snippets of the weekend 8.21.2023

Friday I did the stupid thing I sometimes do late in the summer season and run errands by car when I fucking know better. Post office, grocery to pick up like three things, library. Are people unaware you can not ride bikes side by side on a street cars are also traveling on? Jesus Christ. 

Saturday turnover was easy, as one of our favorites was leaving and they always leave the house in great shape. Plus Melissa had done turnover while we were gone so overall the house was in great shape! Beach afternoon.

Sunday I did not feel well. I barely left the couch and from 11 pm - 3 am I threw up everything in my body including what felt like its inside lining. Absolutely brutal. 

weekending reels on Instagram - current favorite weekend look back mode.

Saying hello on Saturday

The draft of this post was set up last Friday, and that was a carryover from the week before. Too far gone so starting fresh with a 20 timer on Saturday morning and what we do we do. Let us begin.

We’re all spending $61 or more every time we open our mouths, right? Jesus take the wheel. For those who think Joe Biden is responsible for global inflation…bless your heart, to borrow a phrase from my southern brethren 

Thrifted wall decor:

My resin replacement for a fist full of keys from South Street Art Mart - support your local creators! 

We tried Liquid Death Mango Chainsaw. LOL at the name, like the flavor.

I had to buy the stupid Christmas brownie cakes. I will make a foray into the Christmas Tree cakes then I will turn my back on both for this season.

Have you all heard of the retired spy with the daughter who does the reels? Agent Buttercup? The hold these people have on me. I can never find them when I go to look for them but I know I follow on Insta so they pop up for me. Here's an article. 

The amount of Foreign Policy Experts With Experience Negotiating Political Prisoners With Psychos With Nukes who have shown their face over the last week, mylanta. Welcome home Brittney Griner, even if a bunch of people have made sure to get on the Internet and say your freedom is worthless

The office in the PNC Building in the Market West neighborhood a block from City Hall where I have worked since August 2008 has officially moved to Old City. I'm pumped to explore down there and might actually try to make it into the office twice a month! I was going to come out of the gate with three times and I don't want to overshoot my shot. Cheers to new beginnings and good change.

Nails. The blue is OPI LED Marquee and the pink is OPI Pixel Dust

Wednesday night MFD and I went to the Turn PA Blue celebration in Conshohocken to congratulate the folks who worked so hard to secure and flip seats in our area. It was nice to see people but for me even nicer to be out of any active work in political races and just writing checks in support of candidates or writing postcards to voters. It is dirty AF, damaging to your spirit, and at times dangerous. I was reminded how you truly don't know until you've run or a candidate lives in your house. I'm  happy that's in the rearview and all the support to people out there deciding to do it anyway and applause for people who work hard to get them into office.

We walked to Pepperoncini where I haven't been for YEARS to have a fat ass Italian meal after that, then walked back. Those Conshohocken hills, man. The meal was good and we stood outside in no coats on an evening in December talking to people leaving the Turn PA Blue party for a bit longer. Out past 10:30 on a schoolnight!

This is what we were doing at 6 pm that night...the event started at 6 a half hour away LOL

Reminder.

Agree.

Painting happened at the shore this week. The interior and exterior of the new porch door (SW 6766 Mariner, same as exterior of main house porch door), two tiny walls that are accent walls near the bathroom (SW 6716 Dancing Green), and the inside of the main apartment door (SW 6564 Red Clover, same as its exterior that was painted in May 2021).

A few books from last week - not a romance reader but I flew through Lily B. The Stacy W book comes out in January and if you like that sort of thing, you should look into it.

The bowl I painted over Thanksgiving weekend when Carol, Aubrey, Lola and I did the Glazed Over Pottery outing

It is hard to beat the solitude and beauty of the beach in the late fall into winter season when you can be out for well over an hour and not worry about shivery dogs or fingers that feel like they may fall off. My plan is the entirety of January there, with a pop up to Philly to see Jagged Little Pill and do my monthly hair appt and massage. December I am up not there a lot so I'm glad the temps have not dipped too much into a freeze. 

End on pets, yes? 

Friday Catch Up

The passage of time is unfathomable to a 45 year old woman who can still remember being a child, thinking days and summer and winter break lasted forever. 

No Thursday Thoughts last week or this, and this is where I keep my shit so it feels somehow untethered, and I'll dump it in here with no transitional sentences, let alone paragraphs. Basically it's just some random thoughts at the end. Let us begin.

A lax Halloween last week - all eyes were on the Phillies, would the game be played? - then the rains came, and the Phillies were rained out and so was a lot of our Halloween. MFD couldn't find his costume. It was still nice to spend time with my Dad & Carol who were up for a few days. My neighbors' costumes on both sides were great (The Incredibles not pictured) and I always love seeing people out for Halloween. MFD also added a jumping spider this year and I was so not okay with this and kept warning people much to Carol's chagrin LOL. We also got to celebrate my Dad's birthday, but that was in a weekend post which I actually have been keeping up with.

Throughout the summer, I was insistent on closing this shore house up for the winter this year - it is expensive to heat it, it feels like it needs to be managed, and I need to get a lot of stuff sorted and cleaned out in Philly - but it is hard for me to think of being stuck in my house up there, where I know I won't go out every day like I do here. How can I not go out here? I think I would also miss the isolation that I've quickly gotten used to the past two winters. 

I still have time to decide. For now, I'm happy to still be standing in the ocean. 

The moon has been putting on a show and I'm here for it. 

I was in Easton this week for work and it's pretty up there. 

Mom delivered pumpkin muffins to my hair appointment and they're already gone. 

Cut & color with Kristi at Salon Harmony this week has me back to looking right.

I'm trying a new to me facial product from The Ordinary  - L asorbic acid powder - I like it so far.

I have not been in the mood to read jack shit on my kindle, so I've been librarying it up. 

I am not surprised bodily autonomy won on every ballot initiative. Overturning Roe is vindictive and out of touch and I am furious white women in many places chose to vote for proximity to power over bodily autonomy for all. Otherwise I'm generally happy with the midterm results, especially given what typically happens in midterms in this scenario. I am unhappy with democrats not playing offense in defense of democracy over fascism and bodily autonomy. Those are things worth being aggressive over. Fight for regular people and stop being small. Also get rid of corporate dems. Let's fucking go. I am burnt from all of this and the goddamn commercials and billboards. 

I think I have a tooth infection/need a root canal. Dentist Wednesday, I just need to hold out until then, and my telehealth doc prescribed an antibiotic so hopefully that helps. Teeth, man.

MFD is upstairs hanging stuff in the big shore bathroom as we speak. I am going to do a separate bathrooms post. I'm really happy to have that project done. Just waiting on the remaining house windows and a new door and window installed in the apartment. Still waiting on doors in Philly too. Everything currently in motion should be wrapped up by the end of the year, then on to the next projects. At the shore that is couches and floors. In Philly it's windows. 

The Shared Family Thanksgiving Note has been created. Holiday cards were ordered. LOVE stamps secured, because at the end that is what should be under every holiday. I have a decent amount of Christmas gifts bought. Mom set her Christmas gathering. Working on setting MFD's family Christmas. 

Time slips through my fingers like sand.

Friendsgiving this weekend at the shore. 

Sunday is our sixth and final wedding of 2022. It's been a year of love. 

Happy Friday!

Thursday Thoughts - Oh well, I guess we're gonna find out

Dogs on the regular beach season is back. And we are thrilled.

Electric blanket season is also back for Ben. It's always Mae bees mean and Chewy advertisement season.

You've got to be fucking kidding me with this price. 

Does craving citrus mean you're about to have scurvy? If so, sign me up. I already have a mild concussion from clocking my head into the fucking pier coming and going on the second to last day of the Nor'Easter because the tide was so high.

I got these angry ocean photos as a souvenir.

Yesterday was much better. 

Fall must haves. These are LLBean but I also love my Sperry Syrens which are not easy to find right now. And the takes a licking keeps on ticking Columbia Acadia II rain jacket. I also use my non-polarized sunglasses on overcast and drizzly days because they are still too bright for bare eyes.

Fresh off my hold shelf.

Fall shore decor loading.

So tempted to list Found: piece of large Tonka Toy on the local facebook page

Out of office behavior. I'm off today and tomorrow with no agenda and it has been a damn long time since that was the case.

 
What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Let's See How Far We've Come by Matchbox 20

TWTW - birthday weekend #2

Friday if you have to refer to your photos to see what you did that day…lol at lunch I went to the library spring book sale and grocery store. Guess which one was more fun? After work I did a beach walk, finished a book, and read another one until 1 am.

Saturday started with nails - tried Essie’s  new quick dry polish and didn’t love the application but I liked the polish grew on me as it wore. This is Essie Expressie Trick Clicque with a OPI Mylar Dreams pinky nail. After this scintillating nail appointment was finished, we went to a tour at the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May. It was an hour and it was good. If you are not someone who can pay attention in a group for an hour, this is not for you. The tours are guided at this time and by guided in basically one large room they mean we are going to tell you about Harriet's operations in Cape May. The guy giving the tour was very good. 

We were going to walk around the Washington Street Mall area after that, but there were a lot of people and no parking and I got annoyed very quickly so we headed out and had lunch at the Lobster House on the way out of town. 

Popped in to TJMaxx and Restore in CMCH on the way home, and lolled around on the couch for a while. We had dinner at Kessel’s because Instagram showed me ice cream over funnel cake fries, new this year so we had to try it. I started a new book and we watched a lot of episodes of Hacks. 

Sunday was a slow moving morning. I woke up with numbness in my arm from sleeping on something wrong and it is not going away so I'm calling on chiro and acupuncture this week. I did some sorting of shit up in the house, began the process of removing stuff prior to rental season, cleaned the kitchen, and MFD installed the no drill hand towel and toilet paper holder in the small bathroom. We went for a family beach walk and watched the remaining three episodes of Hacks. Scrounged for dinner and packed a bunch of stuff up, then watched three episodes of Yellowjackets. Hooo boy.

Heading back to Philly for some appointments this week. 

Hope you had a good weekend!

TWTW - settling into October

Friday Work was brisk. Carol and my Dad came back to the shore, and Carol made salmon and pasta for dinner. I took Bruce and Ben down to the beach and it was a beauty of a night. Came back and painted my nails, read, and relaxed. 

Saturday The return of the Fall Block Party, although not the full return of how we typically do the Block Party. The girls will be back for the weekend next year. I got to do it with first timers this year which always increases my appreciation for something I already enjoy - Dad and Carol and MFD. Dad and Carol will come back for the day next year but MFD probably is not invited back since he kept calling me for $1 and $3 and talking to everyone and making dad jokes. LOLOL They all loved the coveted grilled pretzels on our corner though so I'm happy I didn't overhype them. Weather was great, porch watching of the hubbub before and after was great, food was great. I was so happy for all the vendors, many of whom sold out of stuff after a 1+ years of no Block Party due to Covid. I was also happy to see Melissa and Stephanie and More Stephanie as they came through. It was a good day Can't wait to be back in full force next year! I also had to call the cops on the cops as a fleet vehicle was blocking the street and not picked up two hours after the street was open. We think they did not believe me when I made the call but they arrived within five and moved it swiftly.

I freaking forgot Ben's fourth birthday until like freaking 6 pm. MFD was thankfully still there and hoofed it over to Wawa for birthday cheeseburger, eggs, and chopped beef since we celebrate Mae's birthday with Ben's. Total fail as people who celebrate dog birthdays but the rally was strong. MFD took Gus and Billy home and I finished a book and started another before bed. 

Sunday Easy like Sunday morning as miraculously these dogs slept until 8. Mostly because Gus the 6 am dog was not there. I read, cleaned up, cleaned out the fridge, had a bagel, exchanged water jugs at ACME, returned books and picked up a hold from the library, filled my car up with gas, sorted through some towels, made wings in the air fryer (if you haven't, try Black-woman owned Chef Curl Ardee mild seasoning and lemon herb seasoning), put out some football food, placed my orders of what I need for the week, and read and did some blogging while Dad & Carol watched the Eagles game. I mean while I watched the Eagles game.

I made change your life chicken for dinner and missed my window to hit the beach with the dogs. I can do drizzle or coming dark but not both simultaneously. We were in bed by 9 and I was up until midnight finishing a book. 

Happy Indigenous People's Day! No, I am not off for this, have never been off for the artist formerly known as Columbus Day since I graduated college, and in general work every bank holiday as those who don't get them off call them. 

The 7th Anniversary of Show Us Your Books is tomorrow - see you here for that! There will be prizes.