forgetful

Lisa D, my bridesmaid extraordinaire, is making a rare and surprise appearance in Ottawa next month. I officially have something to look forward to in November. Excellent. November was looking pretty gloomy before this bit of news landed in my voicemail box.

Happy, happy me.

The really amazing part of my week without Dan is how it was bookended with weekends with some of my best girls.

Two weekends ago, my university roommate Marsha came from Toronto for a weekend of movies, munchies and pure sloth. We had planned to do very little outside of the house and that mission was more than accomplished.

While at university, our favourite pastime was scaring the living crap out of ourselves with any and all horror flicks that we could make time to watch. We continued this pattern last weekend. I won’t list the movies because I’ll likely embarrass myself with how little it takes to scare me now, but we watched quite a few. And ate quite a lot. I was a happy camper.

This past weekend was my 4th annual girls’ weekend with my best high school friends, which incidentally, fell on the same weekend as our high school reunion. We chose not to make an appearance at the reunion because this weekend away was already scheduled and paid for before we found out about the conflict. And though I’m very excited to hear how past St. Matters (St. Mattians? St. Matthewsers? St. Matthewsians?) are doing (we have informants who attended), I’m not too sad that folks I haven’t seen in over 10 years were not going to see me now at 7 months pregnant. Silly? Yes. Whatever.

So, the girls and I rented a cottage right on the lake and the 7 of us that could make it hid out from the rest of the world for two whole nights. It was beyond perfect. Especially the cottage – which was the least cottagy cottage I’ve ever stayed at. It was more like a luxury retreat. All that was missing were the spa services and private chef. Though I did end up with a personal peanut butter pie a la Sarah (Kris, you would have died!!), so the chef would really be unnecessary.

Favourite moments:

1) The arrival. It was amazing to see what we’d actually rented and how CLEAN everything was (not always the case when renting online).

2) My first raclette (i.e. fancy fondue). Every meal should be accompanied with melted cheese on fresh baguette.

3) “Nobody puts Baby in the corner”. I’m hilarious. (Only Alicia will get this.)

4) My first introduction to the non-shushing Alicia. I like her.

5) Stories of t-shirt pajamas.

6) The growling bear. It was real. I swear.

7) Morning coffee in the sunshine on the dock in late October.

8) Coldplay on DVD. Coldplay on CD. Trying to make a Coldplay CD work like a DVD.

9) The view/scenery. I was a picture taking hound. See for yourself.

10) Multiple loon/buoy sightings.

11) My own personal peanut butter pie…which I shared…reluctantly.

12) My selection of non-alcoholic beverages that were able to fool me into thinking I was keeping up one for one with the non-preggos. The wine was actually delish! Thanks to the Superstore for that perfect little find.

13) Not getting my wallet stolen.

14) Talk of next year’s weekend already underway. Is it too early to count sleeps?

Thanks to my girls for making it the most fun weekend I’ve spent in a long time. Who knew when *most of us* met 19 years ago that we’d actually look forward to being locked up in close quarters for days at a time and still find enough to talk and laugh hysterically about….?

Special thanks to Alicia for organizing this unorganizable crew and to Monica who travelled the furthest, with a cheesecake and apple pie, no less.

Girls, until next year………………….