If you were to look at my calendar, you’d think I was the CEO of a major corporation with too many meetings booked. And yet, I’m just me. Not much to speak of. But boy, has my calendar been packed the past few weeks.
This week (and the bookend weekends) is no exception.
This past weekend I made the journey to Northern Virginia to attend the 50th birthday party of a dear friend of mine from high school. She is one of two people that I still talk to from high school, and while we may not talk all the time, she is that one person who I know will come help me bury the body should I call her at 3 a.m. ;) As long-time readers know, my car is garbage, so I borrowed Denis’s car for the weekend and MAN, is that a sweet ride compared to mine. Come Sunday morning those heated seats were a lifesaver!
The drives were uneventful other than the fact that I managed to plow through a tremendous amount of podcast episodes that I had previously saved to my phone. At some point I had over 150 episodes downloaded – there was NO WAY I could keep up as new episodes kept getting released. But a few weeks ago I got the list to under 120. By the end of this last weekend I got the list down to under 70 episodes! I was SO pleased with myself. I created a playlist and ordered it by length of episode and started with the super-short ones that were only 5 or 10 minutes, and worked my way up in length. That’s what enabled me to get through so many in my 12-hour round trip drives.
KJ’s party was fun. Now, I’ve become an introvert during the past couple of decades, but I girded my loins and went to the party alone, despite not knowing anyone that would be there. KJ re-introduced me to another high school pal and her husband. The three of us sat together during dinner, and she and I swapped class notes on people with whom we went to high school (it should be noted that I had no class notes to update since I only speak to two people from high school, and only speak to them 1-2x per year as it is). After dinner the dancing started and about 30 minutes in I headed out because I could feel the fatigue hitting me thanks to a heavy meal and a single glass of white wine.
Sunday morning my sister Jen and I headed out to get brunch together (mmm….lobster eggs benedict), followed by a quick stop into their local Wegman’s, a store that I WISH would come to Charlotte, NC. There is no reason for the Raleigh, NC area to have one with FOUR MORE planned in the future, and Charlotte, NC has none. ESPECIALLY since Charlotte is bigger than Raleigh! Anyway, I digress. Trunk loaded with Frizzante lemonades (which we can only get at Wegman’s), I headed out for my 6-hour drive home.
This week is gearing up to a be a good one as well. Tonight I work on blog and podcast stuff, which is typical of a Tuesday night for me.  Tomorrow night, Denis and I are FINALLY going to see Elton John in concert! We bought these tickets forever ago, and I’m FINALLY going to see Elton John perform live. I’m so excited because that has been a bucket list item for me since the 1980s. I never wanted to go to the Elton John/Billy Joel shows because I really only care about Elton John. And now that he’s announced this as his last tour, I had to go. Fortunately, we ended up with REALLY good seats, so it’s going to be amazing.
Then Thursday after work, my podcast pal Lori and I hit the road for a road trip of our own – we’re heading to NJ to attend “Christmas Con” – a brand new HALLMARK MOVIE CONVENTION! What’s funny is that just over a year ago I made a passing comment to Denis about the fact that I needed to create a Hallmark convention since one didn’t exist outside of the annual “When Calls the Heart” convention up in Canada, and now one is happening! Kudos to the four women who have coordinated this amazing event instead of just talking about it like I did. It is going to be a really good time and I can’t wait. I’ve only purchased one photo op (with both Lacey Chabert and Jonathan Bennett). I got it merely so I could send it to my work team at my old job since we used to talk about the movie “Mean Girls” all the time. But I do plan on getting selfies with a few others, like Ashley Williams, Nikki DeLoach and Andrew Walker.
Fortunately, after that I have a week of rest, but plan on beginning to put up Christmas decorations around the house since many people in my neighborhood are already getting their stuff out. I’m hoping to get enough set up so that Thanksgiving weekend is not super crazy with trying to get everything up in four days. If I can at least get the inside done the weekend of November 16, then the outside stuff will be ALL we have to worry about Thanksgiving weekend.
And then the focus becomes our annual White Elephant party. So far 28 people have confirmed they’ll be attending, with another 6-8 usual suspects yet to reply. Add in the 6 “maybes” that are usually yeses, and this may be a banner year for us. Good thing we have a delicious menu planned!
