packing of the Jeep - quite a tidy packing job it was! Kelly breathed a sigh of relief when we closed the tailgate and everything fit.....she'd been dreading the packing for more than a week because she feared she had accumulated even MORE "things" than she had last year. However, this year we didn't need to bring the floor-standing fan because her dorm room is air-conditioned! (BTW, it is just short of feeling like a meat locker.......but Kelly says she'd rather be cold than hot, so It's All Good!) Saved a little bit of space that way. We also didn't need the "egg crate" topping for the bed, since the new beds in ISR came complete with their own, built-in "egg crate"!

Of course, it was raining on Sunday, but we didn't get toooooo soaked unpacking the car. There were ridiculously long lines for the two working elevators in ISR, so we opted to schlepp everything up the three flights of stairs to Kelly's room! Pretty decent workout, I think! Kelly's room faces the courtyard between her building and the cafeteria wing of the dorm, and looks North. She can just make out traffic on Green Street if she looks to the West! Very tiny room, of course, but it has brand new furniture this year, and a spiffy, chemical-fume-producing new paint job! Kelly quickly slapped up her posters on the walls, using some Sticky Tack left on her roommate's desk! What the heck, the early bird gets the worm, I always say! Tasted pretty good, too! Hahahaha......

We unpacked the suitcases and duffle bags (of which we only had to purchase ONE new one to get her to school......) so that I could take them back home. There is NO extra space in that room to even wedge in a panty liner! But Kel is pretty happy with the way the room looks (no way to hang her little Christmas lights at this point, though....) and her roommate should be okay. Lauren is just a little self-absorbed for Kelly's taste, but I guess she's a pretty typical 19 year old college girl who comes from a family with only two kids! Not everyone can come from a charater-building family such as ours, now, can they? :)

Then Kelly and I made the trek out to Meijer in Champaign and got to stand in the checkout lines for about half an hour. The poor local people must have been nuts to go to the stores any time that weekend! The shelves looked as though they had been attacked by a swarm of locusts.......Kelly didn't need too many things, but definitely needed her jar of salad dressing! Her main food items during the school year are Salad and Rice! Yum!

After a big hug goodbye, I took off for home. Yes, it rained on the way home, but it was only really, really awful for about fifteen minutes, when I was white-knuckling it up Route 47 and trying to see the road through the torrential downpour and the ominous gloom. For some reason, it only took us two and a half hours to drive there, but three and a half to drive home! Made it home just before 9:00 PM, and found a scrumptions spread of Wok n' Roll takeout that Blingdaddy and Tommy were kind enough to pick up. Gee, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it now! :)

So far, things are going well for Miss Kel. She had her first viola lesson of the year with Professor Hawken, and he told her that she was in "good shape" for her orchestra audition which is, I believe, tomorrow. Let's all say a few little extra prayers for Kel tomorrow so that she gets into the orchestra that she would like to be in, whichever one that may be! :)