First of all, today was my sister’s senior recital for university. She is a senior music major. The rest of my family (my mom, dad and his wife, and my other sister) were all there and I was sad I couldn’t be there. Yet another event (one of the many in the past few months, it seems) where the entire family has been able to be together except for me. I hate that. But anyhow, congratulations Sarah!

Last night at around 11:30pm, we heard a lot of noise outside.  Cars, sirens, people yelling.  We finally looked outside and saw this:

Our street was in chaos.  Completely closed off, with flares, police officers, and fire trucks everywhere.  People were all outside, standing on the sidewalks.  There was a helicopter circling above.  It was crazy.  And 100 yards away, there was thick smoke billowing into the air.  You could smell the burning.

It was the 7-eleven just a few doors down.  The whole thing was completely destroyed – in the morning it was gutted.  It is so sad.  That was someone’s livelihood, their business.  One second it was their life, the family that ran it, and the next it was gone.  Fire is so scary.  I wonder if they will rebuild and reopen.

This morning, we went to Barnes and Noble.  It was already around noon, so I guess it wasn’t really breakfast.  But I got a fabulous cookie:

It was great but didn’t fill me up for very long.  We went to Trader Joe’s for our weekly big grocery trip, stopped at Safeway on the way home for a few extras, and by the time we unloaded and put stuff away I was starving.  I made us some cheesy rigatoni with tomato sauce.

S and I are trying to get into college football now.  So we watched an hour of so on TV.  It’s not as exciting as the NFL, in my opinion, but that is probably because I have never really watched before and I’m not emotionally invested in any of the teams.  I’m hoping that will change as we start watching more!

For dinner, I met a friend at California Pizza Kitchen.  I love that place, it is one of my favorite places to go.   My friend Christi is from Pittsburgh, like me, and travels back there every year for a trip.  She stays for a whole month, from Thanksgiving through Christmas.  Since she is leaving on Tuesday and will be gone for such a long time, we met for one last get-together beforehand.

I didn’t really feel like pizza for some reason, so I got a shrimp caesar salad:

While I was out, I realized that it was the first time in seven months that I have gone out to eat without S.  Isn’t that absolutely crazy?

We have been talking a lot lately, and we have decided we need to do at least some things on our own.  I started it a little while ago when I began playing basketball again.  Now we are going to work on each going out with a friend or two every so often.  I think that’s really important for our relationship, especially now that we live together and are together all the time.  Sometimes I feel like I need time away from him, but then when I go out to dinner with friends or something, like I did on Saturday night for just a few hours, I miss him.

When I got home, he was starving.  Of course he couldn’t actually make dinner for himself while I was gone!  He would waste away to nothing before he actually heated up a frozen pizza for himself for dinner.  Geez.  I made him some dinner, and made myself some dessert.

Peppermint stick ice cream!  Tis the season.

Now I’m off to work.  Yes, on a Saturday night   Oh well, it only happens every once in a while.  And in this economy, I’m thankful to even have my job…..