"It's alive!"

So I have been eaten by holiday work-time. The day job is requiring a lot of extra time this year. What is not mandatory from management is mandatory by my immediate supervisor. Yes, I do get paid real honest-to-goodness overtime pay, but I cannot even being to describe my horror & stress at being in that building any longer than I have to. Too bad there's no other place around here that pays as well.
I must apologize for being so negligent in my blogging. But all in all, not too much to tell until this weekend. And then.... all hell broke loose at my house.
The bf & I did some ET on Sunday night, and then after that nearly 12-hour day, we come home to find our water heater has blown up & is drenching our kitchen. Yeah. Great. And all this on a work night. While both of us are on warnings for attendance at work, we had to take a personal day to get the thing repaired. And then, Repair-guy installed a new water heater, said wait an hour & try it. Flash forward one hour: no hot water... AND no water pressure in the kitchen. Worse off now than when the water heater was leaking. So, we try and call the repairman. No answer. Goodie. We were slated to leave the next morning to go to Charlotte, NC for a Charlotte Checkers game. And we were determined to go. So Brandon's mother graciously offered to come over to the house while the repairman was there if we had to leave before he was done. So flash forward again to 9am Tuesday: Repair-guy calls. Says he's coming right over. Well, I take off to pay the utilities & internet & get the oil changed in the car while repair-guy is on his way. At 10:30, Brandon texts me. Says still no repair-guy. Beauty. The day is starting out so well...
But before we leave, he is able to correct the hot water issue, and Bran's mom comes over so we can go. Repair-guy got other issue fixed after a couple more hours. And surprise! He even fixed the leaky faucet! Yay!!
And... cut to our drive to Charlotte. A little rainy. Brandon drove & I played navigator. Uneventful drive. It was easier to get there than I had anticipated. And then we get to the hotel. We had decided to try an adventurous little inn right in uptown Charlotte. Its claim to fame was themed suites. We got the "Romance Suite". Ha ha ha! A Queen size bed that has a heart-shaped jacuzzi directly beside it. Yep, in the same room. On a slightly raised platform, but if you played your cards right, you could step out of bed & into the jacuzzi. And it had very poorly applied "tropical" wallpaper. And cable tv. OMG, how crappy is cable? Seriously, I never knew until this. I've always had satellite & I suppose I am slightly spoiled. But jeez, we couldn't even watch the tv to relax.
After we checked in to the hotel, we had a couple of hours to kill. We decided to walk around town, see if there was anything "tourist-y" so pressing that we had to see it before the game. Nope. We did spot some cute little taverns/pubs & coffee shops. And we ate at this great restaraunt: Rock Bottom Brewery. They had great microbrewed beer. I had a beautiful Gorgonzola, pear, and grilled chicken salad & spicy tomato bisque. Brandon got a hickory smoked burger & fries. Suprise!! I got a "Growler" of beer to go. When the waitress mentioned it, I was expecting a Schooner with a lid. What I got was a gallon of beer in a brown glass bottle. I looked like a lush trying to carry that down S Tryon Street. I decided to stick it in my purse :)
The Charlotte Checkers v Augusta Lynx game was pretty cool. It was my first hockey game. Not quite NHL, but they are feeder/affiliate teams with the NHL. Brandon & I were right behind the home penalty box. Everytime a Charlotte player got a penalty, we were up on the Jumbotron screen. And after the game, one of the officials gave us an official game puck! That was pretty durned cool, if I do say so myself.
Cut to the drive home: Me behind the wheel, Bran asleep in the passenger street. It rained from about 10 minutes outside of Charlotte all the way into Radford. Rain, fog, roadwork. Still a relatively uneventful drive, just not a relaxing one. And after we got home, I cleaned up the kitchen, got rid of the moldy smell from the water leak, washed clothes/dishes & started a baby blanket for the sister-in-law who's due the week of Valentine's day. Anyone have a good pattern for a little boy that's not a blanket or a sweater??
Well, that's it. Next post will be shorter, I promise. Less to catch up on. And some pics of stuff recently started or finished! Blessed be, all!!