I Feel Like There Are A Lot of Baseball Related Pictures in This Post...but I'm Not Even Sorry

I mean - I'm looking at this and I feel like maybe a large majority of my week was made up of watching Nationals baseball...and I am 100% fine with that. Even if some of the games weren't really the best; it's been a rough week to be a Nationals fan. Alas, I soldier on and hope the games I spend my time watching this week will be less of a heartache.

Other stuff happened this week too - I promise. I DID actually do more than watch baseball games on MASN. Even if it doesn't look like it, ha-ha!

The gentleman in the red cap (not Harper) must have season tickets....he keeps popping up at every game!

A boy & a dog.

On Tuesday afternoon I brought my friend Jennie's little boy home with me to hang out for the evening; she was working a little later than usual. Jimmy arrived at my office at 5 and since I had some things to finish up, I had him sit quietly and play light saber battle; he always allies himself with the Dark Side...I can't convince him otherwise. We went out to eat with my Mom at Applebee's and proceeded to have the quietest supper I've eaten in a long time - he insisted we play the Quiet Game once our food arrived. I learned pretty quickly that I must have gotten my talkative gene from my Mom...she just couldn't keep her mouth shut, ha-ha! Jimmy and I finally called a tie as we were leaving the restaurant and he proclaimed that he "didn't know that we would both be so good at being quiet, but Mrs. Ginger was really bad at being quiet!" I tried to watch some of the Nationals/Mets game but I needed to walk and Jimmy was getting that glazed expression after 2 innings, so I took mercy on him, changed the channel to Nickelodeon and headed out the door.

Y'all - the cartoons on Nickelodeon are WEIRD. I feel like they were not as strange when I was little, am I wrong? Someone tell me they were not that odd...

Sunshine on my Tuesday evening walk...

This line-up picture cracked me up because it sort of looks like my desk...

Wednesday was the "rubber" match between the Nationals and the Mets...rubber match meaning the Nationals had won one of the games in the series, the Mets had one one of the games and this third game is the one to determine who wins the series. I have myself set up so the Nationals Twitter feed reports play by play information to my cell but I've also discovered that on the MLB website you can pull up something called At Bat and it will give you a virtual game. So, I definitely kept that running on Wednesday for the nail biter between the Nats and the Mets; the Nats came from behind at 3-1 in the eighth inning to win the game 4-3 - thank goodness! It provided a certain thrill in the midst of an otherwise average Wednesday work day.

Just "watching" some baseball throughout the afternoon.

BBQ Chicken, mashed potatoes & green beans - Watson thinks he'd like some bites.

The lens of my cell phone camera reflected in my ring...

I was home alone from Wednesday afternoon through the weekend - which I always enjoy. I don't mean that to sound awful because I love my parents and I'm so thankful to be crashing at their house...and I feel like I've said this all before...same song, different verse kind of thing. Anyway, Watson seems to be a lot more snuggly when they are gone - I don't know if he thinks since there is only one human in the house, he should really squeeze them for love and affection. I really have no clue. He sat in the chair with me on numerous occasions to watch baseball games and episodes of Parks and Recreation and I always love having puppy dog cuddles.

Thinking to himself "what kind of call was that Ump?!?"

See...my desk sort of looks like that Nationals line-up picture....

This is totally baseball related - see that bat? See that baseball??

Friday was a rough day - the work week has been hectic and Friday was the culmination of all of that...I'll leave it at that and just say I was awfully happy to see 5 o'clock roll around. Granted, I was happy at lunch when I left the office for twenty minutes and FINALLY found a copy of ESPN's The Body issue...although I still have yet to see an issue with Bryce Harper on the cover. *sigh* Oh well. I did have a package waiting for me and it was my Nationals pullover that I'd been waiting on for weeks and weeks...and I loved it immediately and it fit perfectly and so that made me happy. It also made me happy that my crock pot meal turned out to be delicious and so as the night started, I was feeling pretty good. Sadly, then the Nationals lost their ball game and that was a bummer. It's just a constant up and down, isn't it?

Also - one of life's biggest mysteries - why is it that when you have somewhere to be on a Saturday (or I guess any other day really) you could sleep until the cows came home, but when you have absolutely nowhere to be...you wake up before 7 AM? Can someone explain that logic? No? I can't either, but it's a real problem.

I still love it...but it only has one Zimm on it?!? I see Zimmermann...but I don't see Zimmerman. Come on!!!

Watson says "I have always enjoyed good Mexican food, so please share..."

Saturday was a semi-adventurous day. Every July, the Shenandoah National Park has Blackberry Delight; a festival celebrating all things blackberry! I've never been before but I have had the blackberry ice cream and that alone was enough to entice me to take the trip up the mountain with my friend Katie and her husband Chris to see what the festival was all about. They had music and activities for children and of course, you're on the mountaintop so the views are pretty incredible...but don't doubt for a minute that the real draw here is the food! Blackberry BBQ Pulled Pork and Grilled Chicken with a Blackberry Jalapeno glaze, Blackberry Lemonade, numerous types of Blackberry wines and beers (which I did not sample...) and of course, Blackberry ice cream! They also had Blackberry Cobbler and some kind of Blackberry Float, as well as Shortcake...but I went with Blackberry BBQ Pulled Pork with Blackberry Lemonade and a scoop of Blackberry Ice Cream for dessert!

Such a delicious lunch!

The amazing view from the top of the mountains!

A sort of fuzzy picture of Katie & I at Skyland Lodge!

Once we made our way back down the mountain, Katie's husband suggested we stop in at a local eatery called PaveMint for an afternoon "snack"...although I really think (okay, I know) he was interested in the beers on tap at PaveMint. This little place is like nothing I've ever been to before; it looks like a gas station from the outside but inside everything is red, teal and wood...and the food is absolutely delicious! Yes - that's right, we'd just had BBQ and chicken and desserts aplenty on top of the mountain and we were going for round two in the valley - deal with it! All of the food is farm to table and is house made...and everything I tasted was delicious! We had Polenta Fries (do you know what polenta is?? My computer doesn't; it wants to spellcheck polenta to tadpole...go figure) and Dill Devils; both were delicious but the Dill Devils were my favorite! The Dill Devils were house made dill pickles topped with an egg salad (that I scooted off of my pickle) and sat on a Chili Pepper sauce. They were delicious! The glass of Riesling that I drank was also delicious, ha-ha! If you live in or around the Front Royal area, I'd suggest you check this place out - PaveMint!

Pickles & White Wine - I obviously have a very refined palate.

Some of the best mail you can get - tickets to a Nationals game, Nationals Magazine & the 2015 Yearbook.

The weekend ended so quickly - I had big plans for myself on Sunday but they didn't quite materialize. I had to drive into DC to pick up Jeff and Ginger from Raegan but I planned to drive in earlier in the afternoon and spend some time wandering around...I had thoughts about going to the FDR Memorial; it's in the shade and there are lots of fountains...but when I was on my morning walk/sporadic jog, I started to get a headache. I assumed it was due to lack of eating combined with the heat and so I didn't take anything, assuming it would go away when I had breakfast. It did not and by the time I took something at 1:30, it was too far gone to be helped. I ended up falling asleep in the 2nd Inning of the final Nationals/Pirates game (we were ahead!) and woke up at the bottom of the 7th to see that we'd lost the lead...and watched as we never regained it. 

My head did quit hurting around 4:30 and so I changed and headed into DC - I had plans to grab something from the Starbucks in Reagan...but that's a story for another time. When all was said and done, I walked from one end of Reagan International to the other...and then some...but I got what I came for...and who I came for...and I added almost another 2 miles to my daily walking, ha-ha!

The weekend closed pretty calmly, having dinner on the patio of Logan's with my parents while the cool Summer breezes swirled around. Doesn't that sound nice? It was nice...so I'll leave you with that pleasant image and try not to talk about baseball so much next week. I can't make any promises though.