Category: Daily Life

With a subject line like that, you know you’re in for some bloggy goodness, no?  Well, unfortunately, I don’t have much of interest to discuss today.  However, I haven’t let that stop me over the previous 299 posts, so here we go…

I got up at 6:00 a.m. and embarked upon the first day of my new exercise regimen, i.e. 30 minutes on the treadmill while wearing my iPod Shuffle.  I lasted about 20 minutes, mainly because my athletic shoes started trying to saw my feet off from the heels forward.  I think I may need to invest in a more comfortable pair (or go back to an old pair).

Anyway, considering that most of my walks in the last eight months or so have led to and from Starbucks or a food court, I’ll chalk it up as an adequate and well-intentioned start. 

On another topic, our betta fish are no longer living lives of complete solitude.  My husband added otos to their tanks to help keep the algae under control.  They’re weird little catfish that mainly fasten themselves to the tank walls or floor to eat algae, but are prone to excitedly zipping around the tank with no apparent provocation.  One of the bettas likes to chase his oto around, but the other one ignores his new tankmates.

This week is decidedly less busy than the last few weeks (or the next few weeks for that matter), so I’ve been able to cook dinner two nights in a row.  On Monday night we had chicken creole and last night I made chili.  It’s left the house smelling pleasantly of onion and garlic and may very well prompt me to make something good for dinner when I’m on my own tonight.  I’m overdue to break the "popcorn for one" dinner cycle.

I received an Amazon order yesterday and I’ve already made it through one-and-a-half of the three books I’d ordered.  I was particularly impressed with Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy by Geralyn Lucas, which I read for a work project.  It’s a powerful and raw memoir about the author’s experience with breast cancer.

That’s all for today, folks.  I have to make myself presentable and run some errands before work.  Have a lovely Wednesday!

We had a lovely, warm day on Saturday – a sneak preview of the coming spring.  It spurred me to do a little sprucing up, beginning with the household mammals (including myself).

I started the morning with a pedicure from my favorite nail shop.  I hadn’t had one since December, so I was dreadfully overdue.  I chose a pale, pinkish-lilac polish (OPI Blushingham Palace, to be specific) that would look perfectly appropriate as an Easter egg color. 

I returned home and made it a project to brush all the cats.  I had to remove three combsful of shedded winter coat to return the calico to her proper color palette.  The black cat still needs more combing, but he grew tired of the operation and went and perched on my sleeping husband, a position from which he correctly suspected I wouldn’t retrieve him.  The two grey cats don’t shed very much, but each insisted on getting her full measure of combing.

I eventually woke up my husband so he would accompany me to lunch.  After that, I got my hair cut and styled to counter the increasingly Cleopatra-like look that had been quelling my career potential and self-esteem.  It’s amazing what a little layering can accomplish.

Naturally, the weather turned cold again by the end of the day.  Otherwise I might have gotten around to picking up the dead branches from the yard and cleaning the dessicated annuals from my flowerbeds.  That’ll have to wait until next weekend, I suppose.

The sunlight alone is improving my mood, despite the chill.  We have a crocus blooming, daffodil leaves nearly full grown and I see flocks of robins wherever I go.  I may not be able to show off my pedicure this week, but I suspect that sandal weather is just around the corner.  I can’t wait ’til spring!

Despite the fact that I spend hours online reading anything and everything that catches my eye, I’m still rather fond of magazines.  I’ve cut back on the number of magazine subscriptions I keep, but that’s just made the selection appear more eclectic and random.

Here’s the current list of magazines I receive:

• Entertainment Weekly
• Mental Floss
• Archaeology
• Business 2.0
• Best for Women
  

I have a few newsstand favorites as well.  I usually seek out the latest issue of Found Magazine (I should probably just subscribe) and no plane ride would be complete without an issue of Cosmopolitan or Glamour, neither of which I read at any other time.

One magazine we always had when I was growing up was Reader’s Digest.
It doesn’t appeal to me now, but I remember liking it then.  Every
year, my great-aunt would send us a gift subscription for Christmas.
She even managed to reach from beyond the grave to send it to us.
Months after she died, the Christmas gift card from Reader’s Digest
arrived as usual, marking the final year we’d ever get the magazine.

Most of the subscriptions I’ve dropped have better online counterparts.  For example, I don’t need magazines full of recipes when there’s AllRecipes.com and I certainly don’t need to read a weekly news magazine when I can go to Google News and view its huge selection of feeds several times a day.  (I know – an RSS reader would be even better, but I haven’t liked the ones I’ve played with so far.)

What are your favorite magazines?  Do you subscribe to anything really unusual, just out of curiousity (and I am SO not asking for TMI here, people)?  Have you dropped any magazines in favor of online content?  I’m interested to know.

When I was growing up, almost every time I visited my grandmother we’d do a craft project.  They ranged from beaded Christmas tree ornaments to quilling, crocheting, latchhook rugs, embroidery, papier mache, all sorts of painting and probably much more that I’ve already forgotten.

Seeing this hot pink "boar skin" rug yesterday (via BoingBoing) reminded me how much fun crafts can be.  (And that there’s a fine line between craft and art.)

These days I channel most of my creative arts energy into home improvement projects.  I still occasionally crochet potholders out of cotton yarn (I never made it past squares and rectangles) and someday I’ll finish embroidering that set of pillowcases I began around the time I got married (10 years ago, for those of you playing the home game). 

A friend has been trying to talk me into learning how to knit, but I’ve read enough blogs written by knitters to be wary of the time and expense that hobby can demand.  It’s almost gardening time, so that’ll get some of this out of my system, but I’m still in the mood to try some other creative work.

What’s your favorite useful craft that can be done in a relatively short amount of time?

Update:  I just learned that there’s a new show on Style Network premiering today called Craft Corner Deathmatch.  That sounds like my kind of craft show!

Oh sure, I went to work on Monday.  In fact, I got a lot of work done.  However, two of the high points of the day didn’t involve work.

The fun started when my husband came and picked me up at lunchtime, bringing along a package that had arrived earlier in the day.  It was my Thinking Putty!  I’d ordered two tins:  Oil Slick and Chameleon.  A glob of Thinking Putty is bigger, squishier and arguably prettier than Silly Putty.  I’ve been hard put to stop playing with them since I opened the box.  Now everyone at work wants some.   

One of my co-workers already has a tin and reported that if you hit Thinking Putty with a hammer just right, it’ll explode into so many tiny fragments that you’ll never find them all again.  I decided to take his word for it.

After work, my husband and I went to the movie theater to have popcorn for dinner and see Be Cool.  It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it kept me pleasantly entertained for two hours.  I like John Travolta and it was fun to see my car featured so prominently.

Today it’s back to the grind, but at least I know I have something to play with if I need inspiration.

Sorry I didn’t post on Friday.  I was AT the office at 7:00 a.m., which is the time I ordinarily wake up in the morning.  I worked feverishly on my biggest deadline and got the project wrapped up by 3:00.  I tried to leave at 4:00 but I got hung up on some other work and didn’t make it out the door until 4:45.

I meant to go home and take a nap, but I realized I needed shoes for a luncheon the next day.  There are few things in life I hate more than shopping for shoes, but I couldn’t avoid it this time.  I wanted to wear a sage green, silk suit and all the dress shoes I own are black.

I found a pair of lovely, more-comfortable-than-you’d-think-for-pointy-toed-shoes, closed-toed sling-backs woven with alternating bone and tan.  They looked fantastic, even though I bought them with slacks in mind and took them home to discover that my long-overlooked suit actually has a skirt.

On Saturday morning I met some of my community service organization’s former presidents for coffee.  I’m vice president this year and am likely to become president-elect in June, which would make me president in 2006.  We had a great discussion about plans for the coming years and I now feel much less apprehensive about rising through the ranks.

After that was the luncheon I’d been planning for many months.  Our club has three annual awards programs to honor community members’ volunteer initiatives and we recognize all the winners at a March luncheon.  One member’s husband brought African violets to decorate the tables – enough for everyone in attendance to take one home.  I made the programs on my laser printer using my thrifty stash of good-quality second sheet.  Waste not, want not.  Everything went without a hitch.

I went home and changed my clothes and drove 30 minutes to my sister’s house to pick up my niece and take her to a friend’s house for her son’s first birthday party.  My niece was the oldest kid there and she was obviously very bored.  She perked up a little after we left the party, picked up my husband and went out for pizza, but by the time we were about halfway back to her house, she was getting crabtacular.  You know what they say:  No good deed goes unpunished.  I think that may apply doubly to good deeds attempted for four-year-olds.

I went to bed before 10:00 p.m. on Saturday and didn’t get up again until noon on Sunday.  It’s amazing how a little catch-up sleep can make everything seem better.  It didn’t hurt that Sunday was beautiful, sunny and warm.

Now I feel refreshed and ready for the week ahead.  Spring is coming, my deadlines have been pared down and everything is going my way…I hope.

I’m still pretty swamped, but I know I’m getting lots of J-Walk Blog traffic so I figured I’d call your attention to a few amusing things I’ve seen online lately:

• This is the first t-shirt I bought for my new nephew.  In case you’re wondering, yes, I checked with my sister first to make sure she thought it was funny, too.  Be sure to read the product description – that’s almost the best part.
• My favorite thing from BoingBoing yesterday was this mashup of Office Space (one of my favorite movies) and the Super Friends.  Work Warning:  Noisy.
• If you’ve never read through James Lileks’ colorful tribute to The Gobbler, "The Grooviest Motel In America," you owe it to yourself.  It’s the kind of motel we might have stayed in on family trips when I was a child, except that our family tended to gravitate toward cramped kitchenettes instead.

That oughta hold you for today.  Enjoy!

I’m tired, run down and have no time or imagination to write an interesting blog entry.  It must be Wednesday!

Seriously, I worked a super long day yesterday, went and saw the documentary The Corporation with some friends, and grabbed a very late dinner at the only restaurant we could find open at 10:00 p.m.  I went to sleep at midnight and woke up at 6:00 a.m. to write and send a press release about my community service organization’s upcoming luncheon.  Now I need to swap out laundry loads, take a shower, get dressed, take a zinc losenge for my scratchy throat and get out the door.

Aren’t you glad you aren’t me?

As usual, tomorrow should be a little more relaxed.  I’ll try to think of something fun to talk about while I’m dashing from one meeting to the next all day.  Have a lovely mid-week!

As of yesterday, I now have my official degree of Aunt To The Third Power.  If only I could channel this mighty skill for other uses, too.

My new nephew was born late yesterday afternoon while I toiled away at my desk.  I’d been out to the hospital at lunchtime, but nothing was really happening then so I ended up going back to the office.  After work I came back and had a chance to hold the baby for about 20 minutes while my sister chatted with the nurse. 

I think he’s adorable – except for his pale purplish hands that make him look like he’s been in a bathtub way too long.  He’s a good-sized baby:  7 pounds, 9 ounces.  That’s probably why my shoulder was stiff by the time I put him down.

My nearly five-year-old niece was just leaving as we arrived.  I wish our visits had overlapped more because she was in adorable mode herself.  She told her mother that she loved her new baby brother and whispered, "Will you read him my card?"  She also eyed my sister closely and asked, "Is your stomach still big or is it smaller now?  I forgot."

I don’t think I could have asked for a better start to the week!

It’s hard to admit when you’ve failed at something.  That’s probably why it saddened me on Saturday when I filed the last tax return and closed the bank account for a business I’d started less than two years ago.

Looking back, I realize that I’d never really had a good plan – just a couple of clients and the ability to handle projects ranging from copywriting to editing, print layouts, marketing, web content development, etc., etc., etc.  If I’d treated myself as a client, I’d have forced myself to limit the offering to one or two clearly related services.  As it was, I ended up running from one small project to another, never developing a clientele in a particular specialty.

Fortunately, for the last year I’ve had a job that allows me creative freedom and is also teaching me some of the disciplines I lacked when I was on my own.  I don’t miss the uncertainty of entrepreneurship at all.

I snapped out of my little pity party fairly quickly after I rejoined my husband and went to lunch in a nearby town we both really enjoy.  We’ve had better times and we’ve had worse times and everything always seems to come out all right in the end.