All The Things

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Money Talks /

TW was hoping we were only going to go to the library and the Dollar Tree today. Hahahaha. She blanched when I listed all of the places we were going. In order:

– Post Office
– Bank
– Library
– PetSuppliesPlus
– Dollar Tree
– Staples
– Ace Hardware

She got a little excited about the Ace, until I told her we were NOT BUYING ALL THE THINGS and I didn’t even want to look at ALL THE THINGS. It was touch & go for a few minutes but I did actually get her out of the store in less than ten minutes with the two things that were on our list. (Related: Why is dirt so freaking expensive?)

The most annoying bits were the Post Office (duh, but also my fault because I filled out the customs form incorrectly the first time, sigh) and the Staples (where the people are very nice but they charged us more for the breakfast sandwich maker than the guy quoted TW — so we had to exchange it and let him ring it back up at the price he quoted her.) Good news from Staples is that our store is not scheduled to close. Thank god. I need my free paper and batteries, though it’s been awhile since I got free batteries, darn it.

Because we did all of the running around today and because there’s nothing on sale at CVS or Walgreens that I want tomorrow, we are HOME for the duration of the weekend. TW and RJ are happily making a mess in my kitchen and I’ve got a load of laundry in the washer.

I have big plans to get some more spring cleaning done — and also to maybe watch something that is not Dawson’s Creek… more on that later… maybe.

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DO OVER!

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Filofax /

I just yelled really loudly, “STOP TURNING OFF THE DAMN LIGHT!” because once again I came back to the office to work for another couple of hours, after a quick bath in a very hot tub. Another two hours — it’s already 8pm.

I spent five hours driving today. That’s not an exaggeration. I might have actually spent six. I lost track there at the end. I spent an hour on conference calls. I tried to clean the kitchen, only to discover there are too many dirty dishes to fit into one dishwasher load. I didn’t get to eat any of the yummy food we bought, for lunch, because I was working from the dentist waiting room using my iPhone hotspot and didn’t have time to eat. I forgot to take a drink with me so I was dying of thirst.

Today was the day from hell — even if we did have pie. And a nice dinner. And I can have another piece of pie once I finish work.

It was the day from hell — even though TW’s missing check arrived and so did her mother’s meds.

What’s more annoying than the day from hell is that I’ve had the week from hell and it should not have been so.

Sassymonkey was my favorite person because she watched the spam for me most of the nights this week. This meant I turned off my computer very early (for me) and didn’t worry about work stuff all night long. I should have had plenty of time to do all of the fun things.

And we did go grocery shopping last night and eat real food that was not peanut butter. So that was good.

But, I missed two days of writing in my daily journal (something I do every morning between 8-9am.) I missed an entire day of writing in my 365 lists Filofax journal tab (and I’ve never missed a day, since January 1.) When I look at my work Filo, I see that I did do all the things originally scheduled and I see a whole lot more things added. That’s normal. That’s as it should be. I did all the work things and more. Yay me.

But my Malden. My personal Filofax. Aye yi yi. So many erased items. So many arrows indicating I moved something from one day to another to another to another. So many not crossed off things.

How could that be? I didn’t work all the nights, like I usually do. How could I have done so little? What in the hell happened to my week? I know what happened to my today — but my week? Wah?! I have no idea. I didn’t journal anything that explains it. I don’t have any additions that explain it. It’s like someone just came along and plucked a couple hours out of each day of the week.

Hell. I don’t even know where to start tomorrow — I’m tempted to just erase everything (thank you Frixion erasable pens!) and just go with the flow and call this week a BUST.

Next week will be better. Oh. No it won’t. Next week is going to be something else… Shudder. Let’s not think about it.

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1963: The Year of the Revolution

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I was born in 1963 and the cover of 1963: The Year of the Revolution is cool so I checked it out. I wasn’t sure I would read it. I thought I might just flip through the photos because my TBR list is long and was this something I really NEEDED or WANTED to read?

I’m not sure I did need or even want to read it but it was a super fast read and kind of interesting. A lot repetitive and a little disjointed since it was really just a whole bunch of superstars (who you may or may not know depending upon your cultural literacy, particularly British cultural literacy, from ’63) talking about 1963. They (too often) said the same things that others said and they (too often) said the same damn thing they’d already said earlier on the page or in the book.

But, it was interesting and amusing enough that I read the whole thing, really quickly and it was interesting.

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My Ass Is Cold and I’m Tired of It

5 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Pet Peeves /

One of the most annoying things about winter is the fact that my ASS is always cold. Always.

I stopped wearing two pairs of pants, a couple of days ago, when the temps hit the 40s and 50s. My ass was still cold. It’s in the 20s today (windchill much colder than that) and MY ASS IS SO COLD I can’t even think of something to compare it to. It’s that cold.

I’d get up and put a second pair of pants on (flannel leggings underneath my fleece sweats) but it won’t help and will just make me even more annoyed that it’s March and I’m wearing TWO PAIRS OF PANTS IN MY HOUSE and MY ASS IS STILL COLD. That’s why I happily moved to ONE pair of pants for a couple of days (though I forgot that Great Lakes Naval Station is the coldest effing place on earth and froze MY ASS off when I had to pump gas in only one pair of pants on Sunday — though there was some idiot in shorts at the same damn time.)

The best thing about moving to the south in 27 months EXACTLY is that MY ASS WILL NOT BE COLD.

Damn it.

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Elegy for Eddie

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

Elegy for Eddie was a TOUGH Maisie Dobbs novel. People can do horrible things for good reasons, or reasons that seem good — duh. Poor Eddie. Poor Jimmy Merton. Poor Billy Beale. Gah. The whole book is full of sad.

And damn James Compton, hmph.

Also, damn Hitler!

(I’m also troubling because we’re coming up on the last back, thus far, in the series. What will we do when there’s not another one to reserve and listen to?!)

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A Box of Gargoyles

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

A Box of Gargoyles is the secret to Cabinet of Earths — a quick fun read, though the beginning was a little sloggy. Maya talking to a pretend Maya (to try and give us background about what happened in Cabinet of Earths) was a little much. There are better ways to give background to those who are entering the story in part two.

I’m also not sure I like the way it ended. Did Maya just throw her unborn sister under the bus? Sort of? I dunno. It felt not quite right to me. Couldn’t she have chosen without chosen THAT WAY? Seemed a little over-wrought, to me.

I love the addition of Pauline and of course the gargoyle egg was wonderfully done. There should be more gargoyle eggs in stories…

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So Tired and I Can’t Blame DST

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

We went to bed pretty early last night and I didn’t have to set the alarm to get up at any particular time. This should have been the best, easiest day after DST ever.

But it wasn’t because last night sucked.

First, I just could not fall asleep. The last time I looked at the clock it was 2:02am. Then, an hour later, the dogs went ballistic and the bedroom smelled like skunk. For the next hour, the dogs took turn begging to go out, while we took turns telling them to shut the hell up and go back to sleep.

At 3:30am, I couldn’t take it any more and let them out. Where they acted like assholes in the backyard and probably woke up the whole neighborhood. 5 minutes later, Skeeter and Lola were ready to go back to sleep but Buster butt wanted BACK outside and would NOT settle down.

He must have finally done so though because the last time I remember looking at the clock because again, I COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP, it was 4:20am.

Then, at 6:06am, I woke to Buster butt barfing. I tried to ignore him and go back to sleep but after he finished barfing, he cried at the door and then pounced me in that “I REALLY NEED TO GO OUT” sort of way. So, I took him out and the other two went along as well and if we hadn’t woken the neighborhood up at 3am, we absolutely did at 6am when Skeeter barked her stupid head off.

And then I did fall asleep pretty quickly — the last time I saw the clock it was 6:15am … until I heard TW’s mother get up at 7:30am. I tried to pretend she wasn’t there and just stay asleep but I couldn’t because by then I was starting to think about all of the work I hadn’t done over the weekend and just how long it was going to take me to get through the morning rounds and so… I got up and OMG I am SO TIRED.

SO. TIRED.

I’m also grouchy because TW didn’t even hear the barfing incident or me taking the dogs out after the barfing. And because most of those hours when I couldn’t sleep, she was definitely sleeping. NOT FAIR. Totally annoying.

SO. TIRED.

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Redefining Girly

2014, Books in Bed, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women /

I know you’re shocked that I liked Redefining Girly. Hah.

I didn’t love it, but it was good — particularly for those who are just beginning to sort out the whole marketing of gender issue. It’s probably best for those with young children (or no children at all) — those with older kids (tweens/teens) are going to find the recommendations too young, too basic, and not quite on the mark, particularly if they haven’t already been raising their children to question gender stereotypes.

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Steal Like an Artist

2014, Art, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge, Kindle, Non-Fiction /

I’m on an e-Book roll! I have no idea how long Steal Like An Artist has been in my Kindle cloud but it was a fun read during the five and ten minute breaks I took from cleaning my house today.

Super fast read. Nothing really groundbreaking or revolutionary. I did smile a lot about the calendar/log book section — I’ve gone back to paper journaling and filofaxing for all of those reasons.

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Hatching Twitter

2014, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge, Kindle, Non-Fiction /

Elisa sent me a copy of Hatching Twitter at the end of last year and when I needed to download a book for all of the waiting rooms I was going to be sitting in, it seemed like this was a good choice.

I was kind of hoping it would inspire me to go back to Twitter and figure out how to enjoy it again. But no. It didn’t. It might have done exactly the opposite. What. A. Mess.

No wonder we all got so familiar with the fail whale… geez.

Also, am I the only one who wants to track down @Noah and tell him that he did a good thing and he’s better off where he is, than to be in that mess? Long live @Noah! And @jack just makes me roll my eyes. Over and over and over again. Which is what generally happens any time I spend more than 5 minutes on Twitter. Coincidence?

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