Monday, November 15, 2010

Weekend Wrap-up

Wow!  What a busy weekend!  It's funny ... we're retired so every day is a weekend to us ... yet our weekends still are full of stuff to do!

This weekend, I
  • had a stay-at-home date night with DH ... fixed a steak dinner and then watched Invictus.
  • attended a workshop put on by my quilt guild ... I learned how to do needle-turn applique.  While I love to hand quilt, I'm not a big fan of hand sewing ... nor am I normally a fan of appliqued quilts.  So applique is probably not going to be something I do very often ... but as I mentioned yesterday, I have a box full of some of my mom's completed appliqued blocks and the pieces to complete some more.  I want to finish those blocks and put them together to make a wall hanging.  Like I said yesterday, they're not the pattern that I'd choose if I were going to make an appliqued quilt, but they were the last quilting project my mom worked on (she probably had to stop working on it when she was diagnosed with lung disease).
  • quilted while watching the Blues lose - again.  Hopefully they won't lose 7 in a row (they won 7 in a row before this current losing streak).
  • drove up to DD's to check on their house each day while they're out of town (they went to visit DSIL's sister in Chattanooga).
  • drove to O'Fallon to pick up DSIL's car (DD & the Ts drove the loaded van to O'Fallon to pick up DSIL from work, leaving his car in the parking lot); we drove it back to their house so it'll be there for him when he has to go back to work Thursday morning.
  • had lunch at Chili's while in O'Fallon (I had the big mouth bites ... I could only eat 2 so I have lunch already planned for today!).
  • attended Sunday School and worship.
  • attended a Financial Oversight team meeting at church to discuss the 2011 budget.
  • started our initial planning for our spring trip ... we are going to go in March this year because I'll be going to the Oregon coast with my dad and my sister in May (we usually prefer to take our spring trip in May).  Because we're going in March, we'll go further south so we can get warmer weather ... and take in a few spring training games while we're at it (since we usually get the spring training bug in early March anyway).  Because we're on a fixed income now that we're retired, we have a very tight travel budget.  If we can keep our lodging costs as low as possible, we can parlay those savings into more traveling.  We've always preferred to spend as little as possible on lodging anyway because we'd much rather spend our daylight hours on the beach or seeing the sights.  We don't need a lot of the luxuries or amenities offered by the pricier hotels ... as long as our hotel/motel is in a safe area and is clean (and comes with Wi-Fi ha!), we're ok. For this trip, we had a really hard time finding a motel that was in our price range ... we were even looking at motels along the interstate, with intentions of driving the 30 minutes over to the beach and finally we found a motel - ON THE BEACH!!!! <vbg> - in our price range, with good reviews, that's convenient to a couple of spring training ball parks, so we've got the hard part of our trip planning out of the way!  




Today I'm thankful for being able to travel.  When DH & I dreamed of retiring, we always talked about moving to the beach ... but as frequently happens, life intervenes ... in our case, the arrival of 4 Ts.  I just couldn't move that far away.  So as a compromise, we travel ... so far through adhering to a very strict budget, we've been able to afford take a couple of trips during the year.  We even enjoy the challenge of finding a destination, of finding lodging that will fit in our budget.  We love the time together driving to our destination ... even retired, we find ourselves so busy that sometimes we don't have (or take) the time to just sit and talk.  I'm thankful for the opportunities that we have to travel.

6 comments:

  1. I've had so many clients tell me after retirement they don't know how they ever found the time to go to work.

    I also had one that sold his pickup, he got tired of people think he had time to help everyone move :)

    I think the real secret is our tasks fill the time we have to do them in.
    Thanks for stopping by my blog. Your beach photo on the side bar is beautiful!
    Sharyn in Kalama

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there, Happy Monday. You and I share so many commonalities-quilting, not being into applique per say and living on a fixed income. I love hand quilting and have taken classes at major quilt shows that teach applique but for some reason it was just hard and I didn't enjoy it but your mom's squares would definitely be a reason to learn. We too are living on a tight budget and retirement isn't necessarily what I thought it would be. We try to travel where we have a timeshare(had it for many years)and that makes it challenging. Hubby would rather live in the islands but with 9 grands here, I don't think so.
    Blessings this day to you friend.
    Noreen

    ReplyDelete
  3. Holiday planning...that sounds like fun : )

    Did you like Invicuts? We haven't managed to see it yet.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just found you through some random surfing. I am glad that I did ~ I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.
    Blessings in abundance to you.

    Blondie

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for visiting my blog. I had to drop by yours and say hello. I'll follow yours and look forward to you following mine. God bless the rest of your week.

    Viola of www.alongawidowedroad.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Holiday planning...that sounds like fun : )

    Did you like Invicuts? We haven't managed to see it yet.

    ReplyDelete

I am SO glad you stopped by! No proving that you're a robot here ... I want to hear what you have to say! ;-)