Sick Day…

Today was a useful day. I called in sick and then, when I felt better, I proceeded to:

- Clean the kitchen.

- Invent a new recipe consisting of sauteed turnips, parsnips, onions, garlic, salt and a dash of curry powder. Delicious!

- Pay 1 bill.

- Answer 3 e-mails… which then caused those 3 people to respond to me, so I still have as many e-mails to respond to as I did before I responded to those e-mails. Hmmph… However, one e-mail was good news about a friend’s upcoming nuptials, so Huzzah!

- Sweep the kitchen floor (I let Roomba do the bedroom).

- Watch 4 episodes of ‘Parks and Recreation’. My new addiction; so good!

- When Michael came home from work, we went to our 2nd favorite coffee shop and  we shared this…

Too purty to drink... and yet somehow we found the wherewithal...

- Did 2 loads of laundry.

- Attended 1 yoga class. I still can’t do a pushup, but I can do so many things I usen’t be able to, like touch my toes any time I want, that I am keeping the faith on the pushup.

Overall, an excellent use of a sick day.

As a special treat, I present the Baby Berry Hats featured in my last post. Thank you to my co-worker for kindly sending me and then generously allowing me to post this picture of his beautiful daughters; he’s hoping they’ll be talent-spotted (is that the phrase?).

To paraphrase Bobe: "It's not the clothing; it's the hanger."

And one more thing. I added a link for a band called Pesky J. Nixon in the sidebar. If you have minute, go to iTunes, listen to and then buy their album, “Monkey Business and Mislaid Hopes.” If you don’t have a minute, please find one; you won’t be sorry. If this is added incentive, they are Ethan’s band and they are even better than I have led you to believe. I’m off to get the last load out of the laundry and then I shall top off the day with a long overdue phone call to a friend… I am looking at you, Steena-ma-rinky-dink! Good night the rest of you!

Berries, Berets and Birthdays…

And the busyness has started once again. Tonight is the last night of relative peace, which I am using to get through the To Dos. Tomorrow is Pre-Birthday Dinner, Wednesday is the Birthday Dinner, Thursday is Babysitting and Friday is Pittsburgh… because all those things make perfect sense in that order!

So until next time, here’s proof that I have been busy. A co-worker just had his second daughter last week, so I made a hat for the baby and then I made a larger one for her older sister, just to keep peace in the family. Behold!

I, for one, think they are "Berry" Beautiful... Ahahahahahaha!

Next time we meet, I shall be 31 years old. I have never approached a birthday with such indifference; there’s really nothing inspiring or interesting about 31, is there? I’m viewing it as an extension of 30, more like a 30(b) than a 31; I could absolutely use another 30. See you there!

Breaking Up With Eustace…

I have given up reading (temporarily, People, temporarily) as part of my decluttering. Hear me out, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when you have all the facts.

When we planned our move from New Orleans to Montreal in August 2007, I had 30 boxes of books and 1 box of New Yorkers, which I had not got round to reading. Rather than get rid of a single book (I was not a minimalist then), I thought that I might be able to cull the New Yorkers. I went through hundreds of them over the course of a week, ripping out articles I wanted to read or re-read, cartoons and covers that caught my fancy, restaurant and movie recommendations. Looking back, all I discarded were the advertisements… so, Success, I say. Reducing the box by almost half was my only concession to the reality of moving 2 adults across the North American continent in a Honda. Since then I have carried those New Yorker articles up and down 6 flights of stairs in 6 distinct moves…. and the Madness ends now! So I will not read another book until I have read all those articles and thrown them out! They look like this:

It doesn't look like much, but keep in mind how thin New Yorkers are!

So far I have read about the abolition of the penny, Benjamin Franklin’s humorous writings, the differences in then-Senators Obama and Clinton’s approaches to a potential presidency, Sarkozy dating Carla Bruni, Muslims in Spain until the Inquisition, the Calavatra Building, Kinky Friedman’s run for Governor of Texas, Billy Graham’s responsibility for ascent of evangelism in America and the best way to make real absinthe. I think maybe 2 more months? When I’m done, I think I’ll subscribe; the house will seem too empty without a pile of half-read New Yorkers lying around!