Are the weekends actually getting shorter all the time?

We had a nice time last night. We went for a walk at the Arboretum and then headed off for dinner at Bella Notte, which was a decent Italian place of the slightly fancy sort as opposed to the Fazoli's sort--oddly enough, though, it seems to be owned by the Fazoli's company, after a brief web search for a decent URL. Weird. Bet they try not to let THAT get out--it's much more Olive Garden than Fazoli's. Anyway. We headed to Joseph-Beth, which is at least one of the nicest bookstores ever, and then headed back to their house for coffee. At least, the Swedes had coffee.. the Americans abstained, as it's the middle of bloody summer. (No, I'm kidding.. I just don't really drink coffee, winter or not, but the concept always struck me as funny..)

I knew that Jenny was into needlework.. she mentioned it, and I told her that I used to be into cross-stitch some but now I tat. I said it in the usual tone--there have only been a couple of people who know what I'm talking about at all when I say that, so I usually have to explain that it's a form of lacemaking. She said, "oh! Needle or shuttle?" This impressed the hell out of me. :) I brought my tatting box in when we got back to the house and we looked at the doily I'm working on and I taught her the basics of tatting.. she picked the hard part up quite fast. (You have to flip your stitches, which some people have a very hard time with. Other than that, it's extremely easy, which no one really believes.) Then we got to go look at her needleworks in various stages of completion, almost all of which are hanging around in closets because it's extremely expensive to get this stuff framed. (I have the same problem.. there are a few things here in frames, but they're not done correctly and they could well mildew, which would suck a lot.) There were some pretty advanced things, with drawn and pulled stitches and tapestry-style projects and lots of that stuff.. it was very neat. I tend to like simple stuff when it comes to stitchery, but then again, I didn't do it very long. So we talked craftiness most of the evening while the guys griped about work. :) All in all, a fun evening.. we didn't get home until almost one, though of course it takes us over an hour to get home from the middle of town.

My grandfather (who is at absolutely no risk of ever stumbling across this.. hehe) is going to have a surprise birthday party next Saturday. He's been through so much this year with his health that we wanted to fuss over him a little more than normal. There are also several festivals and events going on this month, so for once we actually have things written down on our calendar. M really wants to see Nickel Creek next Thursday, but it's the Friends premiere night! *whine* Yeah, I know, I can tape it but it's not the same. I guess it doesn't help that Nickel Creek really isn't my thing. I guess I'll live, though. :)

I guess I'm not working tomorrow. Feels so strange. I meant to go down tonight and sit at the store for a few minutes to see if the problem is still there. I guess I'll go down sometime tomorrow and check it out. I don't have very high hopes for the reaction to be gone.. we went to my Papaw's house today for a while and I immediately got a lump in my throat.. there's all kinds of stuff from the store in his kitchen at all times, and they made vegetable soup today. It could have been anything, and it certainly was still there Saturday afternoon, so I don't really expect for it to have disappeared. It's so weird.

Anyway. It's time to head to bed, and it's not like I have anything else exciting to say. I'll try to come up with something entertaining this week sometime. :)