Rainy Days and Tuesdays

The weather here has been fantastic lately - mid-sixties and gray and rainy. I'm not being sarcastic; I really love this kind of weather and missed it desperately when we lived in Colorado and it was sunny day after day after freaking day. The clouds and rain remind me of fall and melancholy and thick socks and warm drinks and jackets and books and football and other things that I love.

I will admit that chilly gray days are not ideal for picnics, but that didn't stop us from going to two this weekend anyway. Friday was the employee picnic at my college. It's not nearly as big and fancy as Randy's company picnic, but it was a good time anyway. Randy got to meet most of my co-workers for the first time, we ate Mexican food, and we played the beanbag-toss game. (I lost. Repeatedly.)

Saturday was the neighborhood association block party, and it was pretty windy and cold all day. We ventured out anyway and chatted with more of our neighbors (they're still all very friendly). We also met a woman who grew up in our house - her parents were the original owners of the house, and she still lives in the neighborhood with her husband and kids. Apparently there used to be a hot tub in our backyard.

Sunday we bought dining room furniture! It hasn't been delivered yet, but we're very excited about it. A table big enough for more than two people to sit at! Chairs that match the table and each other! We also got a china cabinet, so the china we got for our wedding may soon be freed from the boxes it's been living in since we got it. Living room furniture is actually kind of a more pressing need - we did have dining room furniture; it just wasn't very nice, whereas we don't have any furniture in the living room yet - but we haven't found anything yet that we liked enough to buy. We'll keep looking.

Help! Help! I'm Being Repressed!

Saturday was International Left-Handers Day. To quote from the newsletter my mom passed along:

Left-handers routinely encounter difficulties that most right-handers do not fully appreciate. For instance: scissors, can openers...power tools and kitchen utensils... For those of us who are right-handed, try using your left hand to do these simple little tasks. You will learn very quickly that it's quite challenging, and hopefully you’ll have a greater appreciation for those who are left-handed.

Darn straight. I celebrated my left-handedness by going with Randy to his company's annual picnic and holding my cotton candy in my left hand.

We had a great time at the picnic. The weather was perfect for an outdoor event - upper-70s and overcast. The event itself was much more elaborate than I had expected - there were carnival rides, bouncy castles, a giant slide, face painters, stilt walkers, a petting zoo, pony rides, bingo, and a catered cookout. We rode the rides, ate some lunch, and looked but did not pet at the zoo. I got to meet a few of Randy's co-workers that I hadn't met before as well.

This weekend was also Lakemoorfest, which is apparently a celebration of all things Lakemoor-ian. We didn't go, because it looked pretty similar to the picnic, only not free, but we did watch the fireworks they had last night. We're close enough that we only had to walk down the street and around the corner a bit in order to see over the houses, which was nice. We were both very impressed with the fireworks - Lakemoor's not a huge place, so we weren't expecting much, but they were fairly spectacular.

Novel update: I'm making good progress. I'm not quite matching George's furious pace, but I only need 1700 words by the end of tomorrow (very do-able; I wrote 2600 today) in order to reach the 25,000 word mark. Then I'll be halfway finished by the halfway point!

The book's definitely going to need editing once it's done, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. I'm sure I'll have changed my mind by the time I've rewritten half of it, but let me keep my illusions for now.