I had an early birthday party last Friday. Luckily, I also had that day off from work, so John and I had the entire day to prepare. It was a relatively small party– only 11 people or so– but it’s still always a full day’s thing, especially because Bubs likes to make everything from scratch. The star item on his menu was burnt ends bbq beef. He got a new smoker, and we started cooking eight pounds of meat at 10 a.m. Of course, his work didn’t end there: he also insisted on making the homemade BBQ sauce plus all the meal accompaniments: guac, two salsas, asparagus salad, azteca salad (quinoa, jicama, mango ginger dressing), baked beans with bacon, corn on the cob… and people complemented with beverages, potato salad, corn bread, and gourmet ice cream (brown butter and salt/pepper!). Yup, it was a total feast.

The group dynamics also seemed to mesh pretty well– lots of people from my former workplace plus my current workplace plus oldies like G&J. By now, I think they’ve all seen the others enough times to pick up where they had last left off.

We did lots of activities too: J&J got me a red bull piñata stuffed with candy and hotel toiletries (totally up my alley); we did some karaoke (old school 80s); and then we finished the night with G&J schooling us on hip hop dance moves on the Xbox Kinect. All in all, I was really happy with how everything turned out. Even though I do relish all the soiree details, above all, I just felt happy to be amongst friends. And Bubbey really made me feel loved. Oftentimes, I feel like we struggle with expressing love (we have different primary love languages), but with the party and all the preparations involved, I appreciated his multiple acts of service. He really paid attention to the details– from cooking dishes that I love to chilling my favorite sweet Riesling, to getting my favorite cake. It was so very sweet, and I felt truly happy that night.

The rest of the weekend finished up well. Saturday rained all day, and we just slept in (that party wiped us out big time), but in the evening, we went to Red Rock Coffee House to catch some live music. I felt like we were finally getting back on track. Today (Sunday), I woke up and went to yoga. Sure, I was out of shape following my one-month slump, but it still felt good, and I thought that I might just get back into it again. In the afternoon, I headed to “Book Club”– my euphemism for “Craft Club”… I just like that Book Club sounds nerdier. 🙂 Anyway, a few of us work friends made lunch and then worked on our Martha Stewart piggy banks. Last year, I had made a piggy and a water buffalo. The water buffalo got fucked up in the move, so now I’m repairing him. Ultimately, it’s just a good excuse to hang out and talk shit about work.

So tomorrow is back to the office, and I feel rested and content. I hope this is indication that my latest funk is now over. Yeah, I know, I’ll have to check back at the end of the week. 🙂 Certainly things can change day to day, but I’m going to bed tonight feeling hopeful.

These pictures kinda help with that: they make me smile. Supposedly, there is also video footage of me bludgeoning my beautiful red bull. Stay tuned: more to come.