Quick "Hi" & ULTRA Busy Weekend Recap

I'm alive, just busy. Maybe not as overwhelmed, due to the fact that I'm working less and one other thing I will hopefully blog about at some point.

I've started at least one link-filled post about laundry (last Sunday!) and in the end didn't finish. The funny thing is that I'm doing laundry right now, and will have to be up until the wash is done and I can stick it all in the drier (so I should go finish that post! but I won't).

OK, yeah, lame post. Just to recap the last week: I began shopping for the once a semester dinner that I cook for all my students (40-50 people!) a week ago. Then I started preparing some of the food ahead of time to freeze. More shopping followed on Thursday & Friday.

The weekend started with a BANG: an event at church which involved the 200 students of the boarding academy my son attends (as a day student); then we had friends for lunch the next day after church (something our sons had been asking for, given that this other family's son is my one of my eldest son's closets friends). Then Saturday night there was an event at the elementary school. K dropped our youngest son off and I went an hour later, but managed to escape and (just because I was super busy and had to continue cooking for the next day's dinner...  HAHAHA!) I took my eldest son to town to shop for some clothes because I had a couple of coupons and he really needs/wants a suit. We hit Kohls and Target and came back, and I cooked until 1 am.

I did sleep in on Sunday (till 9!) even though I shouldn't have, but my husband was coming with me to help me with the dinner for the first time in 4.5 years, so I indulged. We had to make sure we had arranged rides for both sons who had, respectively, a soccer game (for which we were providing snacks) & a "barn party" at school, and we were successful with those arrangements. K drove and I sent a bunch of frantic last minute emails to students about parking and reminders.

It went really well, even though my colleague (formerly "new hire" here in the blog) forgot about the event and did not show up! Two graduate students came as well as a few former-students, including one who drove from out of town (U#1) and invited two late-coming guests.

We made it back home and I didn't have to stay at my friends' house!

Guess what we're going this week/weekend -- are we taking it easy and doing low-key stuff?

ABSOLUTELY NOT, we're crazy, that's who we are. We're driving to the D.C. area tomorrow to spend about 15-6 hours with my mother-in-law since she's there with a tour group. Then we come back home and... wait for it! Drive to Philly for the weekend. In spite of a soccer game on Sunday, I'm not really in a rush to get back. We'll see, if we miss soccer it's fine...

Yeah, and I should be working now (preparing exams), and here I am, blogging, of course!

First Red! ;-) :-/

Most of the post was written while I was getting my pedicure. 

K and I are flying to LA tomorrow to attend a friend's wedding on Monday (this is the year of friends' weddings galore!). It's crazy to do a whirlwind trip like this in the middle of the semester, but hopefully it will be a nice getaway for the two of us.

I bought a dress yesterday (at Anthropologie, on clearance!) 

and today I picked nail polish colors to match. I had never done red before and I love it! 

Except that I just walked inside mg house carrying a large Costco pizza, my backpacks, and some bags, and... I bumped into one of the brick steps and chipped my one hour old pedicure!!!!!! :-(

So frustrating! 

The fingernails are lighter and I hope they won't chip before Monday! 

Sigh...
ETA:
P.S. Jen, I'm sorry I did my nails without you, I never do that! ;-) ;-P  But I think you weren't done at work yet! Oh, and I also went to Tammy's instead of Holly. They're a tad more expensive, but I think they're a bit better! (and their chairs most definitely work). Still creepy old men, sigh... :-/

I can't believe I didn't have a "Fluff" label!! Hahahaha, created!

Another 12 Hour Day

They are much less frequent now (YAY!), but once in a while I still pull out a 12-hour-day out of the house. 

Sometimes (ok, often) not because of work, but because I go shopping or browsing, but today I really did work late, past 5:30 pm. 

Glad to have just arrived home, though! 

Blogroll mostly back

I spent some time today trying to remember as best as I could the blogs that were in my now-gone blogroll and I think that I was able to do it for the most part.

This brought home the sad realization that there are very few people left in "blogland" and most people aren't posting anymore. :-(

oh well... I do this mostly for myself, so I'm still here.

All the Music Ever (OK, Almost!) ;-)

We resisted, I resisted...

Digital music is/was not my thing. I like to buy/own CDs, I love to read the liner notes. I want to know what year songs were written -- ok, that last part is generally available online. I like to OWN my music, but not paying track by track and I was outraged at the idea to pay a monthly fee for music, for video, for anything. So we've been using Spotify free for as long as it's been available (I think we began using it the day it came out or the day after -- for a few things we're early adopters).

In addition to Spotify, I did buy a few digital albums here and there in the past few years. I bought some CDs too (mostly when the music was not available digitally) and really cheap in Brazil (on my birthday).

A few months ago, though, our teenager began to pay monthly for a Google Play/YouTube Red membership, out of his own money (which he actually needs to pay for his Minecraft server and other things) and it didn't make any sense not to upgrade to a family membership, it just didn't...

(I also did some research, mostly by reading this very thorough comparison of Google Play, Spotify & Apple Music) 

So last weekend my husband got the family membership and just now I accessed it for the first time and began to add albums. I've had the app on my phone for a while, but haven't used.

And, you know...

... as much as I hate to admit it, I think this is going to work! ;-) It will be tremendous time-suck to have access to nearly all the music ever, but I think it'll be great.

I just found last year's album by my favorite (OK, I have many favorites!) Brazilian singer, Ivan Lins, that I hadn't known about before. And look at that album art, gorgeous!

So, yeah... let me go back to cleaning the family room with some lovely samba/Brazilian music in the background. I seriously want to print out this album art for my office!!

I now don't like NBC but l'm still watching SNL

And thankfully the debate spoof wasn't that terrible. I think SNL doesn't have much influence in the electorate, does it? I really enjoyed all previous elections (since I started watching SNL).

Oh, they finally have a Hispanic woman, wow! 

Hmmm... Have they ever had any Asian of any gender? 

Anyway, I keep watching and not finishing this post...

(BTW, it's the first show my 14 year old is watching with us (after all, it's PG-14)

... But the "Family Feud" game show political edition was really funny! With a bonus Daryl Hammond as Bill Clinton. 

Ok, that's it for unintentionally live-blogging SNL tonight. ;-P

ETA: I really disliked Weekend Update! They were trying to be equally negative about both... Not really funny. 

Ok, to be fair the black vs white banter between Colin & Michael was good/funny  & Kenan Thompson's David Ortiz was HILARIOUS!! I love, love, love Kenan!!