Busy weekend + dead laptop = no posting

The laptop is sick. Hopefully the nerd herd at the big box retailer in the suburbs can fix it. The power supply is not talking nicely to the computer, and the battery is dead. So no pictures. No posts on my cooking blog, even though I have tons of great pictures ready to narrate. Everyone please take a moment of silence, praying for the speedy and inexpensive healing of the laptop.

Even if the laptop had been well all weekend, I very well may not have posted. We stayed busy, with adventure after adventure.


I spent Saturday morning doing research for NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month). I don't know if I'll really be able to write the required 50,000 words to "win", but I'm going to give it a good try. (The laptop, of course, is a necessary ingredient. Can't lug the desktop when we go out of town, and writing longhand sounds like torture.) I'm planning to write a historical novel inspired by a large collection of family correspondence that was transcribed by a distant cousin. Most of the letters are from the Civil War era, and I found myself chuckling and laughing out loud at some of them. I think the snarkyness? Comes from my mom's side of the family. There was some serious snark going on.

After reading hundreds of pages of Civil War letters, it was time to get dressed and do something outdoors, given the perfect weather. So we all suited up in comfortable clothes and hit the three-mile hiking trail at Shelby Forest. It's a challenging trail with lots of ups and downs (surprising, yes, since we're in the Mississippi Delta). I can tell that working out is doing good, because I wasn't a bit sore the next day.

But the day wasn't finished yet! The next planned event was a fancy night out with a girlfriend (drinks! the opera! fancy!), so I showered and started getting ready. Thank goodness I put on some clothes, because somehow (seriously, I don't know how) the front door was open and the dogs escaped and there was a ten-minute dog-chasing frenzy (which has, strangely, been followed by a period of uncharacteristic mellowness on the part of our big, hyper dog...not sure what happened but she's better for it), all of which would have been a nightmare in a towel or bathrobe. I got dressed in the nick of time, and my buddy and I hit the town in grand style. Drinks were great, the opera was great, all's well.

And then? As if the weekend hadn't been busy enough?

Sunday gets bullet points.

• Blah blah church blah blah potluck blah blah recruited to sing in the choir that day since there were no altos and I already knew the music blah blah.
• Shopping with local blogger turned IRL gal pal! She was extremely helpful in finding a dress for me to wear to the much-anticipated wedding of my brother and his hot blonde girlfriend. It's a good sign that I'm picking out my own dress because every time I've worn a bridesmaid's dress the couple has gotten divorced within five years. Yes, I'm the nuptial kiss of death. Hopefully my daughter does not carry the curse, as she's a junior bridesmaid.
• Daughter's girl scout re-dedication (and investiture, for the new girls), which is always jarring, especially since some of these girls are well into puberty. And I've known them since they were three. I promise I didn't sing "Sunrise, Sunset" out loud, but it was really hard not to.
• And we drove home and I made dinner (Swedish meatballs! My mom's recipe! I've never done that before! Alex loved them!)
• Read, watched TV, and went to bed.

I guess you probably didn't need that last bullet, but I didn't want you to think we all just vanished into the mist after dinner. Maybe I should add that I did a load of laundry and washed dishes. No? Too bad I can't post a picture.