Bonus

I awoke yesterday morning to our first fall day with temperatures that had dipped below freezing. On my stumble in the dark down the driveway to fetch the paper I watched my breath turn to vapor and thought of digging out the winter bedding.


I thought how nice it would be to curl up in that flannel covered, downy goodness and wallow to my hearts content.










I could picture the downy goodness, clean and fluffy.










So after my shower I trotted down to the basement to haul out what I had stored so lovingly back in May. And what, to my surprise, did I find?












Hallelujah! We'll have Halloween after all!

I Haz a Problum

In an uncharacteristic move of pre-planning and organization I bought my Halloween candy about four weeks ago.

And then I hid the candy. In a VERY safe place.

Guess what I can't find?

This and That

Things I did this weekend:

• Ate Greek food AND Mexican food.
  
  
• Had a lovely lunch with the Saint and one of his childhood friends of whom we do not see nearly enough.
  
  
• Pulled out tomato plants, divided and fed daffodil bulbs and amended the soil in areas of my gardens that had sadly returned to the clay state so rampant in our part of the world.
  
  
• Went to a charity auction, started drinking, bid on some ridiculous items and accidentally left the Saint behind at the end of the evening.
  
  
• Went grocery shopping and remembered everything I needed.
  
  
• Went to Target and not only forgot some things I needed but managed to come home with two new standard sized pillows for our bed. Except our pillow cases are you know KING SIZED.

Things I’ll be doing this week:

• Editing college application essays.
  
  
• Sitting through more meetings than any one person should have to endure.
  
  
• Going to a concert.
  
  
• Taking a day off and just doing fun shit.
  
  
• Except for attending parent teacher conferences the very same night.
  
  
• Going off on a college visit with Precious Youngest. To a university that is a huge rival of my Alma Mater. Sigh.
  
  
• Eating fondue at GNO

Just me and the dust

We're filling out these

and scheduling visits at these.

I feel like I've hit this








after wading through this.










Leaving my creativity

kinda here.

Still Weary

Sometimes when I’m wallowing in my self pity and angst, I see the world though a very heavy fog. Nothing registers as I move though my days in a haze. Other times, I manage to step outside myself. My awareness is heightened. I become sensitive to the moods of others.

Last night Precious Youngest was stressed. I fixed her a late dinner when she came home from work. We visited about her day and considered her wardrobe options for this weekend’s debate tournament. I went to bed with thoughts of being as helpful to her in the morning as I could.

This morning I gave myself quite a paper cut on the cardboard flap of a box top when I was setting out her breakfast. Then I burned myself ironing a blouse for her to wear to the aforementioned debate tournament. I kissed her on her way out the door and wished her good luck at the tournament.

After she left for school and I was dressing for work and realized the sweater I planned to wear was missing. (Those of you who live with teen aged girls will understand the pain of living with thieving whores busy borrowers.) So I trotted upstairs to Precious Youngest’s room to try to locate the sweater.

BIG MISTAKE.

Seriously people. Maybe she’s stressed because she lives in a PIG STY. I’m just sayin’.

S.A.D.

My heart hurts.

My throat aches as though I swallowed something much too big.

My stomach feels like the too big something has lodged there heavy, unmoving, weighted.

Tears sting, unbidden, behind my eyelids




for no reason that anyone can see. Not even me.

Care Package

Going out to Princeton on the Prairie

Seasonal socks

Something to snack on

Precious Oldest and her roommate love candy corn

To take to the kids Precious Oldest is T.A. for this semester

Two observations:

For the first time in YEARS the cashier at Target didn't ask if I wanted to "save 10%by applying for a Target credit card".

I do believe it's going to cost me more to MAIL this package than it did to purchase the items.

Fug or Fab - The Deck Edition

Remember way back last spring when I lamented about the state of our deck? Well in true slacker fashion we did nothing about it until last week.

What we discovered was that in addition to leprosy, we also had a number of boards that needed to be replaced. There is a large Redbud tree on the south side of the deck. It provides wonderful shade, but also drip, drip, drips moisture all year round. So the number of boards that needed to be replaced turned out to be more than we originally thought.

Bad picture sent by the Saint via crackberry

I chose a nice semi-transparent stain for the deck only to be informed that it would have to be painted. Otherwise the "new" wood and the "old" wood would give our deck a somewhat uneven appearance. You may recall choosing paint colors is NOT my thing. Especially from a postage sized paint chip sample and under time pressure. (I told the Saint the week before that I needed to see a BIG swatch, or preferably a couple of boards painted, before I made my final decision. He claims he remembers no such conversation. GAAHH!!)

So take a look bleeps,

What do you think?

Is "Human Flesh" a poor color choice?

Or is it just me?

Observation

I got a phone call from Precious Oldest this morning.

She didn’t call to ask for money. She didn’t call to reel off a list of complaints. She didn’t call to vent about petty grievances.

She called to tell me she is happy. That she loves her major. That she made the right decision.

Almost twenty is a LONG, LONG, LONG way from teenager.