Our family celebrated the weekend (that’s right the weekend) of Valentines Day with lots of love. Friday I had clients, but finished up in a reasonable amount of time. The next morning my family was celebrating my oldest brothers birthday with a family breakfast/brunch because his birthday fell on Super Bowl Sunday and he didn’t want to overshadowed by the game. So I got up Saturday morning and headed over to my mothers house to make homemade muffins and breakfast casseroles and shrimp and grits (some of the things my brother requested). The birthday boy decided that he wanted to sleep in extremely late so most of us had eaten by the time he arrived. It was still a good time, even with my grandmother not remembering most of us throughout the morning (have I mentioned she has Alzheimer’s?)

We had 4:30 reservations for dinner at St. Elmo’s Steak House, so after we had breakfast I brought Kristian home to rest. My poor baby ended up not feeling well that weekend. Stan had thought about going to Chicago for the a day (a Cork family tradition), but Friday I got a call from Stan stating that Kristian had begun to run a fever while hanging out at her cousins (they had the day off of school) and that I should probably go get her before I got started working that evening; so Chicago was knocked out again. Anyway…I wanted to give Kristian a chance to get some rest before dinner and to determine if we were going to have my mother-in-law watch Kristian while we went out to dinner. Right when it was time to get ready to go I asked Kristian if she was up to going to dinner and she was adamant that she didn’t want to stay home, she wanted to eat with us. Her fever had gone away, thanks to children’s motrin. When we got to the restaurant we were able to be seated immediately even with the Valentine’s Day crowd. Before I tell you how the meal was, I will say that I did not order the right thing. I love to have beef with sautéed onions and bleu cheese (especially the bleu cheese) and I saw a chopped steak that had bleu cheese and sautéed onions and I about had a swoon attack with happiness. Let me tell you if you ever see “chopped steak” on a fancy steak house menu just know that you are going to get a hamburger. I didn’t know this and was really disappointed when the plate was placed before me. Especially because I had ordered it medium rare and it turned out to be more rare than medium. My husband ordered a beautiful ribeye that was so pretty he took a picture of it to place on his blog site. I sent my “chopped steak” back and it was still too raw. I ended up just giving up and calling it a bust. I will say the shrimp cocktail and chocolate cake were awesome. I hope to be able to add some pictures that Kristian took of Stan and I to the blog a little later. We made it home in time to give Kristian another dose of Motrin and get her in the bed. Let me add that while we were out to dinner that Kristian was in the best of spirits. You would never think that anything was wrong with her. Wanted to clarify so that I am not labeled as a selfish and bad mother for taking a sick child out to dinner.

The next morning we woke up and headed to brunch at a place that Stan had been wanting to try out called the “Pit Stop”. Now a co-worker of mine had told me about this place months ago and I had mentioned it to Stan when she told me about it because the place is a bar-b-que spot and my husband loves bar-b-que. When I told him about it, he didn’t seem too interested, but when he found out about it with his friend it was a must go to place. Men…go figure. The brunch was pretty good. The waffles were really good and I took care of most of the bill for this part of Valentines Day. This was the gist of our celebrating for that day because Stan had bought himself a birthday gift, a new projector tv, and he wanted to get it set up so we were done. Besides, I wanted to spend some time getting Kristian healthy before she had to go back to school on Tuesday because I was scheduled to work that Tuesday. Dinner wasn’t even fancy, some KFC. My family didn’t want anything fancy can you believe it.

Monday we got up and went to see the movie, Valentine’s Day. It was a pretty good movie and I was glad that my husband decided to see a “chick flick” with me. I cooked dinner and dessert that day, just because I had to make some type of awesome meal for my family over the weekend.

Stan’s birthday was on Wednesday and I picked up his cake after work on Wednesday. I know a lot of people are thinking, why are you buying a cake when you could easily bake him a fabulous cake, but Stan really likes the cakes from Classic Cakes. They do a really good job of decorating and he likes the “birthday” cakes that have some “celebration” for himself even though he knows I am capable of making a delicious cake. It really was a pretty cake; it was shaped like a present that was decorated in Colts blue with little footballs all over it and a huge blue bow on top. We went out to Outback for dinner (another of his favorites) and had a good time. Now all of these events were crammed into a five day period. I almost looked forward to some calmness when it was over. I felt it really was a great week though.

Now yesterday the state had a Women’s and Minorities Business Fair. I went to work on Tuesday so that I could have the day off and I am really glad I did. I had a few questions concerning the next steps for my business and I think I got them all answered. I found out about a company that will help you write your business plan for FREE. All the other programs that help you with your business plans always had a fee involved which was usually income based and I usually have to pay some ridiculous fee so I haven’t ever utilized them. With this company I think I might be able to get the help I need without spending any more money. I am the queen of getting a deal or something for free; so finding this company has me geeked. I am going to make an appointment with one of the volunteers within the next couple of months on one of my days off. I am so excited.

I must go now and be the awesome mother that I am… until later .

Lonnita