My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: A Much-Needed Three-Day Weekend and Paint Day

I decided I wanted a three-day weekend because March doesn't have a holiday and I just wanted that extra day off. So, I looked at the calendar and picked a weekend. I blocked it off on my calendar and as it got closer, I let my co-workers know that I was taking some time to get a few things done. I told Dad I would help him and Mom with some stuff at Grammie and Grandpa's estate on Friday. The rest of the weekend was unplanned but glad to have that time to do whatever I wanted or needed to do.

Friday, March 25

Friday morning, I slept in because I could, and it was much needed. I felt so much better after sleeping in until about 9:30 or so. I called Mom and Dad to see what time I needed to be in Rainier. He said sometime around 11. I got dressed, ate some breakfast and gathered up the recycle...for some reason we acquired a lot of it this week.

I dropped off the recycle, drove to Mom and Dad's house to pick up Mom and we met Dad over at Grammie and Grandpa's house. Dad wanted Mom and I to try and match up the receipts with the antiques in the house. We were able to match up eight of the receipts up with various items and it took a few hours to do so. Meanwhile, we were also able to go through some of the stuff to take home and sort at our own leisure. Once we were done there, we drove down into Rainier so we could see what exactly was inside the storage unit. We were there for at least an hour.

Throughout the day, we kept in touch with Doug, who decided he was going to take a half day, meet up with some friends for lunch at a bar, play pull tabs and drink beer. He really didn't need to be drinking beer. Apparently, he won $400 on pull tabs and wanted to take his family out to celebrate Erika, who had just finished her thesis. We tried figuring out when and where we wanted to go later on that evening. It was like pulling teeth to get Erika to decide where she wanted to go. We decided on the Cascadia Grill in downtown Olympia since Doug said good things about it in the past and no one else had been there before.

Mom, Dad and I went back to their house, and I told them since we were having dinner I should probably go home and get ready. Dad decided he didn't want to go so he stayed home. I got back into Lacey, changed my clothes and Mom said she would meet me at my house, so we didn't have a ton of cars parked in downtown Oly. Doug decided he was going to go from the bar to the grill and that he would meet us down there.

We all piled into our cars and drove down. Mom, Ben and I parked near the Farmer's Market since I had no idea where I was supposed to park and that was familiar to me. Besides, it was only a few blocks away from where we were meeting everyone. We went inside and they said it would be a wait. I called Doug to find out where he, Erika and Zach were. They were walking the boardwalk. We told them we would meet them there. I had Ben do three points of one of the Olympia Adventure Labs while we were there.

About ten minutes later, we got the phone call stating that our table was ready. We walked back to the grill, and we were seated. Doug said to get whatever we wanted. We ordered drinks and I got a virgin lavender lemonade. Doug ordered some poutine while we waited for our meals. I ordered one of the burgers and fries. We chatted about random things while we waited. I've never had poutine even though Mom and I were in Canada back in the fall of 2018. We just never had the chance to try it. It was surprisingly good even though I am not a huge fan of gravy.

Our food came and it was pretty good. I might have to consider coming here every once and a while when we are needing a different place to eat. Doug paid for our meals, and we all went home. I had to get gas on our way back to my house. I was not too excited about spending over $50 on gas because of a pointless war between Russia and Ukraine. Mom went home, Doug went to bed and Ben got ready for his 24-hour shift the next day. I stayed up a little bit doing a few things before I headed to bed.

Saturday, March 26

The next morning, I woke up when Ben was getting ready for work. We said our goodbyes and I went back to bed for a little bit longer. When I did finally decide to get up, I got dressed, ate some breakfast, started some laundry and got ready to go do some errands.

I went to Costco first to get a few things like grapes, muffins, chicken and fruit snacks. I went over to the Dollar Tree to get a couple more things for everyone's Easter baskets and then went over to Erika and Zach's house to drop off a few things. I stayed there talking to Erika for about 15 minutes.

I then decided I wanted to go find at least one cache while I was out. I went for Don't Hate Me, the Devil Made Me Do It (GC1DEDD). This was over by the LOTT reclaimed water pond park. I have been here several times over the years for other caches that have been archived. I had gotten the coords from RL Painter back in 2011 and never tried to go find this one for some reason. The first time I did come try to find it, it was in February 2020 before the stupid Covid pandemic hit. I had a day off because it was President's Day. I asked Bev for a hint, and she couldn't really remember so I spent about an hour trying to find it. I failed.

Today, I was bound to try and find it once and for all. I spent a good 20 minutes or so climbing up and down the railing trying to figure out what I missed last time. I ended up calling Bev again to see if she remembered anything about it. I sent her pictures to jog her memory. She still told me the same thing. I wondered if the container had changed since they found it back in 2013. I looked some more and then decided to walk away from it for a while, talking to Mom. Then I had an idea.

I walked back over to it, stood on one of the light boxes and took pictures of the top of the beams since I wasn't tall enough to see or feel up there. I thought maybe the pictures would reveal something out of place. I looked at my series of pictures and I saw my "something out of place." I got really excited because this cache has had me wondering about it for two years. Did I actually find it? I got back on the light box and stood on my tippy toes as far as I could and grabbed the flat painted magnet under the beam. The logbook was stuck to it. I did not think to check under the beam. The cache owners did a great job concealing this because you wouldn't have known to check underneath. It really did look like it belonged there.

I took a bunch of pictures, signed the log and put it back. It was harder putting it back than it was retrieving it. I got it back up there after two attempts and then walked back to the Escape.

I finished my grocery shopping at the nearby Walmart, came home, unloaded groceries, put them away and decided since it was a nice day to pot my new flowers I bought. I wanted to make the yard pretty again after the dreary winter.

I ate some pizza, vacuumed, finished my laundry, got cleaned up, watched some crime documentaries and even got a chance to read my book before bedtime.

Sunday, March 27

The next morning, I woke up around 9:30, got dressed and had a quick breakfast. I packed up my Fritos and cheese dip, my apron, threw my wallet in my bag and did a few things before heading off to Tumwater. Before leaving, I threw in some of my spring decorations I bought for Grammie since I was going to be on that side of town and would visit after paint day. I told Ben I would be back later since he was working on some stuff since he only got one day off this week.

I headed over to Nicole's house and I like to be early so I can chat with her and get a good seat at the table. I unloaded my stuff, paid her my money and took my Fritos and cheese into the kitchen. She had a nice set up of cheeses, crackers, veggies, fruit, cookies and some candy. Sarah showed up, then Tara and Lindsay and her baby Wes. We picked out our canvasses and got our little paint stations set up.

The painting wasn't going to be too hard because it was more of an abstract painting than a paint by numbers type of painting. The unusual part about this painting was the two techniques we've never done before. The first was using margarita salt and saran wrap. Those gave us our unique textures for our layered painting. We brushed off the salt and padded down the saran wrap in a couple places and took it off. Once that dried, we were able to add happy little flowers in various colors to our canvasses.

We added various colors to our paintings for about three hours. It was fun chatting and seeing our paintings turn into masterpieces. We put the final touches on them, let them dry a little bit, used the paint marker to sign our work and Del took a photo of us all holding our works of art. It was fun being able to do this again and see everyone since we didn't have one in February due to people's schedules. I cleaned up my area and thanked Nicole for great time.

I packed up my stuff and drove to the cemetery to visit with Grammie. I changed out her decorations and left some Easter and spring looking ones instead. I told her about what's been going on lately and stuff about our upcoming trip to NYC and DC. She enjoyed listening to my adventures and I enjoyed sharing them with her. It still makes me sad that she isn't here anymore and hasn't been for almost four years. I can not believe that time goes that fast after someone you've spent most of your life with is gone.

I got home and because it was a nice day, I went to Lowes and picked up some more flowers and some potting soil and added those to the front yard with the others. I had Doug pick up his dog poop and I mowed the back yard for the first time this year and did the front yard again just to do them both at the same time.

I got the leaf blower going and cleared off the driveway and the cement pad in the back yard. Ben fixed the piece on the BBQ and we had grilled chicken for dinner.