Yesterday was Labor Day, so of course, I had to work.  I went in and it turned out that even with it being a major holiday, they had full staffing. So I only worked a couple of hours and came home. I need my time with my family right now a lot more than I need the double pay. And I saved the taxpayers a bit of money, too.

I came home and finished paying the bills, which had been my project before work. Dan had been cutting apart and/or burning the big brush pile all day (the first winter we lived here there was a bad ice storm and so many branches came down we eneded up with a brush pile as big as three school busses, but only about thigh high). So I helped Steven box up the salvagable fire wood in milk crates and stacked those in the garage for use this winter. The milk crates are stacked three deep and three wide and about ten long out there. If its expensive to heat the house this winter, the wood will be very good to have to supplement the natural gas heating system with our fireplaces. And it was actually satisfying to see the work getting done, to know the yard will look better, and to know that we are being somewhat self-sufficient with energy.

I think I must have touched something I shouldn't have out there, though because today I am covered with hives from head to toe.  They burn and they itch and I feel like crap.

I turned in my paperwork today for volunteering for disaster relief. They don't think I'll be able to go because of the mold allergy, but they did accept the paperwork anyway and will enter my data into the national database for emergency volunteers. Right now only some of our police officers have been requested -- they were flown down to New Orleans last weekend. The chief of police said that they are not expecting anymore requests for our people until sometime next week. So I have been given a bit of a reprieve for doing something I dread, but feel compelled to do. I do not have to be apart from my children yet. And Dan can spoil me rotten this weekend, as he wishes very much to do, and I can go to the Green Day concert with the children this Sunday.

Since Dan got so much of the brushpile cleaned up, we can put the camper back there. If weather allows, he will pop it up this weekend, move our patio furniture back there so we have a table and chairs, and put the yard waste burn barrel back there for a campfire.  And then Dan and I can go camping in the woods, right in the heavily treed back corner of the yard!  We both love to camp, but haven't camped by ourselves in 16 years, since the kids came along. So here we can camp by ourselves, and still be very close to the kids, who will be in the house. Best of both worlds! The walk to the house to use the bathroom and get water is certainly no further than it is in most campgrounds, and if we want to cook something elaborate, we have a fully equipped kitchen available and the barbecue grill on the deck.

I recently read a novel by Deb Macomber, which was a bit mushy and girly, but quite enjoyable nontheless. Thursdays at Eight told the story of four women, unlikely aquantances, who recently met in a journal writing class at their local college. One woman is in her twenties (single, no children) and wants to be an actress. One woman is the middle aged mother of older teens, who has recently gone through a very nasty divorce. One woman is a middle aged mother of young teens, happily married, who has found herself very unexpectantly pregant (she took an antibiotic, which messed up her birth control pills). The fourth woman is a middle aged single (no children) high powered hospital administrator who finds herself attracted to a younger brilliant male doctor. The novel tells of a year where they meet for breakfast every Thursday morning after their class ends, strongly bond as friends, and help each other through their problems.

I started reading Haywood Smith's The Red Hat Club, but so far its not doing much for me. It seems thus far to be yet another retread of wronged-wives-make-horrible-revenge-on-soon-to-be-exes. I don't like stories like that. The best revenge in my eyes is to get going with your life and live the best life you can. Greater happiness without your tormentor is fantastic stuff. If someone has been evil to you, how does that give you the right to be evil back? Yuck. I'll give it a little longer, and if it doesn't get any better, into the library donation box it will go.