such a beautiful weekend

**warning: long post ahead...consider this a 3-day journal entry :)

Don't get me wrong...the weather was terrible. Cold, wet, and so very dark and grey. Spoke to K on the phone for a long time and laughed our asses off. That was fun. Later Friday my sister Aley came over and it has been a long time since we've properly caught up. We had an evening full of unfinished and come-back-to conversations. She visited China for 2 1/2 weeks over Christmas with her boyfriend and his family. She's got TONS of gorgeous photos and so we're going through them in preparation for me helping her with a China album. I love that I can share this scrap thing with her in a way that interests her (she's not all that crafty...she's the athlete in the family). We were drinking probably a tad too much v. nice red wine and when the evening was finally coming to an end we realized it was 3:45 am!!! I have not stayed up that late for a LONG time. I mean, sometimes if I'm really rolling on a scrapbook page or project I might make it til 1 or 1:30 at that absolute latest. Shocked. It was my turn to sleep in and Dren and Jaxon had plans for Science World on Saturday, so I planned before going to bed that I was just going to sleep until I woke up. So I did. I woke up at 1:30 pm. Nice. I felt like I was 21 again :)

OK so I wake up at 1:30 (kind of groggy but otherwise feeling pretty good), and the boys come home about 1:45 and go to take a nap. Dren asked if I wanted to come, and as tempted as I was I politely declined. I chatted with a neighbour, I helped Carmichael with his homework for a little while, I talked to friends on the phone, I dabbled at trying to clean up and organize, checked the message boards at 'ologie, actually managed to get the dishes done, left two crazy messages for gabby (and I received one return from her today) and enjoyed my quiet space.

Saturday evening Dren made shepherd's (sp?) pie (he make it a very special way, and let's just say that there is lots of butter in the potatoes), and fed us, my mama, and Colleen and Carmichael. After dinner Dren left and me, mum, and Colleen played boggle for a bit. Mum left and we played a game called Tiominos. SO fun. We never finished a game all night...it's one of those ones that just goes on and on in "rounds" until someone reaches 400 points. We just had sooo much fun. Colleen decided her phony-pony was irritating her, so she took it off and put it on me. I didn't get any photos, unfortunately, but just imagine a white as white can be girl with a very cute (and very NOT white) afro-puff pony. Hilarious! I went home with it on and got a wicked laugh out of it with Dren.

Slept in a bit this morning (til 8:30 or so) and had a co-op meeting at 10 that I had totally forgotten about. That screwed up my previous plan to visit Christina before going to Renee's house, supposedly to organize. Yeah No. Anything Renee can do to avoid actually dealing with the ever-growing store of supplies that she was forced to move into her spare bedroom because it outgrew the living/dining area (I'm not kidding), Renee will do. Including planning a spur-of-the-moment trip down to Treasury (my FAVE strictly-scrapbooking store.). But we had a lot of fun...and I did it on a TOTAL budget. I'm so proud of myself. I mean, I didn't not spend, but I didn't use my credit card which I usually would, telling myself I would pay it off right away (which I never do). Made for some interesting shuffling and some real restraint on my part, and some last minute "ok, I can do without that t-shirt and those scissors" at our last stop, and a new fave, Target. I mean, I've always loved target, but I usually spend to much money first at Stampadoodle, Paper Zone, and Treasury that I would feel awful spending more on myself at Target, so it's usually where I buy little treats for the boys since it's the last stop. Well today I bought 2 t-shirts for myself (not boy t-shirt nisa!!) and had a blast looking through all the stuff. Target is seriously fun. I think I could get lost in there for a good couple hours.

We went for dinner, watched a bit of the Oscar's and got home to the Barbary Walters Oscar special. Hi. Could the weekend be any more perfect? The only thing that would have made it more fun would have been to spend a teeny bit more time w/ the boys. I guess a girl needs that fun weekend break once in a while. And man oh man...this was indeed a FUN weekend. My only regret (and I shouldn't call it a regret for all the fun I had), is that I didn't get to actually scrapbook. I just thought about it all weekend. :)

And I still need to clean.

Oh and I have seriously loved reading all the posts of you "lurkers". I know I said this already, but it's really cool to read about different people, about their reason for reading, about where they're from, etc. It's honestly been a pleasure. Thank you for coming, reading, viewing layouts only, leaving a comment, not leaving a comment...thank you!

xoxog