Hello Monday- first weekend of 2024

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday for the first weekend of 2024...

On Thursday, I received a text from our internet provider saying something to the effect that there may be power outages over the weekend due to storms and they would do their best to restore service to anyone who lost it. Storms? What? I knew there was a chance of snow/ wintry mix but not knock-out-internet power- kind of storms. I guess the internet company was trying to preemptively warn in a worse case scenario. 

We did end up getting a bit of snow (as was predicted) but not a storm and nary an internet outage so it was all good! We didn’t plan much of anything in case the weather ended up being worse than was predicted and it sounded good to not do too much. The previous weekends having been full of fun yet lots of running around/ being around others- all good- but a weekend of nothing sounded really good, too!

Friday, was homemade pizza for dinner. I hadn’t made pizza since October or so. After dinner, Donnie took a cat nap and I went on a run/ walk. Normally, Friday is a rest day, exercise wise for me but new year, new exercise commitment (and some *new* pounds to try to rid of!) 

Saturday, we woke up to snow! It was pretty while it lasted. We only got about an inch and a half and it was pretty much all gone by the evening. While there was snow on the driveway and sidewalks, at one point, I heard the sound of a snow shovel on our driveway. I looked out and it was one of the neighbor boys shoveling our driveway. It was sweet of him and I gave him some money for the good deed... The temps rose and the snow melted as the day progressed and nature would have cleared the driveway for us... but that’s ok!!

Alyssa and I like to watch movies or a show in the middle of the day if the weather is bad (I can’t think of a time where we’ve watched a movie during the day if the weather is good. It has to be raining or a snow day and there’s no school or when it’s snowy on the weekend). So when it was still snowing, we watched the movie Crazy Rich Asians which we’d never seen. 

After the movie, I texted with both Jacob and Abby. Jacob didn’t have plans for dinner so we decided to meet for dinner in West Chester. Abby was having a bit of a more exciting day in Paris than we were in Ohio- shocking to imagine!! As part of the fee for the trip to France, several excursions/ activities were included. A trip to the Paris Opera House to see a ballet was on the agenda for Saturday. Abby sent a couple of pictures. 

Donnie and I drove to West Chester to meet Jacob for dinner (Alyssa had plans with a friend so she wasn’t with us). We met at Liberty Town Center and ate at Pies & Pints which we’d never been to before. I had neither pie nor pint but my grilled chicken sandwich and salad were both good. Donnie and Jacob  got specialty pizzas and liked them. We will eat here again!

Afterward, we shopped just a little at a Dillard’s store that is in the vicinity and then went home and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Sunday was church- the message was a good one and we were the last ones to leave as two sets of our friends were at church so we all talked for a long time afterward. We awarded Alyssa for her patience by getting her coffee at Bigby and then we all got lunch at Jimmy John’s.

I was pleased to see light lemonade at JJ’s. I have given up sugar and pop since the new year (though I do not plan to abstain from these items for the year- just until February); most drink dispensers don’t have a sugar free non pop option so I was happy to see the diet lemonade. It was tart and as good as diet lemonade can be....

At home, I was on Kroger’s website and it had a coupon for $15 off your first pickup order if the order was above $75. I had never done pickup before. Going into a store to shop seems normal and my life is not so busy that I don’t have time to grocery shop. On the other hand $15 off an order was too good to pass up. So I assembled an order from my Chromebook and then picked it up when it was ready. I am still ambivalent about the whole thing. If I worked full time I would likely use pick up more. We will see. But I’m glad that I tried it and received $15 off the order (there is no cost to using the service if the total comes to $35 or more. Since I had to spend $75 to get $15 off, I obviously met the $35 threshold).

Donnie watched some football while Alyssa and I read. After dinner we relaxed some more and then it was time for bed. Weekends go by so fast- I feel badly for full time workers that it’s a five day work week for the first time since before Christmas.