Thursday, April 3, 2008

Time marches on


I didn’t read a single blog today. I feel like I should look around furtively and whisper that. Sh-h-h-h…


I’m really not sure what I was doing but obviously it was something else. Maybe because I have a few days off work coming, I know I can sit down and catch up. Because by now? I am sure my reader is up into the hundreds.


Monday is my birthday. I am not mentioning that to get birthday wishes, although gifts are always welcome. But – I usually take my birthday off work every year and this year I decided to make an extra long weekend out of it. I am taking Friday, Monday and Tuesday off. A nice 5 day weekend. Lovely!


The birthday? I am going to be thirty nineteen. Or as I am more apt to say – forty-freaking-nine years old!!!!! What happened? When did that happen, and how? I don’t FEEL like forty-freaking-nine years old.


I’ve heard that fifty is the new forty, so if that follows – does that mean I am really still in my thirties? Maybe I should stick with that.


I feel better. How about you?

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Life of Riley


Must be tough being Riley ....




The only male out of 4 cats.


And he's fixed.


(April Fool's Day every day of the year.)





Monday, March 31, 2008

Did I mention neurosis?


I have been trying since Christmas, to get my bead room together. I have emptied baggie after baggie of beads into containers. I have taken beads from boxes and bins and put them into other kinds of compartments and boxes. Shelves have been put up and mailing materials organized.


But I am stuck. This is a project that Molly could have done in a day. Actually, she could have organized the beads, the room, and painted it some wonderful color besides. And the color would have a name. Not me!


Okay I have long recognized that I have some *cough cough* quirks. People at work know I hate when someone sits at my desk and moves things around. My daughter knows if she loads the dishwasher I will move all the dishes around until they fit what I think is a better configuration. The bills in my wallet? Yeah, they all face the same direction, just like the clothing on hangers in my closet. But everybody does that. I think. The Christmas tree? Let’s not even talk about that.


Funny though, I am not that way about everything. Is my house a masterpiece of order and cleanliness? Uh, no. I wish. Does everything in my house have a place? And do I know where those places are? Hell no! It’s my private joke with myself when I am looking for something around the house that I am sure “I put it somewhere safe where I know I will remember it.” If I don’t laugh about it I will cry because I can’t find anything!


Which brings me back to my bead room. I want to organize it so well, I want everything to be within reach and I want it to make sense so desperately – that I am immobilized. I know that if I put everything in a bin or box or drawer, there is so much of it, it will never be right. I will be reorganizing forever and knowing I can’t do that the first time – freezes me in my tracks.


I know, look at it in small bits so I am not overwhelmed by the whole. Just do it, get it all cleaned up and looking wonderful and if I have to move things around every time I use something in there, so what? Just do it!!! Uh – yeah.


In some ways it makes it harder that I know exactly what is stopping me. Somehow if I could be oblivious to the idea that I will be extremely uncomfortable if I do not get it all in place to my liking, I could move forward and put everything – well – somewhere. But I think somewhere in my mind I think I will come to the end of the space and still have stuff left over with no place to put it.


Crisis for most people? No. For me?


Can you say neurotic? Sigh-h-h.


Sunday, March 30, 2008

Cake for everybody!

Today is my one year blogiversary and I almost missed it. I am amazed that it has been a year already and I have "met" so many great people doing this.




A year ago I picked my way through the interwebs saying to myself - well - let's see what this blogging thing is all about. I had never seen a blog, read a blog, much less considered doing one myself. And then once I started - I didn't really think anyone would actually read it! It didn't take long to get into the swing of things and learn to love doing it.

Thanks to everybody who comes by and reads and thanks to everyone who comes by and comments too! Woo hoo! Everybody eat cake!


Thursday, March 27, 2008

I didn't see anything this pretty today


Because yeah, it snowed. Again. It was a rainy, snowy, and very gray day. Sigh-h-h.


Male Northern Cardinal seeking a little shelter from the snow. Puffed up bird with snowflakes on its head and chest is sheltered in a Hawthorne Tree near the Ryerson Forest Preserve in Riverwoods, IL.