Last week Russ and I were off work for Spring Break. Sometimes for Spring Break I visit my family in Florida, but decided now was not the right time. We had just been down for a visit in December, and I’m hoping for another visit early in the Summer, so it seemed like this would be a good time to do something different, to take a “Stay-cation.” And it actually turned out to be a very good time, because we organized and stuck to a schedule that gave us the perfect blend of getting things accomplished and stopping now and then to have some fun.
The “getting things accomplished” part mainly involved this HUGE project we’ve been thinking about for quite some time. As you may know, Russ is a big fan of Marvel Comics, and has been collecting them since he was a kid. So he has a rather large collection, and though it’s always been mostly organized, it’s never been completely organized, so putting the entire collection in order has always been an idea in the back of our minds. 
Several months ago, we got started with this by organizing the unorganized comics. We put all the boxes of random and out-of-order comics in order, alphabetically by title. Well, that’s great. But now we have TWO collections of alphabetically organized comics. So during this Break, we decided to integrate the two collections into one great, big, organized collection.
We started on Saturday, and worked through Thursday, taking several hours each day to go through boxes upon boxes of comics. Some of the older cardboard boxes, many of which may have been up to 35 years old, were replaced with new boxes. Now, all the comics are bagged, and now all the boxes are numbered.
In our new system, there are 103 boxes, each containing about 150 comics, so in all, there are probably about 15-16,000 comics. Some are the “well loved” comics of Russ’ boyhood days, others are reprints, and many are comics he, with his collector’s heart, purchased along the way. Some of them may be valuable (though none are “first issue of Superman found in my grandma’s basement” valuable), but most of them are probably not exceptionally valuable. The plan is that selling these comics, one by one, would make a good Retirement Project—something to do, when we have the time, that might bring in a little spending money.
But we’re still a long ways off for that! Right now, it’s enough to know that the collection is organized, and in a few weeks or so, we’ll catalog it all, going back out in the garage to look in every box, and write down the beginning and ending title in each box.
Getting all this done gave us such a great feeling of accomplishment! And there were a few more other “accomplishments” for the week: bringing bags and boxes to the Goodwill trailer, turning the mattress, oil change for the car, renewing the auto tags.
But that’s not all! We were on Break for nine days, and during that time, we also did a lot of fun stuff. I think we ate out at least seven times. Wow! One day, we took a drive to Montevallo, about an hour away, and had lunch at the Main Street Tavern. Montevallo is a quaint little college town, and the Tavern served up some excellent food. Another day, we made our inaugural visit to Edgar’s Bakery, right here in town. For Christmas we had gotten a gift card, but hadn’t used it until now. The bakery case is insanely beautiful. This picture above is not from Edgar’s Bakery, it’s just something I found online, but it’s fairly representative. No, actually, I think the bakery case at Edgar’s 
is even more stupendous. I was so blown away, I didn’t even think to take pictures. Well, anyway, suffice it to say, we may be stopping in for a pastry now and then.
We used some restaurant coupons, we ate out with Russ’ dad twice, and we made a point of visiting one of the restaurants near campus that is usually so busy you can barely find a parking space or a table, but on Spring Break, there are no crowds, and you can breath and enjoy yourself. We went to Innisfree, which is an Irish Pub/Restaurant. Russ had the Shepherd’s Pie, and I had bangers and mash. (And I decided there is no reason in the world not to prepare bangers and mash for dinner at home.)
We also watched a BUNCH of movies and TV shows. Over the nine days, I think we watched at least seven movies. The worst was You’ll Never Get Rich, from our Fred Astaire collection. I usually enjoy Fred Astaire, but putting him in the army just made the whole thing distasteful. Going off to war is not really something to sing and dance about. I liked Rita Hayworth, but I didn’t really believe the “romance.” And in the end when Fred tricks her into marrying him on stage…well, that was just too ridiculous. So this movie didn’t work for me.
But the best movie we watched was Star Trek: Into Darkness. I don’t know how we missed this one when it came to theaters! I wish I could have seen it in the theater, because…what a spectacle! The story held together well, and I have to say, I’m a real fan of the new kids. Perfectly cast in every role. Oh! And Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan? Well, icing on the cake.
During this Break, we woke up when we were ready to wake up, and went to sleep when we were ready to go to sleep. There were no bells or whistles. I even took a few naps. We ate what we felt like eating, whether it was salad, fried baloney sandwiches, or Krispy Kreme donuts. We hung out with Squee, and he hung out with us, curling up between us on the couch as we watched our movies, TV shows, or daily dose of Dark Shadows.
Today we went back to work, and actually, it wasn’t too bad. Though I surely could have gone at least another week or so before I might even begin to think about wanting to do something other than simply hang around the house with my husband and my sleepy-headed cat.
