A Hot Weekend...

It's really hot out there. The thermometer on the bank as I drove back from my parents' said it was 93 degrees. Of course, trying to be an energy conservationalist, I turned off my air-conditioning on Friday night as I left for my parents and now, in an effort to stay sane in my house, I turned it on. I think anything I saved by not having it on all weekend is probably going to be spent trying to cool the house down. Ah well, it's starting to get cooler, at least.

I had a fun trip to my parents' though. Saturday was another citywide garage sale day, this time for a neighbouring town. I went last year with my sister and brother-in-law, my garage sale gurus. This year, my sister couldn't make it due to some pretty massive homework commitments- she's in her last weeks of school before graduating with her nursing degree. Since I've become a bit of a garage sale junkie, I ended up getting my mother to come along. She's only gone to a few in the past so I thought she should have the experience of a whole lot of them.

It was a very successful trip. I managed to spend less than $30 and I managed to get the following: a Giada DiLaurentis cookbook, some Harry Potter bookends, a Harry Potter jigsaw, an oil-filled heater, four paperback and two hardback books in mint condition, some copper butterflies to decorate my future-Tuscan-villa room, some mini mirrors in antique frames for the same room, a combination immersion whisk/blender, a plant basket and a very nice opera CD (for which I paid a whopping 5 cents). I'm sure I got some other bits but that wasn't bad going for a couple of hours work, I think.

It was pretty hot though, traipsing through the sales. My favourite one was the people who will always be "The Cat People" in my head. They had a box of books for perusal. In this box, they had two copies of How to Live with a Neurotic Cat, as well as books entitled, Talk to your cat!, How to Communicate with your Cat. Also, there were, Correcting Behavioral Problems in Problematic Cats and Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers' Soul along with Cats have Feelings Too!. Something told me that they were very serious about dealing with their troublesome cat. I don't know why that amused me but, as a dog person, I couldn't help but wonder if it was possible that a cat could be that problematic that they had so many books. Perhaps they were gifts? Who knows. It amused me.

There were also a lot of underwear people. Note to anyone selling stuff at a garage sale. It is NOT cool to sell used underwear. People like cheap stuff and I get that but, uh, it's used underwear. That is disgusting.

Still, I like citywide garage sales. You learn a lot about a town. In this one, they're hardcore romance readers. There were so many garage sales with nothing but Harlequin romances, Danielle Steel, Johanna Lindsay and all the brain-candy/trashy novels that provide escapism. However, in contrast, the citywide garage sale a while ago in my parent's town revealed that people really, really like Christian fiction and, even more prominantly, Christian non-fiction.

I had fun showing my mum the ropes. She was a little timid. I couldn't blame her. I used to be like that. Then I became a junkie and I don't mind anymore. I have no problem rifling through people's stuff when it's for sale. I hope that doesn't say anything bad about me.

The rest of the weekend was nice. Today, being Father's Day, brought my siblings to my parents. That's always fun although my older brother can sometimes be a little oblivious. He arrived at lunch time and, thinking he and his wife wouldn't stay too long, we decided to wait until he'd left to eat since they'd already eaten. Well, today, apparently, my brother was in a chatty mood. He also did a slide show of his recent trip to Japan. Long story short, we probably shouldn't have waited for lunch since by the time he left, it was almost 4 p.m. Nevertheless, it was fun to see him since I don't always get to spend much time with him. My sister and her family arrived after he left with my almost-ur-year-old niece was pretty hectic. The puppies get a little overexcited when she comes over to play. Getting them in their carrier to come home was not as easy as usual.

All in all, it's been a nice weekend even if it is hot. I had to drive through another scary storm on Friday night to get there. The sky was so purple, I thought we were going to have a tornado. As it was, we were hit with gusts of wind that blew branches in our path, gravel from the rural roads against our windows and, at times, almost blew us off the road. We forged onward and ended up having a nice weekend.

Now we're home and the house is cooling and I think it's time to see what the puppies are up to. I hate that the weekend is winding down and that tomorrow starts a week of work. This week, I'm a little afraid that the conference attendees are going to be a wee bit superior and full of their news about how awesome it was. I'm sure it was. Still, our week in the office was pretty awesome too. We wound up the Office Olympics on Friday with rubber band archery, paper plate discus, paper plane flying and guess who contests. I'm proud to say I took the silver due to my ability to flick rubber bands. I did have a former coworker who used to be a target so I have had plenty of practice. It was nice to stand up and get my medal though- as a group, we had a lot of fun.

Still, whatever the week holds, there's always a weekend at the end of it. Which is a sad thing to say on a Sunday night but, let's face it, I think we all prefer not working to working...right?

Happy Monday!