Weekend Update
Let's see if I can do justice to a very busy weekend...
On Friday, I went to Life Group in the morning. I brought chocolate covered macadamia nuts and Kona coffee from my trip, as well as coffee mugs for our two group leaders. The ladies really liked the new name tags I'd made, with their nifty plastic jackets and elastic necklaces. We're studying from a new book, but this week we didn't have time to really dig into it. Instead, we met the daunting challenge of putting our stories into "100 words" - in reality, whatever we could fit on one side (only a few of us used both sides, we tended toward rather small handwriting) of a 4x6 card. The worship team will be using these as a resource to find people who are willing to tell their story on stage when the story is apropos to the message.
I went home, rather than out to lunch with the ladies, and got some need rest. Mom and I watched the Westminster dog show, and then I napped a bit before leaving for Sayre. My new phone came, then I discovered that my old phone battery had jumped ship. There's a real possibility that it fell in the trash, emptied the night before, but we still haven't deep cleaned the family room to look for it.
After getting back home, I found a reasonable price for a replacement battery online. Retail price for a Palm replacement through Cingular is $49.95. I ordered one online for $33 and change, after shipping and handling. I should come sometime this week. Meanwhile, I'm using Critter's old flip-phone.
At The Mat, the No Stones group was an hour of telling each other about our week (wherein much encouragement and empathy was found all round), and then rushing to the tail-end of dinner. Soup and sandwich from Panera is too much for me to rush through -- I've found myself eating the soup and saving the sandwich. Unfortunately the waxed paper didn't hold up to the sandwich dressing until I got home, so this week I'll try to remember a ziplock bag. After the worship service, we started our first week of the 12 week closed Food Group. I got my workbook; we broke into small discussion groups, and then ended with an almost meditation-like time as our leader prayed over us. This was really special as it's like a glimpse into what I want to be experiencing in my private prayer time. Unfortunately, I was still a little sleepy, so I almost nodded off.
Before I went home, I did a small grocery run at Meijer which was mostly about restocking sodas, but included needed dish soap and some staples.
On Saturday, we started out the day by picking up T to join us for the day and sleep over with Tigger. We had brunch at I-Hop, and by observing the deserted lobby on our departure, we determined that 2:15pm Saturdays is likely an ideal time to eat at I-Hop. As opposed to when we arrived, a little after noon.
We stopped at Sam's for staples, Carnival for new sneakers for Critter (and clearance shoes for Mom and me), and Great Clips for Critter's hair before we finally landed at home. Mom found three pair of sandals that she liked at Carnival, and I found a really pretty pair of burnished gold open toed medium heeled sandals. Mom popped for our shoes, while I laid out the Rewards Card for Critter's sneakers. At Great Clips, the woman I met the first week at The Mat, J, was also there. We chatted for a bit, and I got to introduce her to Mom. That was neat. Critter's hair is now in its short phase, and he got many compliments at school today.
We bought tickets for the sneak preview of Wild Hogs on our way home, and then met Knight and Ro at the theatre. It was a wonderfully funny movie -- I spent most of it laughing. Then we invited Knight and Ro to follow us home for dinner. I made Chili Mac and Garlic Bread (and Broccoli with Cheese that I forgot to serve), and Ro turned old week-old Krispy Kremes into Bread Pudding. Well, she assembled it to soak overnight for me to cook the next day.
I stayed up too late after that, surfing for jewelry findings. I now know my budget for setting the multi-colored gems I selected in Brazil back in 2005, but it will be some time before have lots of freed up spending money.
Sunday was another busy day out. First we went to the 11:55 service at Quest, bringing T with us, and picking up Ro on the way. We found out that beginning on the day before Easter, we're going to have Saturday night services to make more room. The great thing is that Knight will be able to go more regularly, since he usually needs to be asleep through the Sunday services.
Tigger had a chess tutoring session at the Polo Club from 2-4, so we dropped him off after we took T home, and then went to the Texas Roadhouse for lunch. After we picked him up, we dropped off Ro and headed home. That gave us under two hours before we were out to meet Ro and Knight to see Bridge to Terabithia. That was a wonderful movie. It had so many wonderful undercurrents in it. I loved the story, even the sad bits. After the movie we were going to eat at Carpe Diem, but it was closed, so we headed back to Fayette Mall again to eat at the new Fridays.
Fridays has Etch-a-Sketch toys for entertaining children (and adults alike), and we had a ball creating wedding cakes and kitty cats and the perfect wave and dinosaurs and wigs. The boys made floorplans and blueprints and written words. Heh. Funny to see them get so linear while we got fantastical.
I stayed up too late last night finally getting around to learning the rudimentary steps involved in writing Applescripts, and then writing a very simple one to fix track names in my iTunes library. My audiobooks often have differing naming schemes from disc to disc, or some discs are missing from Gracenotes, and my Treo player sorts them according to track name. Since some of the books have up to 99 tracks on a disc, it was pretty tedious to type in names by hand, and ridiculously simple to have a script do it. Go go homemaker programming skills. Not exactly the system programmer of old, but definitely a wee bit more capable. ;)
Today wasn't part of the weekend, but I didn't exactly accomplish much, either. Tis the womanly part of my month, and I'm easily persuaded to sit back in my easy chair nursing cramps. I did get an overdue audiobook returned to the library, and ripped all but one of the ones remaining in my custody. I'm not rushing out to reserve more yet, as work has slowed to a dribble, and Mom's presence leaves no need for solitary housework entertainment.
No, with Mom here, I'm watching more TV and find myself not getting enough reading done. I've got a book for Life Group (that we're double timing so that we can get finished before the grand syncing up of book studies across the Life Groups), a book AND a workbook (which means questions to answer) for the Food Group, and hey, wouldn't it be nice to get back to reading my devotional again?
Knight came over this afternoon and drove me to the library and to pick up Tigger. I called in to work and had none, which freed up my evening. Knight stayed a bit after we got back to the house, and then left when the rest of us left for the Tutoring Club and dinner. Critter will be going to Tutoring Club twice a week (and some Saturdays, to get all the hours in) to get ACT/SAT test prep tutoring, before he takes the ACT in April. We got that all set up, and then had dinner at El Chico.
While Tigger was finishing up his homework tonight, I trimmed Bob's talonsnails. He really doesn't like the process, but I'm getting better at it, so it's less traumatic overall. It had been too long, though, and I got almost 1/2 inch off of one of his nails.
I was planning to get to bed earlier than this to have some time for reading before sleep, but this will still be my earliest-to-bed in three nights.
Ooh, I forgot to mention how yummy the bread pudding turned out. And, Knight -- we were talking about sugar grams? I forgot to take into account that the recipe called for glazed donuts, and we used naked donuts (the icing having hardened enough to merely lift off). The pleasant surprise about the nutrition information is the unexpected high amount of protein. ;)
On Friday, I went to Life Group in the morning. I brought chocolate covered macadamia nuts and Kona coffee from my trip, as well as coffee mugs for our two group leaders. The ladies really liked the new name tags I'd made, with their nifty plastic jackets and elastic necklaces. We're studying from a new book, but this week we didn't have time to really dig into it. Instead, we met the daunting challenge of putting our stories into "100 words" - in reality, whatever we could fit on one side (only a few of us used both sides, we tended toward rather small handwriting) of a 4x6 card. The worship team will be using these as a resource to find people who are willing to tell their story on stage when the story is apropos to the message.
I went home, rather than out to lunch with the ladies, and got some need rest. Mom and I watched the Westminster dog show, and then I napped a bit before leaving for Sayre. My new phone came, then I discovered that my old phone battery had jumped ship. There's a real possibility that it fell in the trash, emptied the night before, but we still haven't deep cleaned the family room to look for it.
After getting back home, I found a reasonable price for a replacement battery online. Retail price for a Palm replacement through Cingular is $49.95. I ordered one online for $33 and change, after shipping and handling. I should come sometime this week. Meanwhile, I'm using Critter's old flip-phone.
At The Mat, the No Stones group was an hour of telling each other about our week (wherein much encouragement and empathy was found all round), and then rushing to the tail-end of dinner. Soup and sandwich from Panera is too much for me to rush through -- I've found myself eating the soup and saving the sandwich. Unfortunately the waxed paper didn't hold up to the sandwich dressing until I got home, so this week I'll try to remember a ziplock bag. After the worship service, we started our first week of the 12 week closed Food Group. I got my workbook; we broke into small discussion groups, and then ended with an almost meditation-like time as our leader prayed over us. This was really special as it's like a glimpse into what I want to be experiencing in my private prayer time. Unfortunately, I was still a little sleepy, so I almost nodded off.
Before I went home, I did a small grocery run at Meijer which was mostly about restocking sodas, but included needed dish soap and some staples.
On Saturday, we started out the day by picking up T to join us for the day and sleep over with Tigger. We had brunch at I-Hop, and by observing the deserted lobby on our departure, we determined that 2:15pm Saturdays is likely an ideal time to eat at I-Hop. As opposed to when we arrived, a little after noon.
We stopped at Sam's for staples, Carnival for new sneakers for Critter (and clearance shoes for Mom and me), and Great Clips for Critter's hair before we finally landed at home. Mom found three pair of sandals that she liked at Carnival, and I found a really pretty pair of burnished gold open toed medium heeled sandals. Mom popped for our shoes, while I laid out the Rewards Card for Critter's sneakers. At Great Clips, the woman I met the first week at The Mat, J, was also there. We chatted for a bit, and I got to introduce her to Mom. That was neat. Critter's hair is now in its short phase, and he got many compliments at school today.
We bought tickets for the sneak preview of Wild Hogs on our way home, and then met Knight and Ro at the theatre. It was a wonderfully funny movie -- I spent most of it laughing. Then we invited Knight and Ro to follow us home for dinner. I made Chili Mac and Garlic Bread (and Broccoli with Cheese that I forgot to serve), and Ro turned old week-old Krispy Kremes into Bread Pudding. Well, she assembled it to soak overnight for me to cook the next day.
I stayed up too late after that, surfing for jewelry findings. I now know my budget for setting the multi-colored gems I selected in Brazil back in 2005, but it will be some time before have lots of freed up spending money.
Sunday was another busy day out. First we went to the 11:55 service at Quest, bringing T with us, and picking up Ro on the way. We found out that beginning on the day before Easter, we're going to have Saturday night services to make more room. The great thing is that Knight will be able to go more regularly, since he usually needs to be asleep through the Sunday services.
Tigger had a chess tutoring session at the Polo Club from 2-4, so we dropped him off after we took T home, and then went to the Texas Roadhouse for lunch. After we picked him up, we dropped off Ro and headed home. That gave us under two hours before we were out to meet Ro and Knight to see Bridge to Terabithia. That was a wonderful movie. It had so many wonderful undercurrents in it. I loved the story, even the sad bits. After the movie we were going to eat at Carpe Diem, but it was closed, so we headed back to Fayette Mall again to eat at the new Fridays.
Fridays has Etch-a-Sketch toys for entertaining children (and adults alike), and we had a ball creating wedding cakes and kitty cats and the perfect wave and dinosaurs and wigs. The boys made floorplans and blueprints and written words. Heh. Funny to see them get so linear while we got fantastical.
I stayed up too late last night finally getting around to learning the rudimentary steps involved in writing Applescripts, and then writing a very simple one to fix track names in my iTunes library. My audiobooks often have differing naming schemes from disc to disc, or some discs are missing from Gracenotes, and my Treo player sorts them according to track name. Since some of the books have up to 99 tracks on a disc, it was pretty tedious to type in names by hand, and ridiculously simple to have a script do it. Go go homemaker programming skills. Not exactly the system programmer of old, but definitely a wee bit more capable. ;)
Today wasn't part of the weekend, but I didn't exactly accomplish much, either. Tis the womanly part of my month, and I'm easily persuaded to sit back in my easy chair nursing cramps. I did get an overdue audiobook returned to the library, and ripped all but one of the ones remaining in my custody. I'm not rushing out to reserve more yet, as work has slowed to a dribble, and Mom's presence leaves no need for solitary housework entertainment.
No, with Mom here, I'm watching more TV and find myself not getting enough reading done. I've got a book for Life Group (that we're double timing so that we can get finished before the grand syncing up of book studies across the Life Groups), a book AND a workbook (which means questions to answer) for the Food Group, and hey, wouldn't it be nice to get back to reading my devotional again?
Knight came over this afternoon and drove me to the library and to pick up Tigger. I called in to work and had none, which freed up my evening. Knight stayed a bit after we got back to the house, and then left when the rest of us left for the Tutoring Club and dinner. Critter will be going to Tutoring Club twice a week (and some Saturdays, to get all the hours in) to get ACT/SAT test prep tutoring, before he takes the ACT in April. We got that all set up, and then had dinner at El Chico.
While Tigger was finishing up his homework tonight, I trimmed Bob's talonsnails. He really doesn't like the process, but I'm getting better at it, so it's less traumatic overall. It had been too long, though, and I got almost 1/2 inch off of one of his nails.
I was planning to get to bed earlier than this to have some time for reading before sleep, but this will still be my earliest-to-bed in three nights.
Ooh, I forgot to mention how yummy the bread pudding turned out. And, Knight -- we were talking about sugar grams? I forgot to take into account that the recipe called for glazed donuts, and we used naked donuts (the icing having hardened enough to merely lift off). The pleasant surprise about the nutrition information is the unexpected high amount of protein. ;)