I have changed my mind

When I was in high school, I loved it when we had Fridays off for two primary reasons: 1) I didn't have to go to school and 2) I essentially had two Saturday nights. Forget about the day part of Saturday--those were spent cleaning (read, avoiding cleaning) or watching TV. Fridays off gave me one more night to spend with my friends. Monday holidays were useless to me. While I did enjoy the no-school part, I did not gain a single weekend night because I couldn't use Sunday night for friends. The whole Sabbath thing got in my way and (I thought) really crippled my social life.

With adulthood that has changed. Fridays off work are nice and I will certainly take them, but there is nothing better than getting home from church on Sunday and knowing that not one bit of my day has to be spent preparing to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning and renew the drudgery of another day at work.

"But Ruth," you may think, "you can just as easily enjoy that feeling the night before your extra weekend day when you have a free Friday." True, true. However, here's the thing that seals the deal. Along with enjoying a three day weekend, a beginning-of-the-week holiday leaves a special treat once it's ended: a shortened work week! When Friday is not a work day, you spend the entire week looking forward to the long weekend and forget to enjoy the shortened week. Monday holidays offer two weeks of bliss. One in anticipation and one knowing the weekend will arrive after only t-1 days.

Perhaps I will change my mind later in life. I can see that a Friday holiday would be preferable if you had to be at church on Sunday and didn't want to break up a family outing, but for now, I will enjoy free-Friday yet relish every Monday holiday.

A weekend I couldn't avoid any longer

I have tried very hard to be productive today. We cleaned out the inside of the car, vacuumed it and washed it. I still need to armor-all the inside, but it's only cool enough for that until about 9 a.m. so that will happened next weekend. Then we went up to check on Troy's parents house. No disasters there, but we decided we need to go up Monday night and pull weeds, sweep and squish cans people have dropped off. Coming back to the heat is hard for Connie, so the easier we can make it the happier we'll all be. They'll be back on Tuesday and I'm actually very excited. I hang out with my mother-in-law more than anyone else in town and I miss her when she's gone for the summer.

Once we got home I was tempted to be lazy, but forced myself to do the dishes and wipe the counters. Then I looked and my floors and decided I just had to do them. If there were ever floors that needed some TLC, they're mine. I mopped, but because we live in a rental, the grout was kinda grimy when we moved in. Then after two years of cooking and washing and walking and pasta sauce (for those who remember that incident--see my post in October of last year), the grout was brown instead of the light beige it's supposed to be. So I pulled out the pumice and went to work. It looks a lot better, but I'll have to keep working on it. I used a whole stick on the kitchen and still have the dining room and trouble spots to do. I took before and after pictures and although you can see a difference, it still looks icky close up, so just be proud of me because it's a major improvement.

After that I was in a slightly productive mood so I went to the store to get pectin for freezer jam. I had strawberries I needed to use and I LOVE freezer jam. I've never made it before and travelling to Utah to steal some from my mom just isn't practical, so I decided to give it a shot.

This is for you Linds. For those of you who pay attention to details, my jam is cheese-free, contrary to what the lid says.

It tastes good for now. Hopefully it will set up and still taste good.

So that has been my day so far. I do not plan for the rest of it to be as productive. I think I'll make dinner and that will be it. :)

So Beachy!

Last weekend Troy and I went camping on the beach in San Clemente with his sisters and their families. Let me start by saying I love the beach, so I was very exciting to go. Troy was a little less enthused, but is always up for getting out of the house. I won't go into zillions of details, but on the way we saw a giant dinosaur and Troy was kind of nervous.

After setting up camp, we went to the beach to catch some late afternoon fun. I wish I had taken pictures of the path we had to follow to get there. It was so steep. Your knees hurt going down and your calves and thighs burned coming up. I found this pic on the web. Basically we park on top of the bluff and walk down to the beach. It was no picnic, but I think I'm spoiled because at my usual beach I park, walk 100 yards and there I am.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. There were many highlights to the trip, but I thought it was funny that our nephew Kyler, who’s 7, would gather up the seaweed that washed on shore and collect it in a big pile. When a big wave would come up and take some back down the beach, he would rush to save it. Then he took over a big hole some other kids had dug and kept his treasure safe there. Not that I didn’t mind having less of the crap floating around to wrap around my legs.

Troy tried boogie boarding and body surfing, but didn’t get so attached that he wanted to spend all day in the water. I pretty much played with the kids in the shallow stuff because the salt water stung my eyes (I know, for a beach lover I don’t participate in many beach activities).

While we were hanging out at the campground some activists (I mean that in the nicest way, but I don’t know anything else to call them) offered us free t-shirts if they could take our picture and have us write a letter protesting a toll road that would go right through the campground and a nearby beach (both of which are currently state parks), so of course we did it. Then we went out to dinner and we were celebrities. Fourteen people in matching shirts are hard to miss. Apparently this is a hot topic in San Clemente and most agree the parks should be left alone. I guess if you wear the right t-shirt in the right crowd, you can become instantly famous. All in all, it was a great weekend.

There was one major downside, however. (Warning for the squeamish and those with feet issues--pictures are coming) We were careful to cover ourselves in clothing and sunscreen because we didn’t want to be miserable, but we forgot to lather one important part of Troy. Now don’t get nasty. Troy is a golfer and his calves are dark, but he always wears shoes, so even when he’s barefoot, it looks like he’s wearing socks. Yeah, totally forgot to put sunscreen on his feet. Halfway through the first day, my brother-in-law (who was in bed for three days after his beach trip last year because of his sunburns and all the seawater he swallowed) noticed Troy’s feet were getting burned. We lathered them then, but it was too late. By that night his feet were crimson and swelling. He literally hobbled around camp. But he was a trooper. Other than lots of aloe and no more sun, there wasn’t much we could do. When we stopped for gas on the way home, a lady in the gas station was doing massages and told him he should get one because it was clear his feet were hurting (she couldn’t see the cause). He told her she was not going to touch his feet. Anyway, at the peak of the swelling, I couldn’t see his ankles. Sunday night the blisters started and have gotten bigger. It’s really sad. At least now he can walk without wincing (barefoot of course). He says they’re getting better, but I don’t know if I should take him to a doctor. Is there anything they can do? Any tips are appreciated!!

So that’s our trip to the beach: cool, wet, and painful. What more could you ask for?

A Little Bit of Everything

Wow, I'm feeling very cloudy headed today. I was all ready to enjoy a Friday evening to myself with nothing to do, but with a couple hours left at work, I remembered I have to go to a baby shower tomorrow. I didn't necessarily forget about the shower, I just forgot it was so soon. I've know about it for awhile, so I guess I just thought it was still a long time away. Not so. Anyway, I still had to make my gift and figure out what salad I was making. It had been suggested that I make a seven layer something salad, but I've never done it and wasn't in the mood to experiment. So I'm doing a scaled-down version of my Pepperbelly's knock off (which turned out very well, if I may say so). Anyway, it's now 10:30--that probably explains my cloudy head--and I need to go check on the chicken. I'm kind of at the point that I'm tired but wired at the same time.

I wish I had a funny story to tell, but I don't. The trunk-or-treat was fun. Troy and I were some of the first helpers there so we got to pick our game. We opted for the bean bag toss, but by the time it was over two hours later my hands were black from picking up the bean bags from the asphalt. Ick. And I was so tired. My legs were jello and are still recovering. I think I need to time it next year so I'm either prego or out of town.

One final note: Congrats to cousin Sam on getting married today and Happy 18th Birthday to Sarah. I love you! She'll never read this, but it's the effort that matters, right?

Nothing much to say . . .

Well, another weekend is almost over. Very sad. I went to the JV and Varsity football games on Friday. Good times. JV lost but varsity won, which was a happy surprise. Go Jackets!

Do you ever have those days you just want to curl up and disappear? That was me today. It hit me as we drove to church and if there was ever a Sunday I was not up for wrestling four-year-olds, this was it. I won't go into what nearly put me over the edge, but I really hope that I'm more perceptive and can read other people's moods better than one or two people I dealt with today. I would think that red, swollen eyes and brief responses would give people the idea that now isn't the best time, but maybe I didn't look as bad as I thought I did. Anyway, I stayed at church and chasing Sunbeams did take my mind off things for a while, so it turned out okay.

Yet another Saturday

Well, it's been a not-much-going-on Saturday. Troy went to the UCLA-BYU football game and I knew I needed to get out of the house or I'd only think about stressful things (e.g. house buying), so my best option was hanging out with my mother-in-law. We looked at model homes and browsed through a couple stores. I didn't buy anything because I'm trying to cut back on spending, but she did buy me Wendy's. Umm. Anyway, when I came home to drop off my car before our outing, my neighbors were parked in my spot. Uh, thanks. So I had to go all the way around and park on the street. Really it wasn't a big deal, but that was pretty much the biggest thing in my day. Now I'm back home and prepping for my Sunbeam lesson tomorrow. I'm learning all about how to be a better friend. :) Actually, I really do need to be a better friend. I mean, I think I'm a good friend, but I'm not good at calling someone up to do something. I'm always game when someone calls me, but I never had any good ideas. So for any friends reading this, please know I value you and your friendship.

Enjoy your weekend!

I am Thankful for Labor Day

In case you didn't catch it, the title of this post is a throw-back to Sunbeams. Teach enough lessons and your sentence structure becomes very simplistic.

Anyway, we survived the weekend. Okay, Troy did. I didn't really do anything that was too difficult to make it through. After three nights of football games, Saturday's JV game ended with a mega thunderstorm during halftime. Now the floor mats of my car are filled with Arizona sand. But, as is always the case, as soon as Troy crossed the Colorado River, the pounding rain stopped. Arizona gets all the action. Anyway, shout out to the PV Yellow Jackets for tromping Parker. Hopefully the domination will continue this week when we take on Horizon!

As for me, I got in my PJs at nine on Friday night and didn't get out of them until 7:30 Sunday morning. I really have no idea what I did during all my pajama time, but I LOVED it. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, just enjoying time to myself.

Here Goes Nothing

Well, I guess it's time to give blogging a shot. Those of you who know me know I'm not a great emailer, journaler or any other type of communication -er. But I love staying up to date with friends by reading their blogs, so I'll give it a whirl.

I spent all weekend doing a whole lot of nothing. I prepped for my sunbeams lesson (boy were the kids crazy today!) and spiced up my myspace page. Not that anyone ever looks at it, but now it represents what's on my mind, so I'm happy with it. I've had a Kenny Chesney song on it for a while that is totally what I think about my sister and thought maybe it was time for a change. However, after a couple hours of a new song, I had to change it back. I just wasn't ready to let it go.