I’m not feeling very talkative today, so instead you get get a bunch of pictures I finally downloaded from my camera.
May River at Dusk
Failed mermaids
Funky bridge
Archive for October, 2010
Sunday
Sunday, October 24th, 2010I need to go to bed, but I’ve been keeping up so well, I wanted to get on quickly and write at least a short something.
I never did get downtown for the arts and crafts show. We did make it down for the fireworks, but it was a little disappointing. We made delicious dinner after getting home, though.
Church singing today was good — three-part harmony on wonderful songs. I wish you could have heard it.
And I finally finished the book I’ve been working on since the beginning of July. Seriously.
And now it’s late and tomorrow is going to be brutal. All this week is going to be brutal. So I’m going to sleep now so I can be ready.
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I’m doing very little and it’s wonderful
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010It’s a beautiful, beautiful day here today and I just finished doing my ironing. I got behind on laundry this week — one load came out of the dryer last weekend and sat in the basket all week. Another languished in the dryer since Thursday afternoon. And the load in the washer just sat there being soggy. So today, I re-fluffed the two dryer loads, Justin re-washed the washer load, and then I folded all three, with some help fro Justin. And then, instead of my normal tactic of hanging the stuff to be ironed on the bedroom door until there wasn’t room for any more and my choice of clothing was severely limited, I asked Justin to drag the iron and board downstairs and I stood there watching TV and doing my ironing. There’s one more load in the dryer, since we were already on a roll, and I’ll fold that once it’s dry. But I already know there isn’t anything that will need ironing in that load.
So I stood here doing my ironing, with the patio door open to the patio umbrella, which Justin opened for the first time in months on Thursday and we’ve left open since then. I noticed the smell of grilling when we had it opened on Thursday and I smelled it again this afternoon and I think I’ve finally determined that it’s the umbrella that’s smelly. It makes sense — it’s near to where we do all our grilling. But it’s still surprising. Hopefully a few more days of airing will take care of that.
And because I had the patio door open, I could hear the pedophile-mobile ice cream truck come by. That’s right, that mobile vending machine is still alive and very creepy in my neighborhood. I could hear it for a while before it came down my street, the sounds of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Old McDonald” echoing over the trees in a cheerful, spooky way. I wasn’t sure if maybe there were two trucks having it out with their tunes for a while, the way it was echoing made it hard to tell how many trucks were out there. I could just imagine two trucks facing off, having a nursery-rhyme jingle joust. Only the winner gets to go down the block with all the townhouse kids!
It’s a relaxing day, though. In a couple hours, Justin and I are going downtown for the Arts and Seafood festival. There’s going to be fireworks at dusk! There’s a big street festival, too, but I’ll go to that tomorrow by myself and wander around looking at the arts and crafts with my camera in tow instead of my husband. He’d go if I really, really wanted him to, but he’d be much happier sitting at home, and I’m fine with that, just as long as I get to go. And as long as we go to the fireworks tonight.
Until then, though, I’m relaxing. Getting caught up on the laundry feels good, especially since I got all my ironing done, too. The house is clean and I have no strong need to get anything else accomplished today. I might step outside with my pruning shears and wander around getting things a little less wild-looking and enjoy the weather. Tomorrow will be a busier day than today, so for today, I’m taking advantage of the relaxing.
All about last night’s dinner
Friday, October 22nd, 2010Dinner last night was FANTASTIC!
There were a few hiccups – like when they showed up at 6:20 when we weren’t expecting them until sometime between 6:30 – 7:00, so I had a dust rag and bottle of Pledge in my hands when they pulled up, and Justin had the vacuum and a bin of trash in his hands. But hey! The house was mostly clean. And dinner took an hour longer to cook so we didn’t sit down to eat until after 8:00. But hey! They’re late eaters like we are, so that worked out fine. And their three kids had trouble finding things to do, but we eventually got them set up with video games in the living room and they were happy!
It really was a great evening, though. Justin made lasagna from a recipe he found online and it turned out SO GOOD. We got to use our French oven that we got for our wedding (and we still don’t know who gave it to us!) and we’ve only used that a couple times since we got it. I’m drooling a little right now thinking about that lasagna. It was delicious! And we had garlic bread that went with it (that only burned a little around the edges) and they brought a salad and a bottle of delicious wine. And we sat around chatting and laughing and it was just really, really fun.
They stayed until a little after 9:00, when the youngest started to melt down because it was past her bedtime and she was having trouble with the video game she was playing with her brother. She’s an adorable kid. She’s 5, I think, and a chatty little thing! When she saw we had a bowl of apples on the counter, she said, “Apples are my favorite food!” and then all night long: “Can I have an apple?” We said she could have one after dinner, so once we were done and clearing away the plates, she sat at her place and announced “I’m waiting for my apple!” So I cut an apple in half and gave her one of the halves. She told me that her brother doesn’t like apples, but she went and told her sister that she was having an apple and, in more of a statement than a question, “Do you want some?” I’d cut the remaining half of the apple in half, so her sister came and ate one of those sections, while the youngest cheerfully sat and munched away on her half. And then she came up to me just before they were leaving and asked if she could have the remaining quarter of the apple.
“Will you eat it all?” I asked her.
“Yup!” she said.
“Do you promise?”
“Yup!”
“Okay.” And she happily chomped down on that while trying to put on her shoes.
The really funny thing is that they know our neighbors in the house connected to ours. Two of our neighbor’s kids are in the same class as two of our dinner guest’s kids. So our neighbors saw the minivan parked in their parking space, recognized it, and knocked on the door to say “Hi.” Another great part: Our dinner guests had no idea where their friends lived, so they had no idea they were our neighbors.
Plus, they passed our house last Halloween trick-or-treating while we were handing out candy. We told them that we were the ones sitting in our open door wearing our pajamas and they remembered us. And now here we are a year later!
It was a really good time and I enjoyed it a lot. It was tiring and the kitchen was still a wreck when I left the house this morning (we tidied up most of the rest of the mess, but we just couldn’t touch the kitchen other than putting away the food), but it was a wonderful time.
I think we’re going to have to invite people over for dinner more often!
Work news
Thursday, October 21st, 2010Oh, hey! I can finally talk about this!
I try not to directly talk about work here as much as I can (I really don’t want to be fired and sued), but I heard about a lot of this a while ago and couldn’t breate a word of it, not even to Justin! If you’re at all interested in fancy airplanes, it’s interesting reading.