Weekend in review...

Did you ever get to Monday morning and wonder, "What the heck did I get accomplished over the weekend?!" The yard is still covered with leaves. There are mounds of dirty clothes in the laundry room. The two bins in my entryway that normally hold just gloves, hats and scarves are overloaded and overflowing with more than just that... a skateboard (!?), jackets, rain coats and this morning I found a dirty kitchen towel (I'm going to blame the dog on that one)...

Here's what I did this weekend...

1) Saturday morning - did a garbage run. Took our garbage to the reclimation place in a town nearby. Took a load of stuff to the Salvation Army. Came home and worked on getting the sewing room organized a bit more. Separated out the patterns that I don't need anymore and got ready to take them to the next American Sewing Guild to see if anyone wants them.

Started sewing on a project that I saw in a magazine once and have not been able to re-find since. So I had to experiment a few times until I got it right. I made 8 for the church craft sale and they were a hit yesterday! I can't tell you what they are because there are friends and relatives reading this blog that may be a lucky recipient... So after Christmas I'll give you a show and tell and maybe have a give-away of one of them. These are so cool and easy to make that I think I'll start an Etsy shop and sell them online too once the Christmas rush is over. So SSHH!
Around 4:30pm, we headed to Des Moines to try and beat the rush at the HuHot (Mongolian grill) restaurant. It was still a 30 minute wait at 5:45!!! But totally worth it. The food was fabulous! I didn't realize until after my first round at the grill that there are little recipe cards that you can try just sitting at the tables! So my next serving, I followed one of them verbatim. I think it was called Mustard Pork. Oh my.. Was THAT good! Next time we go, probably NEXT Halloween, I'll do some more experimenting with those recipes.

We stopped by Robb's brother's new house (he helped them move in a few weeks ago) so I could see it. Just my nephew was home, so we sat and visited for a little bit with him and ate up some of their leftover Halloween candy. As soon as Robb mentioned that he would deny that we had been there and eaten all their candy, nephew suddenly grabbed the bag and hid it in the other room...

It was about time to go anyway. Their dog (you know him as Hyper) was feeling ill and grossing us out with ghastly smelling gas. Whew!

2) Early Sunday morning (the extra hour was nice!), I had to get on all my clients servers and check over their system dates. Some of their computers are older and don't change the date quite right. A lot changed the dates LAST weekend... Computers are only as smart as the people programming them. Stupid computers...

After church, we rushed home in time to eat and let the dogs out briefly before heading up to my friends house for a visit. She and I browsed thru my Best Christmas Cookies magazine that I had found from last year, drooling over recipes that we want to try out this Christmas. The girls and I will come out for a Saturday this next month and make cookies in her kitchen. She has MS and Scleroderma and can't make them herself. But she LOVES Christmas and can you believe she is already done with her Christmas shopping? We usually race every year and this year she was done before I even had a chance to start! Maybe next year. I've only beaten her once.

Then we headed to Des Moines for a joint congregation Reformation Rally. It was great! I love being able to sing alto at the top of my voice and it doesn't sound out of place and I don't feel self conscious! As a Lutheran, Reformation Day is a invigorating event. I love it. As soon as we got to the hosting church, a woman there grabbed me and asked if I could sing in the choir. I usually do, so agreed. She hugged me! So Meri and I went to join the choir as they practiced. Meri is learning alto and enjoys the harmonizing. We sang Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress. All 4 verses with a trumpet accompanying on the last verse. Awesome!

I'm ready for the festival season now! Bring it on!