A Memorable Memorial Day Week

As I am nearing the end of a 9 day "stay at home" vacation (or as I recently heard it called, a "staycation"), it's time to reflect on all of the things that I've done since I was last at work. The week started off with the quick day trip to Memphis that I've already written about. After a day of recovery from that trip, Michael and I worked in the yard all day on Monday. We also bathed and groomed some of the dogs. Michael mentioned that he had invited a few of our friends over for dinner, so I immediately went into a cleaning mode. By the time the night was over, we had entertained about 10 of our friends. We cooked out on the grill-- hamburgers, hotdogs, shortribs, chicken and veggies. We all had lots to eat (and drink)..... we moved the party out to the front yard. I have a table/ chairs set out there. I brought my Ipod and a set of speakers out. Before I knew we were all singing and dancing and having a great time under the stars, with the sounds of the water garden and the delicate glow of the garden lights nearby. What a cool night! (Before anyone gets their feelings hurt because they weren't invited-- let me remind you that I wasn't in charge of the guest list-- Michael invited only a couple of our friends, and the rest of the crowd were people that just happened to drop by that night).

Michael took a few days off this week, too. I wanted to put our time off to good use, so I made a list of things that I wanted us to accomplish this week. In the mornings, we'd have coffee at the front yard table and review the list. We'd get to work and mark off a few items each day. At sunset we'd sit at the table in the garden and review our day and add a few more items to the list. We got a lot accomplished this week, and we still have a couple of days to complete the list before it's time to go back to work again.

We played trivia on Tuesday at the Corner Tavern. We tied for 2nd place, but missed the tie-breaking question and ended up in 3rd place. We played trivia again at Oz Pizza on Thursday. At Oz we ended up in 2nd place. It seems like our trivia team at Oz always does better when I'm not there-- I missed last week and they won the first place prize.

My biggest accomplishment this week was getting Michael to go to the gym with me. We started off slowly-- I got him a buddy pass to come swimming with me. On his first visit, he joined! He's gone to the gym with me for the past 3 days and it's been great to have a workout partner. It's also kind of fun packing our gym bags together each night. Poor guy, I know he's got to be sore-- I worked him out pretty hard the last couple of days.

In closing I'll just say that I'm kind of looking forward to going back to work next week. I've enjoyed all of this time off and the things that I've accomplished this week, but as you all know I am a workaholic and I guess I'm more comfortable when I have things to worry about! Being a "Lady of Leisure" has never been my style! But I have to admit that it's been fun sleeping in a little later, spending so much time with Michael, and getting things done around the house that I've put off for years. The house looks better, the yard looks better, I'm well-rested (for a change), and I don't think I've ever been happier in my life!