Vacation Hangover

I'm working on vacation recap posts, in addition to editing photos, but in the meantime, I figured I'd try to get back on the blogging track with a weekend recap.... which is soooo much simpler than recapping 2 weeks with Teh Bear.

So Friday was my Monday and Friday, since it was the last day of the work week, but my first day back to work after being on vacation for 2 whole weeks.  That's still strange to me that I took 2 whole weeks of vacation to actually vacation.  I kinda walked into a disaster, but things quickly calmed down and the work day wasn't as bad as I had feared it was going to be.  I left work at 3 to start my weekend.

I came home and took Phil on a walk/run.  We're trying to get back in the groove of things since I haven't worked out (except for lots of walking around) while on vacation, and then the few weeks prior to vacation I was "practicing my walking" because Teh Bear told me he'd leave me to die in the Grand Canyon if I hurt myself because I wasn't prepared.  True story, Ya'll, true story.  We really need to get back on the running train fast because I stepped on a scale Friday morning after my swim and I was NOT pleased.

After our outside time, we came in, then Phil actually vomited on my leg.  There was actually food chunks in the vomit, which made it worse than if it had just been water spit up.  I couldn't even yell.  I was too amazed that he'd actually projectile vomited on my LEG.  Can't even make this stuff up.

I made dinner and then headed to game night with our 20/30s Group at church.  A little bit later, I got the message from another Greyhound mom that she was on her way to my house.  I volunteered to watch Kody, her crazy dog, over Thanksgiving.  I came home to meet her and after chatting for a little bit, she left and we started getting settled in.  I did do some photo editing that evening, but I only made a not-real-dent in the 2300 photos.  /siiiigh.

Kody says, "Where you sleepin' tonight?"

Kody isn't like Phil.  Kody is very vocal and Kody is "broken."  Meaning... Kody gets on the furniture, which I definitely do NOT mind.  I love snuggles, and Phil isn't a snuggler.  So Kody and I shared my, apparently, not large enough queen size bed and he energetically woke me up Saturday morning at 0530, 0600, 0630, and finally, I succumbed at 0700.  At 7 in the morning, Kody barked his excitement at me and I might have barked back..  something to the effect of, "ENOUGH!"  After everyone went business and had breakfast, I decided it was naptime after being awake for only 2 hours.

I stood up Teh Singing Cat Lady in order to sleep a little more, which I felt kinda bad about, but I didn't want to get tired and irritated if we were out, so I went the route of being a bad friend and backing out of our adventure that morning instead.  Teh Bear finally roused me out of bed with his message at 11.  We got to have a Skype date (which warrants a :) and :( face since we got to chat, but we were no longer face to face chatting) which included watching an episode of Game of Thrones.  After Teh Bear left to go to work, I decided on an early run/walk with the doggies then came back to go on a photo editing spree.

My dent this time was a little more significant.  I got through 1 whole day of events, which is a lot, which you'll understand better once vacation recaps start.  Most of the pics really are pieces of panoramics which is why there are 2300 photos.  One panoramic is usually at least 3-5 photos.

Saturday evening, I played the 5th wheel to Teh Humanitarian, Teh Coast Guardian, Teh Flying Metal Mouth, and Teh Korean (and their baby, which kinda makes me the 6th wheel, if you count babies).  We were going to go to a French place in Leonardtown, but the wait was going to be 1.5 hours, so I suggested Salsa's, a Mexican place that Teh Bear and I had went to with Teh Singing Cat Lady and Teh Guitar Playing Podcaster this past week.  The wait at Salsa's was only 30 minutes, so we all packed into Yurtle to stay warm, since there was no where inside to stand.

The food was delicious again and afterwards, we all came home stuffed and with leftovers.  My companions agreed they were going to go on dates to the French place.  I told them my date was far away now.  After dinner, Teh Humanitarian came over for a little bit, then I worked on photos a little more and uploaded some to FB so Teh Bear would stop giving me crap about not showing people my photos after vacation.  He is still bitter about Scotland pics taking a month to be edited and get posted...  Really, I think he's bitter because while he was in MD in May, he didn't ask to look at my Scotland photos, so all he ever saw was what I was (very slowly) posting.  Wah.  I do what I wawnt.

Not helping myself get back on my normal time schedule, I finally went to bed around midnight.  Kody let me sleep till 0700 this morning, when he proceeded to step on my arm, barely missing my face.  I had to "bark" at him again, but I got up and everyone got to go business and had breakfast.  After church, I headed to Kohl's to acquire a Christmas tree.  I wasn't actually sure they were going to have what I was looking for, but I'd heard they had some good sales going on, and I had a coupon (when don't I have Kohl's coupons?), so I figured it was a good place to start.

I knew that I wanted a 4 foot, non-lit tree.  I walked around the minuscule Christmas section at our Kohl's while talking to Teh Dad since we missed our regular Saturday call.  Then, I found a 4 ft tree, which was actually the hardest part of tree hunting.  I'd seen 3.5 ft and 5 ft+ at the places I'd looked online, so I was pretty discouraged.  Unfortunately, this tree was pre-lit, but I bought it anyway since it was only $20.  I also bought a few other things, including a $1.99 pillow that matched one that I bought a few months ago (that I couldn't find a mate to at the time (score!)).

I came home and chatted with Teh Bear for a little bit, while de-lighting the tree, before he left for work.  Once he left, I got motivated on my Christmas decorating.

Quick tanget:
Yes, I am decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving.
1.  I wasn't able to really decorate last year since all my belongings were in the black hole that is customs.
2.  Thanksgiving is only a few days away.  Between now and Thanksgiving, I have to work and I have duty one night.  If I need supplies, I probably won't acquire them during the work week due to lack of motivation and tiredness and having an extra dog (just to be precautionary).
3.  I decorated in Bahrain, but with everything I already owned (despite having the space for a mega-huge tree), since buying Christmas stuff in an Arabic nation probably would have gotten my car IED-ed.
4.  I was also using limited resources in GTMO due to size constrants.  Not to say that my Cmas tree balancing on the side of my counter wasn't super cute, but I knew that I'd like to pretend to be an adult with a real, big, tree.
5.  The year before that I was in bootcamp for Christmas.. and Thanksgiving.. and New Years..  There weren't Christmas trees... except the paper ones that Teh Mom sent with some quilled papers so we could decorate the Christmas tree notepad.  Super awesome thought, even if we didn't get to decorate them.  She even sent a glue stick that I had to get RDC approval to keep.
6.  Ok, the year before that I probably had a real Christmas, but I wasn't on my own yet, so it wasn't a "Megan" Christmas then either.
7.  I do what I wawnt.
8.  Yes, I care about Thanksgiving.  As much as I care about Halloween.  I LOVE FOODS.
9.  I also care about Thanksgiving because it means free lunch on Monday from the Khaki's (E7 and above for my non-Navy/military) in addition to days off of work.
10.  Stuffing cooked in the turkey is my favorite food ever.  Seriously.  But stuffing from the turkey is only cooked once (or twice if you have turkey at Christmas) a year.  Do not tell me that I don't appreciate Thanksgiving...  OR I WILL BITE YOUR HAND.

See that was quick..  :)

WOLF!
PACK!

I pulled out all my Cmas boxes from the storage closets.  I didn't have as much stuff as I thought I did, which is ok with me.  Most of it ended up being wrapping type stuff that I bought last year during after Cmas sales with Teh BFF.  I collected all my travel ornaments from my trips this year, in addition to the ornaments that were stashed away in a box and put them on the tree.  Then.. I took all the ornaments off so I could put lights on the tree.  My 4 foot tree has 300 lights on it.  That's how you know I'm Teh Mom's daughter.

I'm making a list of things I want to pick up for decorating, including more garland (for the tree), a tree skirt, a stocking holder for the shelf.  Hopefully, I will acquire these items before Thanksgiving, but if not, then I'll have a reason to go out on Black Friday... bwahahah.

After re-lighting the tree, I hung garland and my Merry Christmas sign from Teh Bear's Bahrain Christmas box that he sent me last year, hung some lights around the bar area, and hung my ornament bar (circa Christmas 2011) in the window.  I also wrapped some garland around my banister outside and rehung my wind chimes that I took down pre-Hurricane Sandy.

I made some delicious bbq chicken for dinner and Teh Humanitarian came over for a little bit to socialize and see my hard work.

It was definitely a good weekend to re-start getting back into "work" mode.. bwahahah, who am I kidding.. It's a short work week!  YAY Thanksgiving/holidays!