Good Morningr - TGIF!

[americaninoz]

Hooray for it almost being the weekend ! :drink: :beer:

QOTD: How do you fit in seeing everyone when you go home to visit family/friends? Do you book group things to catch up with a bunch of people, or lots of little one on ones, or both?

[wise_rita]

TGIF, y'all! I worked out and need to go out into the rain (le sigh) to do some shopping. This is my 2nd to last unemployed Friday. Yay!

QOTD: I make a psycho detailed schedule of my trips home. I schedule peoples time months in advance, and plan out every meal, activity and interaction I have with others.

Like I said it's pretty psycho but I find it necessary. I don't do go with the flow.

[americaninoz]

oh that's exciting Rita! enjoy your last 'work free' days

QOTD: The last few years I have just scheduled 1 lunch or dinner with a group of friends - just 4 or 5 people - to catch up all at once. Then I see 1 or 2 of them again during my trip and spend the rest of the time with family.
However I never feel like I properly get to catch up with anyone doing that - one on one is really the only way.
So now that dd is older I have done a schedule for this trip. Lots of dinners & lunches with friends & I even organised a 'mini reunion' as I'm missing my 15 year reunion in July - so I just invited the people I actually want to see!!! I think it's going to be quite a busy trip seeing everyone, but I'm really looking forward to it!! It's SO much easier now that dd is a bit older and will be happy to hang out with Grandma on some days while I go out and do things:)

[ktkl09]

Good morning! I'm so happy it's Friday! The weather is warm and beautiful, DH and I are going to his parents' country house for the weekend and I'm bringing my bikini...I can't wait to lay out in the sun, reading a book at their lovely house in rural France.

QOTD: I'm not very good at seeing everyone . I put my family, godparents, and best friend first, always. My Mom, Brother, SIL, niece and nephews are top priority though, I usually seem them all once a day (B and SIL live one block away from my mom's). I usually miss out on seeing lots of old friends, but a lot have moved away. I see my aunts and the cousin and his wife I'm close to usually once and I have ended my relationship with my only living grandmother, so I have no need to see her.

[travelingturtle]

I just found out yesterday that my H has Monday off! I'm so excited. I've been feeling awful for the past week or so and I need a break.

QOTD: The last time we went to the states we slept in a different place at least every 3 days, if not less. It was way too hard. We drove all over the state of Florida to see people and places. MY ILs didn't even take time off when we visited them and my parents wanted us driving all over the place to visit family, instead of having people come to us. (I don't care that my ILs didn't take time off, but they did get upset that they felt they didn't get enough time with us and seemed to blame us for spending such a small amount of time with them.)

We decided that for future trips we are just going to go where we want to go (meaning we might go to one or two cities) and if people want to see us, they can come to where we are. I won't get my feelings hurt if they don't come, but I'm sure they'll get their feelings hurt that we aren't spending our vacation in a car to visit them.

[elenetxu]

Good morning! I'm thrilled it's sunny out. I have a dress on - I love dress days!

QOTD: I do month-long visits home with lots of little visits.

[allibally]

Morning ladies and goodnight to me. TGIF! I can't wait for 5:30 to role around. Picking up DH from work and then we are driving to my parent's house in WI for the long weekend. I finally can eat at my favorite drive-in joint! They make their own root beer even. Looking forward to spending time with my family of course too. Plus I can hit up some shops that we don't have close by in Chicago. I also won't find the weekend successful without brunch. I've been craving French toast all week.

QOTD: When I made my visit home I had a month and it was just me. I just relaxed with family. Set up a few times to meet people.

[irish]

Good morning!!! It is beautiful out this morning, even when I left the house before 7!! We did a bbq last night for dinner and it felt sooo summery especially with a Koppaberg pear cider to wash it all down... mmmm.... and we bought enough food to do us for another one this evening too!!

QOTD: I don't have this problem anymore (living back at home) but when I was working away I would do one big night out to catch up with friends. I saw family more, mainly because most were still living at home and I used to call out to my brother and his family at least once (though they only had 1 son at that time). One of my friends I saw more of, she lived around the corner from my parents. But I was only ever home for long weekends or maximum a week. I think some of my relationships with friends definitely suffered because of my time away...

[anna7602]

I have a to-do list about a mile long today. And it's beautiful out. So I'll do the things that get me out and about first.

QOTD: I'll interpret this as "home" to cities where I have "people" (family & friends due to having grown up there or having lived there at some period in my life). It's hard. I'm usually pulled in so many directions. I try to focus on 1 non-family person I want to catch up with during a trip and if I can fit 2 in, it's a bonus. Massive outings don't work because not all of my friends know each other and in one case, my two closest friends in Miami actually had a big, ugly falling out with each other a few years ago. I saw them both last summer, spending a couple hours with Friend A before he dropped me off in front of Friend B's house and practically screeched away in his car before Friend B could open the door. Yikes!

[popcorn]

Morning! I am dead tired today for no good reason at all. And the heat is not helping. I'm about to open up all the windows so I can get some air through this house --- maybe turn on a fan. Today nothing fun planned, just do laundry (I fell behind somehow and didn't realize) play with Aurelia, and have a relaxing evening with DH tonight since we haven't had a chill night all week.

Tomorrow we are going to Ikea to order our kitchen. Holy Moly, it is upon us! Soon we'll have a sink. I just hope they don't take too long to get it here.

QOTD: I try to see family as much as possible and see my old friends maybe once or twice--usually a big dinner or something wherre I can see everyone at once as most of my friends are also all friends with each other.

[grosnl19]

It is suppose to be a beautiful 84 and sunny today, yippee!!!

We have family in separate cities (although they are 1.25 hours from each other and 2 hours from our house in Chicago) so we usually spend 1 weekend in 1 city and another weekend in the other. During the week we go out with friends in Chicago.

[Cheesecake]

TGIF fosho! I've got a 3 day weekend ahead of me (yay for weird Dutch 2nd day of... hilidays!) so I can deal with this day of working while it's great weather. I'm working from home though, so I can't promise it won't be working from the yard

QOTD: I used to work really hard at making it work to see everyone, going to every event, club night, bar, wherever people were. I changed that attitude when I realized that some people truly didn't try very hard to meet up with me.

Nowadays, I'll share the news of my/our visit through facebook, and a number of people immediately try setting things up that work for us all, and a number of people don't respond. Sometimes, if a bunch of people can make it at the same time, we'll do dinner or go to a bar, and will inform others of this fact. Mistly we meet up at people's houses now though, and just hang out there, play with kids, have dinner etc.

I was really hurt at first when people wouldn't find time for me. I'm okay with it now. The people that are most important will always find time to make it work, the rest truly isn't that important.


Sent from my phone, please excuse typos!

[Deleted]

'morning! What do you know the weather sucks today too. H and I are going to mount the sconces we bought this morning, than he has to work and I have class. Nothing special, although I'm really looking forward to seeing living room finally well lit.

QOTD: I go with the flow. My parents are the ones I see immediately cause they pick me up at the airport. After that I need two days to recover from flying and after that I start contacting everyone and will gradually meet up with all my friends separately. I have friends that don't know one other so I spend time with my work friends, then my school friends, then my cousins and, in the meantime, go visit my nieces in the country.

[crimsonandclover]

Morning! Here the weather's beautiful and we have a few things planned for this weekend - Monday's a holiday here.

QOTD: It has gotten easier over the years, actually, since now almost all of my friends have moved away. Many of my relatives also live out of town, but we (by that I mean my parents) are in the central spot and have a big house, so around xmas we'll have a gathering at our place with everyone. Then the few friends and family that are in town I can work in to our visiting schedule pretty easily.

[clickerish]

I am fortunate in this area, because I grew up moving all the time and have no real "home" to return to. I have to travel to a myriad of places to see people. When we go to Peru, however, it's insanity. Every single day is booked with at least two things. It's a whirlwind. I wonder how a kid is going to survive