The Weekend Is Almost Here - It's Going To Be A Hot One

It's hot - wilting, humid, no breeze hot. There's nothing really to do about it but cozy up with fans in the upper levels and enjoy the relative cool of the bottom level of the house. Still, it makes for sticky, cloying clothes and makes going to work an anticipated, wonderful opportunity because I do have A/C at the shop, and I use it (sparingly). 

I've been looking at purchasing a portable personal air conditioner. They're
quite the new thing, very popular, and are getting good reviews. I don't
want anything that requires me to put hoses through my windows, these
small units don't require outside ventilation or air, they're self-contained. 

DH went grocery shopping for the holiday weekend yesterday and brought home what seemed like half a pig - long lengths of ribs for this week and for next and bratwursts. Just for the sake of novelty, he added ground beef into the mix for some killer burgers on Saturday. So we'll have brats and burgers for Saturday and I'll stick half of the ribs into the crockpot on Sunday - easy, peasy. We won't be starving, which is a good thing and I'm always grateful for food on the table. 

DH picked up two racks of ribs, one for this weekend, one for next. I can't
fault him on this because they're a super easy cook - marinate, add a
rub, put into the crockpot with liquid and Bar-b-que sauce, and let the
crock pot do the work. Easy, peasy. 

Chickie made me two more awesome masks. I'm going to sew the elastic into them today and I'll take a photo of all of my Chickie-masks to share with all of you. The subjects for these two new ones were Egyptian hieroglyphics on one and bicycle racers (a-la Le Tour de France) on the other. She also made DH a wonderful skull and crossbones fabric mask, and he also got a bicycle racers one. We're in the top of fashion, for sure - LOL. 

I've owned a Samsung 7" Portable DVD Player for years now. It
was a holiday gift from DH. I keep it in a handbag that is perfect
for all the different cables, charger and clicker, as well as
DVD's to watch. I'll use it for my Fludity exercise routines to
make sure I'm doing it properly. It might be old fashioned,
but I love my portable DVD player. 

I took a half hour or so and looked at the beginning exercise routine for my Fluidity barre on my laptop. It's a good routine - really hits the muscle groups. I pulled my portable DVD player out of my closet last night, charged it, and I'm ready to go. I love my little player - a holiday gift from DH many years ago. It's one way to watch DVD's without having to load up or tie up the computer or the main TV. For my Fluidity workouts, I think the portable will be perfect. 

On that note, I'm going to wrap this up so that I don't melt away onto my keyboard. Have a wonderful day, I'll be back for a short "Happy 4th of July" post tomorrow, and then return to my "extended" weekend. 

Things - Rambling Through Thoughts and Possessions

I really need my day off today. It's income tax time, and I'll be using my "free" time to print out statements and year-end reports so that I have everything in order for our personal appointment next month. Late today is my appointment for the business taxes, but that's the easy appointment - much less paperwork and the numbers are already ready to go. It's a fast in/out 20 minutes with the accountant tonight and then I'm free for two weeks. This is the time of year when I go through paper and printer ink - arghhhhhh!

I'm not sure I could live in a one-room small house like this. Yet, my
ancestors possibly did. I'm too fond of having room to spread out. 

I sometimes long for a return to simpler times - times when I didn't have a business and lots of outside things that I had to keep track of. But as people age and mature, we acquire things. We don't just accumulate physical items, although it's a guarantee that most of my readers probably have more possessions now than they did ten years ago. We also accumulate responsibilities, history, and memories. Not everything we accumulate is annoying, requires dusting, and probably should be sold or given away. No ... there are actually good things that we accumulate such as loving companions (and new art supplies - LOL).

Memories are some of the best things we accumulate
over time. We don't have to rearrange the furniture to
accommodate them, and they rarely need dusting. 

Things - physical possessions - have been perched in my mind lately, though. I keep returning to the fact that I entered this world with nothing and will leave it with nothing, so why do I need a house stuffed with somethings surrounding me? Aside from the basic fact that having a house with sturdy walls, a well-repaired roof, and a good heating system is essential to life up here in the frozen north, there's a lot of stuff that just exists around me to make my spaces more beautiful or enrich my life. Books - those enrich my life and are as necessary to me as breathing. Art - artwork is a feast for my eyes and generally, makes me happy. But I've spent more than forty years accumulating things. Perhaps it's time to start un-accumulating things. Is there such a word?

Do what makes you happy today. Make up
for my day of printing out bank statements. 

Heavy thoughts for a Wednesday, but there you go. That's where my subconscious fingers wanted to go this morning. Have a good one and perhaps I'll be lighter-weight tomorrow. Or not.