Journal Entry: June 10, 2008

Friday afternoon, I left work early and dropped by the mall to pick up some new t-shirts, then went to get a haircut (always a pleasant experience). When all that was done, I still got home around 4:00.

T-- took AB to a church Ladies' Night Out sort of a thing at the mall, after meeting N-- for dinner. Meanwhile, D-- and I went to Ole, and I enjoyed their free queso once again. I recommend the place highly, if only for their setup.

Afterward, D-- and I grabbed snowcones, and then played AoC until T-- got home. At that point he went home (tired of trying to play a high-end game on a laptop), and I moved out to the living room to watch some Lost with T--. While we were doing that, I played a high-end game on a laptop.

Saturday morning I'd offered to watch AB for T-- while she went to a big sale with my little sister. It was easy enough, because she was kind enough to schedule her shopping to overlap AB's nap. As a result, I got to spend most of the time she was gone playing games.

Of course, as soon as T-- got home, that was over. She had a big playdate scheduled for the afternoon, with E-- and the Nances and several of the young moms from church invited over for a "pool party." It took place entirely in the back yard, so she and I spent the morning and afternoon getting it ready.

As part of that, we were moving a lot of the less-attractive elements from our back porch (things like the lawnmower) into the garage. We also still needed to get the quadrillion-pound air conditioner that we'd brought from Tulsa out of the van and stored somewhere semi-permanent, and the only reasonable place for it was occupied with a massive pile of junk that had accumulated over the course of our last five or six trips to work on the house in Tulsa.

So, in addition to helping T-- with yard work, I ran up to Wal-Mart to buy some new storage shelving, then committed a big chunk of my Saturday to setting it up and coordinating a lot of the mess. By the time I finished, our cluttered garage was a lot more organized. D-- came over to help me unload the air conditioner and we tucked it into the newly-emptied corner, and had room for everything else besides.

T-- had asked me to make an appearance at the playdate, but it being all-girls, she didn't require me to spend much time on it. Which is a good thing, because it was outdoors...and I'm not a fan. Toby came, too, bringing his family, so he and I spent the two hours in my office, working on a programming project. Primarily, he was trying to get my computer installed with all the software necessary to collaborate on a big project we're starting. I'm looking forward to it.

After they left, I'd intended to spend much of the evening playing AoC, but I got a call from K-- asking if we wanted to carry on our 80's movies review, and that sounded just capital. K-- and N-- picked up some P F Chang's for us, and D-- came over, and we watched The Goonies, which neither of the girls had seen before. It was a fun evening.

Sunday after church, we five met up again for lunch at Friday's, then split up again. I did some more house work, patching up the open ceiling of the creepy closet on the back of our house, and cleaning up all the loose insulation that had fallen down into it. Afterward, T-- went shopping while I watched AB and played some more AoC. Later in the evening, we watched some more TV and retired early.

Last night was much the same. When I first got home from work, I spent half an hour playing with AB, practicing her dragon roar and quizzing her on face parts (she definitely knows where her hair and nose are, but she's pretty hazy on ears and eyes). Then I think I played AoC while she took a nap.

This week is VBS at church, evenings, and for the first time they're not offering adult classes, so after T-- dropped AB off, she found herself with an hour of unexpected free time. We spent most of it in the Customer Service Desk waiting line at Wal-Mart, after watching a pretty funny half of an episode of King of the Hill. Then we went up to the church for the end of VBS, and watched N-- and K-- on-stage for the evening's sketch, which involved the giving of the Ten Commandments.

Afterward we compared notes, and learned that we'd been present for all of N--'s collegiate and post-collegiate stage performances. Apparently she did something in high school that -- she being many thousands of miles away and, at the time, completely unknown to us -- we didn't bother to attend. That's the only one we've missed. And she has that on video. Yay.

Anyway, we got home from church and it was already 9:15, so we watched an episode of Lost and bemoaned the fact that it was too late for another, and then went to bed.

There's no gym in any of that, as you may have noticed. Last time I went was one week ago. I don't really mind, but I may by the time I try to do my run. K-- will be there to make me finish it, too. Ugh. Anyway, I'm doing that right after work tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.

Other than that, it's just things and stuff.