My Epic Catch-Up in Three Parts

Alrighty, everyone! As promised, here is the run-down on my weekend:
(DISCLAIMER: Patrick says it's somewhere between a short story and a novella--so, pretty long. I hope you have lots of free time...and if not, no hard feelings!)

Part 1: Saturday

Chrissy and I had planned an epic "girls day" (aka: running errands without children in tow) that was going to take us all over the Wasatch Front. The night before my friend Kaylee called and asked if she could go along--and I'm a firm believer in "the more the merrier" with this kind of thing. We had all planned a fairly early start, considering that none of us are morning people--particularly on the weekends, but some of us still got a bit of a sleepy start...*cough cough Chrissy and Kaylee cough*

Still, even after waiting for everyone to get dressed and arrive, plus a pit stop for a quick breakfast and to fill up the car with gas, we were on our way only thirty minutes later than planned. (Not too shabby, if you ask me!) Our first stop was Ikea. Chrissy had to price out some closet organizing stuff for their remodel and I was pricing out stuff for the nursery. Kaylee was window shopping for the heck of it. :) (That's something that we share in common that absolutely baffles Patrick. Oh well, it's part of my feminine mystique I suppose.)

That store is awesomely huge, and we had only canvased the upstairs portions before we stopped and had a quick lunch in their cafeteria. Swedish meatballs for all! After we had revived our blood sugar levels we were ready for some more shopping in the downstairs "marketplace" area. This is one of my favorite places to wander around and I bought several small items, because, really--how could you not? However, we did discover that I am abysmally clumsy in handling shopping carts now that I'm not as aware of how much space I take up...I totally ripped the plastic front halfway off one of the shelves with the cart and just decided to run away and hide--leaving Chrissy and Kaylee to damage control--thinking that way no one would know it was me. Neither one of which proved to true. Chrissy was equally as quick to loudly point out that "It was too your fault!" and several people across the aisle watched me hide, thus incurring some not-so-subtle snickering. The point being: the whole incident was emotionally scarring and I don't want to talk about it anymore...

After Ikea we drove to the Home Fabrics store in Salt Lake. (We almost didn't make it because Chrissy almost broke my car...but that's a whole different story that I promised I wouldn't tell...tee hee!) I am totally in lurve with this place! I have been planning on slip-covering a heinously ugly, yet super comfortable, chair that Patrick bought back in high school to go in the nursery. I was intending to just look around and price things out, but I found some perfect fabric for $5/yard in the clearance section. Similar fabric at Joann's runs between $12-$20/yard! I dare anyone to tell me that I should have risked passing that deal up...I'm so excited to get started on this project! It's motivating me to get all this other crap around the house done so that I can have room to work on it.

Chrissy had to go home after the fabric store--she had to go toilet shopping with Brian--not as fun, methinks. But Kaylee and I continued up to Ogden and checked out a couple different antique/consignment shops that I've been wanting to visit but never had the time. They had a lot of fun things...not what I was looking for at this moment in time...but I'll definitely keep them in mind in the future when I have some smaller home-decorating projects on my plate.

We decided we were pretty exhausted after all the walking around we had done today, so we agreed to meet up at my house to just hang out for the rest of the evening. She went to pick up her boyfriend, Josh, who brought cupcakes--thus ensuring his spot on my "Most Favorite People Ever!" list. We all just kind of crashed on the sofa and watched a couple of stand-up comedians and chatted over dinner until late into the night. I love those kind of evenings! All in all--a pretty awesome day. :)

Part 2: Sunday

We have early morning church and almost overslept the alarm. However, my bladder is turning into an alarm clock of its own accord, so we were only a few minutes late for the first class. I really enjoyed the Relief Society lesson. It was on "cultivating an attitude of self-reliance" and I really appreciated the focus they put on the "attitude" part of it. In some ways, it reminded me of several talks I had with my mother when I was a teen--and those memories always brighten my day.

I also really enjoyed our Sunday School lesson. The brother who teaches it also teaches professionally--either at a high school or college, not sure which--and he gives a lot of historical perspective to the scriptures that I find fascinating. He just has an ability to approach the topic of the lesson from a very different and more engaging perspective than I have been used to. (I give him two enthusiastic thumbs up.)

And before testimony meeting, we had a baby blessing. We have a few families in our ward from Tonga and New Zealand (and some other islands that I can't remember at the moment) and I love it when they have to speak or bear their testimony because so much of their culture and heritage is tied into how they do things. For example, the baby girl being blessed was from one of these families, so she and her parents were decked out in these traditional skirts/belts of woven grass. And when her father bore his testimony, he started and finished with "Aloha!" It's so fun to see aspects of a culture that's different from mine and what I'm used to.

So, after the church block, Patrick and I rushed home to get the soup and chili started for the Superbowl party at his brother Scott's house later that afternoon. I have to hand it to Patch, he really stepped up and helped me out without my asking (so sexy!), and there was no way things would have been ready in time if it weren't for his help...He did the dishes from the night before and chopped up the vegetables so that I could focus on just cooking. And, happily, both the cheese soup and chili turned out delicious. (I almost spilled the soup on the drive down to their house though...I might need a bigger crockpot...)

Sadly, as soon as I sat down, I turned into a useless blob. I slept through most of the Superbowl--I caught enough to know that Patrick was bitterly disappointed by the outcome--and I barely made it to the bedroom door before I fell into bed and didn't move again until morning...Once again, Patch stepped it up and took care of putting the food away and rinsing out the pots for me. (It's really too bad I was so tired...he's just so hot when he does housework!) Apparently he even finished my blog post for me--things did get pretty hazy at that point--although, I would like to say that I do not blame everything on the baby. Just the things she causes me to do. :)

Part 3: Today

I only had to work until five so I was able to get some of the stuff on my scary-long "Prepare the House for Baby" list done in addition to the daily routine I've been working on establishing. Super empowering. Baby steps, y'all. I'm becoming a big believer in baby steps!