Three-Day Weekend

The Memorial Day weekend is almost over. Three days of no work. We didn't really have any plans this weekend. For starters, we figured that everyone would be going out of town and it would be extra crowded in most major vacation spots. We were right - we have been hearing horror stories of people stuck on the freeways going to and from Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, etc, etc. Also, the weather was really warm this weekend. Of course, for me, that means staying indoors where it's nice and cool. Lastly, we thought we'd stay in this weekend since we spent last weekend in Temecula.

So, what did we do for the last three days? Well, we did run a few errands (getting the car checked, going to Costco, picking up dry cleaning, etc). We also did some stuff around the house (laundry, tidying up, and cleaning out the garage). But other than that, we just relaxed and took it easy. We slept in, spent most of the day in pajamas, watched movies, ate in local favorites, cooked together (we made adobo flakes!), got massages, went to the gym, and took long walks.

My 3-day weekend indulgence was curling up with two good books - "Falling Leaves" by Adeline Yen Mah and "The Calligrapher's Daughter" by Georgina Kim. Jojo's indulgence was buying two new Wii games (Ghost Squad and Mortal Combat) and playing to his heart's content. It was blissful luxury to just stay in and not have anything on the agenda.

It reminded me of my childhood and how my family chose to stay home during the 4-day Holy Week celebration. While most of our friends would vacation in Baguio, Hong Kong, Boracay, etc, we chose to have our very own "staycation". We would have lots of DVDs to watch, mom wold make good food, and we played endless games of Boggle or Scrabble. On Good Friday, we would go around to local churches and pray the Stations of the Cross. Afterwards, we would try to find a restaurant that was open. Since there are not a lot of places open during Holy Week, my family would end up eating in places we normally don't go. One year we found ourselves at Shakeys Pizza in Greenhills where we were served garlic cheese pizza, mojo potatoes and a big pitcher of rootbeer by Chuck. (Not only was it hard to find a place that was open, but we also could not eat meat on Good Friday which made eating out a little bit of a challenge!). These were simple times but I remember them fondly.

This Memorial Day weekend, everyone we knew had plans to go somewhere but Jojo and I chose to have our very own "staycation" - and frankly, I think it turned out pretty well. =)