One Day Down, One to Go - I Will Survive - LOL

Just a short post today to check in, I'm running a bit behind time, and I'm exhausted from yesterday and not really in a good head space for today. I need to just sit quietly for a bit and get grounded once again before dealing with the next batch of customers. Fortunately, or unfortunately, our Saturday products aren't as popular as our Friday offerings, so we won't be quite as busy today. 

We don't do sales all year, we reserve the big 
sales for the Holiday season. Although we always 
have different bargain bins, the only store-wide 
sales I do are these two days - days when everything 
in the store is on sale. Ninety-nine percent of my 
sales on these two days, however, come from my 
beaders picking up new product for their stashes. 

Yesterday, however, was very busy. Which was great. It was fun to see a lot of our customers again - some of whom were in only last week, others of whom we only see a few times a year. We didn't see a couple who I really wanted to see - Joyce in particular, a good friend over many years who's totally bead addicted. She gives the BEST hugs, and she was MIA this year. I hope everything's OK with her. Her husband can be a "bit" overbearing at times. 

We usually have our long-time customers purchasing 
from this sale - people who've been shopping with us 
for 10 years or more. But, we often will also pick up 
a few new customers through it too, so it's worth the 
effort to hold it. Our customers certainly appreciate 
it, and we always need the extra boost of income. 

Sales were busy all day, and we ended up only a couple of hundred less than last year, so totally OK. It would have been nice to surpass last year, but I'm pretty happy with the day's totals. We'll see how today does. Today we offer "larger than seed beads" only, and pull in a totally different group of people for that one. It's never quite as well attended, but it's a bit more labor intensive in some ways because we're always getting into each other's way while pulling product for people, and we have to be very up-to-date on returning samples to the sales floor for the next shopper. 

I have a small staff - DH and Chickie and me. But 
we're all VERY experienced at helping customers 
get exactly the product or color they are looking for, 
and warning them away from products that may not 
last, may fade, or may cut their threads in some 
applications. We work with our customers intensively 
to make sure they're getting the BEST product for their 
projects. It's Labor Intensive in the best way. 

So, it'll be another busy day today. I might have messed up and given a bit more discounts on a couple of early sales yesterday, but I'm hoping I got that under control quickly. I can't afford to make a lot of mistakes when we're offering the deep discounts we offer on these sales days. I'll come home tonight and collapse. I plan on having a VERY lazy Sunday to recover before we begin the last week of November. The holiday decorations are up, and we're playing Christmas songs on the radio, we're almost ready for the holiday. I guess I should see about getting some gifts for DH. I have NO idea what he'll want, but I'll figure something out. Have an excellent Saturday and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

I'm Always Busy and it Caught Up with Me

I was exhausted yesterday, no real reason, just really tired. Since it was a day off, I turned off my phone and took a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. I feel MUCH better today - that extra two hours really has made a difference. I usually manage with 5-1/2 to 6 hours of sleep a night, six days a week. This week, however, seemed a bit different and I was dragging. 

I've been making my "Ogre Juice" (aka Alkagizer) 
for almost two years now. I'm pretty comfortable 
with it. I choose fresh veggies that appeal to me and 
augment with pre-cut salad mixes. It cuts down on 
prep time and I can usually have a batch completely 
made and into containers within an hour or so now. 

I did get some things done, however. I made my next batch of Ogre Juice. The four portions will take me through until the end of next week, when I will make my next four. I also put a small order in to Amazon - enough items to get my free shipping without having to be a Prime member, but not much over that. I usually run an ongoing Amazon cart, releasing items when I decide I need them and playing with the items and amounts until I can get my shipping at no charge. I'm never in a rush to get anything, so I don't mind waiting a week or so to get my items. 

I order from Amazon a lot, but refuse to pay for 
shipping. So I carefully fill my cart until it 
qualifies for free shipping, then I'll release the 
order. I refuse to pay for Prime membership 
either. No ... just no. LOL

I also went to Target yesterday. I needed a couple of items that I can't get anywhere else, and I came home with the blue plastic hangers I had on my list. It's not like I don't have a bunch of plastic hangers, but these are slightly narrower, and I'm shifting DH's shirts onto them because his closet is too full. He won't ever get rid of a shirt until it's in tatters (and even those can become "gardening" shirts unless I sneak them into the trash bin). He's like me - he's gone through several sizes in his life. I'm pretty sure he has at least three different sizes of shirts in the closet, as well as both long and short sleeved ones (seasonally dependent, of course). 

I've been shifting DH's shirts over to this style 
of hanger (blue instead of the seafoam color). 
It's slightly narrower than the plastic hangers 
we currently use, and I like them quite a lot. 
They're only $3 for 18 hangers, so it's not an 
outrageous cost either. 

I got caught up with some computer work as well, so it wasn't a totally lazy day. I have a small Etsy order to fulfill (if I still have the product available - that's always dependent upon in-store sales, not just Etsy sales). I'll check quantities this morning, and if I have everything, I'll get this shipped out to her on Monday morning on my way in to work. 

I don't get a lot of sales on Etsy, but I do get 
them every now and again. I still need to 
finish massaging the photos for the rounds and 
get those uploaded, but I've been pulled away 
for other work and don't know when I'll get 
to finish them up. 

So, that's about all that's going on right now. Rather boring, all things considered. I need to spend the day at the shop in the basement framing studio shrink-wrapping artwork so that they can be sold.  I also need to find two sheets of foam core that are extra-large - at least 40" wide. I have two dyptychs that need shrink wrapping, and they're too large for my standard 32x40 sized foam core boards. At least I won't be bored at the shop today - LOL. Have an excellent weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini. 

There's Nothing Like A Security Alarm at 12:30 am!

I'm going to be dragging today. Bleh! I went to sleep shortly after 9:00 pm, as usual, but was awakened by the house phone shortly before 1:00 am. It was our security company telling us that the front door/window alarm had been tripped at the store and that the police had been contacted. We got dressed and went over there. 

Looking towards the street through the decorative rod iron 
security bars we have across our front, it was pretty obvious 
there was a serious hole and a lot of cracks. I grabbed my 
broom and dustpan and started cleaning up the detritus. 

Sure enough, our alarm was blaring. DH shut off the alarm and we went in and headed toward the front windows. We have walls on the south and north, with other businesses on each side. The back is brick and stonework with a steel door. In the past, that door has been forced open. I think we've had three times when a break-in was attempted through the back door, but it's pretty solid and it's been secure for a few years now. This is the first time anyone has tried anything from the front - full windows from side to side with a glass door for customer entry/exit. 

Looking from the street view into the store, 
you get a good look at my hardwood flooring, 
as well as our cases (which we always cover 
overnight since the George Floyd riots. It's 
not a huge hole, but it's far larger than a bullet 
hole would be, and smaller than a baseball. 
To me, it looks like an elbow - possibly from a 
drunken student being pushed by a friend on 
his way home from the bar. 

Looking at the position of the hole in the glass, it looked more like a strike out in anger or maybe a fight on the street where someone got pushed into the glass. I don't think it was intentional, although it certainly leaves us with a mess to take care of on a weekend. While I swept up shards of glass, DH found cardboard large enough to cover the hole, then went outside and taped down the cracks and across the hole with duct tape (his go-to tape for almost anything - we should own stock in that company - LOL). 

I don't think it was a baseball (and there was no baseball or 
rock inside the store, so I'm saying it wasn't a projectile 
at all). Baseballs through glass leave round holes, and, 
although it could have been a rock, that rock should have 
been somewhere on the floor of the store. So no - it was 
an impact of some sort, but not a projectile. 

I contacted the police and spoke to the officer who had stopped by. He had gone before we arrived. I'm sure there were many more important things than a simple hole in the window. He was speculating rock or baseball bat. I told him the bat might be a possibility, but there was no sign inside of any projectile causing the hole. If it had been a smaller hole, it could have been a gunshot, but no. I've seen gunshot holes before and this just wasn't one. 

I may never know what caused the glass to break, but 
I really hope no-one was harmed. I also hope the 
insurance company foots the bill for replacing the 
window. It's a large expanse of glass and it won't 
be inexpensive. 

So, it's a bit of a mystery. My suspicion is that someone either struck it with intent, or pushed someone else into the glass (in which case, I hope they weren't harmed too badly). I've got a sheet of cardboard over the break right now, I'm eternally grateful that our temperatures are still relatively mild and it isn't the middle of winter, and I'll be contacting my insurance company and my landlord first thing later today. 

Perhaps I should call Sherlock Snoopy and set him 
on the case - LOL. I'll probably never know why/how 
my window was broken, but I'm glad the shop seems 
untouched and replacing the glass is relatively minor. 

I got home, and decided it simply wasn't worth going back to sleep, so I'll be dragging today with less than four hours. I did take the opportunity to have an extended session of meditation - I needed to recapture my equilibrium. But I was too tired to do my entire two miles on the treadmill, I only managed 1-1/2 mile today. Still, things could have been much worse and I'm very grateful to whatever entity has watched over me during these years. I'll work today, call it an early night tonight, and try my best to sleep in tomorrow. I think I need it. Have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday. 

Yesterday Was Intensely Busy - Today (Hopefully) Will Be Better

I totally expect to crash and burn at some point today. I awakened early (shortly after 2:00 am early, to be precise) and looked at my phone with bleary eyes. Not quite in focus, obviously, because I thought it was shortly after 3:00 am, in which case my alarm was going to go off shortly. I turned off my alarm and settled down for my morning meditation. Afterward, I picked up my phone with less bleary eyes and realized I was WAY early. But, it was too late to go back to sleep, so I went ahead, got up, got dressed and hit the treadmill. I'll be dragging tonight, what a mess. 

I will be completely exhausted by tonight. Waking up 
after only five hours of sleep is not healthy for me. I 
can manage a day, but I'll need a bit more sleep tomorrow 
to get back in the groove again. 

Tomorrow the duct wizards come to check out and clean my dryer's ductwork. I took a serious look at the laundry shelf yesterday, and moving it might be next to impossible. I'll clear it so that things won't be in the way, but they may have to work around it. I don't think they'll be happy about that, but I'm sure they've had bad placement of ducts in the past on other jobs too. Sometimes there isn't much of a choice, and this might well be one of those times. Hopefully they can resolve the heat issue I'm having with my dryer and I won't have to actually schedule a repair. 

These guys are coming by tomorrow between 10 and noon 
to clean out my dryer vent. I'm hoping that will fix my 
clothes dryer, because I'm really tired of lugging my wet 
clothes over to the laundromat for their large dryer. It 
really pokes a hole in my day, being unable to dry one 
load while washing the next. 

Last night, DH was enumerating the many food plans I've been on in my life with him - everything from Weight Watchers to Nutri-Systems, and several others as well. Of course, those are all diets. What I'm studying now is a 3-month course in nutrition and body chemistry. A bit of a different angle and take. There might be potential weight loss, although I joined this program for the purpose of getting healthier by understanding the nutritional needs my body. I would love to lose a few pounds from the program, but that's not my goal - my goal is increased health. 

We've all been there - and on average, when regaining 
weight after a "diet", we tend to not only gain back 
what we lost, but add an additional three pounds. 
I'm hoping to understand my body better, do what it 
needs in terms of nutrition, and if I lose weight 
as a by-product ... fabulous. 

I was pushing to get through the information in yesterday's on-line lectures. I'm hoping today's lectures will be a bit less time intensive. Yesterday ended up with more than three hours of video lectures, Q&A sessions and the basic daily lecture in my nutrition class, plus another 45 minutes of web class for my personal growth program. It was hard to get everything dovetailed into my very busy day, and I had to completely blow off one web class. I'm determined that today will be better - LOL. On that note, I'm off to get some hot tea. Have an excellent day and please be kind, stay safe and wear your masks. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Stay at Home - Day 45 - A Day of Effort

We were at the Toyota dealership at 8:00 am to get DH's truck serviced. For the first two years, his 6-month checkups and standard maintenance is free of charge, but we have to have it into the shop within a certain length of time. It was a long crutches walk to DH's truck to get it into the service bay (since he can't hear, and since the truck is under my name, he wants me to take care of the human-to-human interface). We went back home in Minion and then back out again two hours later when the truck was finished and ready for pickup. 

Shadow is a good looking truck, one that I wouldn't
mind owning, although nothing takes the place of
my Minion. 

It was a REALLY LONG HOP from my car, which I parked as close to the door as possible, to the service counter where we had to pick up the key fob and paperwork. Then an equally long hop back to Minion. DH was growling at me because I had some times when my broken foot was touching the ground. I'm supposed to be non-weight-supporting on this break, and I was doing a bit more "toe tap" which is approx 20-% pressure. By the time I got back home I was exhausted. I rolled myself into my comforter, put my leg up on my secondary pillow, and went to sleep for several hours. I was beat. 

I was a total wreck after two trips to the truck
dealer. I curled up on my couch with my bad leg
on a pillow and crashed for several hours. 

It's been a day where I've been successful staying off my bad foot approx 80% of the time, but not 100% by any stretch. Still, I'm trying my best. I see the ankle doctor on Thursday morning and maybe I'll get some good news. I could sure use some right about now. 

I want to thank ALL of you who were kind enough to send me birthday e-cards, messages, and texts. I always feel so honored by my friends throughout the world and my life is enriched by each and every one of you. Thank you SO much. 

On that note, since I have no intention of passing negativity through my posts, I'm going to sign off and wish you a belated wonderful Tuesday. I have every intention of being back tomorrow, so please Stay Safe, Keep Your Social Distancing, and Be Well. 

Exhaustion and Darkness Can Lead To Paths I Don't Want to Walk

I'm really tired. I suppose that's not illogical - I usually operate on between 5 and 6 hours of sleep a night, but I'm just "bleh" right now. So, instead of hitting the running track (and since my knee is still bothering me), I'm going to swim today. I can't say I'll be any more awake, but I won't run into a wall. 

I'm just "bleh" today. It's dark, I'm cold, and I'm
exhausted. I should allow myself more sleep, but
I can't. I have to get my time in at the gym. Some
days it's hard to get up. 

I was so tired last night that I only got a single bead attached to my Owl Project before I told myself I wasn't seeing clearly enough to actually get some work accomplished. Like I said - "bleh". At least I got some work done at the shop yesterday. It wasn't a total waste of 24 hours. Sometimes days can seem as if they are - a waste. 

I would probably be better off getting more sleep, but it's the fact
that I am at the gym 5 out of every seven days that makes the
end result worthwhile. Not all days are easy ones. Today is a
bit harder. 

Maybe it's the darkness that gets to me around this time of the year. I wake up in the dark, I go to sleep in the dark, and the only light I get to participate in is through glass panes keeping the warm in and the cold out. I know that the dark would be much worse if I lived any farther North, so I guess I'm grateful I'm not living in Canada or in Alaska, but I miss my light. I am a creature of light, color, and the interplay of the wind causing the shift of both. I don't reside easily in the half-tones of the dark. 

I need the moon and stars, but at this time of the year, seeing
them clearly also means bitterly cold temperatures - no real
ability to stand out in the yard and look at the night lights. 

Is the darkness a mystery, hidden challenges and opportunities lurking around the next corner? Is it comforting - a chance to lay down your burdens for a time and relax in the embrace of sleep? Although I love the moon and the stars, in these dark days of February when the clouds most often occlude that view of hope, I turn inwards and become introspective and self-questioning. This is the time of year when I can spiral downward and lose myself in the darkness. 

Roy T Bennett may have been onto something here. It's a lot harder
to put that distance in when depression hits than when people are
upbeat and happy. Long periods of darkness and cold can bring
depression to the doorsteps of many people. I'm not immune to
depression, but I recognize the signs and I actively work myself out
of it as quickly as I can. 

So I cling to hope, live in light, and try to soak up those times when the sun and I are able to interact a bit. Even a small amount of bright blue sky and brilliant light, although the surroundings might be decorated by banks of snow, can life my spirits. Today I'll carry on in the darkness, but tomorrow I'll once again see and walk in the light. Have a glorious Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. 

My Beast Is Back and PR Is Starting Again - So Happy!

It was a long day at Dale's yesterday. I got there shortly before 8:30 am and I didn't leave until shortly after 3:30 pm. But it was a good day. He put the desktop computer through its paces, cleaning up old files, streamlining applications, and troubleshooting what might have been causing my Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Of course the BSOD appeared immediately upon turn-on, but then it was absent for quite a long time. Finally, when we thought the general cleanup of files, etc might have done the trick, it came again, with a different code. 

The Blue Screen of Death came up several times as Dale was
working on the desktop. The codes changed, but eventually we
were able to isolate the problem and resolve it. It was a very long
day, but at least I'm back up and running once again. 

Finally the culprit was found - one set of the two sets of RAM chips that I have had developed a fault. This is rare, but it can totally mess up a machine. Replacing the bad set with a newer version of the same type/speed didn't work - the two sets weren't talking to each other. So we ended up replacing all four of the RAM chips - two good and two bad. The bad chips were trash, the good (old) chips were replaced, and suddenly the computer was happy. We set it to do a full system backup and settled down for more than two hours of catching up while the computer did its thing. Finally, he shut everything down, charged me for one set of new RAM and exchanged my one good set for the other replacement set (for a $0 charge), then agonized about what to charge for the repair, ending up with charging for two hours of work, when I had been there for seven hours. Yeah - he's a total treasure. 

When he built my computer years ago, we picked RAM that was almost
at the top performance level. It's been surpassed in subsequent years, but
it still serves me well. Fortunately he still had older chips of the type I
needed, so we ended up replacing my four blue ones with four red ones instead. 

On the way out, as he carried my desktop back to my car, he asked about progress on my holiday cards and I assured him I was working on them. Then I dove into my day - grocery shopping, making dinner, and I actually managed to get two loads of laundry done before bed. Unfortunately I had to text Aearwen and cancel our chat for the week. It made me sad, but time had simply evaporated. 

I'm looking forward to the new season of Project Runway. Although I
adore Tim Gunn, I think Christian Seriano is one of the best mentors
EVER. He knows the industry from all sides as a contestant, a winner,
a designer and a producer of fashion, he's got all of the bases covered. 

Tonight (and tomorrow morning) I'm going to be tired. Project Runway starts the new season tonight, and the time slot is late - 8:30 pm until 10:00 pm - an hour later than I usually go to sleep. I can catch the re-run next week before the next new episode, but I like to be current and up-to-date with this show, to share with all of you. I know it will start out with a bang - an immediate Team Challenge. I can hardly wait. I suppose sacrificing some sleep once a week for a while won't be horrific ... well, it will since I usually only get six hours of sleep average. But such are the sacrifices I must make for fashion - LOL. 

Have a wonderful Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with pics and a rundown on how the first episode of PR, Season 18 went. 

A Book Meme Going Around

A couple of my on-line friends have posted this particular book meme. I'm tired and my thoughts are all over the place, so I thought I'd participate in this for today's blog post. Thanks to the LJ and DW friends who have been posting and reposting this meme over the past few weeks. I needed this lifeline today. NOTE: I did not bold books I've tried to read several times but put down unfinished (so sorry Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky). Here we go ... 

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below.
Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

So, it's not just six, but not half either. I've heard of almost all of them, and I read - I read ALL the time - but I doubt the books I read would fall onto a listing like this. Still, I held my own on this. If you're interested in playing along, copy the list and bold your own "I have read this book" titles. 

I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with a bit more energy. Time to head out to the gym, have a wonderful Friday. 

Holes, Cakes and Owls - Yes, My Brain is That Random

I remembered to bring my drill home from the shop, so I'll mount my new keyboard drawer on Wednesday when I have time to tape it up properly and drill the holes without having DH breathe over my shoulder and tell me how I'm doing everything wrong. I'm not sure why he would feel that commentary necessary, since I mounted the previous drawer successfully and actually know my way around a tool shop, but I know him well and I'm sure he would. I feel that a small wait of a few more days is the better choice. 

Two of these bakers were eliminated last night, eight remain. The
schedule says a total of six episodes, ending on December 21st. I'm
not sure how that works out to a single winner and a runner up,
but I haven't checked my calendar either. 

I'm rather zombie-like today. Last night was the first episode of Season 3 of the "Great American Baking Contest" and it was 2-hours long, keeping me up an hour later than my usual bedtime. It was absolutely worth it, though. Ten American bakers are in England baking in the "Great British Bake-off" tent for judges Paul Hollywood and Johnny Iuzzini. Last night's double episode featured Cake and Morning Treats for the two segments. The structure is the same as the British Bake-off uses and I've always loved their set-up of separate stations and work areas. Every baker has a totally self-contained area within which to work - none of this running around like crazy chickens the way it is with most of the American cooking shows. It was worth staying up for, but I'm exhausted today. 

Among the owls of Minnesota is this one - the
Long-eared Owl. Isn't it a beauty? There's
something so wonderful about owls. 

Yesterday, while writing my blog for all of you, I had an owl serenading me from my next door neighbor's tree for almost an hour. There's something so wonderful and haunting about an owl's "hoot" in the darkness of the night and pre-dawn. I've adored owls since I was a small child, and I'm still totally addicted to their beauty and their amazing skills in the air. Owls fly in complete silence and air-movement studies on flight comparing owls and other birds prove that owls barely disturb the air as they pass, unlike any other bird. 

Owls have a unique structure to their feathers allowing
them to fly in almost complete silence. 

So my post today jumped around from drilling holes to cakes to owls. No theme here, just my cold and sleep-deprived brain firing on odd circuits. Perhaps the swimming pool will help bring my thoughts into some form of stability and order before I head off to work ... or not! In any case, have a wonderful Friday and stay warm. 

LOTS of Birthdays!

OMG - LOTS of birthdays this week, and I've been swamped with real life and have barely had time to write, let alone separately post, good wishes and long distance hugs to WAY too many people. Mea culpa, my friends. I'm so sorry. Each of you deserves a separate post and birthday wish, but I know I don't have the time for that. So ... here's your "shout out" and I'm sending all of the balloons, cake, party horns and streamers in a virtual shower to each and every one of the following:

* blslarner

* stormwreath

* huinare

* wheelrider, and

* jordan_c_price

When I saw this cake, I knew I had to choose it for all of the above
birthdays, because I know several of you would appreciate the
dinosaur skeleton decorations. 

Some VERY special ladies in that list. Happy Birthday to each of you and may you have many more.

There are a lot of LOTR birthday cakes out there, but this one was
really well done. Just one more cake to celebrate your special days! 

It's Good Friday today, so many of you have the day off from work. I don't, but that's what happens when you're self-employed. Hopefully with all of my customers taking time off, I'll have an opportunity to be busy at the shop today. DH will be out shopping for groceries and sundries - I wonder what he'll pick up for our Easter Sunday dinner?

I seem to be pulling into my shell once more. It's not a good thing, but as long
as I watch myself carefully, it might not be a bad thing either. Sometimes
a little mental R&R can be just the thing! 

I can't believe I've pulled back so far into my shell again after such a prolific and "out there" March. I could be writing, indeed, I should be writing, but I just can't get my head into the process right now. I'm sure I'll get back to it again, but I guess I needed a little break. At least DH is happy, we're spending more time playing together in Middle Earth in LOTRO, and that's making him very happy.

We're not quite this far along in Spring yet, we have the green grass and the
first bushes have their leaves, but our trees aren't showing their leaves
yet. Give it another one to two weeks and we'll be fully into spring with
flowering trees and lots of tulips. 

So, if you have today off from work, get outdoors a bit, enjoy whatever weather you are having in your area. We're finally back to normal temps and, although we're supposed to have rain tomorrow, the rest of the extended weekend is supposed to be lovely. Have a great Friday!

Spring Has Sprung (Almost) and Stuff

In seven hours (give or take a few minutes) Spring will spring upon the Northern Hemisphere and I, for one, can hardly wait. Yesterday's snowfall was less than the six inches threatened, but still something that had to be shoveled. DH got up really early and got me shoveled out, and after my coffee and oatmeal at the coffee shop, I went to my father-by-marriage's house and shoveled that so that DH wouldn't have to. A gift, in essence. (My back is feeling it today - ouch!). Today our temps will hit 40 F though, so a lot more melt will go on.

Spring flowers under sunlight with blue skies - I want it ALL!

We had an offer on my father-by-marriage's house and thought it was too low, so we had our Realtor extend a counter-offer to the interested buyer that was a halfway point between her initial offer and our initial price. My Realtor phoned me late last night with the news that our counteroffer has been accepted. We'll go into the Realtor's office tonight to review the formal bid agreement and DH will have to sign that to get things officially on track for the next step. Now, if we survive the inspection process and her financing pulls through, we'll have the house sold by mid-May. I can hardly wait! The majority of the money from the sale will go to his sister, but at least we'll get something from it. DH says we'll push whatever we get toward the desperately needed remodel of our current home.

Our Realtor used to own the house next door to my father-by-marriage's home
and they are similar in floor plan and age. She has specialized in sales of
homes in that area of town for many years now. I wanted her to represent
the house for us - she's a straight shooter, very honest and skilled. 

I offer an apology to my friends who read my blog and are so kind as to comment. I know I haven't been as quick to respond as usual, I've been neck-deep in getting paperwork together for our personal income taxes and until that appointment next Tuesday, I'll be paddling madly to stay above the waterline for a few more days, but I'll respond - I promise!

I promise - this is only temporary! 

Enjoy your first day of Spring (or Fall for my friends in the Southern Hemisphere).

Beauty, Exhaustion and Snow

Beauty - the final freestyle program for the Ice Dancing competition at the Olympics was stunning, beautiful, and so very fun. Davis and White pulled off the first gold the US has ever received in this discipline, but it was a hard-fought battle between the US and Canada that has gone on for more than four years and encompassed two Olympics.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White succeeded where others have failed - they
won the gold medal in ice dancing for the US - the first time we've won it. 

 I was able to catch most of the competition at the shop and there were quite a few of the lesser-known competitors that had really nice programs with some innovative choreography. I was very impressed by Sara Hurtado and Adria Diaz skating for Spain. I hope to see more from them in the future. Their short program was fairly standard, but their long program, skated to "Surviving Picasso" was really marvelous. They have some more unusual lifts and moves like the one I have pictured below. They ended up in 13th place and I have hopes for their future as they continue training in Montreal, Canada.

Sara Hurtado and Adria Diaz skate for Spain, a nation that does not embrace
figure skating at all (or many winter sports altogether). I loved their
choreography. Some of their moves were like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room. 

Staying up to watch the Olympics recap every night is cutting into my sleep and causing me to disintegrate. I look at myself and the bags under my eyes are carrying a full, matching set of luggage instead of an overnight case. Although I'm always sad to see the end of the Games, I'm going to be really happy to see this one end, just to catch up on some sleep.

I'm tired enough to fall asleep right like this little one. *sigh*

And finally, apologies to my friends on the East Coast who are, once again, getting a storm that we had tested out first. We got about six inches of snow dumped on us yesterday, but I noticed that it's going to be hitting the Northeast today and you have had quite enough snow already this year.

Napping is even better with a warm and fuzzy friend.

I just want to find a nice, dark cave to curl up in for a day or two of sleep, but no chance of being able to do that anytime in the foreseeable future. So, have a magnificent Tuesday.