In which winter begins to suck again in earnest.
It’s getting cold outside again and I’m not wearing warm enough clothes. It was sorta-kinda nice this morning when I dressed but now the temperature is plummeting.
I do not own a single pair of black shoes. How the hell did this happen? I’m wearing brown shoes with black pants and a black sweater. The soles of the brown shoes are black, at least, but still. How can I not own any black shoes?! WHO DOESN’T OWN ANY BLACK SHOES, I ASK YOU?!
In which you check out the Sleep Number bed! Hah!
When I got married four years ago, my mother said she’d make me (us) a wedding quilt. She asked, “What color would you like?”
And I promptly replied, “Orange. And king-sized!”
She coughed a little, but her eyes were twinkling. “Orange, did you say? Orange? No one’s ever said that before.” The woman’s a master quilter, and loves a challenge. It took her four years, but she delivered. Behold the wonderful, strange, orange wedding quilt:
Pretty crazy, eh? Isn’t it weird? I think I love it. I can use it as an excuse to buy blue, purple, orange, and yellow sheets. (The green flannel sheets pictured are brand new. I love new sheets!)
The back of this handmade gem is entirely bright OSHA orange and could easily be used to flag down help should the bed ever find itself in trouble on the highway.
An inter-office IM conversation from this morning.
Mark S. says:
consider yourself lucky that you aren’t my sister
Michelle M. says:
uh, okay – I’ll start on that right away
Mark S. says:
my father gave my sister and i each 200 lbs. of beef and 100 lbs. of pork for christmas
Mark S. says:
awesome for me, not such a good gift for you
Michelle M. says:
*blink*
Michelle M. says:
wait
Michelle M. says:
did you just say
Michelle M. says:
did you just say that you got THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF MEAT for Xmas?!?!
Mark S. says:
approximately, yes
Michelle M. says:
oh. my. god.
Apparently I was good… enough.
Behold my astonishingly long list of delicious Xmas goodies!
Amazing, huh? I’m probably way too old to get so many gifties, but I sure ain’t complaining. I love presents!
In which I did NOT get to sleep in, not even a little bit.
Our niece, Parker, gets up at five in the morning – greeting the day with a hearty bellow. This causes one parent or the other to bash around the kitchen preparing a bottle; shortly afterward someone’s making pot after pot of coffee and the next thing you know someone’s making hash browns.
Here’s what the tree looked like somewhere in the neighborhood of seven in the morning:
I’d already eaten breakfast by 8:30. That’s IN THE MORNING, people.
Other than only sleeping five hours, we had a great time. The food was yummy, the atmosphere was relaxed and mellow, the presents were wonderful, and Miss Parker’s a lot of fun now that she’s mobile.
When Bread and I got home this afternoon, we did not clean house, take out the trash, put away our gifts, write thank-you notes, or sweep the floors. We promptly took five-hour naps… because we can.
How fun is it to be me? Not very, and yet at the same time, VERY.
First, I’m sick. As a dog. A dog with a possible sinus infection. (Rating: not fun.)
Second, Brett and I exchanged Xmas gifts last night. I gave him a BOSCH Powerbox, which is a super-tough jobsite stereo he can throw around and treat badly.
He gave me – wait for it – he gave me – actually, I think you should maybe be sitting down for this? – he gave me a REALLY, REALLY NICE ACOUSTIC GUITAR. I couldn’t believe it! I mean, it’s gorgeous and brand new and it sounds great and he also bought a killer brown guitar case with faux aligator skin in which he’d placed two sets of strings and a couple of picks and everything. It’s so sweet! (Rating: Really really VERY FUN!)
So now, to justify having such a lovely instrument, I’m going to have to learn how to actually play. (I took lessons when I was a teenager, and can noodle around a wee bit, but a real player I’m not.)
In other news, I did all our Xmas shopping yesterday. In one day. It sucked. Coneheads everywhere, standing in the middle of the aisles with their shopping carts in the way, moving in slow herds, talking on their cell phones and cutting me off in the frozen food section. (Rating: not so fun.)
So there you have it: one really really VERY FUN, and two not funs. My head is full of snot and I think I might have a little temperature, but my guitar? It’s HOT.
Apparently, I don’t believe anything I read. Not enough at least.
I read two unrelated blog posts today in which the authors had had too much caffiene and suffered frightening heart palpitations.
So for lunch this afternoon, I had a vanilla double latté (made with Radiance Dairy milk, the BEST MILK IN THE WHOLE WORLD) and tiramisu.
If only I had a Holter monitor I could promise to post the results.
In which you have no idea why you’re reading this crap and you wish I’d do better. (Doesn’t the woman have an original thought in her damn head these days?) (Oh jeez, please don’t be mad at me. I’m just so boring this time of year, you see.) (Oh God, now we’re talking to ourselves in front of people. Shit.)
I buy hair care products based on the shape of the bottles and the smell of the product within. I bought these wacky hair products at the grocery store recently and apparently I liked the bottle shape so much that I got the whole line, from shampoo and conditioner to straightening balm and this spray-on moisture seal shine (whatever that is). This morning I used too much of the balm and now half of my hair looks like it’s still dirty. (I tend to get into hair products in the winter because I’m blow drying and why the hell not.) My stylist bitches me out for buying shampoo at the grocery store, but I have hard water and so it really doesn’t matter what I wash my hair with.
And baby, it’s cold out there. This morning I busted out my old fleece-lined jeans. They’re worn out but they’re all fleece on the inside and they make it almost tolerable when skittering from building to car, car to building in the sub-zero temperatures.
Almost.
God damn it!
If you’re a Blogger and/or Blogspot user and I read your blog, I probably tried to comment on your blog today. But since I’ve been getting the exact same identical word verification image for several hours now (even through restarting my browser and everything!), I haven’t been able to comment.
Blogger doesn’t mention that this is a bug, but I’m betting it is. I mean, the whole rest of the intarweb’s working for me, images and all.
I’m curious. Any Blogger users out there (who have word verification turned on) who are actually receiving comments this afternoon?
In which another’s misfortune makes Bread feel better.
Yesterday Bread had a Bad Day At Work. Apparently he got bitched out for something he didn’t do; all the windows (which were totally finished and painted) at the jobsite in question had been set 3/4″ too low while he was working at a totally different jobsite. He’d had, in short, absolutely nothing to do with that particular SNAFU whatsoever, but got yelled at for it and had to spend his day ripping out twenty windows and resetting them by cutting 3/4″ out of the headers.
The whole thing made him mad and cast a pall upon his whole day. But seeing this,
which is Jimbo’s little brother’s truck on its side, made him feel ever so much better. So much better, in fact, that he actually snapped a picture of it and told me to post it on my site.
Which I have.
(Jimbo’s little brother drove the truck away after Bread and Jimbo helped him get it wheels-down again. No harm done, other than all the windows being broken.)