I am so glad to be done with the "Year of Splurge".

Last year was a lot of pinching pennies while planning all these BIG and short-lived things. Though I see the value of doing something "bigger" once in a blue moon, it is not how I enjoy living my life overall.

Now it's back to "Vacation Lifestyle" where we can do several smaller things throughout the year. Last weekend was a perfect example of that. We spent a whole whopping $260 and it was just incredible. Of course maybe this isn't fair since we paid for several shows ahead of time. But I didn't really count those since we do those every year and this was just the first time we stayed in the city and were able to do several more. (But since we ditched the kids we didn't spend any more than usual).

The "weekend away" part was $260, and was worth every penny. We could easily afford to do something like this every single month, and is what I would rather do versus saving up for one big trip only once per year.

So I suppose I will put this under the "vacation lifestyle" category.

In the end we had wanted to hit 5 shows but one was sold out before we could get tickets. It was the Friday night show, which was probably for the best since we didn't have to rush to get there.

The first night we had a late dinner and were mostly getting ready for bed. (I think dh was already in bed). When I told dh that I had just wanted to go for a walk or go do something for a bit. I usually go to bed super early but was a little nervous about having to stay up so late the next night. Going to bed early wasn't going to help with that, even if I had stayed up a little later than usual. One of the venues that we frequent for the Sketchfest was on the same block as our hotel and I had been reading off comedians performing there this weekend (reading these off on the car ride). We had joked about stalking them and also wondered if any would stay at our hotel. So we initially just discussed sitting in either lobby and people watching.

That said, when we looked up the next show down the street it was to start in an hour and was one of dh's favorite comedians. It had been long sold out, but dh suggested trying to get tickets. I figured that would keep me awake. He told me, "The good tickets usually open up last minute anyway. They hold extra seats for the talent." So we walked over not really expecting much. Well, maybe dh was expecting more but I certainly wasn't expecting much! But... they had front row seats available. !! File that away under, "It never hurts to ask." Of course, all these shows are pretty small and the front row seats don't cost any more than the back.

It was the best show we saw all weekend. I don't know if I have ever laughed so hard at a live show.

That pretty much summed up our weekend. Dh (the birthday boy) is charmed and everything went our way. All the food was great. We got free parking everywhere we went. & so how it seemed to go.

We did get stuck in the back row at a podcast recording that dh has been to a few times and always gets crappy seats for. But I was fine with it because at least we had seats! We had to rush from another show and there were a lot of people stuck standing. We got some of the last seats though we had been able to get there an hour before the show started. In contrast, on our Sunday afternoon show we didn't get there more than an hour early and we were like third in line. This was our view:



I mean, we didn't even bother to get there until the doors were supposed to open. & it was a packed and sold out show.

All the other shows were assigned seats and we had front row seats.

So we went to *five* shows, ate at several restaurants, and met up with some friends. Birthday Success!

Spending:

$130 Restaurants
$60 Hotel parking (free timeshare stay, otherwise)
$70 for spontaneous show

TOTAL $260

(See my prior post for some pictures of our weekend).