Back To Reality

The beach was great and much-needed. I think we needed that to re-connect as a family and it was good for us. It was good for me and B too. I spent some time thinking about when we first met and why I fell in love with him and it was good to remind myself of all of that, and to see how far we have come since then. The girls had their fill of quality time with us and while B stayed with the Burnes Scholar group and chatted into the wee hours at night, I would come back to the condo, put the girls to bed and just have "me" time. We had an oceanfront condo and even though the condo itself left much to be desired (gross blue carpet with mysterious stains and peeling popcorn ceilings...) the view was great. We were on the first floor , so on the balcony it was almost like you were sitting right on the beach. We had no air during the entire stay (even after multiple calls to fix it) , so at night, I would open up the doors to the beach while I watched TV- and even though I looked like a poodle after about an hour-it was nice. The weather was great- we played on the beach in shorts and T-shirts and the girls flew kites and found a ton of shark teeth. The tornado weather didn't come until late Saturday night, so we got lucky there, too. We went to the outlets on Friday morning (much to the girls dismay) and my favorite store, Hartstrings, was having an 80% off sale for all the winter stuff- plus I had an addtl 25% off coupon. We racked up there and at the Children's Place outlet and it is safe to say that both of the girls have their complete winter wardrobes. To add to the credit card bills, Kohl's sent me a 30% off my entire purchase coupon and I went and did some major damage with that today. I have more to do tonight online, since some of the stuff was out of stock in the store. I did get our master bathroom shower curtain and towels, and also the guest bathroom curtain and towels- I will try to post pics tommorrow. So, I have been in shopping heaven for the past few days and now I have to put myself in time-out for a while from shopping (after tonight, of course). Next week is the girls Spring Break, and I am so excited that I can sleep in for a while and not worry about getting up and getting going right off the bat. They are pretty pumped about it, too. I miss the beach, we did not have a lot of time there, so next year we plan to stay a couple of extra days. It is a long drive just for a few nights stay. Oh well, I am supposed to be working, so I need to get to that. Then I am going to have to figure out where to put all these things I bought!