Older, Wiser?

I'm fast approaching 32.  My birthday will be here in 2 weeks and I think I should attempt to set a goal and accomplish it prior to this birthday.  The problem is deciding on a goal.

• Lose 10 pounds?  Possible, with a little help from the YMCA, so this is on the potential goal list.  It is about to be "busy season" at work, so I am going to need to organize myself so that I can have dinner in the crock pot, ready at 7 pm if I stop to get my sweat on.  Thank goodness I already planned to make some freezer meals over the holiday weekend!

• Clean out my Facebook friends?  Also very possible, since I've come to realize that there are many people I have no connection with outside of having grown up in the same town, or worked together at some previous employer.  Within those groups there are several people I still want to be in touch with, but there are just as many that I keep on my friends list because I'm neither proactive enough to delete them or it would make it much more difficult to anonymously rifle through their pictures and posts. 

• Start a food blog?  I've bandied around this idea for a few months, I just worry I wouldn't have enough content to post, then I realize that I made Zuppa Toscana this weekend and that throngs of people would love the recipe, especially with my particular brand of "voice" (i.e. slurring).  I would need an excellent name for it.  A Marying of Flavor?  

• Get family pictures taken?  This is on my Thanksgiving to-do list, I even have a lovely tablecloth that would make a lovely backdrop for Elora's golden hair and Colter's wicked grin.

So many options.  I will keep you posted on what I decide to do.  Unless I choose the Facebook cleanup and you are removed from my friends.  Hahahaha, I doubt anyone actually comes here unless they know me, but I guess we will see.  *Cue ominous music*

Girls Weekend

Last weekend I went on an adventure with my good, good, good, gooder pal Laura G.  Have you met my gooder pal Laura?

 My friend LG and myself

If you haven't I recommend you do so, post-haste.  She has been an amazing force of wonderful in my life, which in the last year I've needed a big dose of.  She is funny, crafty, a solid shoulder to cry on and the friend that will come over on weeknights (and weekends) to just hang out and.... be.  We "be" our best when Coors Light or cocktails are involved.

Case in point, our Molotov Mule's at dinner

Laura had a friend who was renting a cabin in Chico for a girls' weekend, and I managed to snag myself an invite.  If you have been to this blog before, you may already know how much I love Chico.  Seriously, if my IUD falls out and Thad's testes re-fuse together we are naming our miracle baby Chico.  There is a good change that Chico might be the location of conception of said miracle baby.

So Laura and I got in the car on a rather yucky looking Saturday, took some rather treacherous roads to Livingston, and enjoyed a lovely chat on our way south into Paradise Valley.  She took all the pictures of the beautiful scenery, so I have none to share, but it was Guh.  Or.  Juss.

We did some swimming, we did some (i.e. LOTS) of drinking, we ate some amazing food, and we swam some more.  We laughed, I did the jitterbug with Shannon in the Chico Saloon, and we ate brunch at the cutest little depot in Livingston.  All in all, a fabulous weekend.

One year after my reduction and my bubbies still take over group photos

I already have another Chico weekend booked in 2013, but may have to sneak in one more trip before the new year.  I have a hard time leaving each visit.  Which is why Laura and I are going to buy property and live there. 

I shall leave you with this final photo, where I look slightly like Mama June and I could have horns.  This was at the Pacific Northern Beanery.  Cute place, delicious food, and the most awkward yet lovable waiter in Montana.  So nice.  So attentive.  So awkward.

And Laura, I promise that the next time I meet your friends I won't introduce myself with any phrase that includes "shitting the booze out".

That is totally a lie.  But thanks for still introducing me to new people anyways.

R&R

Today I wrote two blog posts that likely will never see the light of day, but one was incredibly cathartic and reaffirming, the kind of blog I will not delete but will go back and read when I need to hear what it's telling me.  The other was about politics, and was not really going anywhere specific, so I just stopped typing and got up and made productive use of my day.  Overly-productive, if you ask me.

The over-productivity might have direct relation to the fact that I am going, all by myself, sans-husband and sans-children, to Chico Hot Springs on Saturday, spending the night, not to return until late morning or early afternoon on Sunday.  Twenty four blissful hours of soaking, drinking, playing games, spending time with my giggle-partner, Laura, and just relishing a window of freedom that is as fleeting as it is eminent. 

In observance of  No Shave November I have decided to try out the idea of wearing leggings into the pool.  This is more to save the other pool-goers than to save my own vanity, and hopefully the idea catches on so no woman has to feel obligated to shave her legs just to go to the pool.  I'm hoping this makes the quick trips to the ladies room and the bar window a little more comfortable than bare, hairless legs since it is supposed to be CHILLY this weekend!!!!  Can't wait!!!!  Four exclamation points!!!!

I spent most of my weekend in perpetual motion, running to and fro, playing with kids, cooking, spending time with friends and just trying to live in the now, because in the here and now I'm with the right people at the right time in my life.  That was part of my life-affirming cathartic blog, looking at what I have now and recognizing that the things that aren't in my life are absent for a reason, and to be comfortable with that instead of second guessing it.  I had an a-ha moment, and it was a long time coming.

So raise your imaginary glass in a Sunday night toast to the pleasures of a weekend over, and the promise of the weekend to come.  Or raise a real glass, shit, I won't judge, you deserve it!