Did you happen to get outside?

In case you were living under a rock this weekend, it was gorgeous. Beautiful. Dare I say a bit summer-like? Anyway you describe it, if you spent the weekend indoors, shame on you.

Once the clock struck 5 p.m. Friday, I took full advantage of the wonderful weather.

Had a nice low-key dinner with my parents Friday night and then my aunt and uncle had a bonfire at their house later that evening. I tell you, I think my ribs still hurt from laughing so hard.

Saturday, I loaded my bike up on my car and lugged it my parents' house. It was in need of air in its tires and a good dose of grease on the chain. And I don't do bike maintenance. I was going to take it with me Friday, but I was having problems hooking my bike carrier up to my car, so I left it until Saturday morning. I loaded the bike up, drove it up to Mom and Dad's and within 5 minutes, Dad was putzing around in the garage, putting air in the tires, giving the chain a fresh coat of grease and tightening the kickstand.

Later, two-thirds of The Rugrats made it over to Mom and Dad's house. We played outside, took a walk around the block and went and played at the park.

I had decided to stay at my parents' house last night. When I got up this morning, I laced up my running shoes and took a nice 2.6 mile run around their neighborhood. It was nice to have some different scenery. The run wasn't bad, except when I was running south, into a really gusty wind. But I survived. After a quick shower, I loaded my bike back up and hit the road back to The City on the Water.

Once I got home, I waged a war on the spiders that are hanging around my house. We could potentially live in peace, but they decide to sneak their way into my apartment any time I open the patio door. And needless to say, I'm not going to keep the patio door closed all summer. So Dad had given me some bug killer stuff and I sprayed it all around the patio door. And then watched as it claimed it's first victim...a nasty looking striped spider.

After the spider was dead, I pulled my bike out of the garage and went for a 7 mile bike ride, nearly getting knocked of sideways from the wind. It was a nice ride, a good one to get myself back into the bike riding mode.

I then spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting outside on my deck, reading "A Confederacy of Dunces," a book that I'm struggling to get into. I'm about 180 pages into it, but it's still not quite grabbing my attention. Maybe it will soon.

Tomorrow instead of getting up and going to work, I have plans to clean the bathroom and make a batch of brownies before heading out to my uncle's funeral.