Thanksgiving Weekend 2010

Resolved. Blog at least once every two years. It is fun to reread even just a little bit. Yesterday was pretty much a perfect day. Actually, the whole weekend couldn't have been much better.

It started with the day off on Wednesday. I got so many appointments made, tried on glasses at Ochialli, went out for coffee. Riley had a half day at after school program, which made the whole month's tuition worth it. How nice I am finding it to have some time when I can just get things done without the pressure and disappointment of having to defer playing to "when I'm done" or "five more minutes," when I actually needed 15. Wednesday night dinner with friends before Thanksgiving. Mexican feast with Rori, Luca, Bob, Michele, Samantha, Roman and Riley. They would all be leaving to be with family in the morning, and Joshua and I would be heading to the zoo's pumpkin smash followed by a bike ride over to the Mills' for a lovely Thanskgiving feast courtesy of Lazy Acres. Ann and I sneaked in a hike to Inspiration Point via Jesusita Trail first.

Friday, a second Thanksgiving meal with Stewart, Sam, and Stella. How thankful we are for our Santa Barbara friend-families. But before that, a cheese feast with the boys on Jesusita Trail. We ran into a red tail hawk, a gopher, a dog bite. Riley "rememberized" all of Luca's passwords and was able to gain fairly easy access to the trail. Before that Coffee and mutt-mutts at Daily Grind. Riley spent the night at Roman's and we went to see a terrible movie. Morning Glory. Don't bother.

Saturday, cleaning up, starting the preparation for Arcelia to come help clean our house. The biweekly bad mood maker. Also trying to scale back for a lot of reasons. Last time I did this I think I got rid of 75 books and 100 t-shirts. Well, I went through the T-Shirts again, and it turns out my critical mass is down to about 60 t-shirts. I don't know why I think I need 60 t-shirts, when most of them are too huge to consider wearing anymore, but here I am, 60 t-shirts in the bag, 45 to Goodwill.

Rain threatened, but never materialized. The gym was packed, but the farmers' market was not. This was probably the last weekend for outdoor grown tomatoes, so I bought quite a few. We headed over to Phoebe's house for an early mac and cheese dinner, and came home to take the chicken out of our own crockpot to eat later on.

Finally Sunday. I feel like I haven't worked in forever. Will be shocked to go back to the office tomorrow. Ann and I took off on Arroyo Burro Trail at 0615 this morning. We got back to the car five hours later. It was a two water bottle and a snack hike. Sadly, we both only had one water bottle and no snacks. Saw three red tail hawks, and a trail I had never finished before, so that was terrific. We came back into civilization with mittens in our pockets and triple layers of clothing, and felt a little silly crossing paths with people who were wearing tank tops and shorts.