enjoy the silence? not so much.

My sister and the rest of the family left for Panama City Beach on Saturday. I've basically been trying to convince myself for the last week and a half that I really didn't care that I wouldn't be able to go down to the beach with them. Not even for a quick day trip. After all, PCB is so overrated, anyway. And we didn't have the money. And blah blah blahbitty blah. But, sure enough, when the house cleared out around noon on Saturday I was crestfallen. Sad, even. I guess I really wanted to see the Emerald Coast after all.

The Monkey isn't as thick as he sometimes lets on. I was sullen most of Saturday afternoon. Not even the Spongebob Spongebash marathon was cheering me up. That's when The Monkey gave me surprise, middle-of-the-afternoon-the-house-is-completely-devoid-of-lifeforms-that-don't-walk-on-all-fours-be-as-loud-as-you-want sex. Which, I'll admit, did cheer me up. But what really made my day was when he said if we had the $20 it would cost for gas that we should go ahead and make the trip down to PCB for the afternoon. At least we could get some sun and get our fill of the beach. (Not to mention SALT WATER TAFFY!)

We got up early Sunday and got to PCB by 11:00 AM. Naturally, the weather was less than cooperative. We would get hit with the 20% chance of showers. [eyeroll] But we got to swim for a couple of hours. And we hung out with my mom in my sister's condo for another hour. Then we headed to Pier Park and picked up a little over a POUND of Salt Water Taffy for yours truly and headed home. (I am ashamed to admit that the pound of taffy was gone within 48 hours. Er...maybe less.

What made the whole trip go sour for me was not the less-than-desirable weather, though. No, it was the fact that upon our return, The Monkey became ill. Fluids coming from both ends. YUK. We had a bit of a scare when his poo because the consistency of coffee grounds. Thankfully the doctor said it was nothing more than a stomach bug (even though our GP sent us to a surgeon to find this out and for several hours I was on razor's edge thinking The Monkey was going to be having an emergency colonoscopy). He was much better by Tuesday evening. His blood pressure was close to normal (130/80) and he's already dropped 10 pounds (though I'm not sure how much of that was mere fluid loss). He's perfectly fine today and back on solid food again. We had tortellini and garlic bread for supper tonight after living on soup and crackers for the past two nights.

The house is too quiet. My sister's poor dog was depressed the first two days they were gone. He barely ate and only came down from his bed upstairs to go outside. But he's been spending much more time downstairs since Tuesday. In fact, he won't leave me alone!

The week has been boooooooring. The Monkey has to work, of course, so I'm home alone all day. As tempted as I've been, I have not been sleeping until noon, though. I spent some time over at my parents' house and ran errands. At night, The Monkey and I have been enjoying oodles of DVR'd movies from the pay channels. My sister pays for Cinemax, Showtime, and HBO but they hardly ever watch movies. I also caught up on So You Think You Can Dance. (In fact, it's about time for me to go upstairs and watch yesterday's show so I can watch the results show later this evening.)

Only 12 more days until we leave for Pennsylvania. I am pretty stoked! I have lots of stuff to occupy my coming week. I need to get our cars reregistered. On the 30th I have to travel to Birmingham to see my RE. On the 31st I have a hair appointment. Then it'll be another mad dash to clean the house and pack before we depart on the 4th! I should get started on a list of what I need to bring NOW so I'm not scrambling later. If only I could figure out a way to drop these last 10 pounds by the 4th... hmmph.