A weekend of intentions

What we planned to do, and what we did, turned out quite differently this weekend. But it was still a good one overall.

Friday
I worked through lunch Friday and left work early, on my bike (Yes, finally commuted on my bike while the weather's still good!). Picked up G in my car and went to a local yarn store to exchange my Ashford drop spindle that I'd bought during their two-hour, 8-10AM-only, Labor Day sale (25% off!). Turned out that the drop spindle had a snag on the shaft. The owner exchanged it with no problems (yay) and I looked at more of the roving available, buying nothing in the end. She had a basket of a nice tweedy yarn by the front door at only about $3 a ball, but I managed to resist, as I have enough yarn at home to drown a fully grown man in. Not that I have. Yet. But I could.

After that, we went home and had something easy for dinner, I arranged a sitter for the next night, and we watched Over the Hedge again. Just picked it up at Costco and it sure is a fun movie.

Saturday
Usually, G goes to martial arts on Saturday mornings, but that Saturday, he just could not bring himself to. I'd stayed up late, working on a knitting project, so I didn't have the energy to get him to go, so we skipped it. Stayed home and lazed around for a bit, till I got up, had a shower and made G get in after me (after I had hugged him and his arm felt sticky), and then set about making Thank-You cards for his current school fundraiser. He used a piece of patterned paper, and I picked up the scrap and had a whole new idea for a card, and ran with it. We had quite a nice time, working on cards and sharing strategies, and finishing with 8 cards done, addressed, filled out with a thank-you message, and sealed. I was going to make more to have on hand, but by the time we finished, I was just too darned tired. I did manage to clean the entire table up right after we finished, so that was a good feeling. I still tend to make a mess as I work on something and then not clean it all up and it just kind of grates on me.

After that, we went out to run some errands: a friend who is on Freecycle chose me as the recipient of her medium-sized dog crate for our impending Rescue Pug (whose name shall be Chester), so we picked that up first, and greeted her dogs and saw her totally redone kitchen (thanks to insurance $$ after the pipes in the wall burst and flooded the kitchen).

Then we headed off to a local toy store, while G shopped around with his allowance money. After that, we went to Costco to pick up a pie for the church picnic Sunday, an unbaked fresh pizza for dinner that night, and a few other things that turned into several other things. I had hoped to be home by 5PM to be able to primp for an hour before going out; we got home at 5:45, so no primp was to be had. The sitter arrived at 6, and I managed to leave by about 6:20, after warning them twice that the baked pizza was sitting on the counter. Turns out Lucy ate about half of it before they managed to get in there to rescue it (I doubt they'll risk it again). She seemed none the worse for wear, and was fine the next day, although I did forget to feed her breakfast, and I don't really think she needed it.

I went off to a fun No on 8 fundraising dinner, arranged by a friend who had assured me there would be plenty of single women there. There sure were--fulled up the right half of the restaurant and spilled over to the left! There were about 7 courses, punctuated by a fantastic belly dancer, a hilarious tap dancer whose mouth moved about as fast as her feet, a Russian singer who I'd heard about but never before heard, and an impassioned plea for No on 8 phone banking, as well as periodic checks to bid on various auction items, one of which I won (a massage in Alameda!!). The email yesterday morning says the function, after expenses, raised about $6800 in all--more than they had even expected!

Late in the evening, I overheard someone say that it was nearly 11, and my mouth dropped open. I'd been having such a great time and it just didn't feel that late! I called my sitter and he confirmed that everything was fine, G was fine, Oops no, he wasn't in bed yet (this was only the 2nd time with this sitter and I'd neglected to go over bedtimes before I left). I got home in less than 1/2 an hour and sent G to bed and waited up with the sitter till his mom came. Stayed up a little bit later watching TV and knitting, big surprise there.

Sunday
Woke up about 8:30 and was moving quickly from then on, trying to get to church in time for choir rehearsal. I managed to get us there only a few minutes late and with clothing on. The song we were singing was familiar and yet, not quite. I finally realized after we finished rehearsing, with me desperately trying to pick the Alto notes out, that I knew the song but not the parts because the last time we performed it, I was playing the flute accompaniment (which is hauntingly beautiful but more of a lilting countermelody than a harmony, so I had a hard time coming in at the right times, etc., which is maybe why the director didn't ask me to play this time). It went well in the end, and we finished up church quickly and headed out to our annual church picnic.

I dragged my pop-up canopy to the site and easily found 3 others to help me erect it. (It is SO much easier with 4.) We got it up and shaded the second food table, and set out to eat many delicious things and talk and relax. The youth headed off with the little ones after a while and played some kind of games that involved tossing marshmallows around and required me to sit on my heinie and do nothing--in short, the best kind of kid games. My choir director brought a croquet set, which would presume a fairly mundane, quiet, respectful game, and was anything but. She waved her mallet back and forth as another player aimed her ball that way. Balls were knocked away left and right, taunts were thrown, and it was fun just to watch it happen! I do want a (good lawn and a) croquet set someday. That would be fun.

Things wrapped up around 3PM, and as I was packing up my canopy, our minister approached me about bringing it this weekend for our Faithful Families BBQ. I pointed out that we were going to get there late anyway, and ended up just loading the collapsed canopy into her car. Easy peasy!

We headed home to lounge around and watch more movies (I chose Lord of the Rings 1 and 2), in between which I insisted we do some cleaning. I rediscovered the floor of my room and G folded and put away his clean clothes. Then I had a sneezing fit because I am allergic to dust. Cleaning tends to do that. I need to clean more regularly and tame the dust monster. It is nice to have my floor back; that's for sure.

We stopped LOTR 2 early for G to read a bit (from Butt Wars, naturally) and then I sent him off to bed. I settled in with The Life of David Gale and my knitting, vowing to stop at 10 and get up early and tackle the dishes; predictably, I looked at the clock and it was nearly 11 already. The movie is fascinating and of course, Kevin Spacey is terrific. I love Laura Linney, too, but Kate Winslet, not so much. She was pretty good in this, which made me remember her in Moonlight, where she seemed to be acting so hard so much of the time, big eyes and all. Wait--that was Sophia Myles! Wow, separated at birth, or what?

Well, I finished my minister's baby blanket (finally!), although it needs to be washed and laid flat, and started my stranded project and am quite pleased with it.

This week
Tuesday, I meet at 7:30AM with G's teacher and several other folks at his school to plan out the assessments they'll do in preparation for writing an IEP. I'm nervous about that, so if you can keep us in your thoughts, I'd appreciate it. To butter them up, I've bought a dozen croissants and a pan of Danish, as well as a bag of bananas from, you guessed it, Costco. I really hope it goes well and the assessments show... well, something useful.

Not much else going on except that I'm hoping to get back on the Reclaiming Your Home bandwagon and get my house back on track. Have a good week, ya'll.