My weekend needs a weekend.

I'm tired. Isn't that the way it always goes, though?

Friday I sat at my sister's, manned the garage sale-- again, and made the birthday gift for K- to give to her friend D- on Saturday. I ran out, got K- from school and we ran back. She ended up swimming with the kids while I hung out until 5 PM. We sold some more things, had more traffic than we had the week before when we ran an ad, but I fear that I still didn't make enough to justify the whole thing other than the stuff has left my house and will not be coming back in again.

Saturday was a cleaning festival kind of day. I was catching up on putting laundry away, doing laundry (changing sheets and so forth), and trying to liberate the house from some neglect that it suffered during the attempt at a garage sale. Hub's parents were coming over for my father-in-law's birthday and I wanted to tidy the house so it didn't look like we lived like pigs. (Not that we do, but you could eat off of my mother-in-law's floor. I wouldn't suggest you do the same with mine.) K- had a birthday party to attend at 4 PM, so we did that. She had decent behavior, a tad hyper, but decent. Unfortunately, she got nailed by mosquitoes in the mid afternoon and now has these giant red welts as a result.

The in-law's came over about 20 minutes after we arrived home, as I knew that I was cutting it short, but wouldn't let her miss the party. They came dragging in with a bag of corn that seemed perfect for our fire. I pulled some ears, got it soaking and Hubs got the fire roaring. Can I tell you that it was the best ever fire that Hubs has built? Seriously, quite a roaring (ba-dump) success! :) We had hot dogs over the fire, made s'more's for the FIL's birthday and had our roasted corn. We truly had a lovely time.

Sunday came with us hauling out at about 8:45 AM. We were making the 2 hour trip south to my parents riverfront property in Marietta. Generally, we camp a night over, but it just wasn't in the cards this year. Though I made good time (the foot is a hair heavy), it seemed as though it took a blasted forever due to the traffic on the roads, the number of police (I'm not complaining, just commenting) and folks who generally don't know how to utilize the fast lane. Within 15 minutes of arriving, my parents received an invitation to go out on the maiden leisure voyage of a sternwheeler. Now, this is actually a big deal since these things cost a blasted fortune. My dad asked if it was okay that we ride along and they said yes! All they requested was that K- bring her life jacket, as they didn't have children's sizes, but we already had that covered anyhow. We were all a little worried about K- as she was excessively a pain in the rear. In fact, I was surprised when I was correcting her crabby appleskins behavior that neither one of my parents chimed in with, "But she's only a little kid!" (They normally do.) Turns out, they were sweating out the crabbies right along with us. Turns out that K- pulled it around and did just fine. She did get a little overheated on the sternwheeler, but I ended up drizzling some water on her face, through her hair and under her arms and she cooled down.

Gwen and Tom, owners of "Gwendolyn," suffered the loss of their other sternwheeler Yo-Yo last year. They had been out, just got off and Yo-Yo burned down to the water. The base portion of the sternwheeler actually sunk. Turns out that their total loss was as a result of an electrical fire that they escaped without knowing that it was even going on. There was a fund set up and folks donated several thousand dollars to help them get another sternwheeler. Again, sternwheelers are incredibly expensive and they lucked into the one that they have now. They are rehabbing it and hopefully she will be as grand as Yo-Yo was when she took her last paddle. The ride that they took us on was to the riverfront in Marietta for the Sternwheeler Festival this coming week. It is quite an event and they are planning on participating in the boat races. They've invited my parents to come along. They've also invited us to come back and hang with them on Gwendolyn. How kind of them!

We hopped off, loaded back up in to my truck that we left behind as a transport vehicle and took their friend on back, too. We dropped him off and got set to go out on to my parents boat. They had promised to take K- swimming and wanted to take her to a nice, shallow swimming area off Buckley Island. That way, they can swim, Hubs could hop off and walk the island to fish and Mom and I can sit on the boat to consume large quantities of snack foods. Last year was Bugles. This year we brought cheese doodles (or curls depending upon where you live, I suppose) and sourdough pretzels. With every bite Mom announced that she shouldn't have the salt, but she kept shoving them in.

My dad ended up swimming with K-, as my mom said that the water was a hair chilly for her. As for me, I'm not a river or ocean swimmer. I can't see the bottom, I don't know how deep it is and I don't like things swimming with me. Y'all, they have snakes down there. I'm cool with them in a cage and all that, but not slithering over a foot. K-, on the other hand, would think it was the greatest! No thank you.

There was an interesting lot of folks at the swimming spot. Apparently, it is a children's designated swimming area, because of the shallowness, but we were less than impressed by the behavior of those visiting. Hubs called a few times. "Ame, um, I've heard the F Bomb a few times. 'You sure that you guys are staying around?" We really do not swear in our home. I was not in control of the boat. I was not in control of the people's behavior. (They were fine other than the excessive, very loud vulgar language.) When Hubs returned, he was asking about it and I told him that it got worse. I'll just say that it involved a horrible word that started with P- that I hoped that K- wouldn't ask about. [My parents called later to make sure we made it home. They had talked, said that they were mortified by the language and they will be taking no other children to that side of the island to swim again.] The kicker? They had a 6 year old out there with them as every other word that flowed freely from their lips was just awful. Argh. We returned back, had a lovely dinner on the grill and shuttled off towards home.

I admit that we slept in on Labor Day. K- came in at 8:30 AM to tell me that she would be going to watch some TV. We never sleep that late. We figured that we all needed the extra time, though. There was nothing particular on the agenda, other than the thrift store sale. We did score some lovely things, though. I was able to pick up some extra Christmas dishes for my set, which replaces the chipped bowl and gives me a few spares. Hubs found a $48.00 set of K'nex for $3.25 and I found a brand new Leap Pad board game that would have been $20.00 for $4.00. It is a grade 3-5 thing, so I'll be putting it up, but still. I picked up some turtle necks and a few belts, but in the end our total was $15.00. K- was so excited about her new building set that she wanted to go straight home. Hubs announced that I could haul off for a zipadeedodah (our code for an escape to shop by yourself) and I took him up on it. I had a gift card, free product card and a 20 % off card for Bath and Body Works. I shopped there first. I purchased two pair of their shea socks, a set of autumn votives, a cinnamon clove tart and a little sweet pea hand sanitizer. I got a Japanese Cherry Blossom bath wash for free. In the end, it only cost me $3.25 additional.

I had a couple of coupons for Joann Fabrics and had some weird notion that I could zip through, find a pattern to sew a dress when I don't know how to sew but have a friend that will help me, find fabric and do all I need to do. Yep. That didn't happen, but I did find some beads that I needed. I also got some stretch magic for the kid bracelets that I make. (They were buy two get one, which made them $1.67 each, as opposed to $2.49 each.) The sales weren't as great as I hoped. So sad.

I then hauled on over to DSW (all in the same strip, by the way) to get new tennis shoes. I had a $10.00 reward certificate and my tennis shoes are starting to fall apart. I did find a pair (we took a walk and I wore them this evening), so I was able to get my good Saucony shoes for $35.00. We're brand snobs when it comes to tennis shoes/running shoes and though they aren't the color I was hoping for (my last were silver and pink and these are navy and silver), they are as comfortable as the last ones.

I cruised down the road to Target to try to find some kicky shirts. No luck there, as everything I found kept being labeled "maternity" and since that is something I'll never need EVER, I decided that I was my cue to exit the clothing area. I did find a cute rug for in front of the kitchen sink, bit I'd love for it to go on sale. Instead, I used part of my gift card on some experimental hair products. I went with Wonder Waves from Garnier Fructis, along with some sort of frizz serum and a curl cream gel which I believe is the replacement to the soft curl cream that I currently use. For whatever it is worth, my hair is wonderfully soft. I will have to report back on the frizz factor.

That brought me back to the homefront. Hubs didn't even ask what I spent (I need to learn from him), but he did ask why I bought candles with certificate to a bath store. I told him that they smelled good and that I figured that since it was a gift certificate, why not buy something for myself that I typically wouldn't consider?

Hope all of you had a lovely weekend!

Smiles in my weekend:
- Hubs worked so hard. The shed is in place on a 5" deep level limestone pad that Hubs had to carve out and level out of our sloped backyard.
- Hubs painted the shed floor, touched up some of the white paint on the shed, touched up house paint, repainted the trim around the outside doors and painted the vine arbor. Have I ever mentioned that Hubs hates painting?
- Sleeping in.
- Sale shopping with little investment of money.
- Helping neighbors.
- Having other neighbors love on our kid and run around their front yard with her.
- Being thankful that on this Labor Day, Hubs and I both have jobs.
- Winning tickets to the opening day of the local university football stadium. I'll be going with my friend Kim, who is one of the professors. (Hubs has to work.) Thanks to my bosses for sharing their three pairs of tickets with us. (They did a basket of names of those interested. They pulled names on Friday.) Apparently, our tickets are pretty good. Nearly center and row 15. Not too far up. Not too far out. Whew-whoo!