So, I’m a little behind on the blogging. Here’s another post that should have been up days ago…

Last week absolutely flew by, especially Friday through Sunday. It felt like I woke up Monday, blinked, and the week was over. I thought it was going to be a very long week, with two of my co-workers in one department being on vacation the whole week, one co-worker from my other department taking three days off and an upcoming product launch. There was a ton of work that had to be packed into the work week, and as it usually goes, time didn’t slow up. But that’s a good thing!

Friday was the quickest day of them all. It should have been the most trying, as I had to be at work early, we had a beta release of the new product and I had to do two training sessions for co-workers, something I wasn’t even slightly prepared for. (More on that later…) I also wanted to leave work early (well, it wasn’t really “early” since I got in early, just earlier than normal) so I could hit the road for Nashville at a decent time. I’ve been incredibly anxious about things the last two weeks, and that usually makes time crawl, but not on Friday! Even the approx. 5 hour car trip seemed to take only minutes.

And there’s the segue to my weekend…I took a road trip down to Nashville this weekend to visit my brother and sister-in-law. It was a much needed trip out of town, even if I was exhausted most of it as a result of the busy week. As I mentioned, the trip down went by quickly and uneventfully, and we just chilled and caught up on things that evening. I brought my Wii along for the trip, so we also watched as my brother fed his new-found Guitar Hero addiction. I’ve created a monster…and his wife is none too happy about it.

Saturday dawned, earlier than I wanted (they didn’t let me sleep in much), and we started off the day with a good breakfast. It felt nice to sit still and enjoy a breakfast for a change, plus the bonus of relaxing while my brother and sis cooked for me. Before we headed out for a hike, I learned a lesson the hard way, from an experience I hope I don’t ever have again. The night before, I took my contacts out and put them in solution, as I normally do. Rather than use my travel size bottle, I used my brother’s, which was sitting out on the sink. I didn’t pay much attention to it, just saw it was a brand I hadn’t heard of before - Clear Care - and didn’t give it a second thought. (Those of you who have heard of Clear Care are probably cringing right now.) When I put my eye balls in the next morning, it felt like I had put smoldering charcoal into my eyes. They were on fire! I immediately took the contact out, but my eyes were as red as a sunset and leaking like memory from a Windows program. Shew!!! I wanted to claw my eye out. Wow, I can still feel them burning. For those of you who haven’t heard of Clear Care, it’s not your normal contact solution. It’s 3% hydrogen peroxide and is meant to only be used with a special lens container. Had I actually read the bright red warning strip on the bottle that clearly stated to only use the solution with the special container, I would have spared myself hours of agony… Lesson learned! Thankfully, I had my glasses with me, so at least I could still see as we took our hike.

We went to Percy Warner for a nice hike, on a very toasty day. It was about 95 and quite humid, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a nice 6 mile hike. Gotta get some more hiking in for my trips later in the summer (WV, Big South and Red River Gorge)

Keeping with my tradition of trying a new restaurant when I’m out of town, we went to MAFIAoZA’s pizzeria for dinner. Eh, nothing really to write home about here, but pizza’s still pizza… We got a meat lover’s, so life was good.

After dinner, we stopped off for some Ben and Jerry’s then took a tour around Vanderbilt, specifically the lab where my brother works. I’ve heard him talk about what he does as he pursues his doctorate, but it was interesting to see where he does his work.

I had never been to a Whole Foods Market before, but apparently it’s a big deal. David and Elizabeth couldn’t wait for me to experience it. I wonder if the organic fad will fade like the many others that have come and gone over the years…

Sunday we went to lunch at Zoe’s Kitchen (another new-to-me restaurant) at their new outdoor shopping center. While there, I was people watching and noticed a lack of diversity - everyone had the same body type! My hosts explained that is was a very fit and affluent area. This was pretty evident from the emphasis on organic and fresh food businesses that were all around the area.

I left for home early afternoon, but stopped off for a visit with my paternal grandparents while I was down in those parts. Always good to see them - and to eat grandma’s cooking.

The “Summer of Chris,” my summer of wearing out not rusting out, is off to a good start. Can’t wait for my trip to NC in July, to see good friends and take a visit to the beach. Woohoo!

Wow, that was a long post…