Has it been 2 weeks already??

I feel like I just blogged the other day, and when I looked at the date of the last one, it says February 16th. Really!?? Well, yeah, I guess yes really.

I had a long and tiring weekend down in the tri-state area. I left Thursday afternoon around 1:30pm (just as it was starting to snow), stopped in Maywood to gas up, then kept going and got to my aunt and uncle's house out on Long Island around 8:45pm. I will say this. After not having to drive around for two months, and even if I did have to drive it was a very short distance on empty local roads, it was a harrowing experience driving the highways from NJ Rt 17, Rt 80, I-95, Cross and Long Island Expressways. O.M.G. I was stiff when I finally got there just from being so tense!

I had a great visit and will definitely be stopping in again next time I have drill! Made it to Ft. Totten early before I had to report at 12 noon on Friday, did three hours of copying and filing, then retired to my hotel room, courtesy of the US Army, and just chilled. I got 3 blocks done of the blanket I'm STILL working on. Other than that, I seriously just sat around ALL night til I went to sleep. It felt incredibly good to be that lazy.

Saturday was a normal drill day, no news there, we got out late, almost 5pm, I went back to the hotel, showered, then followed Veronica to Queens College where I saw her (and her boyfriend!) perform in Postcards from Morocco. It was a bit avant garde for me, but I enjoyed it! By then it was late so I went back to the hotel (thank God for GPS otherwise I probably would have been lost in Queens, crying on a side street somewhere) and went to sleep after playing some Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky.

Sunday was another 'normal' drill day. I did get to leave early on account of having a 6+ hr drive home (even though I wasn't driving home til Monday. Shhhh). But I only missed PT and the usual 40 minute closing formation, so it's not like I missed out on anything important. After I left Totten I went to pick up Caelyn from her dad's, and my goodness I was so happy to have her back! We stopped by the old apartment where I talked to the super for a good while, got to hug the boys next door, and Caelyn got to play outside with her friends for almost an hour before we headed over to Uncle Bill's. She really enjoyed that, and she was a trooper when we had to leave: no huge tantrums about "five more minutes" or anything like that; I was very proud of her!

My sister and her boyfriend came up to see us at Uncle Bill's, we got to give them their Christmas presents that Caelyn had picked out at the school holiday store! AND my sister made cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery cook book, and holy sugar they were a-mazing. The icing was a little too sweet for me, but the overall package was so so so tasty and beautiful with the pink icing and fancy shiny sprinkles and everything!

We went to sleep late and woke up early and left around 9am. We stopped to get bagels to bring home because we cannot get good bagels here. Fresh grocery store bagels are NOT the same as getting a bagel from a bagel shop in NJ or NYC. They taste so good! Anyway, we actually left at 9:15 after having stopped for the bagels and at the gas station. It was nasty rainy until we left NJ, then it was really foggy until we were north of Albany, then just drizzly til we hit the High Peaks rest area, where we saw the first flakes of snow. The roads weren't bad so I decided to chance going through the High Peaks instead of up through Plattsburgh. I love driving through the mountains and I'm more familiar with the roads, which were thankfully clear. Nothing but a little wet.

We got home safe and sound around 4:15pm and that was the end of our trip. Hooray! Home sweet home.

It's Snowing. Again!

It seems snowing is the "norm" here in the North Country. I am now convinced that when the weather report says 70% chance of snow, it REALLY means that it will snow at least 70% of the day. The last two days have been sunny (weird!). So sunny, in fact, that some of the snow cover started to melt enough to be able to make a snowman! Me and Caelyn went out after school yesterday and rolled together a boy snowman and a girl snowman (snowoman?).

At any rate, it was almost a relief to see it starting to snow this morning as I was working out to the Plyometrics and Cardio Circuit DVD. It went well. I made it through the warm-up and the first circuit set better than the first time, but really pooped out on the second circuit set. I also definitely sweated a lot more than when I did the same one last week. I think it's because we turned up the heat a little in the living room in the mornings, so instead of jumping around in 58 degrees, it was a balmy 65. I had to crack the door open a bit for a breeze to cool myself off! I also had to pause the video in the middle to get myself some more water.

I did skip Sunday's and Monday's workouts, mostly because Caelyn was home on Monday, and I wanted to move my rest day back to Sunday so I could follow the Insanity calendar how it was written. So, yes, I did skip two workouts. But I jumped back on yesterday and did the prescribed video and hopefully will keep it up. I also got my uncle's old treadmill in the basement now. I need to hook it up and see if I can get it running; it's an old clunker from like, 15 years ago. So when I get it running I'll be doing that as well as Insanity in the AM.

On the craft side, I am almost finished the second set of blocks for the Crochet-a-long blanket I've resolved myself to finish. Two more double crochet blocks, and then it's on to treble crochet in the next color! Woo! I'm excited about this blanket. The first block set took so long; I think because it takes more rows of single crochet to make 9 inches than double crochets. More rows=more time. So I expect the next block set to take even shorter. I will have to find my camera and take some pictures. Can't wait to have all the blocks done and get it sewed together!