Regrouping

So after what I would call a bit of a whirlwind of a work week. A whirlwind of school week as well, it's finally the weekend. That means a few days to regroup and relax a little bit before it all begins once again in a few days.

School

So I am setting up my classes for the rest of this month and into February. It is a lot of classes all packed into a very short amount of time. I could easily spread them out over the course of 6-8 months or longer but I want to get them taken care of as quickly as possible.

Not to mention I think that taking them much closer together will really help me to be able to utilize more of what I learn and put it into practice sooner. I worry if there is too much of a gap between the classes I will forget some key things I have learned along the way. Something I would like to avoid as much as possible. The classes are not inexpensive by any means so I want to get every ounce of data that I can out of them.

Little Date

Yesterday afternoon when Cicely picked me up from school we were both really hungry. I figured that she would be ready to go get some Taco Bell, head home and call it a night. Not the case, she wanted to go out to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, Valentines dinner no less!

When she suggested this I nearly passed out in amazement. She never wants to go out on days like this and celebrate together. Don't get me wrong, it's not just her, I don't care much for it either. Anyway, we headed to Outback and went inside.

Once there we were told that there was a 40 minute wait, well crap! Ok we are ok with that, go ahead and put us in the Queue we told the hostess. I then scoped out the bar and ask Cicely to join me for a drink. Hers being virgin of course. Mine being a 7 and 7 and then switched over to an Old Fashion with Jack Daniels honey whiskey. They were both awesome!

We enjoyed some of the amazing bread that Outback has and sipped our drinks, people watched and talked. The next thing we knew our buzzer was buzzing and we were up, a booth was ready.

We were shown to a great booth that had a lot of space and was just private enough where we could still people watch but more importantly have a conversation and hear each other talk.

Dinner was ordered and came at a great pace as it always seems to at Outback. I had steak and lobster tail while Cicely had her usual burger, fries and crab legs. Oh and let's not forget, more bread!

After dinner we did something we rarely do and ordered a dessert Cicely has been itching to try. It came, we shared it and it was just as amazing as we had hoped it would be.

All said and done and once back home we were exhausted. I watched some TV while Cicely worked on her website until we both eventually fell asleep on the couch. Waking up at 2 AM and heading to the bedroom to sleep some more. What a great night with my Cizzle!

Carson

Today we are bumming around a little bit, resting up some more. We plan to head down to Carson to visit mom and then try to stop for Indian food on the way home. We also need to go past the baby store and get a few more things on the list.

It's a crappy weather day with powerful gusts of wind, probably blowing a storm in the coming days. On the way to go see mom there were a ton of warnings that no vehicles like buses and RVs were allowed because they could blow over. The KIA Soul is boxy so I think Cicely was a little nervous but the little car did awesome.

Visiting

So the visit to mom was about as it usually is. A lot of her crying and repeating things. This time she was yelling at me because she thought that I was lecturing her about having a man in her room or something she must have dreamt up over the night.

All in all it's really nice seeing her but watching her go so far downhill mentally really sucks more than anyone could ever realize until you are in the middle of it. It's hard to watch a parent or loved one go down hill mentally. Dementia of all types is a really crappy disease that's for sure. She is suffering with vascular dementia and it's a slow process and painful for all of us that has to watch a person go through it for years.

Photo: Our digital dinner bell last night. We were waiting for the buzz to tell us it was time to get a table and dinner, we were starvin'!