5 minutes

Hey!!! And so another weekend is almost over.....blah! I totally meant to get a Powerball ticket yesterday. Oh well, I guess it will be back to work for us tomorrow.

So....we've had a great weekend. Fairly relaxing and that is NICE. We buy loads of coupon books each year to save money at local restaurants, because we LOVE to eat out on the weekends. This year we have three of the Citipass books because they have some AWESOME Home Depot coupons and that is our home away from home. And the little Italian joint on our corner is in there, plus a ton of Indian restaurants and other places we really like to eat at. After flipping through them Friday night we decided on the French Quarter Cafe. It's only a half mile from our house and we've always meant to try it and just hadn't gotten around to it. It looks like a strange, striped dive from the outside but it's always packed at night, so it has to be good, right?? We pulled in and wished each other luck. For people who have changed SO much in the past year we still hate trying new restaurants! Really just the part when you walk in and have to figure out what to do. A few times lately we've just turned around and walked out. We wandered past the bar to the back and found an open table. A really cheery waitress came over and gave us our menus and we were set. I went with the shrimp but I WISH I had gotten Brent's sampler plate. The shrimp was good but there was nothing Cajun about it. Brent's sampler had red beans and rice, a Cajun chicken dish, boiled shrimp and potatoes - it was SO good! The FQC also has live music. We love that most every little dive in our neighborhood has live music. I put my feet up in an empty chair, gorged myself on my food and Brent's, and enjoyed the 4 acoustic sets we watched. By the time we left the place was in its usual packed state. We'll totally go back. Then we went home, propped up our feet and ordered Devil Wears Prada on pay per view (with another free coupon!). It was really cute, I doubt it will win an Oscar but I really enjoyed it.

Saturday morning was a big one - Pippin's follow up appointment at the surgeon. They were awfully busy, so I was trying my best to contain hyper Pippin while we waited for the doc to finish consulting with a guy with a parrot. (Apparently they work on a lot of birds there. One told me 'bye' when we were leaving.) All of a sudden I was descended on by the two vet techs who started removing his staples WHILE HE WAS SITTING ON MY LAP!!! I was already burning up from trying to contain his hyperness with all the people in the waiting room (including one old couple who showed up at 9:45 for their 10:30 appointment. HUH?????????). When they said they were going to pull them there I said "Ummmm...ok. But I don't think I can watch." It really wasn't that bad, they just pulled straight out and Pippin didn't really seem to notice. I think I was the most uncomfortable. Once the bird guy was gone we got to meet with the doc who told us Pips is exactly on schedule and doing great. This Saturday we can take him for a FIVE minute walk. Yay!!! Five minutes won't get us far but I can't wait. He's still on strict rest until then, but he's also cone free now! And let me tell you, we are ALL happy about that. He still needs to stay crated when we're gone until Feb 10th, and on Feb 24th he's free to be as wild as he wants to be - jumping on people, furniture, exercising as long as we want. Right now his knee and surrounding tissue is still very fragile, but by then he should be totally healed and ready to take on the world again. He's already becoming more adventurous, and the jumping on furniture thing is going to get rougher before long. Both Sat and Sun morning I was woken by him standing up with his front paws on my side of the bed, staring at me. He's also starting to try to get up on the couch and just wanting to jump more in general. He's not walking on the leg yet (and he's not supposed to) but he does use it more when standing and playing - all very good signs. Our main goal is to keep him from jumping or doing anything where he might fall and injure the fragile knee tissue. SO, still no visitors or trips for Pippin until Feb 24th.

The rest of Saturday we spent cleaning around the house, organizing our guest room, and then some retail therapy. We got some amazing deals at Macy's and Express (Brent got a great jacket that was $198 for $23!!!!). I was seriously in the mood for some Greek food so we broke the coupon book out and went to Kalamatas. SO good!! I had a gyro plate with a Greek salad. I LOVE Greek salad!!! They also had a guy playing acoustic guitar with a guy playing a little drum. It was so relaxing! It was like our weekend of live dinner music. I should've made Brent play guitar while I ate my "gourmet" grilled cheese tonight. (I make them with pepperjack and feta. SO good.)

I wasn't able to squeeze in a long run this weekend, but we did get some working out in. Today it rained for infinity, and poured rain for most of that. I just got several new workout DVDs so I've been trying to kill Brent with them. (That's what he says.) Thurs night we did 20 minutes of Perfect Abs. It was tough, but not terrible. He was sore the following day and ever since then. I really wasn't sore until Saturday, and not really sore - more of a tight feeling. Today I made him do the Killer Abs DVD with me (45 minutes of tough ab work). It was pretty good but "Patch" really makes me mad when he stops working out to wander around and watch the girls. It's distracting and I'd much rather see the trainer in pain with me and not walking around. Brent is now complaining of internal bleeding. I don't think ab work can make you bleed internally, but both of those DVDs will give you a good workout. I also got a third one I need to try out this week.

Have a good week everyone!

WIDTW:
Thurs - 4.25 mile run, 20 mins abs
Fri - Rest day
Sat - 3.3 mile run
Sun - 3.6 mile run, 45 mins abs