You're supposed to say, "None taken."

Maybe, but for the better part of the weekend I didn't feel it.


Context: It was after we'd dropped Sarah off at her friend Scottie's birthday party. She turned eleven on Saturday, and it's possibly the last time she will see her outside of school before she moves to California with her mom at the end of month. I hope she will do her best to keep in touch with Scottie, as it sounds like Martha will with Scottie's mom.


But I digress.


So Jeffrey, Martha, and I had to stop at Menard's to pick up some connecting outlets for the family's tablets and we'd elected to watch the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie which Martha hadn't seen yet on Saturday. After dinner at the A&W/KFC building south of town and bringing Sarah over to her cousin Josceline's to spend the night -- the planned campfire at Scottie's would have wreaked havoc with Sarah's asthma, and this was a surprise for Josceline who'd spent the day with Robert and Sharon in Bismarck! -- we got to see it.


An excellent segue into watching Vol.2 at our local AMC Theatre Sunday!


Oh wait, where was I? "None taken." So we're in Menards and our conversation gets around somehow to the movie we've already planned to see at home and Jeffrey cops out with a comment about how I always fall asleep when we're watching movies at home. (Oh, like Saint Martha does not!) But Jeffrey quickly followed that -- after Martha's laughter -- with "no offense", or did Martha say that, I don't remember now ... anyway, our son definitely did say today's title phrase to me.


Cue another round of laughter.


I'm not afraid of laughing at myself, but the following day that did hurt. Between church services Sunday we had our final Family Sunday School of the year which was actually a choice of different activities -- we could paint on the sidewalk, we could blow bubbles ("bubble prayers"), or stay inside and play bingo. We opted for that and I remember getting bingo and shouting it out once, having Keeley who was across from me (who Sarah's age) say that I said "bingo" really loud.


I am not loud. I project.


Sunday afternoon we'd planned to mow our lawn which is getting tall and dandelion-y but we had issues with our mower and probably won't get to it until next weekend, which is ok with me! And not because I'm lazy or find other members of our household so when I ask them to do something like pick up sticks -- there are just better things to do in life than maintain or have to maintain the house and yard immaculate. Especially when it feels one person is doing the lion's share of it.


Sunday afternoon we took in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and it was so much fun!


A movie everybody can laugh at -- even without a high family-friendliness rating -- lets us forget our getting on each other's nerves for a while. Or like one exchange from the movie:

Nebula: [to Gamora] All you do is yell at each other. You're not friends.
Drax: No... We are family.

No offense. None taken.


David