the week is getting on...

Had a bad headache again today, though I made it to and through work. Today was an all time record high temperature, and it was so humid water droplets were forming in the air as you walked around. Everyone was outside with short sleeves today - unheard of for this late in November. Tomorrow the thunderstorms will move in and the temperatures will drop. Friday the snowstorm moves in. Got to love insane Michigan weather! The weekend will stay cold and will have snow flurries. So the loveliest Indian summer everyone I have talked to can remember will be over, and winter will have us in its grip! But when the crazy weather steadies, my head will be a lot better.

Today I spent more time decorating the tree. It is an act of love and remembrance for me. So many of the ornaments are gifts from family and friends, and so many of them have memories attached to them. Some of them are gifts from friends now lost to me through death or distance. Others were ones Dan and I bought to mark special things in our lives - for the children's first Christmases, cardinals for the year those beautiful cardinals built a nest right outside the bathroom window in our old house. There are bulbs for Red Wings, UM, and Pistons national championships. There are ornaments made of satin thread in bright colors that remind me of my mother (in a positive way, which given how abusive she was, is great to have). Some of them - the most precious - are ones that the children and I made together with beads and wire - and equally precious are the ones the children made in school to give me as gifts. So many good memories - so much love. This year the one that got me the most was the red bulb with a picture of a loon and the word "Ontario". Dan got that for me many years ago. Before the children came we would go to Toronto and Niagara Falls - and most especially Stratford for the theater festival. He got me that bulb when Bill was born. Looking back - I now see it as the promise that it was. That someday the dirty diapers and exhaustion and stress would be over and that we would have romance again, and that he would one day be my lover again, and not just a husband and father. Someday we will have Ontario again, two middle aged people rediscovering each other and holding hands as we walk in the beautiful parks.

 

going better

I still had a low grade nagging headache today. That will probably stay until the bad weather that is causing this problem arrives later this week. I think the storm will be bad - the earlier before the storm the headache comes, and the worse the headache, the worse the storm usually is. When it gets here, the temperature will plunge and we will get heavy rain (the western part of the state will get heavy snow).

Made up for being a sick slacker at work tonight. I scrubbed and stocked everything I could scrub and stock. I did the work of two people to make up for being half of a person (at best) yesterday.

At home I continued to decorate for Christmas. I love doing that! And I got the next two day's lessons ready for Steven. It was hard preparing material for the planet Uranus. I have a sick sense of humor, and all I could think of was off color jokes, which, of course, I could not say or use. Why in the world did they give such a name to a planet? If they had run out of appropriate Greco-Roman mythological names, why not something Hindu or Norse?

I even managed to do some Christmas shopping, as the little store at work was open late.

Tomorrow I will run a quick errand or two and continue to decorate the house. Thursday will be a huge laundry day. I am hoping Friday, when the weather will be rotten, I will be able to watch some movies.

it was one of THOSE headaches

I woke up today with one of those headaches. You know the kind - where you crawl out of bed, where loud noises and bright light bring stabbing pains, where it all you can do to get dressed and crawl to your car to drive to work.

And then when I was driving in Ann Arbor on my way to work, I started to get car sick. Because the sun was out and it was bright and my head hurt. A lot. So I started to get sick to my stomach.

I thought about pulling into a parking lot and calling in sick with my cell phone and sitting there until my stomach calmed down, but then I realized that I was a lot closer to work than I was to home.

So I went into work, completely miserable. Though the nausea went away once I was no longer moving. But I spent as much of the night as I could in a darkened room, rubbing my head.

What a sucky butt day!

back to work

I knew it would happen one of these days - I left for work with Bill still at home. And yes - it stinks to come back and his little truck is not in the driveway and he is gone on back to school.

At least work was fairly quiet, so I did not get stressed out.

Got home and worked on lesson plans for Steven. We are on the last unit of astronomy - the solar system. We started with the sun and are working our way outwards. We are on Saturn now, so we should be done with astronomy and reading Darwin's Origin of Species by Christmas. We are done with the Civil War and have begun the American West. We have finally finished The Iliad and are now working on The Odyssey.

And with that, it is time for a shower and then bed!

a good day, eh?

I have been having a great day, with the house to myself. I have gotten to use the Internet (I do not get very much computer time these days). I got to take a long hot bath, with plenty of bath oils. My skin feels so soft and good now, and it was very soothing on my months-long-diarrhea ravaged butt. I need to find the time to soak in such a way more often! I got to read without interruption. I got to blast classical music!

I did get some housework done, too.

The guys should be getting home pretty soon.

It was great to have some time for myself. But it is good spending time with my family, too!

thankfullnesses

Since it is Thanksgiving weekend...

I am so thankful for my children. I am getting choked up, just thinking about how wonderful they are.

I am so thankful to have a job (even if it does help make me sick sometimes) in a time and place where so many people have lost their jobs.

I am thankful to live in a beautiful place. Just being outside today with the sunshine and the lovely trees and the squirrels as big and fat as rabbits running around was very good.

I am thankful to be able to help other people on a nearly daily basis. That is what life is all about! That is why we are here!

I am thankful that my older son has a place at a university, and that there is money to pay for it!

I am thankful that I can spend time with my younger son every day!

I am thankful to have some of the finest people in the world as my friends and my coworkers.

I am thankful for the opportunities that have opened up for both of my children in the past year.

I am thankful for the sun shining, for the breeze blowing, for the beauty of the snow on the pines.

I am thankful for a roof over my head, food to eat, and so many books to read and so much music to listen to.

I am thankful for snuggly, purry cats and a goofy and loving dog.

I am thankful that the Detroit Tigers finally learned how to play baseball!

I am thankful that the Red Wings had a classy captain like Steve Yzerman for so many years! Enjoy your retirement Stevie Wonder!

I am thankful for lessons learned - the most painful are usually the most powerful.

I am thankful for knowing so many good and generous people, and for knowing so few cruel and selfish ones.

 

 

 

more freezing fog

Had a great day today with the kids. We got a lot done, and still managed to have a lot of fun. We could have Christmas tomorrow, if we wanted to!

Just let the dog out, and we are having freezing fog again tonight. The fog is not anywhere nearly as heavy as last night, but thin as it is, it is still freezing on the grass and trees.

I am so glad that I have not had to drive the last two nights!

Manuel Barrueco & Cuarteto Latinamericano concert

Last Sunday Dan and I went to a concert at Rackham Auditorium at the University of Michigan. We usually go to rock concerts or jazz concerts, with an occasional concert given by a full symphony orchestra or philharmonic. This one was quite different for us - a chamber quartet playing along with a Hispanic classical guitarist.

The chamber quartet was the Cuarteto Latinamericano, from Mexico. They primarily play music from Latin American and Caribbean classical composers. The guitarist was Manuel Barrueco, born in Cuba, and incredibly gifted.

The program:

Carlos Guastavino Las Presencias, No. 6

Javier Alvarez Metro Chabacano

Michael Dougherty Bay of Pigs

Augustin Barrios La Catedral

Roberto Sierra  Triptico

Astor Piazolla Tango Sensations

                       La Milonga del Angel

                       La Muerte del Angel

The music was very interesting and quite different from your usual chamber repertoire.

I had sort of known going in that the only American composer on the program was Michael Dougherty, who lives in Ann Arbor. But it did not really occur to me that the composer would be there to hear his music being played. But he was, and bounced up on the stage when the time came for his music, and was very cool in explaining the themes in the music, and having the musicians playing bars of music to provide examples of what he was explaining. That was really great, and he is probably a great professor. He has a lot of energy, explains things so anyone can understand him, and has a lot of interest in the subject.

But it turned out that he was sitting right behind us. I do not think that bothered Dan, but it made me feel sort of weird. Here we were, listening to some unusual and challenging music - and the man who composed it was sitting right behind us, so probably saw our reactions to the music and to the people playing it. That really did make me feel strange.

After the enjoyable concert, we headed to the downtown (original) Cottage Inn. When I was a student and living in the dorm, I used to walk there with my dorm mates in the middle of the night when we would be up late studying, to get garlic bread with cheese and pop. I remember a time when I went there with Dan many years ago, and some of the football players were there and completely amazed me, as each ordered a (personal) large pizza for an appetizer, and then ordered a huge pasta dinner for the meal. Well, Dan and I did not order that much food, but we got garlic bread and pop and a loaded pizza. It brought back good memories of when we were much younger.

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For you, collecting material possessions is more trouble than it's worth!

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Thanksgiving dinner

Just to remember what we had.

salad

lettuce, broccoli, carrots, red cabbage, green onions, dried cherries, grated cheddar cheese, green bell pepper, cucumber, mushrooms, dressing, croutons

turkey breast

corn bread stuffing with cashews and dried cherries

turkey gravy

butter/herb mashed potatoes

corn bread

lemon poppy seed bread

garlic-cheese biscuits

asparagus with cheese salsa

macaroni and cheese

cherry & marshmallow yellow cake

cherry vanilla ice cream

beautiful day!

The freezing fog lifted this morning and turned into a lovely early winter day. It was crisp and cool and clear and sunny.

The kids brought the Christmas trunks up from the basement and put up the artificial tree for me. In a few minutes I am going to go upstairs and decorate it, as well as drink some hot chocolate. In the meantime, Dan hung the icicle lights from the gutters on the front of the house and I put some net lights on the bushes both in front and behind the house. They look gorgeous.

It is so good having three of the people I care about most in all of the world home with me.

Tomorrow the fellows will be going to a wrestling tournament. I will have the house to myself, and will listen to very loud classical music a lot of the day, as well as allowing myself the rare luxury (due to lack of time) of a long hot bubble bath.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone out there had a wonderful Thanksgiving today!

We had a peaceful day at home, a good dinner, and plenty of time to relax, despite getting a lot of work done.

As evening came, a fog bank slowly moved in, drifting through the trees. Supposedly it will become a freezing fog as the night goes on.

I am a bit tired right now, but hopefully I will time later on Friday to talk some more of the last few days, the unusual concert Dan and I went to last Sunday, and how nice it is to have Bill home for a few days. And how both kids were angels today, helping with the yard work and helping clean the kitchen.

another relaxing day

Last night a tree came down in our yard. Thankfully, it did not do anything to the electrical lines. But it did take out the phone line. So we were without land phone and Internet access for most of the day. The phone company came by in the afternoon and made a temporary fix, running a line on the ground between the pole and the house. Sometime in the next couple of weeks they will come back and do a permanent fix by burying the line and taking care of the tree, which is messing with the telephone pole.

Steven and I spent the day quietly home schooling.

Tonight he had wrestling practice at UM, and Dan and i went to the Cherry Blossom Japanese restaurant. The service was great and the food was wonderful.

Tonight Dan and I watched the dvd of Munich. Brilliantly made movie, but very depressing.

indoor soccer, good food, and relaxation

I am pretty relaxed, except when I think about having to go back to work. I really needed to relax. While I am still having some diarrhea, and some asthma symptoms, things are definitely better.

Dan is hovering over me and being very over protective. It is at once one of his most endearing and most annoying character traits. He doesn't seem to want me to leave the house this week unless he is with me to hover over me. I feel as if I am wrapped in lamb's wool.

Nevertheless, I am getting a lot of housework done, especially the laundry.

I am still working with Steven on home schooling.

I am reading a lot and have made a nice dent in my To Be Read pile.

I have also watched some movies, which always makes me happy.

Tonight I got to watch Steven play indoor soccer for the first time.

Indoor soccer is very cool! It is played on a hockey rink, but with turf instead of ice. And players are not supposed to take each other into the boards, as they do not wear any padding. It is very fast paced, and very fun to watch. It is good for Steven, as they use hockey style flying substitutions from the bench, so he can get a break whenever his asthma bothers him. It is a very cool cross between ice hockey and soccer.

After the game we ate a wonderful Italian dinner at the Macaroni Grill.

Then we went to Target for Dan to buy some shoes and to buy some bottle of Italian cream soda. We got many flavors of that. This is something we have started getting into since last summer. I have the feeling my kids are going to turn into foodies like their mother. They both love going to Whole Foods to test taste the imported cheeses.

Tomorrow Steven has wrestling practice at the University of Michigan. While he is there, Dan and I will go to the new Japanese restaurant, the Cherry Blossom. We have been wanting a chance to go there.

Tonight it is snowing. It is great to be able to just enjoy the beauty of the snow, without having to worry about having to drive in it.

              

visiting my Bilbo

After the play on Sunday, we drove directly down to Muncie, about a four hour drive. We got there a little before 9 PM and picked up Bill at his dorm.

We then went out to dinner, at the best restauraunt we have thus far found in Muncie, that great country Italian place that Dan and I found when we moved Bill into his dorm last summer. We all enjoyed dinner. It was great seeing Bill again.

We then dropped Bill off at his dorm, and went to the hotel to sleep.

Yesterday we slept in and then went to explore the Muncie Mall while Bill was in class in the morning. He called when he was done with class, and we picked him up and took him out to lunch. We had Mexican food. We then took him to the Mall for an hour or so, then we went back and did a major excavation of his dorm room to try to find a couple of missing items. We found his keys, which had been missing for a couple of weeks, and also found his student loan check for $500. Both were buried in dirty laundry. We did not find his new ipod, which is reportedly already dead (this is the third ipod which has died on him) and which we wanted to bring home to try to resurrect. But we did make sure that the check was deposited in the bank.

Then it was time to come home. Another four hour drive in the dark and gloom of early winter.

I miss my son. Today is his birthday, but today is also a day when he is in classes all day long so it was not a good day to try to see him.

 

Royal Shakespeare Company ~ The Tempest

On Sunday afternoon we went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform The Tempest. This is my favorite of all of Shakespeare's plays. I love the way love and vengeance and revenge and reconciliation are all intertwined throughout the plot. I love how what could have been a great tragedy turns itself into a happy ending. In many ways I have always felt that it is the most human of all of Shakespeare's plays, and that Prospero is his greatest character. I also have always had a great love for the character of Ariel, the spirit freed from the prison of a cloven pine, only be given another service.

This was a very unusual production of The Tempest. Instead of being set on the usual tropical island, this one was placed in the Arctic, and the spirits were portrayed as being Native American in nature. There was ice and snow and a very memorable use of a dead seal.

While every member of the cast was first rate, three really stood out. John Light, who had been so fine as Brutus in Julius Caesar, was a wonderful Caliban. Julian Bleach was an Ariel for all of the ages.

And Patrick Stewart - oh, Patrick Stewart - he was born to play Prospero. Ah that final speech. Ah, the setting free of Ariel. Ah, this is what theater should always be - a miracle before your eyes and ears and heart and soul.

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Steven's birthday

Last Friday was Steven's birthday.

We spent a quiet day. We went into Ann Arbor for lunch at Panerra Bread and to let Steven do some shopping. He is old enough now to pick out his own presents. He picked out some video games and dvd's, and a very nice Red Wings shirt.

For dinner we had salad and pizza and birthday cake and chocolate ice cream.

It was a very pleasant day.

rain, voting, & fog

Today was marked by a hard, cold rain.

Dan and I went out and voted together. In all of the years we have been married, I cannot ever remember us doing this simple thing together - driving to the polling place together and voting. We have previously always made our way to the polling station and voted separately.

With my extreme disgust of all of the corruption in politics, I mostly voted for people from the little parties (Libertarian and Green) rather than the big two. But I still went there in the hard cold rain and did my civic duty. I had a bad and pretty funny moment when I discovered that there was only a Republican and a Democrat running for state senate, and no one from the little parties. I was on the verge of writing in my own name as the ultimate protest vote, but at the last second I held my nose and voted for one of the people on the ballot. But Dan did nearly roll on the floor with laughter when I told him what I had almost done.

Three work nights down, two to go!

Driving home was very slow. There was a very thick blanket of fog, so everyone on the road just sort of crept along in their cars...

one down, four to go

Made it through work tonight. Four more nights to go, and then I can have a bit over a week off. We will go to Muncie to visit Bill for part if that time off - we were going to go to Cleveland for Steven to wrestle in some huge tournament, but that is on hold now due to his sore shin. I will check into concerts and other things to do locally instead.

I got to sleep in quite late today, and I am feeling better today. Often the best thing for a killer headache is to get a nice long stretch of sleep!

Now I am off to make sure Steven's lesson plans are ready for tomorrow, and then take a long hot shower.

Four days to go! And Thursday even counts as a holiday, as I am working five days this week, and am scheduled to be off on Friday (Veteran's Day). So I will get paid double time for the hours I am there, and if I leave early, I do not get charged any vacation time. I am seriously thinking about leaving and hour or so early, and getting a bit of extra sleep that night.

I have tried to read the second novel in my 2005 Hugo Quest ~ Charles Stross's Accelerando. I found the story to be very disturbing, and put the book down after three chapters. There was a rape, the victim goes ahead and marries the rapist (who is so crazy that this person mutilates and kills kittens) - and then there was a child born to these really disturbed people. I just could not bring myself to read about what a horrid life that poor little girl was going to have with parents that messed up. I'm sure that the book gets better, or it would not have been one of the nominees for such a prestigious award, but at this point in time, I just cannot read it.

lazy day

This weekend has been a bit on the odd side. Originally we were going to go to the play last night (which we did) and Steven was suppose to wrestle today. He had qualified for the Border Wars National Tournament to be held today in Battle Creek, but the play interfered with the weigh-in so Dan decided to take him down to Ohio for some tournament down there someplace. I was really looking forward to having a day for myself, where I could try to get caught up a little bit with the housework, and I could work on my story (it is so frustrating, as I have the whole thing worked out in my head and I have literally had no time to actually work on it). But Steven has a sore shin from the indoor soccer game on Wednesday, so he went to an over night birthday party last night instead.

I was exhausted , and not feeling well, so ended up sleeping in very late this morning. I figured I would be woken up by the phone to go get Steven - so I was really surprised to get woken up by Steven himself, walking into my bedroom to see where I was. His friend's mother had kindly taken all of the guests to their homes. But I still felt like I could sleep several more hours.

Steven wanted to work on his artwork on the computer, so was on it all day long. That was fine, as he really does lovely work, which I wish I could share with you. He really has amazing talent.

I had a bad headache, and had to take a lot of drugs to try to get the sinuses under control before I could function today. Even then, I could not function well enough mentally to read or do anything more mentally strenuous than watch horse racing and Myth Busters on television.

I did get some loads of laundry washed, and did clean up lots of dog pee and even some dog diarrhea from the floor today. The latter certainly did not help the headache.

When Dan got home, we watched a very silly movie called Team America, World Police. Some of it was wildly creative and funny satire - some of it was pretty offensive.

Tomorrow before work, I need to get some lesson plans ready for Steven, This week we took a break from Homer to read some Halloween short stories - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Tell Tale Heart, and Masque of the Red Death. The Edgar Allan Poe stories very much freaked him out.

One of our local kids in the military got killed in Iraq this week. He had only two weeks to go before he was brought home from his  second Iraq deployment. He was a Marine Corps sharpshooter out on a special mission when he was killed. May God help his family survive this loss.

 

Royal Shakespeare Company ~ Julius Caesar

We went to the second of the three Shakespeare plays from the Royal Shakespeare Company that we will be seeing. We will see the third next weekend, and it is my favorite  Shakespeare play, The Tempest. There was a review in last night's paper, and they said that Patrick Stewart is so good that when he does Prospero's last lines, it is so beautiful it nearly stops your heart. 

But tonight it was time for those "honorable men" and those noble Romans in Julius Caesar. Another fine production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I do not know when I have ever encountered such a good use of sound in a play. And the minimal sets were also put to very good use. The use of color was stunning - all of the blood showed up great on the whites of the stage and the costumes. And - of course - the actors and actresses were just plain wonderful. Ariyon Bakare was stunning as Marc Antony, John Light was awesome as Brutus, James Hayes made a wonderful Julius Caesar - but again, there was not a single weak or subpar performance on the part of any cast member.

Other than that it was a sort of strange day. Dan was supposed to be home by 5PM, and he even called to confirm that at about 3PM. At about 6:30 with no sign of him, and no phone calls, Steven and I started to panic. He finally called, and told us to meet him in Ann Arbor and to bring clean clothes with us. So we met him and drove to the theater, and he was all grouchy because his work got all busy and crazy on him. Then we had to go get his truck at the place we met him after the play, and of course, the Pittsfield Township police saw people (us) in a usually deserted parking lot late at night, so stopped to check us out. That made him even more grouchy. Then we had to drive down to Maybee to drop Steven off at his friend's house for a slumber birthday party and that made him even more grouchy.

It is in the middle of the night, and he is still so grouchy I do not even want to get near him even though we are alone in the house.      And that stinks!!     

thank God the week is over

Rough couple of days to end the week. Last night I had really nasty and very bloody and very acidic diarrhea. All of the water in the toilet bowl was tinted red. Scared me. Scared the crap out of Dan. He wants me to go to the doctor, but I know that is useless. I would have to put up with butt probes, only to be told to reduce my stress and eat more fiber. Yeah. Would the doctor like to pay me the equivalent of my salary so I would not have to work, so I can reduce my stress?

I talked to my buddy Jim tonight, who is a pharmacist. Since I've known him for so long, I do not mind talking about even the most disgusting of the symptoms with him. He's nearly 100% sure that I just have IBS and that I need to reduce my stress and eat more fiber of a certain kind.

So rather than eating lots of salads and beans and that stone milled bread with the chunks of seeds in it - I need to eat smooth fiber, like finely ground Irish oatmeal or whole wheat bread and stay away from rough fibers for a few weeks until my guts can heal.

And reduce stress, which is something that just makes me giggle from the sheer absurdity of it.

I have not been able to work on my story again yet. Last night I was really freaked out by all of the blood in my poo, and I had to get some lesson plans ready for Steven. Tonight I am just worn out and frazzled. I did not feel well all day. Tomorrow I have to do a lot of housework.

But in the evening we will go see the next play from the Royal Shakespeare Company, one of my favorites of his tragedies, Julius Caesar. That will be good.

And on Saturday Dan and Steven will be out of the house all day. They will be at a wrestling tournament someplace or other. So that is the day I will work on my story. I have the plot envisioned in my head, and all worked out. The big question will be whether or not my writing skills will even produce a faint echo of what I have imagined.

snowy night

Moon shines.

Snow on brown leaves.

Winter comes.

a beginning

Well, it is short and needs editing and polishing, but here are the first few lines of my 2006 NaNoWriMO. I would do more, but it is 3AM and I still need to take a shower and go to bed!

     Robin Smith had been both dreading and anticipating this morning’s event for three months, since arriving at Ithacos. But nothing had prepared him for what he would see that morning. He had thought he had seen every violent thing that one person could do to another. He learned that morning that he was quite wrong.

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     He had been quietly approached by former associates some four months ago about the series of crimes taking place in Ithacos. Upon being told that the murders were unique to the eyes of all who had investigated them, he agreed to leave his retirement and travel to Ithacos to join the investigation. He posed as a useless small town member of the gentry who was posted as a private secretary to the officer in charge of the military police. The plan was for him to be able to go with the Major to the crime scenes with no suspicions being raised, but for him to play such a minor role in the office that he would not be taken seriously by those who did not recognize him.

 

That morning he did something he had never done before in his decades of investigating crime – he lost his breakfast and contaminated the crime scene. He did take consolation in not being alone in doing so.

Happy Halloween!!

Today was Halloween. I love Halloween.  This year I had to work, but it was OK. I got to wear my favorite shirt. It is a long sleeved t-shirt which is a bright orange. It was black bats on it, and proclaims "BITE ME!" in large black letters going across the chest. I love that shirt, and Halloween is the only day of the year I can get away with wearing it to work.

Last night I had a wonderful pasta dinner with my friends. Tonight we made quesadillas. That was pretty wonderful, too. And we had a lot of candy, of course.

I looked through my stickers last night, and did not have anything that had the words "Happy Birthday" on it. Today I went to three stores before work, but did finally find some birthday stickers. When Jim made the chemos for the guy having his birthday tomorrow, he put the stickers on the bags. At least this poor guy will know that we know that it is his birthday, and we know he is having his first chemo treatment on his birthday, and that we care about it and about him.

Bill left this afternoon. I was glad he left to go back to school before I had to go to work. It would have been really hard to leave, knowing he would be gone when I got back.

I got home and had to clean again. I also still have to take a shower. But I do plan on starting my NaNOWriMo story before I take my shower and go to bed. I know I will not get far, as it is so late at night (or perhaps that should be early in the morning). I never seem to have enough time and enough energy to do anything creative, whether it is writing, composing poetry, or working with photography. I need to take this bit of time for myself.

Tomorrow I will be going to the post office to mail birthday gifts to my sisters. The gifts will be there a bit late, but oh well. I need to find my day planner and my address book. I need to make those Muncie and Cleveland reservations.