This past Epic Weekend was a little less planned and more of a blank canvas than I typically do. All good! The big, primary goal I had was to start tidying and cleaning my place up a bit before my parents visit me during President's Day Weekend coming up in a couple of weeks. I did some minor cleaning and organizing with a few more steps left to go. All good. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I made some decent progress that'll help make the next steps of my swiffing / swiffering much easier. Steve Andrews informs me that the proper term is "swiffering," I explained back to him after so much global dominance, how could "swif / Taylor Swift," NOT be on the top of my mind?
Friday night leaving work I was just wiped out and feeling a little fatigue. I met up with some friends for happy hour at The Irish Cottage Inn, and then went home for an early, low key night. The old school Office reruns they were playing on TV were just what the doctor ordered for me. By the way, I originally spelled out the word "television," instead of TV in that last sentence, and it just simply felt weird. I can't remember the last time we said the full word television.
Saturday morning getting dressed and ready to venture out, it must have been the brightest my condo has been in almost a month. Going nearly two weeks during the winter without any sunshine can really bring you down a smidge. Fortunately for me I had my Steve Learns To Ski Facebook videos with Mountain Creek to help brighten things up. It was plenty bright on there on the mountains with all the snow they have made, even though we only had sunshine one out of the three times we did our videos.
It was only 30 out and feeling a little chilly, albeit seasonal, but I found amusement in seeing people out and about. Even though many people out doing errands like me were shivering, they were still smiling. Everyone was so happy to see sunshine! Even getting my dry cleaning we were talking about how everything just felt so remarkably different with merely partial sunshine! I went to Granny's on 23 in Hamburg for a good breakfast to power up. I was able to brag to friends about so many recent Pet Of The Week success stories, and our 12 Strays Of Christmas we were able to pull off so well in December.
I then found myself back out at Rockaway Mall. I had a massage scheduled with my rock star therapist Elaine, but she had to cancel due to that flu bug that's out there these days. I ended up getting one of those massages in the middle of the mall where they work on you in front of everyone. I have nothing to hide, and if it helps get my knots out, then enjoy the show strangers!
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By this portion of the weekend I still only had one plan set in stone when Bestie Sally reached out and invited me to join her and friends at Dubco Brewery in Warwick. I had only been there once, and was psyched to see my friends no matter where we ended up anyway. It had been far too long. I'm psyched now that we're past the holidays and approaching spring and warmer temperatures, hopefully it will get easier and easier to see people.
Saturday night I had a quiet night in and was looking forward to see what movies might be on TV. (I know, talk about me being old school for sure.) I'm okay with being surprised...once in awhile. ;)
NOTHING I was interested in was on TV at all. I finally caved. I finally signed up for Netflix. I had watched it before with the then fiance way back when, but haven't felt the need to sign up these past couple of years. With more and more content finding their way onto Netflix, even WWE next year, I figured why not join them. Maybe I'll enjoy a nice Saturday night movie.
The signing up process wasn't too bad, $15 per month. I then started searching for some of my favorite movies since they are always bragging about their huge movie selection. After searching for 5 or so of my favorite movies, I gave up going 0 for 5. Nothing I wanted they had. Ah well. TV shows haven't really interested me lately either.
I then ended up watching the Peyton Manning produced Quarterback documentary series. You can see more about that by clicking here. Even though so much of the highlights I had already seen and heard, it was still terrific to watch. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The documentary series followed 3 NFL Quarterbacks - KC Chiefs Patrick Mahomes, Minnesota Vikings Kirk Cousins, and Atlanta Falcons Marcus Mariota. Three quarterbacks in very different situations, and you get to see their lives behind the scenes. When seeing their families, it makes you want to root for them more after seeing them as real people.
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Sunday I was able to get some more errands done. I then received a text from Bestie Jennifer, telling me that she was doing errands in Franklin. I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks, so took a shot offering to take her out for a quick drink at The Cottage in Franklin. I warned my friends that even though I would be joking that she's my "hot date," it wasn't an actual date at all. Nothing wrong with having fun catching up with one of your besties. It was fun catching up with Jennifer, and being able to joke with friends about how we drive each other crazy while watching football together sometimes. It was the perfect stopgap before going out to see besties Sally and Doug.
I got to Dubco first, then ended up running into bestie Marky. After about an hour, we had a feeling that our friends may have been cancelling on us. All good. It happens. Right when we were getting ready to leave, our friends started showing up. We had a wonderful time laughing at Dubco. Our friend Peter tried talking Sally and me into skiing with him President's Day Weekend. They all apparently got quite the kick out of my Learn To Ski videos. Of course perfect timing, they had an extreme skiing competition on TV. It was not for the weak hearted! Weak hearted / newbie skiers like myself! LOL. All good. I told Peter that big crowded weekends aren't good for me, I'm not quite at that level yet. He was very understanding.
Sunday night, The Grammy Awards! To be candid, The Grammy Awards aren't usually one of my favorite events to watch. I know, ironic coming from a music person. In my humble opinion, I think the big stage and bright lights often psyche out the artists who are performing at The Grammy Awards. There have been so many times I've watched saying "you're trying too hard, overthinking and being too fancy. I can't even recognize this as the song I've heard on the radio so many times!"
That being said, there was none of that last night. I watched it probably until 10ish. The performances were absolutely fantastic. I thought the opening performance from Dua Lipa was so sexy, it was like watching Madonna 25-30 years ago. She wasn't trying too hard, but just gave off that confident vibe that was so fun. Miley Cyrus gave a phenomenal rendition of Flowers. Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish were terrific.
Luke Combs with Tracy Chapman "Fast Car." I was expecting an absolutely phenomenal performance. Knowing how this was the first ever favorite song for Luke Combs. Knowing that because of his cover, Tracy became the first black woman in history to have a #1 song on the Country chart. My expectations were very high.
They still blew my expectations away and then some. Collaborations aren't usually my cup of tea, but in this case it was so powerful and moving.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time to start planning next weekend!