Winner, Winner, HSTI Dinner!
I had an absolutely terrible fit trying to sleep last night. I climbed up into the window to try and mask the street light right outside our window, and only just barely got it too dark to read inside. My heart raced, and I had all kinds of anxiety about waking up early enough to get to my preconference meeting. After what felt like no sleep at all, I got up and ready, woke Summer up, and we went down for breakfast.
Lunch was cold, cold burgers and surprisingly good hot dogs in the cafeteria where I sat alone until another group of people spilled over into the seats by me. I have always, and still struggle getting to know individuals, so I didn’t actually talk to any particular person long enough to hunt them down for a lunch buddy. It wasn’t bad, and may have even been better since I kept getting mustard in weird places like some kind of man child that had never eaten food before.
We finished up early in the afternoon, so I headed back to the hotel and caught Summer exploring outside. We went up to the room so I could change, then went for a walk down the street, marveling at the near-million-dollar homes along the water. It really is the best of both worlds, being close to nature, but still having access to broadband internet.
Back in the room, we watched the end of The Amazing Spider-Man and the beginning of the new, dark Fantastic Four before leaving for dinner with Next Step. We went into The Back Porch Grill as relative strangers, but ended up sitting with a pretty good, chummy group of folks. It was a good time, and the conversation was casual and topical enough that Summer had plenty to talk about as well. I’d hate to even see the bill, but needless to say we all left with full bellies.
We split after that, heading straight back to the hotel and to bed to hopefully get a good night’s sleep before the regular conference starts tomorrow.
FREE STUFF!!!!!
We got up this morning and Summer mowed her lawn while I went home to get laundry started. It was so hot inside that I had to fire up the portable air conditioner in the bedroom. I only got one load of laundry done before I got super hungry for lunch, so I came back up and made some big chicken and fruit salads for us. I mostly wanted to clean all of that stuff out of the refrigerator so it wouldn’t go bad, but the salads turned out awesome.
We were sent out to hang touch panels and do random campus cleanup tasks this morning. It took us two trips back to the shop to get everything we needed, and even then we each had plenty of time to sit around while someone else was doing the work. I would have appreciated a break if I didn’t feel completely overwhelmed and behind in cleaning and moving between campuses.
Summer had to work late, so I ran to get the girls and take them to karate, and then went to my parents’ house where Dad was grilling pork chops for noodles. Summer met us to eat once she got off, and then Dad and I went to the graveyard to rummage through the pallets of stuff that was being thrown out.
I considered going home first, but then decided to go straight to my parents’ house to see the girls’ reactions. Nobody really said much, but Summer and Eaddie came over to look at it. I was already sweaty from mounting the kayak and felt gross from my lack of a shower in the morning, but I stayed outside and helped spray down the cover while the girls scrubbed it. They got it all done in record time, and Summer caved and let the girls go for an early swim. The water was cold, fresh out of the hose while Dad was refilling the pool.