WELL, it was A weekend, for sure. Also, can I complain a moment? This cold is wearing on me. I mean, one or two days is normal for here but this is about a week now and I am sick of it. This morning it was 22, feels like 16. No thank you.

Friday capped off Catholic Schools Week with service day and I wrote about that on Friday. That evening, Ash and I got all our festival things gathered and packed up in the car, then ate some dinner and watched movies. I was ready to relax!

It was too cold Saturday for city sports so those were canceled, which was good for my oldest because he no longer had to drive anyone. Bad for my middle because that was refereeing money he lost out on. Oh well. We left around 9:45 for Goodwood and got our tent set up for Pints for Paws.

It looks warm but it was not. It was in the 20s with gusts as high as 30 mph! The sun came and went and it would get really dark but never rained. No, but what it did do was snow! I cannot seem to upload the video but for a little bit we had small flurries, which had people questioning if it was snow or ash or junk from the trees. But then it full on snowed. Nothing stuck but it was obviously actual snow. Fun times!

I kept forgetting to take a picture but we received our blue ribbon (gold medal) for the Irish Stout in the competition from a few weeks ago. As noted, this wasn’t an in-club comp, judged by our members. This was a sanctioned event with actual judges. I can’t believe we got a gold!

The festival was fun but by the time it was over, I was sick of standing outside in that cold and wind. We did get out of it for a little bit, around 11 to eat the provided bbq for brewers, then again around 2:30 to get more meat and sit for a little. When we finally got home, we left everything in the car except what was left in our kegs and then I just…sat. I was exhausted.

Sunday, it was even colder: feels like temp was 10! And for some reason, the upstairs thermostat was not getting any power. Um, this is a brand new unit! Ash thinks it had something to do with the city shutting down stuff, because nothing was tripped and we reset things. Luckily, it came back on randomly around 1 pm. The day seemed funky though; Dakota and I went to the store early but I forgot a box of crackers. Went out again to put gas in the car and ran into said gas station, knowing I had purchased Saltines there in the past. But no, they didn’t have any. Also, the pumps were not working. Ugh. I went to the Wawa instead, where gas was fine but they didn’t even have a pantry item aisle. In fact, they didn’t have anything BUT junk food. Don’t get me started on people who think you can buy “food” at a gas station. Stop. Anyway, by the time I had to go back into the Publix for my one box of crackers, I was really annoyed. This was not helped by the myriad texts I was getting from my sons, who were apparently fighting.

SO, I got home and told everyone to get off their phones and computers and do work. The boys built a gorilla cart I’d gotten Ash for Christmas and then picked up these big pine tree chunks our neighbor’s fly-by-night tree company just left in the easement. Sure, we can use those, if we can find a way to split them. Then I made white chicken chili while Ash worked on computer things and the kids worked on other house stuff.

I was walking upstairs and looked out this small window we have and noticed a brown dog in the yard. On second glance, I recognized the dog as my daughter’s friend’s/neighbor’s animal. Luckily, he came when she called him so I got him in the backyard and off the street (!!) and then called my neighbor. Neither the mom nor daughter picked up but I finally got ahold of the dad and returned Ridge to his owners. While in the easement doing that, my son was blowing up my phone with questions about things we had at home to make smoothies, while also at the store where the fire alarms were all apparently going off. What a weird day! It just seemed off. But of course, it WAS a full moon.

It was at that point I decided to just stay inside and not do anything else. I was worried other weird stuff would happen! We watched a movie called Trick or Treat from 1986, which wasn’t too bad actually. Not really scary but had an interesting plot. The rest of the night was reserved for bowling and listening to music and my son brought home sushi. No complaints! But I was really tired.

That’s about it!