The Week Begins!

And there is so much ground to cover! It is going to be the first full week of work in quite a while. Or it would be if I didn't have Friday off!

Tonight is the first meeting of our "Get Fit Twin Cities" team. We get to track our weight and activity minutes as a team. As of right now we have 7 on our team. It should be fun and I am taking some ideas from a little bit of everywhere. We are even going to do a soup exchange which I had read about in the December BH&G. Should be a lot of fun and a good way to get us all motivated!

Tomorrow night I am joining "J" and a friend/co-worker of hers for dinner and drinks. She is here for work from Texas so that should be fun. Wednesday evening I will be busy getting ready for Thursday nights wine event and Friday I have a follow-up biopsy. So it is a busy week. We also have a surprise 70th birthday party for the boys father on Saturday. I am hoping that I feel okay by then, but I should. He will be nursing me back to health on Friday so I am hoping I feel okay. We only have to bring plates, napkins and the cake, so we did not volunteer to make anything.

This was the first weekend since I moved into my new place that I actually had to myself and had no plans, boy was it nice.

Friday we went to see "Children of Men" and had dinner at PF Changs. We ran into Mark Rosen at dinner who is a local sports announcer, so that was kind of fun too! The movie was pretty good, good storyline and I love Clive Owen. I gave it a 5.5, the boy gave it a 5 and his friend an 8. We ran into these friends of "W's" after the movie. "W" is our age, 35, but most of his friends are much much younger early 20's and sometimes I just sit here and go, hmmmm, what could you possibly have in common with these people, also because they tend to be gamers and quite immature. Anyway, two of them who are dating I have met a few times now, they are 20 and 22. They still live at home with their parents, do not "really" have jobs and tend to spend money quite frivolously. Not that I should judge, it is their life, but what really got me Friday was when they were telling us about the $13,000 engagement ring that she wants. I just cannot see the justification in this case. Some cases, sure, go for it, just not this one. It really just made my blood boil, but the great part of it was that the boy felt the same way. We have never really discussed matters like this, but it was nice to see that we were on the same page. Something he said really made me go, ahhhh, he said, "doesn't she understand that it is not even about the ring anyway but what it symbolizes". I thought that was really sweet.

The boy had drills this weekend which was kind of nice for me in a way to have a free weekend! He was also commissioned which means that he moves up a level and his officer status goes up. he gets more patches and bars and all that good stuff as well as more pay. Of course what this also means is once he comes off of his medical hold in February his chances for deployment are huge. I will think about this more and more as the time passes, but there is just not much we can do about it. His contract for reserves is up September 12th this year and he has not decided whether or not he will extend it yet. He has about two months before he has to make a cursory decision and about four before he has to fully decide. I am very anxious to see what he will do, but I also don't try to talk too much with him about it as he needs to make this decision on his own and I do not want to be a factor in it.

The weekend was great! I didn't make it to Jazzercise on Saturday because I chose to sleep in. But I did get up and go for a really long walk with "J". It was really nice out here so I am glad we were able to get a long walk in. I also got all of my holiday decorations put away, my mantle re-dressed and my table re-set. The boy was really beat from the weekend, but he hung pictures in my dining room and my bulletin board in my office. "J" and I after running errands on Saturday wound up going for an early HH on Saturday about 4. Martini's and nachos were in order. We called a friend of mine who recently moved here from out East and he joined us as well. When the boy finished drills he caught up with us, but it was an early night which was good for all of us.

I was able to get quite a bit accomplished this weekend at home which felt good. I also hit JCrew and did some serious damage there as well. I have a "person" at the store closest to me, Anthony, and he is very very kind to me. He will put things aside that he knows I have been eyeing when they go down and then will call me when they have the extra 25% off. I picked up a great pair of driving mocs for $34.50 in a British Tan, I bought them in the black earlier in the season. Replaced a couple of cashmere sweaters that had seen better days with some new ones, an argyle, a slew of belts which I was in dire need of and a couple of other basics. It was also a good opportunity to have a good look at their transition line which had a couple of key pieces that I will pick up in the next week or so. I wish that the boy and I had a trip planned for sometime soon, or that I did at least, but with his deployment in question it is hard to plan anything like that and I don't want to make plans at this point to go away so that I can spend as much time with him as possible.

We were back to having Sunday night dinners with his parents again which was nice and good to see them and just have down time with them. It was a later night than I typically like though and we did not get back to the boys until almost 11, so I am glad that I had packed a bag and stayed with him.

Well, better get busy. New girl started today, she is going to be doing some PM work and taking a project or two off of my plate which is much needed. I also need to get my resume updated because I do not plan on being here past the end of the month. Life is too short to work for someone you do not respect.