Memorial Day Weekend 2011

What you see above is pretty much how I ended a pretty fucking great weekend.  Was it retarded like this or this from last year?  Well, no.  Was it exactly how I wanted to spend the weekend?  Pretty much.  Let's rewind, shall we?

Friday night I had tickets to a local band's cd release party.  I had paid for two VIP tickets which really just meant I got a whole bunch of free stuff, but splurged anyway because I never get to do anything fun anymore.  Brandon picked me up around 8 and we headed up to Job 2 to have a couple of drinks and meet up with another couple who were heading to the concert too.  By 9:30 we were on our way to the venue.  I'd never been to the place before, but had heard great reviews of the place, so I was kind of excited to go somewhere new. 

We headed down to the Bluestone and when we pulled in, I was amazed.  I mean, what do you say about a huge old church being turned into a concert venue?  It was a huge old brick building and once you got inside, there were several bars, a balcony for viewing as well as standing room only space in front of the stage.  Downstairs they had a really sweet bar area for the after party.  As usual, the music was good and hanging out with a different crowd was good for me.

My favorite local band, Noise Auction, starting out the night

 Kelly getting frisky with the Jager bottle which we ultimately stole...

 Brandon looking hot and me looking retarded....

 The view from the balcony

My friend Chris and I.  He's also known as the guy that smacked my ass so hard one time I actually woke up with a hand print.....

After all the music was said and done, I collected all of our swag, not bothering to stay for the after party because I might have been a little more than buzzed and Brandon doesn't navigate downtown very well.  We met up with the others at Job 2 for nightcaps.  Needless  to say, a 2 foot tall blow up bottle makes for some fun times in the bar...  Seeing as it was dead in there, we were punting it and doing all sorts of other retarded shit....

I have no idea what time we called it a night, but I was drunk for sure....  

Saturday morning we get to sleep in. Weird.....  Rolled out of bed around 11 or so and took the kids to breakfast seeing as there's no food in my house because I never have any time to do the grocery shopping.  Seriously, I need a housekeeper....  After we got back, they commenced slave labor and I laid around and eventually went into work around 3.

Saturday night Brandon, the boys and I went to see the Hangover 2.  What to say about it.....  Well, I fell asleep about halfway through it, so I guess that would tell you my opinion of it.  With what I saw of it, I wasn't impressed.  I mean, it was funny and all, but I just don't get all the hype.  Neither of the big kids liked it except for them getting to see some boobs, so I was bummed I tried to spend some time with the big kids and it was a bust.  Hey, I tried...  They did get two full meals out of the deal Saturday since they got breakfast out, then I let them eat whatever they wanted at the movie theater that night.  I don't mean popcorn and candy, this theater serves full meals and has a full bar...

Sunday I knew I had to get some things around the house accomplished.  Since I'm never home, things have just gotten pushed to the side and not dealt with.  It's kind of getting out of hand.  What I didn't figure on was sleeping reasonably late and not getting started on those things until much later than I anticipated.  Luckily Brandon was around and willing to help out.  

My lawnmower hasn't worked for whatever reason this season.  Being as we've had record rainfall here over the last couple of months, much like rest of the country, my grass was like a foot tall, well, it was where the grass actually grows anyway.....  I mowed it once like three weeks ago with a neighbor's mower and that's been it.  I just don't have time for it, unless people wanna hear it at 3am...    I also procrastinate as long as humanly possible on mowing the lawn because I'm severely allergic to grass.  If I could kill all of it and put sand down, I would because let me tell ya, after 20 minutes of mowing (that's all the bigger my yard is...)  having a purple face and not being able to breathe is not fun.  Luckily when my new mower got dropped off Sunday, Brandon mowed it for the small price of dinner.  Awesome.  Stuff got done, we cooked out, I dropped the big kids off at mom's house and headed into work.

Not a whole lot to report from the work front on Sunday night.  That was the cap on my 5 shifts there this week, so I really wasn't feeling it, but faked it because, well, that's what ya do...  Got home around 3am and immediately fell asleep.

Yesterday morning, I woke up around 10:45, I rolled over and Brandon was watching tv.  He looked and me and said "I need food."  Umm ok then, let's go eat.  We leave the house and I realize it's going to be another beautiful day.  I look at him and say "Let's just say fuck it and go to Zoombezi Bay for the day, just me and you."  I've worked hard, maybe too hard lately, it's finally winning over on me and I realized I'm just not happy.  Money doesn't equal happiness, it never has for me, and although I'm not doing it to get rich, I'm doing it to keep my head above water, I can't keep doing these 80 hour work weeks.  No matter how good the money, I just can't do it.  I'm exhausted and mean ALL the time.  I thought booking my vacation would help me focus on just getting through all this, but to be honest, it's done very little for me.  I'm still about $1500 away from just getting back to even, but it's money that it seems no matter how long or hard I work I just can't get.  Something is always popping up to keep me from getting there.  Oh well....  Back to yesterday...

I didn't think Brandon would actually want to go to Zoombezi.  Normally he would have some lame excuse that he's got stuff to do or he's on call with picking up his kids, but his answer was a simple "Ok, let's do it, but can we eat first?"  Umm sure, lol.  We ate breakfast, got tickets, I printed my previously purchased season pass (the boys have them and it just economically made sense for me to get one since it pays for itself in two trips) and we were out the door.  

We entered the park and the big thermometer said 88 degrees at 12:30.  Awesome.  I love hot weather and all this rain and dreariness that we've had for months now certainly hasn't helped my mood.  We spent the day lounging in the adult lazy river and hanging out in the lounge chairs.  Sure the place was packed and there were kids running around screaming pretty much everywhere, but they weren't MY kids, so they were easily blocked out.  By 4 I was ready to call it a day.  I had to be at work at 6 and still needed to eat, so we gathered our stuff and headed back to the house where the big kids had returned and were none too impressed we went without them.  

The perfect day for me......

I went into work with a good attitude last night.  The owner told me to hold off closing the place until at least 1 because he expected to be dead, but I really was steady all night.  By 2am, I had pretty much cleared everyone out and Brandon and I headed home.

That brings us to this morning I guess.  Up and ready to go at 6:30, I'm struggling to keep myself awake.  Right now is a rough point in the morning for me.  Not quite enough caffeine in me yet and really no food, so let's just see if I can' make it through till I can map on my lunch break.

On tap this week?  Job 1 Tuesday-Thursday, Job 2 Monday/Wednesday, kids baseball games Tues/Wed/Thurs/Sat, picking up E tonight and having him until next Monday, and THREE consecutive days off from both jobs....  Apparently hell has frozen over with that last one....  Though I have much to do on Friday with the hood garage sale and Gavin's 8th grade graduation, it's still a day off.  I'm sitting here trying to think of what else is going on this weekend, but I'm drawing a blank...  Oh well, let's just get through the next few days.....