Weekend Round-Up

I had a busy weekend.

I am still in need of a good night's sleep, it seems it's been ages since I slept through. Sheesh. One of these days I'll just be so tired I'll crash hard and sleep well. I hope it's soon.

Friday I took the kids to the summer teen theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar. I'd seen it before when I was in high school, but didn't remember enough to help. The production was great, the kids were great, but I could only understand about a quarter of the lyrics. Then I realized it's a Andrew Lloyd Webber show and that explained it. For some reason his shows and I don't get along. Sondheim I get, Rogers, Hammerstein, yes, not Webber. I had trouble with Phantom too. It's like I need to have the libretto in front of me so I can follow along.

Saturday morning I attempted to tackle the lawn. The last two times the lawn got mowed I did it with the tractor. In order to get the tractor out of the shed I have to move the push mower out of the way. So when Dan couldn't get the push mower started and said the engine was loose on the mower deck, he naturally blamed me since I was the last person to touch the push mower.

Saturday morning I pulled out the push mower and took a look at it. Yes, the engine was loose on the mower deck. No, it wasn't my fault. The bolts holding it together had vibrated loose over the years, only one bolt was there and it was hanging on by a thread. I took it out and drove over to the repair shop and asked for one to match it. The guy didn't charge me for the replacement (yay!) and I was on my way. When I got home and put the bolts in I realized I really need three, not two. Oh well. But it runs now.

But the lawn never got mowed because we wanted to get out of town. There was a reunion of bands playing at a festival in Charlottesville. These bands played the clubs there when Dan was in college at UVA. The crowd was largely middle-aged with gray pony tails. We took a blanket and hung out on the grassy area and enjoyed the music occasionally going down to stand close to the stage.

Sunday morning Dan took Fern on a walk around the grounds of UVA, "her college," while Kevin and I did our own unguided tour closer to the car. She wants to go to school there, so this is the year she really has to get into gear, develop good study habits and get good grades. Eighth-grade grades don't count towards college, but the study habits will help the high school grades.

Then we headed to Damascus. Dan's friends had a cook-out and had a couple families over. The plan was to eat and hang out, then go to their pool. But thunderstorms rolled in at pool time and we all drove home. One other family has daughters, one Fern's age and they love getting together. They were disappointed when it was time to go so I arranged it so Fern could go home with them and I'd pick her up later. Fern got to take off her "sulky teenager" hat for a while and have fun without her lame family.

When we got home everyone headed in their own direction. As I started assembling an exchange block for my neighbor L, she called to ask for my help to remove a large mirror from the wall. Her hubby is gone for a week and a half so she decided it would be a good week to strip the wallpaper in the master bath and paint. When I finished the quilt block I took it to her and helped with the mirror. Then I sucked into helping peel paper off the wall. It's very cathartic to do something mindless like that. It didn't matter how you did it, not like sewing, just pull the paper off the wall. Spray and peel, spray and peel. Let's see who can pull off the biggest piece! I suggested we have our Tuesday quilt bee meeting in there so everyone can help. (It's a very large bathroom: the size of the dining room on the floor below; we'd all fit.)

I worked on my triangle quilt more and got more border strips on. I had gotten to the I-am-so-disgusted-with-it-and-never-want-to-see-it-again point the other day because the border wasn't fitting right but last night I made some progress. Then I went to the mall to meet Michelle and the girls to pick up Fern. I was glad the mall was closed so I didn't have to go in and shop.

Tonight after work I go back to the dealership to get the floor mat clips installed. I hope they are ready for me this time. And maybe I'll get the lawn mowed.