Good ol' weekend recap

One of the great things about being employed is that you appreciate the weekend so much more. When you're a lady of leisure, Tuesday is the same as Saturday--except that stores are less crowded during the week. But now, when Friday arrives, there's a great sense of relief and anticipation. This past Friday was no different. I did not have any major plans to look forward to, but just being able to sleep in (I've been sleeping better lately, thanks for asking) and lounge around in my PJ's until noon packs in enough delight for me.

I did have the goal of being dressed and out the door by noon this Saturday, however. I needed to get my oil changed. Man, 3,000 miles go by fast! I never really noticed how quickly the miles rack up, because I've always had synthetic oil in my car (Amsoil, to be specific), which only needs to be changed every 25,000 miles or one year. The last time I got my oil changed, I didn't have any Amsoil, and didn't have time to wait and get it from my dad, because I thought grungy oil was partly to blame for my car overheating. (Turned out not to be the case, but that's another story.) So I got regular oil and thus it needed to be changed after a measly few thousand miles. This time I did have Amsoil, though (thanks, Dad!) so I won't need to revisit Fast Lube Plus for quite some time. Which is a good thing, because I never seem to be able to get out of there without spending over $150. This time, they recommended that I change my power steering fluid and clean out my fuel system. For all I know it's a load of bull, but it sounded reasonable enough to me, and I was reading a good book so I didn't mind sitting around a little longer. Mine was the only car there so there were several guys working on it at once. Besides, this was the view from the waiting room.


Gotta love NC.

After the car was done, I headed over to the Crossroads, the world's largest shopping center (or at least it seems like it). They have every store you could imagine, and if it's not there, it's within a 2 mile drive. Seriously, Cary has it all in terms of retail. Anyway, I was looking for two things: clothes and craft materials. As I've mentioned here before, I am going to be doing some on-site trainings this summer, and I kind of feel like my current wardrobe is a little bit too casual for that. And, I'm going to a friend's wedding in July, so I need something kind of dressy. I made out okay on the first count--a couple pairs of slacks and tops--but I bombed horrendously on the summery-dress front. Thankfully I still have time to look. As for the crafts, I wandered through Michael's searching for inspiration for my gift tags for Tammie's swap. I finally emerged with cardstocks, papers, and embellishments sufficient to craft 100 tags, and I only need to make 10. But at least I have options. :-)

For dinner Saturday, I picked up Red Robin to go and took it over to my parents' house. I love Red Robin, and was excited because the first one opened in the Triangle area a few weeks ago. But I have to say that it tastes better if it doesn't sit in the car for 45 minutes before you eat it. After dinner, we watched two movies: Family Stone (which I'd seen) and Nanny McPhee (which I hadn't). Both were good, in very different ways. I gave both three stars on Netflix. Family Stone would have gotten four if the first three-quarters of the movie weren't so heavy and uncomfortable. I know Sarah Jessica Parker's character is supposed to be awkward and she did a bang-up job of acting, because it truly is painful to watch her squirm under the family's scrutiny. Nanny McPhee was cute, and I could see kids loving it, but it was a little simplistic. It's becoming trite to say it, but the best kids' movies are the ones that have many levels and layers, like Finding Nemo.

Saturday night, despite a forecast for dry weather, there was a big thunderstorm with lots of lightning and rain. My parents have a pretty open view of the horizon, and we saw so many flashes of light. But as fast as the rain came, it left, and I went home. The drive was bizarre. There was fog, which isn't new to me, but the nature of this fog was so strange. It wasn't thick, and it wasn't everywhere. It was in low-lying pockets. Truly, it looked like the set of a movie where a fog machine was in use. I have never in my life seen fog like that. It did get denser and higher in patches, but for the most part it was very low. It felt like I was driving through the clouds. Almost surreal.

Sunday I got my hair cut. I explained exactly what I wanted to the hairdresser, but as usual, she cut too much off. Oh well, it grows back, right? We chatted mostly about the Grey's Anatomy finale. Afterwards I went home for lunch, and a little before three headed off for my weekly massage. Have I mentioned the Rub Club here before? It's the greatest thing since sliced bread! You pay a monthly fee and you get a certain number of massages. The rates are dirt cheap, and I couldn't pass it up. It may sound indulgent--and, well, I guess it is--but my shoulders and neck have been so incredibly tense lately, I really felt it was a necessity. I've never gotten more than two massages from the same person before, but now it's the same lady every time, and I really think it gets better every week. I think she is becoming accustomed to where my knots are, and she's more confident in how to go about releasing the tension.

I did some grocery shopping afterwards, and then came home and worked on my gift tags. I do hope they are crafty enough to be worthy of being in the swap. I like how they turned out, but it seemed too easy.

At 9:00 I watched the season finale of Desperate Housewives. It's a good show, but I was not wowed by the finale. I actually found myself looking at the clock around 10:15, thinking, "How much longer?" They did set up next season pretty decently, so maybe it will be back in top form in the fall.

So I guess that brings us up to today. I was a little busy at work--gasp!--so the time went by pretty quickly. I also found out that I am going to Georgia for some trainings--I get to fly into Atlanta. Hopefully I'll have some time to do a little sightseeing. Oh, and the trainings in Pittsburgh that were going to threaten my vacation to L.A. in July were rescheduled for the week before, so there's no chance of a conflict. Whew!

Oh, one more thing--did you see Google's logo today? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday. I love Google's special logos. You can see them all here.