leaping out of my social shell with both feet

Wow, was I busy this weekend - well, busy for me, a lot of people probably have a regular social life and this isn't such a big deal.  Friday was only half a day of school, so when we got out, Angel #4 and I headed to the thrift store, it was $10 bag day.  All the clothes you could shove into a bag for $10.  Not a bad deal.

We got home and I was putting off thinking about what I was going to make for supper when hubs called.  He bumped into someone he knew who told him about a grand opening at a little coffee shop.  There was going to be a musician and a stand-up comic.  He wanted to see the comic, so we decided to make an evening of it.  We went out to eat, then found the coffee place and each got a delicious gelato.  We had fun listening to the comedian, who did a little improv.  Both hubs and I were pulled up to play along.  Afterwards, the entertainers sat and visited with those of us in the audience and had a fun little chat.  I think hubs may have given the comedian a whole new bunch of performance ideas. :p The coffee shop gave us all cake, gave away some door prizes (hubs got a thing of candy) and we had a really fun time.

Saturday morning, Angel #4, her friend and I went over to my sisters house and the 4 of us did the Winter Parade of Homes.  This is usually a yearly tradition for sis and I.  There were 41 brand spankin' new houses in this years parade for us to go wandering through, we managed to hit 15 of them before we ran out of time.  We usually do better, but we weren't as organized this year.   My sister has a great memory for which contractors have the most interesting houses to go through, so she plans out our route, but her computer is down, so she didn't have a chance to check out the map until I showed up that morning.  We still did pretty good though. Sadly, there were no exceptional, stand-out houses this year.  Usually there's one or two that really stick in my head, but nothing really did it for me this year.  I think the main thing is that very few stepped outside the box decorating-wise.  All the counter tops were granite (I despise granite counter tops), most of the rooms were painted some neutral color (I hate neutral colors) and nothing really popped.  I understand how most of them are spec homes and the builders want to keep them as buyer friendly as possible, but I can't help thinking that they would make them more memorable if they didn't make them look exactly like every other house.

I no more than got home from the house walk than I was out the door again.  The chamber of commerce from the next town over had a big tasting event.  For $40/couple, we got to sample the wares of nearby breweries, chocolate shops, bakeries, wineries, cheese makers (this IS Wisconsin, you know) and sausage makers.  We wandered around for 3 hours stuffing our faces with cheese, cake and candy and washing it down with tons of different wines.  It was a really fun time.  I saw my cousin there, which was nice.  Her husband died in August and I was happy to see that she's going places and out there enjoying herself.  She's only in her mid 30's and much too young to sit alone at home.

While hubs and  I were parked in front of one of the wine display tables tasting their wares, a lady standing next to us started chatting.  Turns out that our kids go to school together and I remembered her son from last year's track team.  We ended up having a really fun time together and talked about getting together again.  She and her husband are good friends with WE's girlfriend's parents, so looks like we might actually get into a local social circle.  Who woulda thunk?  Oh, and I also one a raffle prize, which was pretty cool.

Today, once I was home from church, I just hung around home recovering from my massive socializing from the rest of the weekend.  Angel #4 had a relapse from the cold we thought she'd recovered from and hubs caught the cold that #4 relapsed into, so they both stayed home this morning.  WE was at the school Snow Ball last night and ended up spending the night at a friends, so he wasn't home either, so I ended up going to church all by myself.  It wasn't a bad thing, I needed the alone time I got in the car.  Tomorrow it's back to the daily blur.