I went to bed last night not feeling as dreadful of work as I normally have felt but then this morning, I didn’t really want to go. But I’m an adult and you do what you must. Besides, I just had four great days off.

Friday morning I saw all the kids off. Isaac was headed to Universal for his 8th grade grad trip but since they stay in the park late for that, he just rode the bus to school and waited until leave time. Ash got a hair cut and had some work to do so we were on the road by about 10. The Airbnb told us check in at 2 but we could park at the place before. Got there about 1:15 because of traffic but went inside anyway; the place was no bigger than a hotel room so we saw it was clean. This seems to be the trend now: buy a large old home and break it up into smaller rental units. It was in a nice older neighborhood and it seems like quite a few were airbnbs.

After dumping our stuff we walked about 18 minutes to our first stop, the medieval torture museum. It’s in the center of the historic district and if you are not familiar with St. Augustine, the nation’s oldest city, then it is on St. George Street, which is the center of that whole area. The museum was pretty neat; 47 different models/displays of types of torture we’ve used on people for various offenses. It kind of reminds you how easy people have it now, to be honest. Here’s Ash at the end/photo op.

By this time it was maybe 2:30 so we had lunch at a place called Burrito Works taco shop. A bit of an oxymoron I suppose, but tasty. I had a chicken burrito bowl and Ash had street tacos. It was then time to head to Bog brewing, which was about a 20 minute walk. We’d decided to just hoof it to all the places this weekend because nothing was more than about a mile away. Plus, that city is very walkable. Bog had some decent stuff but no good west coast IPAs like they had last time we went. We went across the street to a bar called Muggsy’s, which was pretty fun. Had kind of an 80s Cheers feel and some ok tap beer. We were, after all, wasting time before 6, which was an event at Dog Rose brewing for people involved in the Saturday beer festival.

We didn’t actually see anyone we knew from the St. Augustine brew club so after one flight, we just left. Walked back down St. George and went into this little pub that boasted 100 kinds of beer. Yeah, maybe 8 taps and then tons of bottles, most of which we had or weren’t interested in. Fun little place though. We then ended up at Auggie’s Draft Room, where we’d been before. Definitely didn’t need that burger and we barely drank any – it’s a self pour place – and then we went home. I’m pretty sure it was only about 8:30.

The next morning, we had time to kill before the fest at 1 so we went back to this place we went before, Farmhand Kitchen. They have good food but garbage plastic silverware so this time, we remembered to bring our own! Good food; nice to have sustenance before the rest of our day spent drinking. We mostly just wasted time until about 12:30 then walked to the Fountain of Youth, which is where this fest is held. Pretty cool location and a good line-up of breweries! In fact, almost all of them brought kegs, which is something we look for now. I hate festivals where people who work for a distributor pour to me from a can. No thanks. We had a nice time and hung out with the club folks.

We went home after but then back out to a place called Jack’s BBQ because they were there at the fest and really hyped their place. Except…it sucked. Their beer was awful! Oh well. Went back home then decided to walk down the road to a pizza place we’d seen and it was pretty good. Maybe a little expensive but good taste. And that was pretty much it; long day and a lot of activity.

We got out by 8 am Sunday, which was good because I had to do laundry and grocery shopping. Got right on making lunch, which was tacos of course, for Cinco de mayo. I also made guac and a pico de gallo that turned out fantastic. I had been putting off opening the pool but I started to get a bit worried algae would be growing, what with this heat, so we took the cover off and I took my water sample to the place and got chemicals. I did not start putting them in but I did get that all ready. Late Sunday night, while we were watching various things as a family, I decided I’d skip work Monday. And to be fair, I had a headache going to bed and it was still there the next morning. Weather-related for sure, because it had clouded up.

As to not be a total waste of time, I really got stuff done Monday!

That was my pool. I tried to put them left to right but you get the idea: lake to blue in only 12 hours, kinda.

But I’m getting ahead of myself; I did a few computer/work things before 8:30 but then, I went outside to work on this one area of my yard. It was super overgrown and while it doesn’t look completely trimmed up, it does look a million times better than before. In between clipping and trimming and avoiding wasps (oh, and Sunday when I went to get the hose, I did get stung by a yellowjacket. Sigh.) I put the acid in the pool. You have to wait hours in between adding your amounts. I think I finally got done with what I wanted in the yard by 1:30. By then, I was hurting! I felt fine while working but once I sat, my body was sore. I showered and Ash and I decided to drink to some beer so we could cut off by dinner-time. We watched a movie in the afternoon then kids got home and we made burgers and fries.

I put an egg on mine and it was SO good! A very satisfying meal, considering I almost didn’t eat that day. But I figured I earned it with all that work.

So yeah, a very nice four days away from the office but I’m back, just trying to get my ducks in a row. I need to add all the end of 5th/8th grade events to the calendar for two of my kids, find a good mother’s day gift (thinking about a charcuterie), and apply to more jobs. Oh, and work in my classes. Finally got two sections back at SNHU so now I am busy all the time – yay!