the vacation diary: day two

Day 2 definitely did not disappoint.  I hope it's soon clear from this ongoing diary that the most ambitious plan I have for my time off is to finish knitting a baby hat.  I'm not going anywhere or doing anything, and that's just how I want it.  So this vacation diary thing is probably going to be dead boring.  I don't want to give anyone any false hope.  Lowered expectations, served up daily.  You're welcome.

Day 2 stats:

Wake-up time:  6:30 a.m./7:00 a.m./7:14ish a.m.  Method:  two alarms and force of will  General mood:  much less enthusiastic and regretting those four episodes of GG that made the diary writing take so long last night

Agenda:  I didn't make us late for church for once.  It was kind of a big deal.  I made pretty standard nametags for the whole crew (an update of a slew of new nametags may be hitting the internet soon).  It was my last Sunday morning class before I start helping teach 4 year olds, and the discussion got fairly lively right at the end.  Shane got to pick our lunch restaurant in honor of his birthday, and he chose Larry's which got no complaints from me.  We saw the McClanahans, one of my favorite families ever, and I'm starting to feel like I should include a McClanahan-sighting line in my vacation diary since we also saw them at the ball game Friday night, but since I plan on becoming much more hermit-ish, it probably won't pay off for me.

On the way home from Larry's, Jess and I started talking about baby names, mostly because I was thinking about the sibling groups I know whose names all start with the same letter.  I thought it would kill a few minutes on the drive home, and it was definitely amusing.  What I didn't realize at the time was that we would spend most of the afternoon coming up with our favorite and least favorite names.  I think you can learn quite a bit about a person by discovering what names they would give a tiny, defenseless baby.  I may report my psychological analysis of Jess later.

We might not have continued the name conversation for quite so long, but when we arrived home, there was a strong smell of gas in the house.  I called the gas company who sent someone out and advised us to not stay in the house in the meantime.  So we were sitting out on the porch doing nothing for a while and then sat in the house doing nothing while our new friend Willie from CenterPoint made sure we weren't going to die.  I'm happy to report we didn't die, and that the leak on Dee's (our friend who lives in the other half of our duplex) water heater is now fixed.

Jess went into work late, which threw my Sunday nap routine off, so sadly that nap I promised myself Saturday night at 1:30 never materialized.  I had to go and pick Shane up for church because his driver's license expired on Saturday, and he was too lazy get it renewed before his birthday.  On the way to get him, I called Michelle, who I haven't talked to in forever, and caught up a little on them.  I talked to Bird about farm camp and how she's going to sell tickets to Pointer's drama camp performance reenactments.  She has quite the entrepreneurial spirit.  It was kind of big deal that she talked to me on the phone because Bird hates the phone as much as I do. 

My Sunday night nametags were a little more interesting than the a.m. ones, but those pictures will have to wait until Shane emails them to me.  Something in the sermon made me think of the movie 300, which I've never actually seen but always meant to.  This led me to start making a list of movies and/or books I might like to experience while I was on vacation, but I promise I was still listening.  After church and all throughout dinner, I had Josh and Bill giving me movie suggestions of recent movies I might have missed.

Shane had to pick a restaurant again because I was still celebrating his birthday.  We went to 5 Guys mostly because of its proximity to Cold Stone Creamery since Shane had a birthday coupon for a free ice cream treat (I've said this before, but you should totally sign up for the birthday club on their website).

When I dropped Shane off, I went in to borrow 300 and a few other movies he owns that I haven't seen.  Bill called me and started reading off titles of his to see if I wanted to borrow them, so I think he's going to be bring me a couple of suitcases full of movies on Wednesday, so if I actually end up watching any of them, you, imaginary readers, might get some thoughts about them here.

I talked to my moma on the phone when I got home because I had a few birthday weekend plans to inquire about.  The whole clan will gather here in central Arkansas this weekend for a long weekend of birthday celebrating.  It's going to be legendary.

I intended to end day 2 the same way that I had ended day 1, with Gilmore Girls and blogging, and I did make a start on the day 2 post, but I was so sleepy I was nervous that I might fall asleep and let my laptop fall off the bed, so I postponed the day 2 posting until this morning.

Food consumed:  Being on time to church does not include the possibility of breakfast, but Jess and I were so hungry during class that we decided to try the pre-packaged donut stick things that someone brought last week to our breakfast potluck that didn't get eaten.  It wasn't too bad actually.  At Larry's I had slices of almost all my favorites:  spinach and chicken alfredo, loaded baked potato, cheeseburger, and taco.  I never saw any of the honey mustard chicken out, but since I also had a salad and two slices of the best chocolate chip pizza in the world, I don't really think I needed anything else.  At 5 Guys, I've learned about their giant portions and went with the Little Cheeseburger and split a regular order of fries with Shane.  Shane's Coldstone coupon was for an ice cream with only one mix-in, and since I know Shane prefers the multi-ingredient signature creations, I bought his Coffee Lovers Only, and he ordered my chocolate cake batter ice cream with Oreos with the coupon.  Their cake batter ice cream is my absolute favorite, but for some reason I'd never had the chocolate, so I was fairly excited about it.  It didn't start out very batter-y, but the end, I was definitely in love.  Shane and I agreed on the way home that we're not eating at all today, but I'm pretty sure I won't stick to that--and I know he won't.

Bright spot:  Very difficult to choose today as things like food and funny nieces and good Bible discussions all make me quite happy, but I'm going to go with the hours Jess and I wasted talking and laughing over the baby names.  

Bedtime:  I know, based on the number of Gilmore Girl episodes I saw last night that it was after 10 when I fell asleep, possibly even after 11, but Jess wasn't home yet, and I didn't look at the clock, so I'm not quite sure.  It was definitely earlier than it might have been if that nap had gone as planned.

Here's a sneak peek at what I hope to be able to report to you later about day 3:  finding a missing knitting needle, maybe a trip to the library to pick up some books, grocery shopping (or I'll actually keep my no eating promise because there's nothing here worth eating), and if we're all lucky, another blog.  Stay tuned.