Work is hard, especially when you don't do it often

You may recall my lamenting last week the process of getting back into the groove.

Well, thanks to some major 'hooky' playing last week (golf and lunch on Thursday, more golf and friends in town on Friday) I really didn't look forward to coming to work today.

I'm sure Ann will have pics-o-plenty to share from our Chier/Donahue/Hankins weekend, so I'll just share a few stories here.

We had amazing weather all the way through, perfect for 18 holes on Friday with Jim, and a trip each day to the Ledges Pool with the whole gang. The girls got a shopping trip through metropolitan Roscoe on Saturday, and the fellas got off easy as Sammy and Addie slept while they were gone. It was such a blast having them at our new (to them) place, I think they can see why we love it so much there. I realized I'm still in the honeymoon phase of living in the woods - even with all of the fun things that come with it like errant tree limbs and bugs and critters a-plenty. This morning just as all of us were heading out the door, I spotted what can only be described as a "monster" june bug/beetle thing on our kitchen floor. "Holy hell, what is that?" was the quote that I gave everyone when I saw it. The kids were most impressed, but also glad to see it end up on the side of the driveway.

The girls had a great time with Ele, and we all had a great time conversing and enjoying ourselves either at the house, pool or our night out at the Gun Club and Whiffle Tree on Saturday. It was the first time I've been able to get Ann to stay at the Whiffle Tree for more than 1 beer... but in all fairness, each time we've gone it's been at the end of the evening when that's about all we could stomach anyway.

For those of you not initiated, the Whiffle Tree is like a 70's-era basement, but with a bar, dart board, jukebox, pool table, Golden Tee game and I think a few video gambling machines.

Oh, and REALLY cheap beer. And free popcorn. (hey Kim, you don't have to eat the un-popped kernels at the bottom of the bowl, there's more popcorn in the machine!)

We had a marathon game of team cricket which ended with the win going to Jim/Jill over Chris/Ann.

The only trouble with having all that fun for a few days, or in this case 4 straight days of relaxation, Sunday afternoon and evening turn me into Mr. Cranky-Pants. 

I'm not sure how to cure it when I come down with it, it's just me not wanting to adjust to having to go back to work. It's a minor miracle that I was motivated enough to get out this morning at 5:30 am to ride 17 miles, I was only driven by the fact that Ann isn't missing many of her morning workouts, and I'll be dammed if she's gonna smoke me on the bike portion of the triathlon next month!

Seriously though, it would have been SO easy to roll back to sleep and just bag it, or wait until 6 and go running instead. I knew it was going to be a slow start when I got home after the ride, sat down at the kitchen table with Addie while she ate her breakfast, and STILL felt like going back upstairs to bed. You would think that riding a quick pace for 60 minutes would turn on the engine for the day. But as I sit here at 10:25 am, I still would love to just put my head down in front of the fan on my desk and take a snooze.

But duty calls, and somewhere in the Fox Valley area there's a kid outside playing that would make a great picture, and I'm gonna find him.