Good heavens, what a weekend! I had been feeling a bit under the weather and had hoped to at least have one day to relax, but that was not to be. On the bright side, we had so much fun, it’s OK!

We started off things on Friday after work. takaza and I decided to do a little furniture shopping. You see, I bought our poor bed when I first moved into a place of my own, which would have been when I lived in Durham, NC in 1996. Twelve years later, the bed could charitably be described as “swaybacked” and it’s really past time for a new one. At the same time, we decided that while the headboard we inherited from my parents is nice, we really wanted something a bit more solid.

After a brief stop by Georgetown Furniture in Antioch (nice folks, but they didn’t have what we wanted), it was off to Steinhafels Furniture in Kenosha. They had a lot of nice furniture (and sleazy, used-car-lot-type salesmen), but they seemed too expensive, We opted against buying anything there and instead went next door to Woodman’s and bought a whole bunch of stuff for Saturday.

What was on Saturday? Well, we were going to the drive-in theater! The McHenry Outdoor Theater started their “Fall Throwback” series with Back to the Future. We wound up with ten other folks there: hegdish, drakeduck, baconcoyote, daveqat, jimcyl, motherofchina, fuzzbear, linnaeus, Tom, and Hugh.

Me being me, I had to make sure we had a proper spread. Dave and Jim brought some nice cheese and crackers. For drinks, we had a half-gallon of Dan’s “metrosexuals” (cosmopolitan made with pomegranate liqueur), a quart of Hendricks gimlet, and a nice selection of beer. For an entree, I spent Saturday making a big ol’ batch of chili con carne with jalapeno-cheddar biscuits (I used that as a base recipe for the chili, but used ground chuck, ground turkey, and chorizo for the meat and added in a couple of diced chipotle chiles in adobo). What an excellent recipe! For dessert, I made the apple pie-cake thing in the newest Cook’s Country, and it was extremely tasty.

We had so much fun! We got there a few minutes before the box office opened, chatted a while, then once we got in, set up and hung out for about an hour. The chili was a big hit (SO good with those biscuits!) and it was a real pleasure to make some new friends. It was a perfect night – the temperature was falling into the mid-fifties, and the bugs were at a minimum. The only downside was the very light sprinkling of rain that started right as the movie was ending. No problem, though – we packed everything up and headed back to our place where we hung out and chatted some more. What a fantastic evening!

After a bit of Midwest FurFest-related business Sunday morning, we met up at the Westin for the September in-person MFF staff meeting. The meeting went really well, and we covered a lot of ground. Dan wasn’t feeling well at the end of the meeting so we opted out of dinner afterwards and headed towards home. We stopped in the brand-new Allegheny Park in Grayslake and walked around a bit, enjoying the perfect evening. That helped Dan feel better, so we opted for Sammy’s for dinner. As we were sitting there, Dan noticed a small furniture shop in the Jewel shopping center and suggested we try that after dinner.

We drove by the shop, My Family Furniture, and while the hours on their door said they were closed, their “OPEN” sign was lit. We poked our heads in, and the owner said he was just wrapping up a sale, but we were free to look around. Well, we looked and looked and found some nice stuff and suddenly…wow, we bought a bed! Specifically, the Oak Ridge bed (and two nightstands) as well as a Serta “Ocean Winds” pillow-top mattress set. I have to say that the prices they offered were excellent, and the twelve-months-same-as-cash iced the deal. So, in three or four weeks, we should have a brand new bed! Hooray!

Unfortunately, the cough that was lingering through the weekend is still here. I slept poorly last night, and I’m really paying for it today. The good news is that I have a previously-scheduled checkup with my doctor first thing tomorrow morning, so I can ask about it and see if I can’t get something to treat the symptoms. Looking ahead to next weekend, I see precious little on our social calendar, and I suspect that it’s going to stay that way. We’re overdue for a quiet weekend at home. Maybe I’ll watch some football games, and Dan and I can snuggle on the sofa and watch a movie. Yeah, I’d like that 🙂