Have you ever had one of those weekends where you are amazingly productive and get more stuff done than you did all week only to realize that none of the things that you accomplished were on your “to do” list? Yeah, me too.

1. This weekend started off pretty chill. Friday night I hung out with some friends and everyone was in one of those moods where you are happy to be around people but are into different activities. We were at K’s house and she was framing pictures, her roommate D was laying in the floor putting off working on her dissertation and I was researching stuff for my trip on the computer. We would occassionally say something to the other two basically to confirm that everyone was still awake and still cool with our low key arrangement. I went home and slept like a baby. Little did I know how much I should have savored that night’s rest.

2. On Saturday I headed down to Richmond to lend my neighbor little Chris a hand. He was going to do some work on the floor of the downstairs apartment in The Dupe. He owns the duplex next door and we co-own another property on our block as well as each having another house in the neighborhood. He has proven to be the neighborhood angel and resident handyman.  I figured I’d ply little Chris and big Chris with beer and wings and maybe play at doing some work for appearances sake but mostly talk to the rest of the neighbors and catch up while eating those little hershey’s kisses with almonds in them. Not so much. I ended up bumming a (new) toothbrush off of Tracey and sleeping on the couch after working until 11 and trying to stay awake long enough to partake of the beer and wings. I could have sworn I would have been home before the first SNL skit, little did I know I’d be dragging my unshowered, paint-covered, achey body back to C’ville at 8pm Sunday night.

A small “let’s check out the floor in the bathroom” turned into a 36 hour bathroom remodel. We literally did everything except take out the tub. We ended up pulling up the entire floor, replacing the subfloor and vinyl. Actually Little Chris and Big Chris did the floor, I mostly talked to some of our neighbors and ate those hershey kisses with the almonds in them. Then we pulled off all the baseboards and quarter rounds, we replaced the vanity, put in a new sink and painted the entire bathroom.  The funny thing is that I wouldn’t change a thing. The bathroom looks great, I learned something new (we’re going to have to do this at my brother’s house soon) and most of all, I got to spend time with little Chris. We hadn’t hung out in a while and I enjoyed his company and catching up with him about all the neighborhood news. I miss our little crew of 20 and 30 somethings, we did alot together socially and looked after all of the older (mostly african american) neighbors. We all sort of have a pact that no one can sell their house to someone we don’t like, which is kind of scary-cultish, and probably illegal, but we’ll just gloss over that for now. It’ll probably take me all week to recover but I still wouldn’t change a thing. Well, except for the 4 trips to Lowes and the 1 trip to Home Depot.

2a. We went to a brunch on Sunday wherein there were 20 people of all shapes and sizes across a broad spectrum of diversity and two white dudes playing blues (and they were good!). There were probably 15 guys and 5 women and it was nice because the guys did all of the cooking. There was sausage and hasbrowns, fruits and muffins, a homemade coffeecake and whipped cream made from scratch! Mostly there were the 8 bottles of champagne that went into the best.mimosas.ever. We were all a little “buzzed” and little Chris and I still had work to do with small, sharp electrical appliances.

3. Finally, did I mention that my baby brother is engaged?!  Congrats C.Diggs and Jamila! I congratulate you both, love you to pieces and pray to God that you guys get better at telling your “how we got engaged story.”