weekends are wonderful

last night i got off work and went out to dinner and a few drinks with paige (a coworker) and melissa. after several difficult days of work and a less than fun halloween experience, a girls' night out on the town was certainly in order. my fabulously wonderful husband agreed to drop melissa and me off at bogart's so we wouldn't have to drive, park, or wait for anything! i got a glass of wine and some she crab soup while we waited for paige to join us. for the record, while much of bogart's food is very good, the she crab could use improvements.

paige joined us, and we all ate comfort food. then we went to the red room for chocolate fondue and cocktails. it was great to have two fun girls to laugh and tell stories with. i sure missed having good friends around to hang out with when we were in boone! after red room, we wandered down to meet andrew for "first friday" and joined him at a gallery where gabe dj's. he had eaten dinner with marc and lora while we had our girls' evening. we didn't stay long, as none of us were really into the kind of art that place had, but we did wander around upstairs at another gallery that had some pretty good photography. afterwards, we stopped in the cupcake shoppe, just to show melissa and paige what it was like. no one got anything though - the fondue was enough! after we dropped paige off, andrew decided he wanted to be a fireman, and the three of us escaped the scary dark back road to the car.

this morning, we met jackie for breakfast/brunch at panera and then went upstairs and bought our new mattress! well we "bought" it... in that we chose it and applied and were approved for the financing so we don't actually have to pay for it for 18 months or something. by then, andrew will have a job, and we'll be in a much better position. we also picked out a different bedroom set at restoration hardware with extremely good construction and a much better look than the other one, but we probably won't be able to afford it, so we're just excited about the new mattress... whenever it is delivered!

when we got home, i went through a few boxes of books and school supplies and spent some time trying to plan. i didn't get a whole lot done before melissa showed up and it was time to go to cary for the band competition! the three of us headed out together and spent a few hours enjoying the performances. jordan and panther creek were both great and much improved since we saw them at the app competition. i was proud of the guard girls at jordan for how clean they were and how well they performed. panther creek also did a great job for their inexperience and age. wakefield, however, made me want to get up and leave the stadium. how can you have a marching band show with no real drums?! they used a drum machine. ridiculous. and while their band may or may not have been good, and their guard was unfortunately awesome, i was so distracted by stupid gimmicks and flashy crap, that i hardly noticed there even was a band. barf.

jackie called, and we left the competition to meet her at sushi blues for dinner. our purchase at dormia put them over the edge into bonus world, so she treated us - THANK YOU JACKIE!!! the food was great, and the company was even better. partway through dinner byron showed up, and the 5 of us decided to come back to our house and watch melissa's video project "who's your daddy?" this was a psych project in the form of an episode of sex and the city where melissa directed (and pretty much did everything else), and i was carrie. everyone got a good laugh out of my big screen debut, and it was fun to see myself on tape from a few years ago. [andrew gettin' some sweet lovin' - gosh my husband is hot!!]

all in all, this has been a pretty good weekend and a great day. now i just have to get down to business tomorrow and plan the next week... or month... or whatever. oh, and grade papers... teaching is lame! :-P