Great weekend!

Had lots of fun this weekend with Beth and Donna. We saw Christine Lavin on Saturday night. I didn't know a thing about her before the show, but she's definitely won me over as a fan. Her brand of folk singing is whimsical and punny/funny, and her stage style is part cheerleader/part entertainer/part playful five year old. I loved the show. At one point, she was talking about people who have their birthdays near Christmas and how much that must suck. Well, before I could turn on my self-editing function, I called out to her "what about birthdays around Thanksgiving? That really sucks too." So the next thing I knew, she had called me up onstage with one other near-holiday-birthday woman, Claudia (Claudia's complaint was far more valid than mine...her birthday is Christmas Eve) and we were competing in a silly trivia contest which ended up with me winning a little gift bag and having the audience sing happy birthday to me. The irony is that we were there to celebrate BETH's birthday, not mine! LOL! So yeah, the Christine Lavin show was a hoot.

Today we had breakfast at the b&b and then headed to the Maryland Wine festival. Definitely lots of fun tasting the various Maryland wines, but soon after we got there, the festival got REALLY hot and sweaty and crowded and I started getting that claustrophobic feeling. Although I had a great time, I was glad to leave when we did.

Got back home to Grasonville at around 4 pm and have been doing house chores and getting ready for the week. Pat's not feeling well and so isn't in a great mood. That's been a bit of a mood deflater for me too. Ugh. I'm sure that part of whatever problems we might have in our marriage is that I have a tendency to not say or do the right thing at the right time. I could be nicer, I think. Maybe what it is is that sometime I just want things to be smooth, and right now, here at home, they almost never are.

Anyway. On to gratitudes:

• I am grateful for a nice weekend with dear, loving friends, good food, silly fun, and Christine Lavin...
• I am grateful for all the lovely people we met this weekend...
• I am grateful for the existence of the Utz Potato Chip factory, although I probably gained five pounds this weekend, in no small measure because of the salty goodies I ate at Utz...
• I am grateful that I made it back from the weekend without trouble...
• I am grateful that the Ravens won today (LOL) ...

That's all I can think of right now. Hey, at least I got some down, even though I'm feeling supremely grouchy.

Music of the day:
"All I Have to Do is Dream"
Peter Frampton singing "Do You Feel Like I Do"
That "woo hoo" song that they play whenever the Ravens score...it got a workout today!