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Holiday

We made it through the holiday reasonably well.

Friday night we went out to dinner with my Mom, my older sister and my younger sister and her family. Not a bad evening actually but my younger sister just grates on my nerves. She’s so opinionated and unaccepting of other points of view at times. What really irked me was that when the check came for dinner, my Mom took out her credit card to pay but nobody else but me gave her money towards the bill. And I paid more than my share.

After dinner my Mom wanted us to come back to her house for cake. My wife and I couldn't as we had to get the house ready for some prospective buyers that were coming by the next day.

Early Saturday morning, the wife had an appointment for a cat scan to help diagnose some of the health issues she’s experiencing. After that, we went out for our usual Saturday morning breakfast (although a bit later than normal).

Next on our to-do list was grocery shopping – another thing we almost always do on Saturday morning. Something to note here: has anyone else noticed how expensive groceries have gotten recently? I remember being able to get out of the store for less than $100 for a weeks worth of groceries most of the time no less than a year or so ago. Now, I’m lucky if I keep it under $120. This past Saturday, what with buying stuff for a barbecue, my bill was about $160! That is a very good example of how cost of living has inflated across the board.

After we got back from the shopping, it was time to clean the house (another usual Saturday function). We had to do an especially good job since we had prospective buyers coming to look at the house later that day and this week. I think we had 3 large garbage bags of junk we threw out at the end of that process.

The people came to look at the house and were gone by 3:45PM. We chilled out for awhile and then I went out to barbecue a chuck steak for dinner. I used a special seasoning blend I have and a basting at the end with Jack Daniels Steak Sauce. I also grilled some home made garlic bread. All in all, dinner was heavenly.

On Sunday, we slept in a bit late but I went out to get rolls and donuts for breakfast. In my town, that’s a traditional Sunday breakfast thing – we call it “rolls and buns”. Growing up, we almost always had rolls and buns for breakfast on Sunday morning after church.

In the afternoon, we went to Mom’s for a casual barbecue. I was the chef for the day. I grilled some pre-packaged baby back ribs (Tony Siragusa’s brand) for an appetizer (they were not bad really – my home made ribs take 4-6 hours to make but are way better). Next was some Johnsonville bratwurst, hot dogs and hamburgers. As sides, we had coleslaw, potato salad and noodle salad. A pretty good meal if I say so myself. Later, we had some watermelon and toasted some marshmallows. A very enjoyable day.

Monday was busy for a holiday. My son left early with my wife’s Mom to go to NYC to tour the naval ships in for Fleet Week. That left us home alone to get some things done.

We started with running out to do some minor shopping. The wife needed some shorts and I needed sneakers. On the way back, we stopped for some White Castle hamburgers – YUM!

When we got back, we cleaned out our spare room off of the kitchen. Man, we had a mess in there! Six big bags of garbage! And that was only ¾’s of the room since we left the food pantry shelves for later.

After that, the boy came home but went back out with his grandmother to a barbecue. We stayed home to relax.

We put on a movie and chilled out in our gloriously A/C cooled living room. One thing led to another and we were fucking in the bedroom in less than an hour.

Later, I grilled some chicken that I had marinated earlier with a fajita based marinade. It came out great and we had salad and baked potatoes with it.

It’s Thursday now and we had another couple in to look at the house this past Tuesday. They made an offer yesterday that is above our lowest price we’d take but not quite what we expect to get. We instructed the realtor to counter with a price $34k more than what they offered. We’ll see what they come back with but I think I’ll take it if they offer half of that $34k more.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Labels: barbecue, food, holiday, house, mom, son, wife

posted by section306g @ 7:15 PM