It was a good weekend.

On Friday, Wizard had a low key birthday. Youngest’s wife was under the weather, so we didn’t go to dinner. I was going to take Wizard out anyway, but he wanted to stay home. He did enjoy the lemon cream cheese cookies

Saturday, Baby Girl and her parents came over. For now, I’ll call her CeeGee. So they came over, and Maggie wanted to see CeeGee before she even got out of her car seat.  I sat her up on the couch, and to our surprised Maggie jumped up there twice. That’s just weird since she only goes up there when her blanket’s out. CeeGee found this all hilarious. She was bouncing and screaming (boys laugh, girls scream, LOL).

However, I made Maggie get down and give her space. I saw possessiveness in Maggie — I think for CeeGee because she was focused on her and loves kids. But I couldn’t be 100% sure it wasn’t about me, and that can be dangerous. I mean I have never seen any kind of aggression in Maggie, but she’s getting older and I never want to be the owner who says, “My dog would never…”  because kids and dogs will almost always prove us wrong. Either way, we established some ground rules. Then Maggie was very good and had so much fun with her. And later in the evening I let her up on the couch with her, and she was well behaved with no problems.  CeeGee also loves Grandpa and helped make his birthday special. We all had a great time, enjoying good wine, a decent dinner and both the lemon cookies and some of the fudge filled chocolate chips ones I took out of the freezer.

At one point, I gave CeeGee a small silicone whisk and my son came in the kitchen, saw her and was so confused. He asked her “Where did you get that?” Did he think almost his seven month old daughter rummaged through my kitchen drawers and found it herself? I finally assured him that I gave it to her and she was perfectly safe. She played with that little whisk through dinner. It doesn’t take much to entertain little ones. Then her mom fed her some homemade baby food. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing with my kids

While we couldn’t go to Turbo’s game, we got some videos of a two of him at bat, and he got tow hits! He is doing well and having fun!

Sunday was our first quiet day, and we had a discussion about starting to fill in a small patio off the sun room. Two trips to home depot later we have found big pots that were a two-for-the-price-of-one deal, and two pygmy palms that I love! They are so tropical looking and I hope they can survive in the part sun part shade of that area! I was surprised that Wizard likes them too — I always thought he didn’t. More than four decades together and I learn something new about him! The  moral of this story is we can turn any day into a busy day by inventing projects our of thin air, LOL. That section of small patio is a work in progress but that’s part of the fun. And for the record, Maggie supervised but she doesn’t do much actual work.

How was your weekend?

TGIF!!! Why am I always surprised by Friday? Seriously, it shows up every week, so after many decades, I should be used to it! Anyhow, it’s now time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. Today is Wizard’s birthday! It’s a bit of a lowkey birthday but still hopefully he’ll be happy. He doesn’t want a cake this year because he says he’ll just keep eating it, LOL.  But we’ll probably go to dinner.
2. I found my packaged seasoning for stew! I’m making it for Thursday night, and to celebrate, I’m making breadsticks to go with it. But I need to learn to build the flavors in stew myself without the aide of my packaged seasoning that has stuff in there I don’t really think is ideal
3. On Wednesday, I went to my granddaughter’s house to take her and her mom for a mini girls lunch for my DILs birthday. Baby Girl was so good! Here she is dressed up like a Little Lady with her sweater and necklace (and no socks because she takes them off, LOL)
4. Yesterday was a marathon and today looks busy too, but it’s all good. But I was pretty impressed that yesterday I walked a couple miles, lifted weights, went to Trader Joes and Costco, washed floors, made stew and breadsticks. Now we’ll see if I can get out of bed today
5. Saturday, Middle Son, his wife and Baby Girl are coming over. I’m planning to make Balsamic Flank Steak for an early dinner. It’ll be really nice to see my son. Wizard saw him when I had the cold, but I haven’t seen him in a while. We will miss Turbo’s baseball game, but we’ll get to the next one!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! Hope everyone has a good weekend!

I’ve nearly finished the memoir by a former FB employee. I don’t have much to say about that book– mainly because I never really feel that I’m getting to know her outside of her role in FB, I can’t quite connect with her as a whole person. That’s just me. I believe others really got a lot out of this book.

I also began an audio nonfiction book on Gulags of all things. I heard about the book, and thought, “Now there’s a word I’ve heard all my life, but I don’t really know a lot about gulags.” Sometimes, I worry about my curiosity, LOL! It takes me some strange places. I’ve been listening to that book on my extra walks with Maggie.

Now I think I’ll look for a lighter book for enjoyment — I need it!

On a separate note, I’ve been listening to some podcasts that have very good debaters, and people who can package facts in very interesting ways. I find this talent both enviable and frustrating But dang, I wish I the ability to absorb that much material, parse it that rapidly and spit it back out in such a compelling, articulate way!

What are you reading and/or listening to?