We got up around 9:00 this morning. Amanda showered and all and went to have breakfast at Sweet & Savory with Amy Farmer and Tiffany. I can’t remember Tiffany’s last name. Anyway, Amy, Amanda’s best old friend from way back when, was in town and the three of them had breakfast. As I already said. At Sweet & Savory, as you already know.
I, on the other hand, played around in the yard. I swept about a bale’s worth of pinestraw up from our patio and spread it out front then mowed the yard. I decided to keep on going so I decided to spray a bunch of the weeds around the yard, particularly on the walkway in the front of the house. It was about overgrown. Last time I sprayed the weed killer it didn’t seem to do all that much. This time I used a bit more of the concentrate that I’m supposed to, but at least I’m already seeing results.
If I haven’t mentioned it enough yet, I really enjoy having the iPhone function as an iPod. I had it with me all morning. When a call is coming in the music fades out and the phone rings. If you’re using the headphone that came with it, you hit a little button on the cord to answer and hang up, then the music comes right back on.
Amanda got back while I was in the shower. We thought about going to the beach, but Amanda’s grandparents, Earl and Peggy Lemons, were coming by at some point in the afternoon to take Amanda shopping. Amanda decided to clean up while I took a look at the bills. At first glance I thought we didn’t have enough coming in over the next month to pay off all the bills (mainly due to a higher than usual credit card bill) but I think I must have left off a paycheck or so. By the time we’ve paid the mortgage at the end of this month we should be looking pretty decent.
Amanda’s grandparents got here and the ladies went shopping. Earl and I didn’t feel like doing that, so we sat and watched some ACC football. Duke was looking like they had a chance of snapping their 21-game losing streak, but instead dropped it to the Virginia Cavaliers. Apparently they have a few road games coming up and they haven’t won a road game since beating Carolina in 2003. I’ve decided that I should start rooting more for Duke football. I don’t much care about college football, but since I do love the basketball team so, I figure I should show some love to the football program. I also have fond memories of going to some games when I was younger.
We also watched Wake Forest play against Nebraska. I think our friends Kyle and Lorin Van Zandt were at that game. Wake Forest also had a chance of winning but didn’t.
After the games were over Earl and I went to Lowe’s. He had a couple things to pick up, and we went to Wal-Mart so he could pick up a few other things. While we were there Amanda called and we all discovered that we were hungry, so we agreed to meet at Olive Garden, pretty much across the street from where we were. We got there just a couple minutes before the ladies even though they were coming all the way from the mall. Earl kept thinking of things to get at Wally World and the checkout took us longer than it should have.
We had a nice dinner at the Olive Garden. I got a never-ending pasta bowl. I expected they’d give you smaller portions, but I filled up on my first (although I still got a refill to take home). It was very well-priced, I thought. After that Amanda and Peggy rode back to our place in the Jetta and Earl drove us back in their Taurus. We got back quite a bit after they did because I had to convince Earl to drive through the Costco parking lot for a shortcut and he drives like, well, like a grandpa. Then when we turned into our neighborhood he asked me if turning right lead to a cul-de-sac. I told him there was another entrance to the neighborhood and a bunch of small cul-de-sacs. He said “Let’s go see,” and took a right turn. I was amused. I really like Earl Lemons.
We unloaded the pressure washer from the car after we got back. I think it actually belongs to Amanda’s parents but Earl had used it last. I plan on using it on the house soon.
They left and we sat down to see what was on. Amanda was flipping around on the TV and came to The Land Before Time. By the time she wanted to do something else the movie was only about twenty minutes from being over, so we watched the rest of that. Yeah, it’s a silly kids movie, but still, I hadn’t seen it in so long (my brother Adam used to watch it a lot) and we’d gotten so far into it I figured I just had to finish it. Amanda thought about going on a walk, but I was tired and feeling lazy. I should have agreed to it though because I’ve been encouraging her to do more active things.
After The Land Before Time we watched Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which we bought last night. It seems like every movie that comes out now had to be the extended or unrated version with a few extra minutes of footage in it. Some of it was funny, but most of the extra stuff they put in, well, it wasn’t in the original for a reason. My friend Jason Revill told me that the unrated version of The Forty-Year-Old Virgin was terrible because of the extra footage. Now that I know of an example I can agree that extended versions (or unrated versions of the director’s cut, whatever you want to call them) of movies aren’t as good. But I still don’t think it makes it terrible. But definitely not as good.
Zach Dotsey