what can i say?  it’s been a quiet week. 

• wednesday night yoga has been cancelled until further notice which limits our social interaction and activity.
• the bridge run last night was… nothing to speak of.  i walked to the water table (just before the bridge), stood around and talked with mello’s son, and walked back with hubby and cargo after they had made their trip over the bridge.  hubby is still having pain with his kidney.  it makes me sad to see him still hurting and generally not feeling… right.  he barely ran his one lap over the bridge last night, walked back to the parking lot with me, and was so nauseated he just sat on a curb while i visited around for a few minutes.  we didn’t stick around long at all because he just wasn’t feeling well.  my poor boy. 
• more on that… hubby went back to the dr wednesday and they did another ct scan today.  they said his kidney and ureter look fine and they can’t figure out why he’s still hurting so they put him on more antibiotics and made him an appointment for two weeks from now when the specialist is back from vacation. 
• HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD-N-LAW!!!
• we’re supposed to be heading to wedowee after work today for FIL’s bday and a family reunion tomorrow.  everything is kind of up in the air right now because hubby might have to leave from there to visit a bank on monday and that is quite the logistical nightmare for us.  i should be packing but i just don’t know what’s happening.  for now, laundry is my excuse.  last load is in the dryer. 
• i’m getting increasingly bummed about my leg pain.  i truly don’t think it’s anything serious… just a nagging pain that a lesser sissy could grin-and-bear… but it prevents me from doing much of anything because it starts hurting to the point that i’m afraid of serious injury. 
• how am i supposed to train for that half-marathon in march if i keep injuring myself???
• more importantly, how am i going to lose all this friggin weight if i keep injuring myself???

as much as we enjoyed our company over the weekend, it was so nice to have a quiet afternoon yesterday sunday with just us two.  it was heavenly. 

however, we did have a good time with family.  the parentsIL and teenagers arrived around 17:00 on thursday.  we hung out on the beach for a while and wiied a bit before hubby’s sis and BIL arrived around 22:00.  wii continued to play until 02:00 when everyone gave up waiting on hubby’s bro’s family to get here.  he stayed up to greet them when they got in around 03:30.

by friday morning, there were thirteen of us in our little 1273sq ft condo.  everyone was up and raring to go at 06:30 which means i spent a couple hours clenching a pillow over my head until i finally gave in and joined the crowd.  there was wii fun before everyone headed for the beach.  i abstained, choosing to remain in my air conditioning reading a book rather than sitting in the sun since there was no chance of me getting one of my two umbrellaed chairs with so many visitors.  i feel it was a good choice.  i read and dozed and conversed with folks as they came and went for snacks and such.  as the afternoon wore on, a group of them decided to make a grocery run and the rest went their separate ways for quiet time.  hubby and i went down to the beach and napped under our umbrella for a bit.  when we all regrouped, a picnic feast was prepared and we all headed back down to the beach to grill burgers and dogs. 

thankfully, saturday morning stayed quiet until closer to 08:00.  when i got up, i got right to work on a birthday cake for nephew c.j.  for lunch, he chose a restaurant and we all had a nice meal out.  we even got a bit of a show watching the giant carp, turtles, and raccoon enjoying their lunch behind the restaurant.  the rest of the afternoon was actually fairly quiet as half the group took the teens out for go-karting and putt-putt. 

sunday morning, the crowd started packing for home around 08:00.  they had all departed by 10:15.  hubby and i walked his parents down to their car and then spent a couple hours cleaning back up.  after that, we held down the couch the rest of the afternoon (with the exception of me getting up to change laundry loads every hour or so).  it was blissfully quiet and comfortably spacious.  while we genuinely enjoyed spending time with the family, especially those we don’t often see, 2.5 days was quite enough of having that many people cramped into our cozy condo!

on the whole, i think everyone else had a good weekend too.  niece a.g. even declared that she was going to spend her whole summer break with us!

COUSIN!  hope it’s a great one!

i just purchased my birthday gift and am very much looking forward to it.  this was the conversation with hubby earlier this week: 

me:   i know what you’re getting me for my birthday!
he:   are we doing birthdays this year?
me:   yes, and you’re getting me a fabulous present so thank you very much! 
he:   do i get to know what i’m getting you?
me:   you’re getting me tickets to a cirque show!!!  i love you!

i’m excited.  we’ve been to la nouba three times and it’s a little different each time and always excellent entertainment.  i haven’t gotten to see any other cirque shows so when i heard one of their broadway series was coming to our little town, i could barely contain myself. 

*while i’m doling out birthday love, i should also wish a very HAPPY one-day-late BIRTHDAY to my BRUDDER whom i love very much.  i already called and assaulted his ears.

HAPPY one day late BIRTHDAY, NEPHEW!!! and if that’s not reason enough to celebrate, today is my first day of being off the phones again!!! yay for no phones!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to the one who denies me. we had a wonderfully relaxing long weekend at home. i cannot even tell you how nice it is to be back. sadly, it was also a very deadly weekend in our backyard. randal was out running last night when he ran up on the police pulling in the first guy mentioned. luckily, they already had him covered so my hubby did not have to see the body but he said it was a ghastly scene, just a ten minute walk down the beach. the second mentioned guy, found sunday, was an army paratrooper who went in to rescue another swimmer. that seems so tragic to me. here’s a military kid in presumably great shape who did manage to save another man’s life but lost his own in the process. i have not found anything that details how he managed to get the other guy to safety and still get himself pulled out to sea. we were out walking saturday night while the helicopters and boats were doing a grid search for them. very sad. one more reason i don’t like to swim in the gulf/ocean. there’s dead people out there. and we all know what happens to our bodies after death. yep, that’s all out in that water. ick! i’ll stick with my pool and hot tub, thankyouverymuch. anyhow, on the less gruesome side of things, we had a great weekend and got rested up. fortunately/unfortunately we did not get any painting done. we decided to wait for the bedding to come in so that we could really decide on color. since i was watching the tracking, i’m almost certain the bedding was there sunday since it was “in transit to store” from a town less than three hours away but i called the store sunday and yesterday and they insisted that the order number was not checked in. my guess is that it was there but they didn’t bother to scan the shipment until this morning. so we’ll be going to pick the bedding up this afternoon and buy paint. there will very likely be paint on the walls tonight but you can never tell these things for sure. although i would like for the walls to be dry when the furniture gets delivered and set up thursday. call me kooky like that. really, there was no excuse for me not masking and painting the bathroom over the weekend. it’s emptied out and the paint is sitting there. i guess i just didn’t want to ruin the quality time with my hubby who i have missed oh so much this past month.

why do i always put things off until it’s too late? we finally found a comforter set for the bunk room that we can agree on and we both like very much. i gave it a few days to look back a few times and make sure that i still liked it. this morning, i went to buy it and they only have twin and king sizes now. aaargh! any chance that i’ll look back in the next few days and the full size will be back again? yeh, i doubt it. stupid, stupid, stupid me. such is life, right? on a brighter note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNY! i’m looking forward to celebrating with her and her friends/family tonight.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS-N-LAW!!! if i recall correctly, they should have had a great weekend at a music festival in ft lauderdale over the weekend. we, too, had a great weekend. our spring breaking on friday was a great success. it was the most fun i’ve had at our favorite little club yet. we managed to stay out until 0300 and never sat down the whole night. yep, that’s right folks, i danced the night away. inexplicable, i know. alright, so it wasn’t so much dancing as jumping and head-banging and shouting along with the music. it was an awesome time. i even got hit on (and my husband got congratulated - yay self-esteem boost!!!). there was, of course, a price to be paid for all of that being young and partying. saturday was very much a hold down the couch kind of day. although we did drag ourselves out long enough to sit in the hot tub a bit. we had actually planned on going back for a second night but we were just too wiped (alright, we’re old but at least we can muster up the strength to play young once in a while!) sunday was slightly more productive with grocerying and hot tubbing. it was really just a great weekend!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COUSIN!!! i hope the big three-one is a fabulous one for you. as for me, it’s been a week. on the bright side, we did become official floridians this week when we were mercifully granted our homestead exemption even though we didn’t exactly meet all of the requirements (thank you mr property tax assessor guy!!!) - stupid fine print. just so you know, we did have all of the required pieces, just not by the required dates. on wednesday, i had a total melt-down that my poor hubby had to not only witness but also talk me down from quitting my job. gotta love those kind of days. today was his turn. he handled his melt-down much better by going for a run instead of ranting like a lunatic. the good news is that it’s spring break so we’re going to go out tonight and party with all the young little whipperschnappers. better go get a nap in, eh?

your gift is that my hubby comes home tonight so i won’t be calling you fifty times a day anymore. have i mentioned how awesome my bedroom looks? now if only i could decide on a walk color and get it all painted. sheesh, that’s going to be a job and a half. i really wish we had had the time to get that done before the furniture came.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIRANDA!!! well, i was wrong about sleep last night. qu’elle surprise. in other news, i learned a valuable lesson today. climbing a ladder and operating power tools after giving blood can be a less-than-good idea. fortunately for me, i’m an excellent bleeder (filled the bag in under six minutes, thankyouverymuch) and never suffer ill-effects of the blood-letting. however, each time i got up on that ladder, dizziness did ensue. i’m not sure why. luckily, it was not debilitating and no harm befell me or my home. it just took much longer to finish my tasks as i kept having to climb back down to lay down a minute between drillings. all in all, my curtains look great.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD and BRIAN!!! aside from calling and assaulting dad with my singing, i’m done with this week. just make it go away, okay?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANDRA!!! the good news is that good things are happening finally. today, we were the happy recipients of a microwave and dishwasher - only thirty-eight days after we bought them! we got the microwave installed and it looks very pretty. we started on the dishwasher but we seem to be in need of an elbow so it will have to wait a few days for us to go out again. we are told that our stove and stacking kit for our w/d will arrive friday. keep your fingers crossed for us. it sure will be nice to have a complete kitchen again and not have to decide on dinner based on what will cook in a toaster oven (or now microwave). saturday we went on a furniture shopping expedition and i believe we found the mattress set and bed that we want. hubby will be calling to haggle prices make purchases tomorrow. (i am so not a negotiator) we also found a bed for the bunk room that we love but we’re unsure that it will be a good fit in such a small room. it’s so cool looking though. unfortunately, the dining room table that we hearted so much that my boy almost bought it without any prodding from me last year is gone. there is a similar one at a slightly higher price but we’re not sure we like the two-tonedness of it. the only other one we’ve found that we like though is $500 higher for the same setup so we’ll likely get over the two-tone dislike. we have also taken the time the last two days to remind ourselves why we moved here and that all of this is worthwhile. we’ve been playing frisbee and football on the beach and we’ve been utilizing the pool and hot tub. it’s been wonderful. we also started back into the gym this weekend. life is starting to take on a semblance of normalcy. i’m ready for normal.