Day Off....NOT!

So, this day started with the best of intentions to sleep in, take our comforter and mattress pad to the laundromat (king size bed+little washer=no bueno), and run over to El Paso (an hour away) to stock up at Costco and some other errands.

It was about 7am when I was pouring my cereal that this was not going to work out as envisioned. So much for sleeping in...husband woke me up when he got up early to do some outdoor work at the corps before it got too hot. Then I couldn't get moving, so the laundromat didn't happen. So, we got on the road to El Paso about 10am.

When we got there, we figured lunch was in order before every restaurant got busy. We went to Olive Garden, one of our favorites that we don't have here. My husband then floored me by ordering the soup and salad. Hello? Really? What has happened to my husband? (Though, I am proud of him, because I know it wasn't the best choice we could have made and he's really trying to get serious about getting his diabetes under control to cut off some of his medications)

Then we went to the mall because I needed to go to the Fossil store to get my watch battery replaced (it's been about 18months, it was about time). Well, we then had to find another watch place that was at the mall to get a battery in one of hubby's designer watches. While there we were paroozing the medical ID bracelets (for hubby, see above), and he chose one that he would actually wear instead of one of the cheapie drug store ones...so, while we waited for it to be engraved, I went to a hairdresser in the mall to get my hair and bangs trimmed (about 3 months procrastinated...).

After all of our excitement at the mall we headed for the bank (our choice bank does not have any locations in our town)...now, I knew it was a bank holiday and we would have to use the ATM. One of them was broken, the second one we were told "we have lots of deposits, we'll be about 20 minutes", and the third in the blazing sun finally worked (I think my sandals were melting to the sidewalk). Normally we bank deposits that we don't have direct deposited by mail, but we finally got caught up on our reimbursements from our health insurance to the tune of $794. We wanted to get it in the bank quickly because I promised hubby when we reached "x" amount of comfortable money that he could purchase a bike he's been drooling over...so, he'll be the proud owner of a brand new bike in a matter of short days.

Final stop was Costco...never a short trip. We went for a few items for home and for the corps, and ended up with more extras than we intended. Par for the course today. I won the "guess how much our cart full will cost at the register" contest by just under $8.

So, what should have been about a 2-hour shopping/errand excursion (4 1/2 with the driving) ended up being NINE hours. So much for that day off for the "observed" holiday...the one day we deliberately chose to close down everything and not do any work...that's okay, Friday is the Third Day concert we have tickets for. HOORAY!

This weekend was amazing. Saturday was spent in the mountains (much cooler than here in town) at their western days celebration--good music, good food, good clean family fun. Then on the drive home we stopped at a place called Bluff Springs--beautiful waterfall and hiking/camping area. We'll definitely be overnighting there sometime soon on our upcoming furlough dates. Sunday was a nice worship service--had a Salvationist visitor from Jamaica, that lives in Germany, and is visiting her sister in our tiny town of all places! Then in the evening our congregation was invited to another church for a time of worship/prayer/encouragement for our country and then we sat on the church lawn for the fireworks. The worship was just what I needed...I love it when this group of small churches comes together and is truly "there" for each other (in perspective: in a conservative Republican town of 35,000, we have 70 churches). Us little guys need the support from each other! Fireworks were disappointing though...delayed by almost 45 minutes and were not nearly as nice as last year's display.

Thankfully the neighbor's kids were not up all hours launching all of their own fireworks...they died down before midnight, so even though I didn't get my wish to sleep in--still got a good night's sleep.

And with that, a good night's sleep sounds like a good idea--short but busy week ahead of us!