Like the first day of summer vacation

A few things happened over the weekend that put me in a completely different frame of mind from last week. We finally celebrated Chinese New Year (originally canceled because of bad weather). I have to tell you that I have a huge respect for people who work in professional kitchens–my legs, feet and back were tired from the work we did to put dinner on for 5 adults and 2 children. We began working on Friday and finished about an hour before people showed up (obviously, we didn’t work all night long, but still).

As I’ve mentioned, cooking helps me get in a better mood so I had that going for me. Around 3pm on Saturday, I checked the mailbox and saw that there was a letter from the graduate school that I applied to back in January. As time has moved on from that application, I really started to think that I was out of luck. I opened the letter in the garage so I could recycle the other crap we tend to get on Saturdays and was over-the-moon to find out I’ve been accepted. I officially start with the fall semester. I still haven’t gotten a letter and materials from the department I’ll be joining, but the graduate school says let’s go, we’re going to have so much fun (OK, maybe the letter wasn’t quite like that, but that’s what the voices in my head tell me). As I was opening the letter, I thought about how I was nervous like that when I was applying to undergraduate. For the master’s it was different, I got an email and then official notifications–I’d already taken a class in the program so I had a relationship with the professors.

After we set off fireworks to end our New Year celebration, The Niece spent the night. She and the better-half star-gazed while I cleaned up the enormous amount of dishes (I think they were multiplying on the counter). After a little time snuggling on the couch, I told The Niece she had to go to bed because I had to go to bed. She hemmed and hawed until I told her I didn’t say she had to go to sleep, she just had to get in bed. The light bulb went off in her head and she went right upstairs and got settled down for the night. I have no idea when she went to sleep, but I know at 2am when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep that she was soundly asleep. I ended up reading on the couch and napping until 8. She slept until 8:30. It’s so much nicer now that she’s getting older. I don’t miss those wake-up-at-6am mornings.

We went out to breakfast and then walked all through Maymont. By the end of our Maymont trip all of us were tired and hot so we made a game of who could whine the best. We finished our day together with a trip to the World’s Busiest McDonald’s and a trip to Kroger to buy cat litter and tissues. Thrilling stuff, I tell you.

My good mood is persisting because a little while ago a very high-maintenance, part-time trainer just insisted I hadn’t done part of my job in front of my supervisor. My supervisor knows me well enough that she didn’t even pause the conversation to look over at me. I, of course, have done my job. High-maintenance people are a pain in the ass. As Colbert would say, “you’re on notice.”