Weekend Update

The Downings had a lovely weekend up here in the Pacific Northwest.

Friday night is now just Friday Movie Night. No pizza. Our bank accounts and our waists can no longer handle pizza every Friday night. So instead, it was rice and beans and cornbread. And the movie was TRON. Which I choose, and which I didn’t really care for, but thought I needed to see because TRON Legacy is coming out and I know Todd wants to see that one.

Aren’t I a good wife?

On Saturday, I headed down to Covington for Nichole’s birthday lunch and surprise party. I was very proud of Nichole for choosing a teppanyaki style Japanese restaurant. She doesn’t even like Japanese food! But she wanted to do something different, so all of us sat around a big Japanese griddle and watched a chef in a tall hat whip up our lunch. I treated myself to the scallops and shrimp. And a mai tai. Yum. And Nichole drank a whole blue drink, all by herself! She’s getting’ crazy in her old age.

Actually, as I write this, I may need to take mom and dad somewhere like this when (yes, WHEN) they come visit.  I think dad has been there; I vaguely remember a story of him putting chop sticks in his mouth so he'd look like a walrus...hmm.  I think they'd like the food - they have steak and chicken.

Where was I?
Oh.  I got home around 5:30pm from the party and after resting up from the long drive, headed off to the grocery store with Todd.

Remember when I was a party animal and Saturday night meant dancing and drinking and playing pool and flirting with strangers?

Yeah. Those days are over.

Now I grocery shop, and go to bed at 10pm. I say, woohoo.

Sunday began with a head massage by Tom.

What? She likes this. Really.

Did I mention Tom has claws? He never breaks the skin, but boy howdy, it’ll wake you up.

The Seahawks kicked off at 10am, so for the next few hours, it was cuddle time on the couch with Todd and Tom, with coffee and breakfast and cheering my team as they finally KICKED SOME ASS! Good job, ‘Hawks!

Steve arrived for the fourth quarter, so there was some social time, as well.

Then, Todd and I got cleaned up and walked down to a local coffee shop, where we heard that Stephanie was grading papers. After saying hi, Todd and I left her to work and walked on down to Metropolitan Market. We oogled the kitchen wares, then got smoothies and chilled in the café, then perused the market to compare prices and see if we wanted to maybe grocery shop there. They didn’t seem that much more expensive than Safeway, but the experience would definitely be more fulfilling. Metropolitan Market is just a beautiful store. With lots of foofy cheeses.

After getting some wine and a loaf of bread for dinner, we walked back home, admiring the houses in our neighborhood and critiquing the dormers. I’m a big dormer admirer now. We’ll probably end up with two dormers in our master suite, facing west over the front of the house, so I’m trying to get an idea of what I like and what I don’t. I don’t like shed dormers – the flat kind. I like pointy dormers. Which has me learning about roof pitches, too.

Actually, I may be obsessing about roof pitches. So much so, that when driving to work today, I followed a pickup truck with a very tall bed cover, and said to myself “That cover has quite a pitch!”

Anywho.

Todd and I walked home (and passed Marty Riemer and his family – RIEMER!) then cleaned the house then sat down to homemade beef stew (FANTASTIC) and Back to the Future. Because I hadn’t seen it in ages, and that movie takes very little concentration. Sometimes I like movies that I don’t really have to commit to.

And after the movie, bedtime. But Hitch was on (one of my very favorite movies) so we watched that as we were winding down. It was a nice end to the weekend.

And this week is already jam packed!!

Two different contractors are coming out to evaluate our project, plus there’s kickboxing, plus counseling, plus a walk and din din with Val. I can’t believe it’s almost November!