Friday night

This has been another long week. We're stuffing everything into the end of the summer, it seems like.

Sparky had a good time on his canoe trip. He has, according to the coordinator, really picked up the paddling thing, and was moving the canoe along without any assistance from his partner this year. Unfortunately, they all got going so fast that they missed the island they were supposed to spend the night on. They ended up so far downstream that after setting up camp and getting to sleep, they had almost nothing to do the next morning: just an hour's paddling and they were done. Sparky returned home dirty, sunburned, tired...and probably sore, though he isn't saying anything about that.

Beast was on the road earlier this week. He had a long (8-hour) drive on Monday and Wednesday with a 12-hour day on Tuesday on his feet in the customer's plant. His back is very sore, and to top it off, he slept wrong last night and messed it up further. He's really beat. On top of all of this, it sounds like his job duties will be growing (again). I hope they reduce some of the other expectations if they hand him this sales territory they're talking about.... He's really doing four people's jobs now.

Me, well, it was a good week. I've FINALLY CAUGHT UP from March's pile-up. I had a completely empty cart for about an hour this morning, but I left my desk piled with probably 150 books tonight. I never do that. Ever. So I will be going in over the weekend and clearing so that things aren't completely undecipherable on Tuesday when I work--officially--again.

The best news of the week, by far, however, was the call I got from my oldest niece, Elizabeth, tonight: she's engaged! I tell you what, someone must have put something in the water of the female members of my family! She's scheduled next summer for her wedding, which will be three weddings and a baby in four years. We're going broke buying wedding presents (and tickets to everyone's wedding, although at least one was somewhat local). Oh, well, I'm glad she's finally found someone to appreciate her, or as I told Beast earlier, someone to "dote" on her. She's always seemed to be the leader in earlier relationships; this guy seems to be her equal. Bravo, sister-niece! [she's only 5 years younger than me]

In other, totally self-mocking, news, I managed to cook dinner tonight. OK, it was a premade dinner, but it wasn't take-out or sandwiches, either. That's quite a change around here.

And now, I meant to be in bed half an hour ago, and now I'm going to wind things up and actually start working on that project!