The week was pretty normal. Monday we had burgers for dinner, Tuesday chicken fajita salad with fresh salsa, Wednesday parmesan herb sausages and sauteed Swiss chard, Thursday pasta with fresh marinara sauce. Friday both of us had big lunches and weren’t that hungry, and we had lots to do. Since Jill was starting school, she had decided to not only clean but organize her stuff in various areas, so she was working on that, as well as downloading stuff for classes. I was catching up on TV while organizing the living room. We had pizza after 10, then kept going. I went to bed sometime after 3.
Saturday Jill asked me to wake her up at 11. Difficult, since I didn’t wake until 11:30. We got moving quickly, going straight to my company picnic. They held it at J.R.’s, and there was pulled pork sandwiches, hot dogs, and sno cones. We hung out for a couple hours talking, then got going. We stopped at Best Buy (CDs for me, Jill looked at voice recorders), World Market (beer and cooking supplies for me, jewelry for Jill), and Bed Bath and Beyond (grill cover and baster for me, organizing baskets for Jill), then home for a couple hours. We left again at 6 for a pool party at a friend’s in Maryland. They had a nice spread of BBQ from Famous Dave’s, and a number of our friends were there. It was good catching up with everyone, and we didn’t leave until after midnight. I’d forgotten about the Redskins game Saturday night, and regretted doing so, until I heard the result. I know it’s only the preseason, but getting shutout by the Pats is not going to help matters.
Sunday I again woke at 11:30 and needed to get going. In this case, my mom was only home between 12:30 and 2:30, and I needed to set up her new computer. Her old machine was running Windows 95 and had finally croaked. I tried to boot it in safe mode and was unsuccesful, so put it in my car to deal with later. Best Buy had run a good deal during Virginia’s sales tax holiday weekend where they paid the sales tax on any purchase, so I’d had her buy one of the eMachines on sale. It was close to the one I’d purchased for myself, so it was a breeze to assemble. I’d brought software to install, a good thing as I was not able to set up her cable modem. Not because of the modem, the cable kit they sent just had some cable and a splitter, and she needed the cable brought down from the attic, which meant much longer cable, plus a way to cut and crimp the line. So I cleaned up and tried to help my sister put together my mom’s new entertainment center, but it was missing some pieces, so we had to stop.
I stopped at Micro Center on the way home. They were offering $16 1GB USB drives, so I picked one up, but I needed an Ethernet port and some CAT5 cable for our old computer. Our old one was running Windows 98 poorly, so it was sitting in a closet after we got the eMachines one. But Jill needed one for school, so I’d promised to get it ready. The first thing I did was slave my mom’s hard drive to the Windows 98 box and grab her data off that, then grabbed the rest of Jill’s data and burned a CD before reformatting both machines. I could not install Windows 98 on the Windows 95 machine, but was able to reinstall it on the other one. Of course, it didn’t complete, calling my product key invalid even though I’d just written it down from the registry. I thought I found a workaround to force it to accept it, but no luck yet.
We headed out around 7:45 to catch the Rock n’ Roll Songwriters Circle at Jammin’ Java, featuring Charlie from The Sketches, Todd from Getaway Car, Anthony from The Echoes, and Shane from Shane Hines And The Trance. It was like the song swaps at Falcon Ridge, and fun to watch. Due to our schedule, we could only stay for the first set though. I’d had a sandwich earlier, so Jill had her usual chili and 1/2 sandwich there, then I had some eggs when I got home. Jill was in bed by midnight, and I followed soon after.
Today Jill had to be at school (brr – that phrase sends chills down my spine, I’m glad it’s her and not me) by 8, so she got up at 5:45 to catch the 6:37 bus from the Herndon park and ride. I decided to get up soon after to make it into work by 7, so when I left for my massage at 2:15, I could leave for the day. It was nice, I got home at 4 feeling very relaxed. I played with Illa, then read the Saturday and Sunday papers. I made pulled pork from chops Jill had bought on Sunday, and Jill got home around 5. She was sleepy and took a nap while I made BBQ sauce and a fruit salad. Now I’m trying to finish so I can get to bed early and maybe keep this schedule this week.