Lately it feels like my life is stuck in fast forward mode, but I think I may have found the key to balancing work and play…I must eliminate sleep altogether (like Lorne did this, the last, season of Angel…except, oh yeah, he went crazy at the Halloween party). Anywho, it was another fun-filled action-packed weekend, balanced by a brick load of work.
Friday night: Had our favorite neighbor-friends over for dinner. In preparation for this event, however, the house needed to be thoroughly cleaned. Naturally I left this off until Thursday night, as the last week was particularly brutal…and I am a born procrastinator. Being that my motivation for such things is generally flagging, when the mood strikes, it does so in manic fits and starts. So Thursday night the mood struck…but not for your general house cleaning, oh no. For some reason I was compelled to spend two+ hours cleaning and organizing the front porch. You see, being a garageless family, our front porch is like the land of the lost. Things are often sucked into a black hole of sorts when moved between the car and the house. I hope to put an end to this by keeping the porch clean(er). Recycling day can’t come fast enough. I broke down boxes that had accumulated over the past two years, and threw out multiple bags of trash. And I did manage to recover all sorts of treasure. Multiple miniature soccer and footballs for the little man, an inflatable orca, a hopscotch play rug, my favorite sweater (and a bra, what the heck was my bra doing on the porch?!), a pair of my flip-flops, the little man’s waterproof mittens (that I’d been looking for all winter) and lovely yellow rubber rain boots that may or may not still fit him. Somehow I did pull it together enough to get the rest of the house in decent shape, with the husband’s assistance, and I whipped up a double batch of my famous bbq tofu and cornbread, and acquired corn on the cob, salad, fruit and lemonade. Phew. The neighbors spoiled us, as usual, by arriving with a beautiful vegan strawberry creme cake from the Whole Foods Bakery. Thanks again neighbors! The kids were already having a good time, but the husband came up with another brilliant idea. As daylight faded he busted out multiple glowstick bracelets. I let out my inner raver by taking far too many trippy photos.
Saturday morning: The next day was to be another busy one. My Dad was involved in a dedication ceremony at the new SPPD headquarters (he was even quoted in the paper). Efforts to get the little man to say “sesquicentennial” weren’t entirely successful, but certainly were amusing.
Saturday afternoon: We raced back to the house just in time to scarf down lunch, then rendevous with the fave neighbors again. We piled the kids into the car to head to the Art-a-Whirl Festival in NE Minneapolis. Unfortunately the kids were in bickering mode. The little man had brought along his hippo hand puppet (recently recovered from the front porch) and wasn’t going to share it with anyone for anything. The neighbor girl even offered her recently acquired tooth fairy money ($4/tooth! Talk about inflation…I think I got a quarter per tooth if I was lucky)…but the little man announced “I don’t like money. I like the hippo”. Well, allrighty then. Off to a fabulous start. The mood improved once we picked up Zophia, who had to wedge herself in between two very large booster seats, which managed to amuse and placate the kids. After some initial confusion we located the Anderson Building at just the right time and got ourselves front row seats at the Xelias Theater. We were treated to an amusing juggling performance (replete with balls, balancing, clubs, rings, fire, a unicycle, etc.) followed by the most amazing aerial arts performance. Afterwards we strolled through the Northrup King Building for a bit, where we bumped into my pal Cathy Camper. But the kids (and us moms) were obviously getting burned out so we headed home before long.
Sunday: The party’s over and it was back to business. The entire day (and night) was devoted to a labor of love…a project I’m working on for a non-profit that’s near and dear to my heart. The redesign needed to be rushed because of time sensitive materials…so we went live with the revamped site last night, even though it isn’t finished yet…and I know of at least one item that is broken…and I haven’t gotten to test it on a Mac yet. If any of you care to do so, you can click through it here, and lemme know if you find anything wonky.