Friday fragments

Last evening Spouse & I walked over to Second St (the main commercial street in town) for the merchant's holiday open house. Typically the non-restaurant merchants on Second St close at 5pm, but on this night they all stay open until 9pm and provide snacks for shoppers. Second St is closed off to car traffic, and the local high school jazz band plays Christmas carols. We only stayed for about 1/2 hour, but did run into a few neighbors. The historic street looked charming all decked out with lights, garlands, ribbons and bows for Christmas. Unfortunately we will miss the Christmas parade on Sat.

I have the day off work today. Since my company doesn't allow us to carry over unused leave I realized I needed to use 4 days before the end of Dec. So I'm taking Fri off each week before Christmas, and then taking Wed, Christmas Eve off, too. I worked a 2 days the week of Thanksgiving, 4 days this week, 4 days next week, 4 days the following week, 2 days the week of Christmas (we get Thurs & Fri off), and 3 days the week of New Years (we get Thurs & Fri off). Pretty sweet, eh?

Last week when I took off Wed, the day before Thanksgiving, I made a long 'to-do' list for myself that included stuff like housecleaning and making up the guest room beds. But today is just going to be a fun day. I'm going to make a deposit at the bank, maybe have lunch out, get my hair cut, put up white lights on the wrap around porch, and get caught up on blog reading. No vacuuming, no scrubbing - just fun! Work has been so busy all week I haven't been able to read my favorite blogs, so I feel like a junkie jonesin' for a fix!

This evening we're going back to VA for the weekend, and have we ever got a full weekend planned! After dropping the dog and Spouse off at his mom's, I'm going to meet a few friends and sing karaoke at Freddie's.

Sat morning we'll take Spouse's mom and my aunt Mary to the Olde Towne Manassas Christmas Parade. We do this every year because our friends live on the parade route and host a big parade-watching party. Sat evening we're meeting up with our friends Susan and Clara & Sivan for dinner, whom we haven't seen in quite a while. Susan and Clara and I worked for the same company about 10 years ago, and have remained friends since.

Sun morning we're going to brunch with my aunt Mary for my birthday. Then we'll pack up our drag and head back home. So it will be a full, but fun weekend.

Crush du Jour: Jeff Wilson