This weekend was very strange.

Friday night Eric and I went swimming laps at the school.  It was so nice to get back into swimming.  It is one of my favorite workouts.  But man the water was cold.  Last year the pool was always so warm so it was a shock when I jumped in.   

Saturday was a beautiful day.  The high was 70 degrees, it was sunny and just plain amazing day. I had the windows open in the house and it still got very warm inside.  We met Byron and Paula at Jim’s Apple Barn. They came up for the Vikings game but were staying by Paula’s sister. It was nice to see them again.  I came home from there and made an apple pie and lasagna for Nancy and Greg.  Dinner was great.  My lasagna is so good!  After dinner we went to Mystic Lake Casino.  We were going to stay for an hour.  After 5 minutes Eric and I both burned through $20.  I was stupid; I forgot to change one the machine from a nickel to a penny.  No wonder I lost so quickly. I was betting $2.50 at a time, not 50 cents. Oops! We walked around and eventually found a bench by the Bingo Hall. We got some free pop and then sat outside. It was so nice out.  It was over 65 degrees at 9pm!  None of us won.

Saturday night thunderstorms rolled through…yes thunderstorms on Nov. 10th. There was some nice thunder and a great lightening display and pouring rain! Our satellite went out! There were even tornados in Burnsville and Eagan!  The last time we had tornados in November was in the 1950s. 

Then the bottom dropped out…Sunday morning it was 30 degrees.  It was so cold! Nancy and Greg left early for the Vikings game and Eric and I went to the new James Bond movie, Skyfall.  It was good but I’m not going to another James Bond movie…they killed off Judi Dench! Eric will go on his own now.  After that we walked around the mall and then came home and did nothing. We sat on the couch and watch TV.  I wasn’t feeling good, must be the excessive salt from the popcorn and nachos. 

This morning I had to drag out the winter coat.  It was 20 degrees with a wind chill of 10. It was so cold. It is hard to believe 2 days ago I was in shorts and t-shirt and was warm and now I’m freezing. It is going to be a long winter. I’m not ready for this.

But in 43 days I'll be soaking in the sun in Jamaica!

So I’m working on my team’s new SharePoint site at work.  We recently switched to Outlook from Lotus Notes (the devil) and as a result a lot of our Lotus Notes databases are going away too.  Many of the databases are being shifted over to SharePoint sites.  So when this project came up, my coworkers thought I’d be the perfect person to take over creating and maintaining the site.  It is true, I’m really good at making websites.  So I’ve downloading hundreds of documents from our lotus notes databases and adding them to “libraries” on our SharePoint site.  Now as you would expect, there are some documents that are confidential and therefore require special access.  So as the owner, I created a library for one of these items.  After trying to restrict access, I must have somehow restricted my access too.  I’m not sure how, I’m the owner and I created it.  Every time I click on the library link I get an “Error: Access Denied.” I emailed our help desk and asked them how it is possible considering I have full access and created it…how can my access be denied?  Ugh!

This week also featured the election.  Or course Obama won which didn’t make Eric happy.  And the Facebook statuses that followed made him even happier…sarcasm! I’m just glad it is finally it is over.  No more nasty ads, no more flyers in the mail!  Only 3 more years until it will start all over again. Oh the joy!

I just hope the economy doesn’t go further in the toilet.  One day this week I looked up the hyperinflation that struck Germany in the early 1920s. It was so bad that prices doubled every 2 days.  In 1919 a loaf of bread was 1 Mark, by 1923 it was 100 Billion Marks.  Could you imagine?  The cause of this hyperinflation was that the German government owed a lot of countries money and to “pay them” they repeatedly printed more and more money...just like the US is doing now.  As a result the German Mark became worthless and foreign troops started occupying the industrial region of Germany to ensure that the reparations were paid in goods, such as coal. Inflation was exacerbated when the workers went on a strike and the German government printed more money in order to continue paying them for striking. And the problem just escalated from there. Most people think that we should just print more money and the problem will be solved, but if you look at history, it is usually followed by hyperinflation. That could seriously happen here. So go stock pile your house with food because you might not be able to afford it soon.

It has been a really uneventful week for us. Last Sunday Eric (and I) were working on his paper that was due that day and the Halloween candy bowl was between us. It was a dangerous situation. :-)  

I finally carved my pumpkin on Monday. As you can tell it is Swirl inspired.  It wasn't too hard to do when you have an outline.  I almost decapitated the head though.  Whoops. 

Tuesday was a double header in volleyball. Our old captain, Amanda, played with us. She has deserted us this year as she moved all the way to Canada (aka Elk River).  

Wednesday was Halloween. We had about 20 kids. It is so sad that we didn't have more.  But we don't have much candy left so that is good.  Swirl is really funny. He would sit by the door.  GROWL and run upstairs. 15 seconds later we had a trick or treater at the door.  He did this over and over again. He is such a silly cat!

Thursday was the typical band night.  We are playing lots of Christmas music. That is the one disadvantage to playing in the band...Christmas music in October.  

Eric had class Friday so I had the whole evening to myself.  I went for a run at the community center. It wasn't too bad.  I've really cut down on running...shame on me.  After that I watched a marathon of "Becoming a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader." I know terrible!  But it was very interesting. When Eric came home from class I was still watching it. He was a bit surprised that I watch that show.  

Yesterday Eric had class most of the day so again I was home alone.  I had a Band council meeting but other than I did nothing. After Mass, we went to Greg and Celeste's for dinner. They had the amazing chicken pot pie from Costco. They are so good but huge.  We had a nice evening. 

Today we went for a Sunday drive to Hinckley.  We started at Interstate State Park in Taylors Falls, MN, took the back roads to Wild River State Park.  It was closed!  Stupid deer hunters...We weren't allowed in because of a controlled hunting.

We ventured to St. Croix State Park next and then we went to Grand Casino to meet my Mom, Aunt Bev, and Aunt Grace. We had a nice dinner and I broke even on the machine.  It was a good day (besides the closed park)

Look who I ran into at the bookstore.  Well actually I didn't just run into her, I saw that she was doing a book signing at Magers and Quinn Booksellers in Uptown (Minneapolis).  Greg, Celeste and Evelyn said they would go with me so that was nice.  Callista didn't know me at first. She introduced herself and I responded with "and I'm your cousin." Then it took her two tries to get my name right.  First she guess from her mom's side and then she said Kim and her eye's lite up. She said that my hair is so long now. I guess that isn't too bad.  We talked for quite a while about the family and about her parent's 50th Anniversary party. It was nice.  I bought her books and she signed them for me. Evelyn got a book too. It was a good day.  

Early in the day I took Greg, Celeste and Evelyn's Christmas pictures. Some turned out really nice. I can't wait to get their card.

Meanwhile...Eric has been working on his paper.  It is due tomorrow.