a productive day off

My office was closed yesterday for Veteran's Day and I managed to pack it full of personal stuff.  I really love having productive holidays.  It's so easy for me to be lazy on a weekend that being lazy on a holiday seems like a waste.

My sister made me wake up earlier than I do for work to go with her to the press opening of Neiman Marcus's Last Call Studio in Rockville.  This store is great.  I feel like rather than it being an outlet for Neiman Marcus, it's more an outlet for their cool little sister, Cusp.  Everything was on trend and at fabulous prices.  As an added bonus, we got $100 gift cards.  I spent mine on a fab pair of Jimmy Choo sunglasses. 

My current sunglasses are cheapo ones from Target with butterflies at the temples.  I bought them for Bonnaroo and continued to wear them all summer, though my niece had dropped them and scratched the lenses.  But I loved the shape and while it was a bit goofy, I loved the butterflies.  But once September rolled around, they just didn't seem appropriate, you know?

Unfortunately, one of the arms fell off this morning.  So weird.  I wore them on my way into work and didn't take them off until I was in the elevator.  Took them off and went to put in the case, but they were a bit smudged so I wiped them and then put them in the case.  Once in the office, I pulled them out to show to my colleagues and one of the arms was missing!  I called Jimmy Choo who said they would either have a local store (there's one in Chevy Chase) fix them or I could send the glasses off to be exchanged.  Will keep you updated.

After shopping, Alison and I met her husband and daughter for brunch at the Silver Diner.  Love this place and love getting extra Emerson time.  We bonded over my jewelry and while I showed her my sunglasses, I didn't let her try them on :) 

Next up was the One Day Meat Sale at the Co-Op.  I had actually forgotten about this sale and at first wondered why the parking lot was so full, even though it was a holiday.  I actually had to park in the last row!  But I bought a whole chicken, some lovely strip steaks, ground beef and pork chops.  Came home and separated it all out into single portions and filled my freezer.  Now that my work schedule is back to normal, it will be nice to cook real dinners again.

The plan was to then go straight outside and tackle my front yard, but the Nate Berkus Show was on.  I love this show - it's like a moving design blog.  And can Nate's handyman please come to my house and switch out the crazy light switches in my kitchen and bedroom?  Would be nice for guests to be able to turn on these lights without a 15 minute lesson.

I did have self-control and turned off the TV before Ellen came on.  Otherwise she would have sucked me in as well, but my yard was calling!  It's been a wild wonderland all summer and I kind of loved its mess.  Overgrown and wild, it had its own beauty.  But by the end of the summer, I was sick of it.  All of the winding vines and overgrown mint made it impossible (for me, at least) to do any constructive gardening.  I knew I needed to clear it out now so it would be ready for me in the spring. 

So I spent about two hours filling three of those tall paper yard bags...

and ended up with a cleared out yard!  You can actually see the parking lot!  Light!  Air!  It's a good thing.

I pulled out all of the vines and mint, trimmed down the rest of the weeds and the wild parts of the bush/tree things and cut away the dead parts of one bush that was almost completely flattened by the snow this winter.  I pulled out the faux stone edgers that were randomly placed in the yard and pulled up some of the randomly placed paving stones.

Next up is to fully remove all the weeds and random green stuff, relocate the hostas and brown flower-things to better places, remove the rest of the paving stones, put the saint the previous owner left on Freecycle and lay down some mulch.  In Greenbelt, you have to have something covering the dirt in your yard and I don't want to deal with grass.  It's hard enough getting bits of it to grow in my backyard.  Then I'll be all ready to make it pretty next year!

Having successfully cleared out my yard, I treated myself to watching Lost in Austen on Netflix On Demand.  SUCH a cute little movie that I didn't even mind that it was 3 hours long (it was originally a miniseries) and cooked up one of the steaks I just bought with some heirloom cherry tomatoes.

It was a fabulous day!