How to Top a Wonderful Weekend

Serve homemade, made-from-scratch brownies, but I'll get to that later.

We have been having some really great weather in the past few days, and I think that contributed to me having a really, truly wonderful weekend. I appreciate the sunny days so much more after spending 3 winters in the gray cold of France. So how did I use those sunny hours that made it such a great weekend?

Friday, I dropped the kids off at school and headed to the Y for a workout. I got there about 45 minutes before my chosen class started so I headed into the weight room for an tour on the elliptical machine. I was charged up, ready to go! I was set on going to the class after my 30 minute routine, that is until I finished the routine. I got off the machine with some serious jelly legs. Hmm ... not so great when one wants to head into another workout, especially one where the legs get a serious workout. Now what do I do?

Head to the garden for some dirt therapy! And I lucked into working with a great guy named Luis. He is also a volunteer, and has some incredible ideas. He is from Columbia, and was telling me all about how they use different plants together to benefit each other. He was very shy about asking me if I thought it would be okay for him to plant some rosemary in the garden to help with pests. Heck yeah!! One of our many goals with this garden is to keep it as organic as possible. SO far we have done a pretty good job not using chemicals. I think we used some 7 Powder once this year, but that is it. Now we have a new resource for ideas, and I cannot wait to learn more!

I spent the afternoon blogging and catching up on e-mail while my exhausted husband slept. Poor guy had gone to California for business on Wednesday. He hadn't been gone long enough for his body to adjust, and had to come back on the red-eye. Luckily he didn't have to go back to the office and was able to catch up on his sleep. And I got undisturbed computer time!

Saturday was a party day. My "chef for lunch" came in and did his cooking show thing. The upside was that I got to enjoy a free meal with my very patient friends and their hubbies while the 6 kids played nicely. Somehow the gathering morphed into an all-afternoon thing as we continued to chat, drink wine, and work on a 1000 piece Disney puzzle. Suddenly it was 5 PM and the troops were getting hungry! An hour later we dined on mac'n cheese with ham thrown together by group effort. That is one of the things that I love about Ang, Mo and their families - meals are always a group effort. And the food is always good.

Today dawned cold and gray. It was raining before we realized it, and one might think that it was a prescription for a boring day, but it hasn't been. My dear husband has been working hard helping me put the house back to rights after some drywall work this week. He vacuumed in all kinds of corners all over the house. Then he helped me collect all of the bins and boxes of Christmas decorations in the living room so that I can get it all organized. The Misses are ready to decorate, but I need to organize the things that went to France, the things that were stored, and the things that we have purchased in the past 3 years. I hope to have it all ready so that we can decorate immediately after Thanksgiving.

Now I am enjoying a little more solitary computer time while my dear family prepares my birthday dinner. They are making a lemon-rosemary roasted chicken, Lipton onion soup potatoes (potatoes coated with the soup mix and roasted) and brownies from scratch. My house smells wonderful. My stomach is growling! And I have been typing with all of the giggles and discussion that have surrounded the kitchen preparations.

What more could a girls ask for in a weekend?