Playing catch-up

The last week? well, it's been made up of slowly unpacking the car, rain, more rain, a fantastic 3-day weekend, and yesterday we got some thunder and lightning and torrential downpour and green-gray clouds and a few inches of hail followed by more rain that went on for a few hours. I walked home in my summery skirt and shoes and was pretty well soaked when I got there.

But yes, the weekend. I think all weekends should have 3 days in them, because this one was perfect - Saturday we put in our garden (veggies and herbs) and put in more plants and flowers. We started a major (and well-needed) house clean, ran some errands, and enjoyed the lovely weather. Sunday we finished the cleaning and the errands - and boy is our house clean! I hope we can keep it that way. We had some social time in the evening and also did some prepwork for Monday's brunch that we hosted for Dan's parents and grandma. We woke up pretty early on Monday and finished up cooking the veggie, turkey sausage, and goat cheese quiche, the fruit salad, the coffee cake, the sweet potato home fries, and the spinach salad. When Dan's family arrived, everything was already done (for once!) and we had time to just relax and enjoy the afternoon. We even got out the fancy silver that Dan's grandma gave us a couple of years ago and got to use that for the first time.

Monday afternoon was one of those times when we were completely free to do anything we wanted; the weather was warm with a bit of a breeze, and our house was totally clean. For once, we could go anywhere or do anything. So we decided to go to the park, toss a frisbee around for a while, lay in the grass and look up through the trees, and relax. Eventually we decided to walk to the awesome ice cream place (Lik's) and I got a child size with my two favorite flavors, chai tea and dark chocolate with caramel. Dan got his favorite, caramel Irish stout with chocolate chips in it. We dropped off the frisbee and the nalgene on our way downtown and then went to sit in a cool movie theater for 3 hours and watched the new Pirates movie, which Dan kindly reviewed here. I went into it with low expectations and it was better than I'd thought it would be, so there you go. I also think they've done amazing things with CGI and it's grown leaps and bounds just in the last couple of years. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Yesterday, I was supposed to be in a meeting that was to last pretty much all day, but we got through everything really quickly and it was done in less than an hour (yay!) so I went to the gym for a long time, not expected back at work until late afternoon. When I was finished with the iron pumping and the hamstering I felt guilty and decided to go back to work. An hour later, some coworkers came back from lunch telling tales of green skies and tornadoes and hail, so I got up to see the commotion and looked out the back door of the building. Damn, that was some nasty rain/hail/storm. I was worried about the garden that we just put in, more so as I was walking home through the rain over piles of leaf bits and other plant detritus that were casualties of the hail. Our car, backyard and lawn were covered in more leaf bits and detritus, but it appears that the plants I deemed most important (the peppers and tomatoes) turned out OK. The annuals (flowers) have seen better days, but that's OK; they'll make more flowers.

Today I was prepared and brought a sweatshirt and an umbrella and wore shoes that I didn't care if they got soaked, and of course my walk home this afternoon was lovely. It's quiet in the house now; Dan is in class and the kitties are napping and I am super excited for 7 PM to arrive because 7 PM means So You Think You Can Dance, and I am also super excited because TWOP is finally recapping it. Hooray! I look forward to this show all year because I am lame.

Post about wedding dress shopping still in the works; I'm hoping to have it done tomorrow.