easy weekend
May 19, 2014

Had fun little outing to Schaumburg on Saturday, because Spouse felt like he needed to "get out" and "go somewhere". And since he needed some tools (Sears) and work shoes, Woodfield Mall was a good choice.

Since we were near his work, we stopped in to see Spouse's brother JR for a quick "hi and a hug", the we went over to Woodfield and basically walked the whole (large!) mall, had a pick-me-up at Argo Tea, bought a few things (Yankee candles, new bras, and the afore-mentioned tools), lunched at Portillo's, then hit Trader Joe's and Sam's Club on the way home. According to my pedometer, I actually got in the 10,000 steps (5 miles). By the time the shopping was all put away, I was completely beat! Dinner was whatever you wanted to scrounge up--Spouse had a bowl of soup, and I nuked a hot dog.

Of course, if you play on Saturday, that means some work on Sunday. I woke up to a spectacularly gorgeous May morning, so I made a nice breakfast and booted up the laundry while Spouse chatted with Mom on the phone.

After our bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns, I set in to power-puttering and getting stuff done around the house (dishes, laundry, dog-grooming, cleaning). I could have kept it up all day, doing all the little oddball things that needed doing, like clearing clutter from the dining room table, breaking down carboard boxes for recycling, and cleaning the wax out of all the warmers.

It just felt so lovely to potter around the house in my little cotton nightie on a beautiful, spring morning, windows open to admit sunshine and soft breezes. I've really missed that!

But we had errands, so we got cleaned up and ran out to fill the car up and do the grocery shopping, then came home and took it easy on a perfectly beautiful spring day. We both "went to the library" via our readers, lounged around enjoying the sweet breezes, and I brewed a pitcher of fresh iced tea.

Since we were having a lazy afternoon, I made an all-oven (except for the deli potato salad) dinner of BBQ chicken legs, baked beans, and roasted corn on the cob. Everything was foil wrapped or lined, and we ate off disposable plates, so cleanup was a breeze. After dinner, we did our usual routine of getting stuff ready for morning, and we both settled down an quiet evening of reading.

Tonight was interesting; we had the Niece to visit. She was missing us, so we arranged to have dinner together. HuHot is a favorite of us all (and aunt whyme had a coupon), so we were going to go out for Mongolian BBQ. Yummy! All the veggies I can cram in. Love it.

So, naturally, the two blondes in my life decided at the last minute that they would prefer Mexiczan food, so we went to El Serape. Delicious, but not low-cal by any means. Then Miss Thing wanted to have a malt from Shirl's. And I did too. Yeah, so much for trying to eat well. I paid for it twice already--indigestion in the night and the two-step this morning. The food was good, I just ate too much and it was very rich.

Plus I missed my walk--that cheesed me off. I would have taken it after she left, but within a few minutes of her departure, we were having a raging thunderstorm.

It was a chance to try B's new Thundershirt out, though. He doesn't mind it, and it seemed to help some. He still went and sat in the closet for a while, but he was not as freaked out as he usually is. He wasn't shaking and he was more approachable. Usually he shies away from me during a storm, but this time he got up on the couch and cuddled for a while, and generally acted more social.

Well, I can hardly keep my eyes open. Time to lock up, let the B out one more time, and head to bed.