Hello Monday

Weekend Update

I can't believe I didn't get a picture, but Friday night we went out to dinner with my family to celebrate my parent's retirement.  In full disclosure, my dad has been retired for at least a year now, but his was more of a rolling/secret retirement.  My dad worked for Whirlpool for years, but when our local plant closed their doors in 2010, he had no choice but to go back to the pipe fitters union hall that he thankfully always remained a member.  However, especially as the years passed, he only accepted jobs he wanted so you never knew when he was working or not.  He also would take the entire summer off and then go back to work during the winter.  He'd say he was done and retired, and then he would accept another job, so like I said earlier, we (as his kids) didn't really know when we finally retired, until well past the fact.  My mom on the other hand, has an opposite story.  When I was a kid, her sister and she started their own business of painting and wallpapering.  However, they decided to stop that work around 2003, when my dad's father moved in with my parents and my mom chose to stay home to help take care of him.  So, in a way, she had an early retirement, especially when my grandpa worsened and was eventually moved to a nursing home with full-time nursing staff.  However, when the Whirlpool plant closed and my dad was out of a job, she decided to go work at the local Toyota factory.  She was lucky the first two years when she was assigned to days, but these last five she has been working nights.  My mom is amazing, and always makes the best of everything.  Don't get me wrong, she was thrilled to retire and not have to go to work anymore, but I also think she enjoyed it.  She made friends there and she changed her lifestyle there, taking advantage of their physical trainers and nutritionist.  Not to mention, that she had her own spending money that she could spend on herself or her granddaughter.  She told us of the amazing sendoff that her group team gave her Thursday night and we had a nice dinner and visit Friday.

On Saturday, we had a relaxing day at home.  I do have to confess that Friday morning I rolled my ankle and I was not really up for getting out and about when we didn't have to.  So, we stayed home and played in the backyard.  We grilled out for lunch and Patrick's sister, Kara joined us.

In the afternoon, both Littlecjc and Patrick took naps giving me a little quiet time.

On Sunday, we went out for brunch after church with Kara and her husband Eric to a local farm store that recently started serving breakfast, called Farm57.  Oh wow! It was so good!  I'm already trying to figure out when we can go again.  In fact, this may just be a new Sunday tradition for us.

Littlecjc enjoyed that they had toys available for her to play with while everyone was finishing their meal.

Sunday afternoon was spent at home again as usually attempt to clean on Sundays.  I saw attempt, because if you have a toddler, you know how that really goes.  We did have some fun though, when Patrick was working in the basement, he hooked up the old WiiU and we introduced Littlecjc to the original Wii Sports game.  She has seen Patrick play video games before, and she has even attempted to play Mario Bros before, but this was the first time she'd played the sports games.  She lovedit, to say the least!  We ended up grilling out again for dinner, and as I looked outside from the kitchen, this was what I saw.

That's right, my kid had stripped off her dress and was running around in her underwear so that she could get in her little pool.  

Hello Monday

Here is your peak at this week. 

Our theme is Cars, and we have a lot going on.  This weekend is Littlecjc's first dance recital.  So, our week is filled with pictures and rehearsals on top of our normal schedule, yet I couldn't be more excited.  I'm so ready to see what she does on stage.

Hello Books

I started working on Voyager again this week.  I know, I've been working on this book forever.  I really do enjoy this story, but it is so big.  I seem to pick it up and read for a few days and then get busy and it gets out of my mind for weeks at a time.  The audio book I'm working on right now is Truly, Madly, Guilty by Liane Moriarty.  Honestly, this was last week's book but I haven't gotten very far, so I can't say much about it yet.

Hello Binge List

I thankfully still haven't started another show that I've been stuck binge watching.  However, that doesn't mean I haven't been watching anything.  We of course watched a few episodes of the newly released season of House of Cards.  We haven't finished, but I'm not really sucked in to that show anymore either, so we'll see when we watch the rest of them.  We've also started watching Cheers.  I of course have seen this show before, but only in the random episode here and there viewing.  I've never truly watched the show.  I also don't feel the need to continue to hit play at the end of each episode, so that seems good at the moment too.  In fact, Patrick has watched some of the episodes without me and I'm fine with that.  I have to admit though, now that I've started reading Voyager again, I want to pick up the second season of Outlander that I still haven't watched.  Although, probably not this week....maybe next week!

Happy Monday Everyone!