Weekend of 4/21

What a weekend! Work was jam-packed busy on Thursday and Friday so our sales outing, which let us leave at 4:00 on Friday, was a warm respite from a hectic workweek. A group of 9 of us headed out for bowling and beers but only got 1 game in before the lanes closed down for leagues. Departing from there we went to Claudagh Irish Pub for dinner and laughs. A very good time, indeed. Learning lots more about my work-girls than I did before- makes me like them all the more!

We went to drop the car off to Grandma and Grandpa right afterwards and visited with them for about 2 hours. It was funny because as the clock clicked later and later the chocolate-covered almonds and popcorn and Coke started coming out to entice us to stay. Gotta love grandparents!

Saturday we slept in a little bit and then went on errand-running duty most of the afternoon. We bought about $100 in flowers, which is a drastic improvement over last year because Mom gave me 6 huge hostas that she cut out of her garden. I spray-painted the wrought-iron porch furniture which KILLED my forearm and hand from the pressure of holding the button down for 25 straight minutes. It hurt so bad that when I went to fill out the information at the (da-da-dum-dum) gym Jim and I joined for the summer my hand was all shaky and my hand-writing sucked.

Yes, I recognize that this is practically against my religion, but Jim talked me into joining a gym for the next few months. Mercy Health Plex is amazing though (3 racquetball courts, basketball, free weights, tennis courts, whirlpool, indoor pool, therapy pool, unlimited free classes, cardio equipment) and we’re paying only $35/person/month to go that I couldn’t argue. As I’m known for being cheap I’ll have to go because I can’t justify paying for a membership and then not getting my money’s worth by not using the facility. Jim’s going to have to teach me to use all the equipment though as I have no idea what I’m doing…

That night we headed up to Dayton to have dinner and play dominos with the Williams. Good food, good company, as always. At the end of the evening they asked Jim and I to be the Godparents of little Alex. THRILLING!! I’m not anyone’s godparent so this was really exciting for me and even more touching coming from them. I was also really moved that they asked Jim as it’s such a testament of our friendship and their love and acceptance of him too. Bar none, the BEST thing to happen all weekend.

Sunday I got to hang out with my HS girl friends for our monthly “girls lunch”. Jessy is looking fabulously pregnant and I have no doubt that her doctor is right about her going early. I planted about ½ the flowers and plants we got on Saturday and Jim mowed. I have to admit that our house was looking pretty darn amazing by 4:00. I still have ½ of the front flowerbed to clean up and plant as well some drastic work ahead of me on the side yard where weeds have trumped my efforts last from last spring.

We went to our end-of-league bowling banquet on Sunday night and bagged 2nd highest handicap team game which netted us $32 and 7th place overall which earned the 4 of us about $48 each– more than enough to pay for our celebratory LaRosa’s afterwards. Anjali is stayed with us Sunday night and will again tonight. I have homework and Apprentice calling me so I’m not sure how good of a hostess I’ll be….

Sorry for the novel, but the amount of stuff I squeezed into 2.5 days/nights made the time away from work feel like a long weekend. Had some deeper thoughts about friendship lately that I’ll have to figure out how to translate into words. Might try to tackle that later today…