Long weekend!!

Today is the start of a four-day weekend for me! I'm almost beside myself with joy. I never, ever get even a "normal" weekend off, but this was time off I requested a couple of months ago. Written requests are the only way to get weekends off at our store, unless you're one of the favored, "popular" employees (and I'm certainly not one of those!). So I am very happy to have a little stretch of days to do as I please.

The first order of business today is housework. We've fallen behind on it, and the house is too messy for me to enjoy myself unless I do something about it. Also, Ginger the dog needs a good bath, and her bedding needs to be laundered. She's kind of smelly! Hee hee. But after I spend a few hours today catching up on cleaning and pet care, I'll have the next three days to do whatever I like!

Tomorrow I plan to go to the farmer's market early in the day, and then in the afternoon a friend and her fiancee will be coming over for margaritas and hot dogs cooked on the grill. Sunday will be a quiet day spent at home, reading and relaxing by myself, and then on Monday my friend and I are taking a girl's day trip to Huntington Beach state park for beach combing and bird watching!

Huntington Beach is one of my favorite spots in our whole state. There are miles of clean beach, a saltwater marsh, a long jetty stretching out into the ocean, the remains of a nineteenth century "castle" called Atalaya on the beach that was built by a sculptress and her husband as their summer home, and across the highway there is one of the Southeast's great little-known treasures...Brookgreen Gardens. Brookgreen is a huge sculpture garden/wildlife preserve that is absolutely beautiful. I'm not sure if we'll be going there, since we're mostly planning a beach day, but if we do I'll take lots of pictures to share. Meanwhile, here are some links with nice pictures.

Huntington beach state park

Brookgreen Gardens

Atalaya Castle

Happy weekend, everyone!