A Day Away…

Hubby and I have been trying to get away ever since Christmas.  We typically take a weekend and leave.  We tried once in January…a couple times in February and once in March.  Either Hubby’s boss was going to be gone (and they both can’t be gone on the same weekends), we had another commitment or I was sick.  Finally this weekend, the stars aligned and we were able to leave.

Kelli was awesome and took over childcare duties on Friday so we could have an overnight away….Typically when we go, we try to be gone two days, but we had a commitment on Saturday that we had to be back for.  It wan’t what we usually take for time away but, neither of us were complaining.  We were thankful to get what we got.

So what do we do on a day away??  Not all fun stuff…  It started out with a trip to the doctor to get a blood draw for me.  I have my one year cancer screening coming up and I needed to get the blood work done in advance for that.  Hubby did some errands while I was doing that.  Neither of us get away during the day and some of the errands are hard to do if we can’t hit day hours when some stores are opening.  He got some glass cut for a project that he’s doing (more on that on another day)  I was thrilled that the glass got cut as that makes my project one day closer to finished.

After that we stopped at a flea market.  It was small and junkie but Hubby was thrilled.  He got some things that he’s going to fix up and redo for the antique market in Clear Lake this fall.  This trunk was one of the items.

It was only $10.  We were both happy with it.  He’ll clean it up…fix up a more appropriate looking handle and sell for  a higher price.  It’s super sturdy.

He got a couple other wooden boxes there…

Then we went on to Ridgeway, Iowa.  We stopped at a architectural salvage place there called NEI Architectural Salvage and Skräp Work.  We are still on the hunt for a few pieces of trim for our house.  This trim pieces is what we really want.  As much as look, this one is very hard to find.

When the people built our house -over 100 years ago- they didn’t take a lot of care in their placement of the trim.  For example, here is the arch going from the living room to the front entry.  Notice how the pretty decorative trim pieces are cut?Had they made the room opening only two inches narrower the pretty trim pieces wouldn’t have had to have been cut.  They could have been their full width.  This bothers Hubby..me a little bit.  He has thought that when he refinishes the trim in this archway, to make the opening the two inches narrower so the trim would look right.  BUT we can’t do that unless we find more of the trim pieces.

Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of them and we didn’t see one in the places she looked but will keep looking once she has a photo of what we needed.

From there it was onto Rochester.  We stopped at Home Depot and I got African Violet potting mix.  It’s not available anywhere around here.  Last time I bought it on Amazon…ouch!  It was expensive.  We did a few other errands and then had supper and a hotel stay.  By the way…we love the Country Inn on South Broadway.  Nothing fancy….just nice.

The next day we went to the antiques shop…(more on that later) and meandered our way home.  We stopped at the bakery in Spring Valley…It’s the BEST bakery around.

We stopped at another antique shop where Hubby bought another treasure trove of wooden boxes and crates.

He has plans for them all to be at the show in Clear Lake in September.

From there it was time to pick up Ruby from Kelli’s house.  Betsy was there too as Kalissa and Craig were away as well.  We were on our way home and Hubby got pulled over.  He was doing 66 in a 55.  Me, I would have gotten a ticket but Hubby didn’t.  He NEVER does.  He was wearing his firemen jacket…I think he get preferential treatment because of it.  Lucky guy.

Betsy is a bad barker and will even growl at people she doesn’t know.  Both of the dogs were in the back seat.  I quickly grabbed Betsy so that she didn’t snap a the officer from the back seat out the driver’s window.  I don’t completely trust her not to snap at someone she doesn’t know.  Then Ruby got upset because she was left in the back seat and before I knew it, I had a lap full of dog.

Silly things.  We rode like that for the next 7 miles to home.

Once home we unpacked and got ready for the First Responder get together and went there.

This morning it was simple…sleep in a bit.  Me until 7:30 and Hubby was even home.  He calculated back.  These days are the first days he’s taken off since Labor Day.

As soon as I got downstairs.  He had a junking trip lined up for us.  This time we were off to a house that will be torn down.  We wanted to see if there was trim that might match ours.  We’re always looking.  We like the pursuit.  (More on this in another post)

Once home I made some lunch and sat down to write a few blog posts….but before we did that, I checked Facebook.   One of Hubby’s relatives wrote something about a wedding.   OH NO!  The wedding that I thought we couldn’t attend because it was NEXT WEEKEND and Hubby’s boss was going to be gone was actually THIS WEEKEND.  We screwed up and had the wrong date….we could have gone.  Now it’s too late.  I feel really bad.  When we first got the invite I told Hubby to ask if we could have that weekend off.  He did (but asked for the wrong weekend) but couldn’t go as his boss already had plans.  Oh well….we missed it.  I was kicking myself but in the end, it’s his family and his responsibility to choose and arrange what we are going to.

Regardless we had a much needed  two days….we vowed not to wait so long again.