Noir weekend...

What a long, long weekend! I worked for awhile on Saturday, puttering around the office catching up on stuff, putting my Cricut software on the extra computer so I can leave the machine hooked up to that one, instead of having it in my every day work area, playing with the cat - important stuff like that. I decided to stay home on Sunday and Monday for "big hug" days with the dogs. We made cookies and had our usual summer holiday fare of hot dogs - which Aggie and Monty love - and I read five crime noir novels. When I'd had enough double-crossing murder and larceny, I watched a movie in somewhat the same genre: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Very weird, to say the least. I'm not a big Jude Law fan, but Gwyneth Paltrow does pretty well in those 1940's girl reporter roles. The film also had Giovanni Ribisi as the boy wonder techno-nerd - years ahead of his time - and Angelina Jolie as the commander of a flying aircraft carrier. Her character was quirky - complete with a leather get-up and an eye patch, which made those lips look even freakier. For a pretty woman, she has some disturbing looking lips. Actually, those blowfish lips are the stuff nightmares are made of. Freaky. I'm just saying.

My sister and I...

were not your typical Barbie-doll-playing kids of the late sixties and early seventies. We were raised in a house full of soap opera devotees (Search for Tomorrow, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, As the World Turns, Another World - and my favorite - The Edge of Night) and we re-enacted dramatic courtroom scenes, life-saving surgeries and murder investigations instead of Barbie and Ken dates, elaborate weddings and other typical girl stuff. I can remember being interrogated by my sister on several occasions: "Did you, or did you not, kill Danny Fargo?" And she was probably only about five at the time!

While my mother and grandmother introduced us to the soaps, my dad instilled in us a love of nightly newscasts and a fascination with all things political. We watched the news with Daddy while Eric Sevareid reported somberly on the day's casualties in Viet Nam while wearing his jaunty lemon-yellow sport coat. I have no idea how many times I heard Walter Cronkite say, "And that's the way it was." We were glued to the television by the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were probably the only kids on our block who understood the political ramifications of Teddy Kennedy's unfortunate auto accident on the bridge at Chappaquiddick and who Mary Jo Kopechne even was. But our real obsession was Watergate and Richard Nixon. We faithfully watched the hearings and reported on the proceedings nightly for my father. My sister did a dead-on impersonation of Sam Ervin who was constantly coming before America with a heavy heart, or so he said. We were familiar with Woodward and Bernstein even before Redford and Hoffman made them larger-than-life in All the President's Men. We had our own semi-weekly newspaper in which we chronicled current events, most notably the whole lengthy Watergate debacle. Oddly enough, I was always the more conservative Woodward and Debbie was the liberal Bernstein - especially odd because she is now an even more rabid Republican than Rush!

Yes, this trip down memory lane really is leading up to something. Something funny, actually. Over the past week, everyone who knew the late Senator Kennedy has spoken quite nicely about him, delivering heartfelt eulogies and anecdotes about having served with him in Congress. I was reminded of an essay by the late Lewis Grizzard which was published during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings during which Mr. Kennedy served as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Grizzard wrote something to the effect that he didn't care if Clarence Thomas stripped naked and stood on his desk to read Anita Hill the letters from Penthouse, he was still a better man than Ted Kennedy. I had to laugh at that - even though, given Justice Thomas' performance on the bench (or silence thereon), I'm not sure his eventual confirmation was in the nation's best interests. I was also reminded that I have a Ted Kennedy anecdote of my own - well, sort of. In the mid nineties, my sister the rabid Republican, went to work in Washington. For the first several months, she was starstruck and called me every couple of days to tell me what famous person she had met. She was practically incoherent the day she was introduced to Sonny Bono. One afternoon she called and before I could say hello, she shrieked: "Guess who I met today!" I think I said something like, "The President?" No - she told me to guess again. "John Glenn?" Of course, I was thinking of people that I would have been thrilled to meet. No - one more guess. I thought for a minute and guessed, "Sandra Day O'Connor?" My responses were met with an exasperated sigh. Wrong, apparently. Debbie proceeded to tell me that she was walking from her office building to the Capitol through one of the tunnels and suddenly this golf cart appeared beside her. The gentleman in the cart stopped and asked if she would like a ride to the Capitol. I said, "That's nice. Who was this gentleman?" I know the pause before her answer was for dramatic effect - and then she said, "Ted Kennedy." I was gobsmacked. I could hardly speak. I sputtered, "You got into a moving vehicle with Ted Kennedy?" She laughed and replied, "It was okay - we didn't drive over water."

I found...

Tim's old laptop computer on the shelf in the back room at the office and amazingly, it still works! I installed my WordPerfect Office software on it and I am going to take it home with me so I can write at night. Since I had the cable disconnected, I've been reading, doing crosswords and watching an occasional DVD - but I decided that I'd probably get more written on my great American novel if I typed it instead of writing longhand. And, I should probably admit, I installed my Scrabble software on the laptop, too. Aggie and Monty aren't much on playing games - especially Scrabble.

The other night we watched Down With Love, a cute romantic comedy with Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. Of course, I kept thinking Bridget Jones meets young ObiWan Kenobi - but that's just me. It was okay, but I prefer the old Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies. Last night after our gourmet dinner of Eggo waffles with peanut butter, the dogs and I watched Connie and Carla - which was actually quite funny. I mean, how can any movie with drag queens not be funny? I loved To Wong Foo, and while Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo made great women, Wesley Snipes needs to stick to being a man. Flawless, with Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman, is another great drag queen movie. Funny, great story and definitely worth checking out if you've never seen it. I was also glad that someone finally decided to educate the masses about where the term drag came from: it originated with Shakespeare. If you've seen Shakespeare in Love, or just studied his work, you know that women did not appear in the theatre and all of the parts were played by men. In the stage direction for his work, Shakespeare would note that a character would enter "dressed as girl" and hence the term drag evolved. Just another UBI (useless bit of information), but I was surprised when one of the queens in Connie and Carla explained the term to one of his friends.

My week is improving...

I mean, how could it get too much worse? Petey, the office cat, let me get his picture this morning. We had a big snuggle and he purred. Isn't he a handsome boy? He still spends most of his day sleeping, but I think he's a happy guy.

My car will be ready this afternoon - and thank heaven - it's only going to be $166 - not nearly as much as I had originally thought. The problem turned out to be a leaky vacuum hose in the fuel delivery system and that set off the key problem and the security issue. I'm just thankful it wasn't a major repair with a major price tag.

I also finally finished all of my scanning from last tax season. Everything is filed away electronically and I have shredded all of the papers with sensitive taxpayer information. I love it when a project is complete and I can check it off my to-do list. Obsessive compulsives unite!

Today is the first day...

of the rest of my life, or so I told myself this morning as I trekked up the sidewalk from my apartment to my SUV. Get in, turn the key and while the dang thing started, it refused to keep running. So, I called AAA and asked for roadside assistance. "Is it your battery or do you need a tow truck?" asked the oh-so-polite-had-to-be-a-blonde on the other end of the line. I replied that I did not know, but I was fairly sure it wasn't the battery or the alternator, since the car started and the battery was showing charged on the meter on the dashboard. Well, thirty minutes later a battery man arrived and when I described the symptoms, he called a tow truck. Another thirty minutes and I now know that God does indeed have a sense of humor - a one-armed man driving a tow truck appeared and tentatively diagnosed the problem as a security issue with the alarm system. Mind you, this SUV does not have an alarm, but I did not want to argue. Actually, I was more fascinated with how that guy was going to manage to get that enormous SUV on the tow truck. I needn't have worried because he did just fine and I should be ashamed of myself for thinking that his handicap would stand in the way of his doing his job, but I am possessed of a warped sense of humor and I couldn't help myself. I mean, I couldn't have gotten the SUV even remotely lined up to get it on the truck - who am I kidding? I am sure I've been punished for my negative thoughts with the ever-skyrocketing repair bill. Karma, you know.

Speaking of karma, or whatever you want to call it, there is a reason why today was the first day of the rest of my life. First of all, it's September 1st and the first day of a month is always a good day for new beginning. Secondly, I've barely been coherent or able to function like a productive adult since last Tuesday morning, when my husband decided to rip my heart out and hand it to me. He does not want to be married anymore. Consequently, I am not moving to Pennsylvania or anywhere else. Tim has successfully adopted out (with the help of a family who owns a farm) all but six of our cats: Eddie, Sophie, Lucie Bee, Walter, Louie and Berny. I desperately want to bring my fourteen-year-old cat Eddie back home to Florida, but I don't hold out much hope of that happening. Apparently everyone who meets him wants to adopt him - but I've had Eddie around longer than Tim and I just can't give Eddie up. Something told me back in January that I should keep Eddie here with me, but I didn't do it because he's the head boy and the other cats loved him. He was the leader of the pack.
So anyway, I gave myself until this morning to get it together and well, you can imagine how that went. First the car problem - my friend Richard came and picked me up at the condo - we had planned to sort out junk at the office that I could either put on craigslist for sale or take to Goodwill - and then the day just sort of went downhill from there. We went to the storage unit - that tightly-packed abomination you can see above - to take pictures of my table and some other stuff, but after surveying the mess, we decided that we need to get some of the junk out of there first, so in a week or so I'm going to lead an expedition to the wilds of unit E41 and put stuff bound for the office in my friend Long's van and stuff for Goodwill in the back of my SUV. I think we can clean it out twice as fast that way and then I can take pictures of the big stuff that I plan to divest myself of since I won't be moving away.

That is some bad paragraph - and I fancy myself a writer... But you get the gist of this post - my goal today was to get it together (as best I can) and start moving on. I think I made a pretty good start - at least I have some kind of plan. I know this isn't going to be easy, but then, whose life really is?

Harvey, the cow-cat...

has gone to Kitty Heaven to be with his recently-departed sisters, Tallulah Belle and Martha Stewart. Harvey, the former Al Catta terrorist, was one of the inbred kitties who was never really very healthy. He was a small cat and prone to ear problems. We called him Youssarian because of his social problems with the other cats. He had become quite unsteady - although he was never terribly coordinated as a young cat - and we think he died of kidney failure. The vet who saw him at the end said that he appeared to be jaundiced. Harvey was a funny guy - he once stole one of Oprah's kittens and my husband came home to find me chasing him around the house, yelling, "Harvey - you little bastard - put that kitten down!" After that incident, Harvey underwent anti-terrorist deprogramming with our head cat, Eddie. Consequently, Harvey learned to mind his manners and gave up his terrorist ways. I am sure that all his brothers and sisters who went before were waiting for him at the Rainbow Bridge. Rest in peace, little Harvey.

Truth in advertising...

is not completely a thing of the past. The Angus Mushroom Swiss burger from McDonald's is actually as good as it looks in all of those ads. It's actually the first fast food fad (say that three times fast) in a long time that actually lives up to the hype! But then again, mushrooms on just about anything would sell it to me.

Worth watching...

Okay, I'm not a TV-aholic or anything - but I try not to miss Leverage on TNT. I watched the pilot episode (The Nigerian Job) last summer and I was hooked. Not only does this show have a great premise - a team composed of a hitter, hacker, grifter and thief, all used to working alone, headed up by a former insurance investigator (Timothy Hutton) with more issues than a magazine rack - but pretty good acting as well. The writers are great and I have yet to watch a single episode that made me want to give up on the story and channel-surf. I've been watching Season Two this summer but this weekend, I had a Season One marathon with Aggie, Monty and the DVD player. I saw a couple of episodes that I had missed for some reason - very entertaining. If you haven't seen it, check out the online episodes at TNT. And Sandy, below is the hunky reason I think you should check this show out - if you haven't already.

Finished at last...

the bookkeeping and taxes for my neighbor's restaurant for the past three years is done! Now I am working on those boxes under the desk for a lady who owns fourteen rental mobile homes. Yikes! It's two years worth of stuff - and a big mess. I like the puzzle aspect of my work, but sometimes it's nice when someone just brings you a nice, organized file to work with. Cari's box was like that - all organized by month - but it was a lot of data entry work. At last I didn't have to organize it before I could start working on it.

This is as far as I've gotten with this project - I've sorted everything by property and now I have to do each individual property's expenses by year. I did get to use my handy-dandy handheld label machine, so that was fun. I am easily amused... I just don't feel like looking at it anymore today.

Another project I have told myself I must complete before the end of the summer is scanning all of my client e-file and W2 forms and other can't-throw-away stuff for tax year 2008. I was going to move my scanner over by the shredder, but I can't because of the fax line. I just have to figure out a way to get the scanner on a lower level so I can sit down and do the work, instead of standing in front of the machine. A chair might be about the right height - I figure I have about a day's worth of that project, including cataloging everything into my electronic file cabinet. You'd think that someone who writes real paper letters to people wouldn't be so adverse to having paper files, but I love the idea of a paperless office. There's something about seeing three hundred client files reduced to one small box of papers required by the IRS. It's paperwork reduction at its finest!

And this is Otis, our resident rodent. It's amazing the number of people who think he is real when they see him peeking out of his latest hiding spot. He got some rough handling from a few kids during tax season and his tail needed mending. Then Peter the cat got hold of him and tried to unstuff his poor tail, so I finally stitched him up and he is good as new. My husband got him at a place called Fiery Food Junction a couple of years ago and Otis has lived here happily ever after. He doesn't eat much and he is a very tidy pet. Isn't he cute?

Martha Stewart...

has gone to Kitty Heaven. She apparently had a stroke and then continued to have seizures. She went on to her eternal reward on Sunday - where I like to think that all cats get to run and play and sleep - and all those good things that cats love to do. Martha was a funny cat - pretty but sort of cantankerous. Like her namesake, I guess. We adopted her and her sister, Sophie, back in 1997 on a pet adoption Saturday at PetsMart. Eddie, our orange tiger boy, was thrilled - he loves kittens. Sophie is a short-haired calico and much more personable than Martha was. They both loved Ed - as you can see in the picture below of Eddie and Martha trying to squeeze into a basket together. The pretty kitty on the right is Sophie.

One third of the way through the box...

of bookkeeping for Cari's restaurant - finally! That means I've finished 2006 and my goal is to finish 2007 by Sunday. We'll see how that goes... I spent all day yesterday correcting a mess - work that I paid someone else to do last fall for one of my other clients. It really is true after all: if you want something done right, do it yourself. So after about six hours of re-doing all of the 2008 bookkeeping, I saved the file and went home. In the middle of the night, I had a terrible thought - what if it didn't save properly? So this morning, when I opened the file, my worst fears were realized; the file had saved from the point where I deleted the errors - and saved absolutely nothing of the hours of work I did to fix the mess. Needless to say, I've been hard at work on the same thing I did yesterday. Talk about deja vu!

I read The Time Traveler's Wife - and honestly, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the time / space paradox of the whole thing. I think I just need to suspend disbelief and all rational scientific thought - it's more a love story than a treatise on time travel. Einstein would have said, "Bah!" and thrown the thing down in disgust. I can't say too much without giving away the plot, such as it is, but I am tempted to go through the book again and make myself a timeline. Hopefully the movie is better - and easier to follow - than the book.

School supplies...

are some of my favorite things. When I was a kid, I could hardly wait until just before school started because that's when they would put the school supplies out in the stores. Now, it seems like they start stocking the shelves even before school is out for the summer! Target has the best stuff - WalMart has just too much Hannah Montana to suit me. But then again, I'm fifty years old and think they should have Sean Connery folders and Mark Harmon notebooks. I curbed my enthusiasm today by just buying a pack of notebook paper, three composition books (fifty cents each) and a plastic pencil box in pink. Household hint: you know how the dryer sheet box always falls apart and the sheets lose their scent? I'm putting them into the pink pencil box - how's that for ingenuity at the low, low price of seventy-nine cents? And to think I really just went into the store to pick up a bag of Newman's Own dog food for Aggie & Monty...

I know it sometimes seems that I like every book I read. And for the most part, every book has some redeeming value - even if it's only a temporary cure for insomnia. But there are some stinkers out there and I've read a lot of them. Case in point: Patricia Cornwell's Andy Brazil series. When Hornet's Nest was published, like most fans I was waiting with bated breath for yet another Scarpetta thriller. Imagine my disappointment (and no doubt thousands of other faithful readers) when the cast of characters was all new and for some reason, it seemed like Cornwell was trying to be funny - and failing miserably. In fact, it wasn't until much later when I read an interview with the author that I realized that she really was trying to write a humorous murder mystery; I just thought she'd gone round the bend or had developed an alcohol problem. The subsequent Isle of Dogs was just as bad; I don't even remember if there was a third book in the series. Occasionally, other authors seem to tire of writing in the middle of the book and just end it. John Grisham has done this a couple of times and I think he should be slapped and chained to his word processor until he finishes the story properly. I've read other books with great plots, wonderful character development and lots of suspense - but just way too much smut. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg is famous for that - and I finally gave up reading her work. I'm a Raymond Chandler fade-to-black kind of girl - I don't want to read about what happens when the lights go out, I want to imagine it. I want to be entertained in a PG-13 fashion.

Which brings me to Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich, the latest installment in her Stephanie Plum series. Once again, murder and mayhem with a seriously comic style. Her books are always laugh out loud funny - to the point of having to reread passages just to make sure I didn't miss anything! The plot in this book centers around former 'ho, Lula (played in my imagination by Queen Latifah) who witnesses a murder by decapitation and enters a barbecue cook-off. Grandma Mazur is as hilarious as readers have come to expect - she never disappoints. I really enjoy Evanovich's books and amazingly, I almost never read any of them. My husband's friend Jon recommended the Plum series to me ten years ago and I discounted his taste in literature - mainly because he and my husband are devotees of science fiction and fantasy. Their mutual favorite is a strange tome called Spaceling by the late (and probably demented as well as lamented) Doris Piserchia; I read it at my husband's urging and it was, well, weird. I also read Glory Road by Robert Heinlein, a classic, they said. Not for me. I did enjoy Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, but then isn't Fahrenheit 451 required high school reading for everyone? He's a great writer - whatever the subject. I have read some fantasy by Marion Zimmer Bradley and enjoyed it - but for the most part, I'm a murder mystery maven.

Gloom in the room...

It's a typical summer day in Florida - dark and raining - for the time being at least. It's been clouding up and threatening to rain for a couple of hours - and now it's finally here. And there's the thunder. The wind is blowing a bit, too. Petey (the office cat) and I are snug as bugs in a rug. Maybe I'll spend my lunch break reading...

Stay-cation...

is a descriptive word. The first time I ever heard it was in an episode of Corner Gas - the one where Brent sits in front of the gas station in a lawn chair, communicating with people only by means of a verbal postcard from wherever he imagines himself to be. Mallorca, for instance. The locals are used to his annual stay-cations, but newcomer Lacey, proprietor of the Ruby, a cafe adjacent to Corner Gas, cannot wrap her mind around Brent's non-travel arrangements. Okay, Canadian humor aside, it's a mildly entertaining show and stay-cation is a great word.
Summer is incredibly slow in my business and I've been taking advantage of the phone not ringing and people not making appointments - or keeping the ones they do make for a stay-cation of my own. I had two days of solitude this weekend; I re-read Busy Bodies by Joan Hess - thinking it was a new release. I couldn't remember having read it before anyway, although I am sure I did. Her latest, Mummy Dearest, was pretty good; Claire Malloy has married Peter Rosen and they went off to Egypt for their honeymoon, taking Caron and Inez and intrigue right along with them. I admire her writing style and her plots are intricate while the action is funny and fairly lighthearted - well, except for the murders. I can't wait until her next Arly Hanks / Maggody book comes out. That series is even funnier than Claire and her gang.
Today, as soon as I finish this post, I am off to WalMart for a few essentials and then back home to my stack of books, one of which promises exotic locales, intrigue and an untimely death or two. What's a stay-cation without vicariously solving a murder?

When I was in high school...

I discovered Julia Child and The French Chef on PBS reruns. It wasn't so much that I wanted to learn to cook; I just enjoyed the way Julia enjoyed cooking. Cooking at our house was never an adventure. It was an exercise in following a tried and true recipe to the letter and cleaning up as you went along - there was never any mess in our kitchen. I'll never forget the look on my mother's face when she saw Julia Child pitch eggshells over her shoulder. I longed to cook like Julia - just once - using wine and exotic spices and leaving the mess until dinner was in the oven or God forbid - after dinner had been consumed and thoroughly enjoyed. Well, that never happened and even when I had my own kitchen and license to cook, well, licentiously - my cooking habits were so ingrained that I stuck to recipes (for the most part) and cleaned up as I went along. I loved Julie & Julia by Julie Powell - if you haven't read it and you like to cook or just like Julia Child - go out and buy it. Yes, seeing the movie trailers with Meryl Streep as Julia and Stanley Tucci as her husband, Paul, is what made me check out the book. But I'm glad I did. It made me want to make Potage Parmentier as soon as I finished the first chapter! I haven't yet - but I did print out the recipe and I am going to buy potatoes and leeks the next time I go to the grocery. Of course, now I want to read Julia's autobiography and maybe make a clafouti with summer cherries...

Mary Engelbreit is right...

arts and crafts do keep you sane. I only wish I hadn't put my sewing machine in storage! It's my grandmother's ancient black head Singer and it may be old - but it works great. Tim got me a serger one year for Christmas and I like it, but there's nothing like Grandma's trusty, well-used and very loved Singer. During the mad rush and confusion of moving, I decided that there was no room in the apartment or the office for my sewing stuff, so I packed it all up and it's miles away inside a seriously (and perilously) packed ten by ten storage unit. I hung on to a small amount of cross-stitch stuff - but that's it. And anyone who sews will understand this: I'm in the mood to sew. There's just something about creating something from a pile of fabric and thread that is both relaxing and satisfying. Sure, I like to make cards and cross-stitch, but sewing is the first real craft I ever learned and nothing else quite measures up. I was never much into making clothes - I could never master a set-in sleeve or lining anything, but I have made probably hundreds of Christmas ornaments, bermuda bag covers and quilted pillows over the years. I made all the window treatments in our house. I even went through a doll-making phase: Holly Hobbie (I'm showing my age!), Raggedy Ann and Andy... One of the first things my grandmother turned me loose on (after I mastered sewing straight lines on notebook paper) was Barbie doll clothes. At first I followed the patterns, but after while I was like a ten-year-old Barbie designer with a spring and fall line of evening and casual wear made from scraps left over from Grandma's projects, complete with beaded trim and braided frog closures on the jackets. Maybe that's why I could never make people clothes - I was used to working on a much smaller scale! Anyhow, I was thinking this morning about how it felt like a great day to sew something - but I don't even have a spool of thread!

Willie's fifth birthday...

is coming up on July 30th! When we moved, I could only have two dogs at the apartment, and since Willie was the youngest, I had to find a new home for him. Well, he was adopted by a wonderful retired couple and he's currently in Vermont for the summer - relaxing, boating and sunning himself next to the lake on their vacation property. We miss our William Wallace and it just about broke my heart to give him up, but he is happy and loved and well, who could ask for more? Aggie and Monty reminded me to make him a birthday card - so I thought I'd share how cute it turned out. One of my Stampin' Up stamp sets and I finally learned how to use the Crop-a-Dile for eyelets...

Apartment living...

is indeed an experience. With the exception of living in a college dorm, I've always lived in a house. Quietly. With virtually silent neighbors. Here, I'm on the ground floor next to a staircase and it would seem that everyone who lives above me cannot walk without stomping their feet. Loudly. At all hours of the day and night. No wonder Aggie and Monty bark their fool heads off! My screened lanai backs up to a sidewalk which at certain hours of the day is heavily traveled by people who cannot speak in a normal tone of voice. I am thankful every day that the uppity Latina diva with the silver BMW moved out - she was the loudest stomper/talker of all - but she has since been replaced by a two gentlemen with several children each who apparently visit only on weekends. Yikes! There is no end to the walking, running, yelling and scooters up and down the sidewalk. Back and forth, in and out - a half hour of silence - and then the cycle repeats itself. I'm an old grump - that's all there is to it!

The apartment is roughly one third the size of our old house - so we downsized quite a bit, but it was really liberating to get rid of stuff we never used. The kitchen is small but cute with few cupboards - so I have a lot of dishes and other kitchen stuff in storage. My old kitchen had 28 cupboards, a double oven and two sinks! Oh well - it's not like I really have to cook much with Tim in Pennsylvania and just me and the mutts...

The kitchen is open to the living room, which has just enough room for a sofa (a pretty sage green from Grandma's apartment...), an ottoman, one of my stained glass floor lamps and the television cabinet. I also have a book cabinet next to the front door, across from the kitchen breakfast bar. When Tim was here in January, he brought one of my Target-special tables from the office to use as a desk. I've put it right under the breakfast bar and it admirably serves the purpose. A cluttered little place to sit and write is always a good thing!

I'm using my antique iron bed and the barely-used mattress and box spring from Grandma's apartment. Unfortunately, it's one of those extra thick mattresses and not meant for short, fat people to climb into easily. Chunky Aggie can't jump up on the bed at all! I need to get her one of the pet step things - now that she's almost eleven and not as agile as she used to be.

The bedroom is actually fairly large, and aside from the weirdness of having the sink in the bedroom next to the bathroom door (the stackable washer and dryer is in the bathroom - very convenient!), it is a very pleasant room. It has a pretty big walk-in closet and room for the bed, two large nightstands (for my reading stash) and a large bureau.

Aside from the daily noise, it's not so bad and although it seems like it's taken me forever to get settled, the apartment is actually pretty comfortable. Living alone does seem strange sometimes, but I keep telling myself it's not forever - only until next summer. Maybe Tim will come home and visit one of these days. Soon.

I thought my head was going to explode...

yesterday and every time one of the dogs barked, my migraine seemed to get worse. After a long nap, it finally subsided, but by then it was too late to go to the office. So here I am this morning - trying to get myself in work mode. I've read the news on the internet and emptied the trash, fed the cat and returned my phone messages - and I'm still not in the mood to work. Must be because it's Friday. I have a potential client coming in at four who wants to incorporate his "own private record label." We'll see if he even shows up. One of the things on our windows reads "assistance starting a new business" and it is amazing how many people have come in to inquire if we give money to people to start new businesses. I feel like saying, "I would if I were independently wealthy," but I just patiently explain what services we do provide. Being in business for oneself has been an interesting and eye-opening experience. I could write a book!

Worth checking out...

I read the best book last night! A friend of mine lent me the library book he had just finished: The Orion Protocol by Gary Tigerman. We were talking about the anniversary of the first moon landing and got around to the subject of those conspiracy theorists who think that the moon "landing" took place on some California soundstage. A hoax too elaborate for even our hallowed government, but I digress. Anyhow - he ran out to his car and got the me the book he had just finished and was on his way to return. I couldn't put it down; it was well written and had just the right amount of comic relief. I hate to give away the plot, but it does have to do with the Apollo moon missions and really makes the reader wonder why we walked on the moon and then never went back. My dad the sci-fi, Project Blue Book buff would have loved this! When I was in high school he read Chariots of the Gods over and over again and loved to debate whether or not we are alone in the universe.

My book drawer at home is perilously empty - I even brought my bag of hard-boiled detective pulp fiction home with me! I had put the pile of Mickey Spillane-esque paperbacks in the back room at the office for lunch hours and never really got to them. This past weekend I finished my Ken Follett frenzy by reading Jackdaws, Whiteout and finally, World Without End. He is one of the best writers - particularly when he writes about the World War II era. I had read Pillars of the Earth years ago right after it was published and World Without End is a sequel of sorts, taking place about two hundred years later. A lot of the characters are descendants of the characters in the first book and the entire story is set in and around the fictional Kingsbridge Cathedral in fourteenth century England. It is over a thousand pages long and took me two days to read - but well worth the time.

I'm experimenting with not watching television. For the past couple of weeks, particularly on evenings when I am planning to lose myself in a good book, I don't even turn the television on - and I haven't missed it. We had satellite TV at our house and I was spoiled with TiVo and being able to search the guide and all that good stuff. After we moved, I got digital cable and a DVR and with no HBO or anything like that, it was over $75 a month! I called and requested basic cable with no DVR and it's still $35 - so I'm seriously considering just disconnecting it completely. Wasn't it great when we were kids and TV was just free? Anyhow, I have a cupboard full of DVDs and a DVD player in case I feel the need to zone out in front of the television - so I almost have myself convinced. It may actually be liberating to be TV free...

Ah, lunch... One of Cari's italian hoagie subs on fresh sourdough bread from Taste of Philly, just three doors down. Her sandwiches are every bit as good as her pizza! Yum!

I miss Eddie...

and I can't wait until we are all together again. I know moving to Pennsylvania is almost a year away, but I want to start counting the days! Eddie is just about the best cat in the whole world. He is fourteen years old and still acts like a kitten sometimes. He's the Head Boy in our household and is Uncle Ed to all the other cats. He has always loved baby cats - and when a new family member was adopted or if one of the cats (too late to be spayed!) had kittens, Eddie was right there to watch over everyone. I call him Eddie the Lionhearted because he once beat the crap out of Aggie when she was a puppy for picking on our handicat, one-eyed Peter the Great. You know, Aggie never bothered Petey again! Eddie is a very talkative cat and he will kiss on demand. He doesn't kiss boys, though - much to Tim's chagrin. Eddie likes to sleep on my pillow and when he was kitten, he would chew my hair. Fortunately, he gave that up. He also likes to have his picture taken - this is one of his more thoughtful poses. He is named after Edward R. Murrow. I know - weird namesake - but we kept naming cats after newsmen since my first two cats were Woodward & Bernstein. They were followed by Petey - who was supposed to be named for Peter Jennings, but we secretly knew it was Peter Falk because of his one eye. Next we adopted Sophie and Martha Stewart - what were we thinking? But then we adopted Charles Kuralt and Walter Cronkat - and their sister, Lucie Bee. That was the end of the news names and then Tim switched to famous physicists - but that's a story for another day.

Goofing off instead of working...

My phone has rung once this morning - and it was Tim calling me! I finally got all of my craft supplies put away in my new work area and since it was so quiet here, I did a little project for myself this morning. I have been saving clippings of card ideas from Close to My Heart and Stampin' Up catalogs forever and they have just been moldering away in a drawer. So, I trimmed the edges up and put them all into a little notebook this morning - so all my ideas are in one place. My next project is to decorate the front of the notebook. It's one of those brown chipboard "Sara Binders" you see in the papercraft magazines. Eventually, I'm going to go through my small stack of craft magazines and cut out the card examples I like. Believe it or not, I'm still on my "travel lighter" quest - consolidating stuff for when we finally move. This weekend, I'm planning to tidy up the back room at the office and have my friend help me take more junk to our storage unit: ceiling lights for new house, frames from the ruined prints that got wet during the move, Grandma's old Homer Laughlin dishes (they are cool - earthtones - not the bright colors, although I would love to have a set of those one day!) and assorted other stuff that has nothing to do with running the office. I'm tired of looking at the mess. We even have a miter saw and a scroll saw back there! I don't know if Tim wants to move those or not, but I am going to take them to storage anyway. I'm sure there's even some stuff I could sell on eBay back there...

I've tried and tried to kick the soda habit...

and I have no soda in the refrigerator at home or in the office - but my daily indulgence is a Route 44 soda from the Sonic that's on the way to work. I always ask for extra ice and it lasts all day long. At this point I'm not even sure it's the soda I'm so hooked on - it's the ice! It's, well, rabbit poop ice. It's just perfect for munching - even though I know I shouldn't. We actually have a small ice machine at the office - which Tim adores - but it's a little tough to crunch. So I drive in and pick up a drink every morning - and at two in the afternoon, I'm still sipping and enjoying my ice. I've given up soda at home to both save money and reduce the amount of aluminum cans and plastic bottles in landfills - but I've actually been enjoying sugar-free drinks like Crystal Light and the cranberry-pomegranate drink from Ocean Spray. And iced tea, of course - this is the sunny South!

I know you really can't see the temperature on the thermostat above, but today I am thankful that both numbers say 73. When I came into the office on Monday - actually prepared to have a really good week - the air conditioner was dead. I called our friend Bill to come and check it out - hoping that it could be repaired - and he even looked for an old compressor for us - but alas - no. RIP! So we had to buy a new air conditioning unit. It was 85 degrees in here and no circulation at all - so I went home. On Tuesday, Bill came and installed the lovely new machine. He called my husband about 12:30 and said he was ready to run the unit, so I dashed over to the office to let him inside - Lord, it was hot in here! Within an hour, it was a cool 73 degrees in the office! I don't know why I didn't write about it before now - because I was thankful for Bill, air conditioning and speedy service back on Tuesday!

You know that saying: If you want to see God laugh, make plans? Well, it is so true. I know that I spend a lot of time worrying - especially in this economic climate - and I am always trying to make things work out the way I think they should. It's particularly challenging these days with Tim's recent layoff from work and trying to support two households and an office space. And there are days when I think we are never going to make ends meet for the month - but then, just when I need to pay the electric bill or buy a toner cartridge for the printer or whatever, one of my clients will call or stop by and just like that, God has provided for our immediate needs. Today He sent me Robert Redford. I'm not kidding - that's really his name and he's one of my regular clients - probably the same age as the famous Mr. Redford - just not as good-looking. He's been bringing me his back taxes to do for a while now and I think we're finally caught up. Yesterday, two of my small business clients called and they are bringing their 2008 stuff in this afternoon and Monday - so I have work to keep me busy and money coming in just when we need it. I am thankful every day for God's blessings in my life - but some days even more than others.

I finally got tired of the mess...

and looking at the seldom-used desk across the room, so I thought - hey, I can do a little re-arranging and put that desk to good use in another space in the office as my craft area. So, I moved the "conference" table to the middle of the room where the vacant desk was and moved the desk back to our little meeting area and voila! No more mess - instant craft workshop!

The move also alleviated the craft clutter in the printer area behind my desk - so the office is back to looking like a place of business rather than an overflowing storage unit.

I moved the computer that was on the vacant desk to Tim's empty office. My friend, Richard, came by to hook it back up for me - and crawl around on the floor under the desk with all of the dang cords - and make it look pretty in that office, too! That's Petey the cat's hangout - he comes out to say hello briefly and eats, but he spends most of his time napping inside the computer area of the desk. One of these days I am going to be lucky enough to take his picture while he is eating - but he's just too fast for me!

The holiday weekend...

was long - that's about all I can say for it. It started early - I spent what seemed liked an eternity at the doctor's office on Wednesday and then all day Thursday at the hospital getting a blood transfusion on the outpatient surgery floor. They were very nice - but it takes forever to get two units of blood. I think I spent most of my time pushing the IV pump back and forth to the bathroom. They give you a shot of Lasix between units so you don't retain the fluid. Of course, I expected to feel seriously perky on Friday after having been a couple of quarts low on non-anemic blood - but no! I was still exhausted and so I spent Friday at home with Aggie & Monty and the last three Anne Rice books in my reading stash. By Sunday afternoon, after a brief trip to feed Petey at the office, I had finished reading Blood and Gold, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle. I enjoy Anne Rice, not for the vampire stories per se, but for the way she writes and by the time I got to the last book, I was reminded why I never especially likes the volumes narrated by the Vampire Lestat - he tries to be too hip and way too flip. No wonder they cast Tom Cruise in the horrific movie version. Anyhow, I read myself silly and then baked some banana bread.

Banana bread is why Tim and I are the perfect match. I love green bananas - well, not green, but just barely ripe and past the bitter stage. When I buy bananas, I buy them green and eat two or three the first day before they start to turn yellow. When the yellow hits - they are all Tim's. He will eat bananas until the brown spots appear - yuck! After he's done with them, they're mine to make banana bread with. And so, since Tim's at our new home in Pennsylvania, I had three leftover bananas to make banana bread with. And it was good!