Child-free adventuring

Our son, Grendel, is spending most of the weekend in Vermont with several dozen other teenagers. Sounds scary, doesn't it? It's not. About five times a year, his church youth group gets together with groups from other churches throughout New England for "Con" weekends. They usually stay in a local church, get virtually no sleep, talk a lot (sometimes about socially responsibility), entertain each other at a 'coffee house', and then go out for a huge breakfast on Sunday morning (after they've thoroughly cleaned up the church where they've been crashing). They are somewhat chaperoned by a handful of adult advisers, who also are forced into not getting any sleep. The teens do all the cooking and cleaning. The adults are just there to make sure everyone follows the rules, which is usually not an issue.

While he's gone, my husband and I attempt to spend some time together as non-parents. Today we're going window-shopping for a Macintosh computer (isn't that an interesting juxtaposition of terms?). I'm not quite read to part with the money. I just want to lay eyes and hands on the thing that's soon going to cost me nearly three grand. (More on that in a future post.) Then, we'll probably do some other low-cost shopping. We plan to stop for a respite at a tea cafe I like. We may take in a movie as well. Tomorrow, we'll hit the local end-of-season celebration at the Nashua Farmer's Market. We may have lunch at my favorite Vietnamese noodle shop or his favorite Irish pub.

Tomorrow afternoon, Grendel is supposed to be home by 2. We have plans to visit a good friend of mine from work at 4. John's been wanting us to come to his house and meet his family for a while. He wanted to wait until he got his big screen television installed. Grendel and Goblin both play guitar. John used to play guitar in a rock band, and still dabbles for pleasure. I suspect the three of them will be down in the 'man cave' for a while playing guitars. I've never met John's wife. I hope we hit it off, or I could get pretty bored pretty quickly. John's kids are early elementary school aged. So, Grendel won't have much to say to them. I'm not used to being around young kids any more. But, John speaks so highly of his kids (particularly his daughter), that I'm sure it'll be interesting.

After all we have non-planned this weekend, I may need to take Monday off to recover.

Let the weekend begin

I spent part of Wednesday and most of Friday working on my paper. I am (mostly) finished writing it. There is one section that I want to reword a bit. Plus, I need to reformat my citations and update my slides. However, the grunt work is done.

Now, the real weekend can begin. I really need to clean my office. It looks like a paper factory blew up in there. Some other parts of the house are also whining for my attention.

Plus, I want to start making holiday cards. Yes, I said 'making'. Those of you who get actual cards from me this year will find them laughably hand made. I thought it would be fun. Plus, it'll have a personal touch that a box of Hallmarks just won't have. If they're a little messy looking it'll just add to their charm, right?