Weekend, what weekend?

Again, my weekend flew by! It's been so cold and miserable here I've just been trying to stay warm. We had another nearly 4 inches of snow on Thursday, so I've been staying inside. Yesterday (Saturday) I didn't even go outside to get the mail. Steve wanted to go out for dinner last night and I refused to leave even leave the house for that! I guess Friday wasn't as bad. I did go out and get my Christmas shopping done and went to dentist to have an old filling redone, but that was it.

Yesterday I spent the whole day working on getting my Christmas cards done. Yes, I know... I'm late, but hey, at least they're done. I actually did a Christmas letter this year. I know some people find them annoying, but I don't. At least ones that just tell you what's been going on in a friend's life over the past year. The ones that are nothing but bragging about how much money somebody made and their umpteenth trip to Africa for a safari, etc., now those tick me off, but regular, newsy Christmas letters are fun. I've never done one before, I really do prefer to sit down and write a note with each individual card, but with time getting short I went the general note to everyone letter. I still included little personal notes, but for the most part I used the letter. I also enclosed our Christmas picture of the dogs - that's kind of an annual thing. I'm such a proud human mama to my little furkids... I had done about 10 or 12 cards when Steve came out to watch me address envelopes (I assume that's what he was doing, he sure didn't help...), when he picked up the pictures I was mailing and said, "Why isn't Buttercup in the picture?" What the....? Sure enough, she was MIA from the Christmas photo and I hadn't even noticed! Maybe 6 dogs is enough. So, no Buttercup in the Christmas photo this year. I wasn't about to redo them!

When I was at the dentist Friday he was telling me that he'd been really busy since he sings in his church choir and several other groups. He just started singing with a local choral group and they've been performing at malls and churches, etc. He mentioned that they had a concert on Sunday at 7 and told me where it was in case we decided we wanted to go. He even wrote down the name of the church and directions, so I told him we'd try to make it. He's been my dentist for over 20 years now, and he's the only person I trust with my teeth! I've had some bad experiences with dentists over the years and Dr. T. has become more than just a dentist, so I was more than willing to go listen to his group perform Christmas music. Then tonight came and it was freezing outside - about 13 degrees and I wasn't so keen on the idea, but we went, and I'm so glad we did. Mom went with us, he's her dentist too, so the 3 of us, Steve, mom, and I, bundled ourselves up and took off for the performance tonight. It was wonderful! I'm so glad we went. It was a pretty long performance, there was a 15 minute intermission, but it lasted from 7 to 9:30, and I have to admit I enjoyed the whole thing! Sometimes I get bored when I go to this kind of thing, you don't know the song, or you can't hear very well, or the singers aren't that great, but tonight just flew by and the singers were sensational. I can't say enough good about them, really.

We had planned to drive around town and look at Christmas lights afterward, but it was later than we anticipated, so we just came on home, but what a performance! Thanks for the invite, Dr. T!

I also went shopping with Matt for a little bit today. He wanted me to go with him while he picked out his girlfriend's present. I don't know why, since she had gone shopping with him earlier and showed him exactly what she wanted, but he asked me to go, and I was nice to be able to have a little one on one time with him. We had originally planned to go to Oak View mall here in town, but he asked me if I minded going to Westroads instead. To be honest, I wasn't sure I was ready to go there yet. It's not that I was afraid to go, but I just wasn't ready to go back to the place of such a sad event. I think it's kind of like not wanting to fly after there's a big air disaster. You know, you've flown a million times yourself and never had anything happen, but all of a sudden there's a big air disaster and you think to yourself that it could have been you... It just makes you a little nervous. We did go though, and I'm glad I did. We got his shopping done and then he asked me if I had anything else I wanted while we were there. I said no, so then he asked me if I wanted to go see the memorial at Von Maur. I kind of did, but I didn't really want to be ghoulish... Imagine that - me not wanting to be ghoulish. Mrs. Cemetery herself... Anyway, we did go down to the memorial and I'm glad we did.

I never cried when it happened. It was terrible and I felt so sorry for the people who lost family members, but I still felt very detached from the whole thing. Even though I shopped at Westroads all the time, it still felt kind of surreal that it happened here. Going to the memorial though brought tears to my eyes. It was absolutely amazing, all the people who have made snowflakes (I don't know how that got started, but for some reason snowflakes are the symbol associated with the memorial), bears, flowers, pictures, you name it. It was beautiful and very moving. The Von Maur store is an anchor store located down a hallway of shops from the main area of the mall and the entire atmosphere as you start to walk down that hallway was different, very quiet and somber. Other people near the memorial spoke in whispers, almost a churchy type of feeling. It really brought home the fact that it did happen here, it was real, and for the first time I felt a connection to the whole thing. I'm glad I went and got it over with so don't feel so apprehensive anymore, but I'm also glad I went to pay my respects to those who were killed. What a tragedy.

So, now the weekend is over, back to work tomorrow. I've still got to get to the grocery store and get food for dinner on Wednesday and for Christmas Eve, but I'm glad I'm all done with the gift shopping madness!