weekend review

My first girls trip!

| cheriarmour

Hi!  Hey!  What’s up?  Do you miss me?  Are you wondering if I quit blogging?  What am I doing?  Maybe not?

So hey, I’m still here.  I just have a (not so) newborn, and I’ve been crushing it at work, but not crushing it as much in blogland.  Which I absolutely hate, so here we are!

I somehow by the grace of the good lord above ::skin-tone appropriate praise hands:: have survived a few whirlwind weekends of work, travel, and packing the baby and husband into my little compact, and making it back in one piece for work on Mondays.  It’s nuts.  It’s crazy.  It’s fun.

So let’s take it back to a few weekends ago, when I survived my first girls trip!

So a few months ago, a friend who was turning 30 said he wanted to plan something, and he sent out an invite, a date, and a gorgeous photo of a cabin in the Shenendoah State Park area of Virginia.  I’d just had Liam, but I was really determined to do something that would require me to leave him at home with dad for a weekend or so, and I figured that early spring would be a good chance to try it.  So I talked it over with Austin, confirmed, and since time is accelerating (I swear it is), found myself up early on a Friday morning, packing stuff for me, getting the baby’s stuff together for daycare that day, thawing milk, and finally, heading out of town on a rainy Friday, with my podcasts (S-Town), my audiobooks (Andy Cohen’s Superficial), and my breast pump stuff for the morning and into the afternoon.

My first stop was in Richmond, about 3 hours away from where I am in Raleigh, to have lunch with someone I used to work for.  She’d just accepted a position in Richmond, and I stopped just off of 95 with her to have some lunch and to take a pump break before I finished the last two hours or so.

I arrived at the cabin just after dinner (I had to stop at the super Target in Short Pump to pick up some cleaning stuff for my bottles), and was one of the first ones there, along with the birthday boy, and some friends.  I ran to my hidey hole upstairs for one more pump break (that was kind of the theme of some of the weekend because OMG) and we started the weekend.  We drank, got in the hot tub, I called the hubby and the baby, who were both doing amazing, and we finished off the night by watching RuPaul’s Drag Race (now at a bizarre time on Vh1, which is a discussion for another day), and I fell asleep after promising I wouldn’t, long before everyone else did.  Seriously, there is a photo of me dead asleep with my phone still up to my ear (I may have been talking to Austin?!) completely passed our for the night.  I was told that someone came in and flipped lights on and off, strobe light style, and I didn’t budge.

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The cabin! 

The next day, we all woke up, and one of us cooked breakfast.  I pumped, ran down our corner of the mountain and back up, and by the time I got back, we were getting ready to do a gorgeous hike in the park.  It was rough, and about halfway through, we split off, and half the group headed back, and the rest of us continued to the peak.  I was reminded that I don’t entirely do heights (at all), and as we came back down the mountain, it was starting to get a tad darker and a tad chillier.  That evening, we cooked dinner, baked a birthday cake for the birthday boy, listened to ALL the music, practiced old tap routines with one of the theater nerds there, some of us got back in the hot tub, and just enjoyed one another’s company.  I managed to pump some more and build up a little stash, and major shout out to my friends, who don’t have kids for the most part, but who were ridiculously understanding and curious about what breastfeeding entailed.  They are the best.

Sunday was good

Weekend Update

| cheriarmour

I hope you guys had a good weekend.

I’m officially swimming through all of my workouts.  The heat and humidity in North Carolina is absolutely unbearable – both classes I taught last week were nuts, and then on my run on Sunday evening, sweat was literally dripping down my nose,and into my eyes.  I’m desperately continuing to run, and hoping that my heat training will turn into something good by the end of the summer.

So on Sunday morning, I woke up early, and we had some friends over for brunch.

I got the idea a couple of months back in DC.  In DC, a lot of my friends, both married and single, live in these group house type situations, and last time I was there, I went to a brunch at one of the group houses.  It was cool, it was kinda like being at Bob Evans, without having to go to Bob Evans.  Plus here in the Bible Belt, they can’t serve alcohol out until 12pm, so if you try and go to brunch much earlier you’re all…

FridayRookie mistake. 😦 😦

Then you have to drag out brunch for a very long time while people glare at you for not giving up your table.

So we decided to do brunch at our place.  Wanna see why the South has such a problem with weight?

DSC_0728That would be a biscuit, eggs, some really really good hash brown casserole, some fruit for good measure, scones, and some mimosa.  All of which I ate.  I ran after cause I felt really bad!

Your favorite breakfast food??

How was your weekend?

Where is the time going?

| cheriarmour

I’m sitting in my apartment after a full day, and I’m seriously wondering (as I gear up to spectate the Raleigh Half-Ironman tomorrow) where the hell the time is going.

After work yesterday, me and Matthew made a much, much-needed to Coquette, a local french spot where I killed two glasses of wine, and truffle fries.  An amazing way to end the week.

photoAfter that, we headed to Total Wine (cause the two glasses just wasn’t enough), sampled some full-bodied Spanish wines, and I took  a nice bottle home to enjoy by my lonesome while I waited on the man-friend to get done doing boy stuff.

This morning, I headed to teach a Zumba class, met up at Starbucks with some folks for a meeting, and finally, drove down to Durham with my man to pick up some more goodies for the wedding off Craigslist!

By the time all was said and done, it was 8pm, and I’m really wondering how I can squeeze a few more hours of the day.

Today, as you read, I join some friends with a few cowbells to spectate the Half Ironman in Raleigh, and I couldn’t be more pumped!

What did you do this weekend?

 

Weekend recap.

| cheriarmour

I hope you had a really really good weekend.  I would say that not only was my weekend good, but it was really really productive, and it’s high time that I’ve been productive on a weekend.  Unfortunately, that means that it kinda feels like I didn’t stop working all weekend, but at least I got shiz done, right?

So Friday night, I’m pretty sure I told you guys that since I went to body pump early, that I went to bed pretty much when I got done with work.  That was that.

Saturday, I headed down to Elon, about an hour away, to teach at Elonthon, a 24-hour Dance Marathon that benefits the Duke Children’s Hospital.  To say it was nuts (in the best way possible) would be the understatement of the century.

DSC_0214Since I get sort of nervous before I teach any class, walking into this group of spirited college students made me a little nervous.  But I hopped on stage, and as soon as I started my first song, I felt he nerves sort of disappear, and launched into 30 minutes of a class, that I hope pumped everyone else for the last 4ish hours of the marathon. As always, Elon kids continue to do amazing things, and I’m impressed by their spirit.

I managed to continue my little personal tradition, and go for a short little run around Elon’s campus, and as I was doing that, I couldn’t help but wonder if I looked old, and if folks could tell that my old ass didn’t belong there.

I’d planned to stop by the wedding venue since it was right down the street but as usual, I overbooked myself, and I didn’t have time to stop anywhere because I stopped by a few art stores to grab more buttons for a project that was to come later on this week.

And, to wrap up Saturday I headed to Raleigh Beerfest to drink, and to hang out with my hubby and his friends.  I drank enough until my old self was ready to go home and go to sleep.  God bless you folks out here in these streets who was able (proper southern grammar) to keep the party going after Beerfest, my hubby included, but that was not me.

10171077_10100299026849773_1888318097_nBeerfest!

And then on Sunday, once I woke up, I scrubbed the apartment (thanks to the foster Beagle, I had to scrub a few really ripe spots in the carpet), and then set out to getting down to wedding stuff.  Do you guys mind if I give you a little sneak peek into Wedding Wednesday?

10151197_10100299276958553_1782262188_nI spent a few hours creating a practice bouquet that will act as a template for my girls.  It took a while, but I’ve given myself enough time to make a unique bouquet for each and every one of my girls, and one to throw, so that they will have something to keep as a token from their time spent with me.  What do you think?

Okay loves, how was your weekend?