Sunday - paper purging

Working with words of late: Scrabulous with Jen, and Freerice.com - donate grains of rice for every correct answer!

Trees on Fire groove at the Treehuggers Ball.

Sleeping waaaaaaay in this morning.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in my life, especially Momma, Beth, Cindi and Susan. (This is the first mother's day in my life where it actually occurred to me that I'm not a mother. Hm.)

Better World Betty and the Home Energy Yardsick says that my home scores 0 out of 10 and that 0% of houses in my area use more energy than mine. Gosh - I had a feeling it was bad, but I didn't think it would be that bad. As a renter, how much do I do to improve that?

Need to work on solving my composting conundrum.

Faithiness

My first try at risotto is successful! Creamy, lemony, comforting, delicious.

Wondering if (accidentally) freezing wine ruins it.

A brief list of plugs, some of my favorite things:
* I love Honest Tea as much for the taste as for the witty, insightful quotes on the bottle caps.
* Stonyfield Farms organic whole milk strawberries and cream yogurt. The cream is heavenly.
* Weehah! greeting cards for all my friends! Locally made, and simply expressive.
* National Geographic Magazine, because from it, I learn about fascinating places like Bhutan.

NPR's StoryCorp

I think that StoryCorp is one of the best things to come out of public radio and popular media in my conscious life-time. What we need are more opportunities to hear the sounds of our own voices, telling the stories of our personal histories.

Today's was especially engaging. Click here see the article and to hear the audio of "Sanitation Workers Remember King's Last Stand", in memory of Dr. King's last speech, and the men and women who were part of the sanitation worker strike in Memphis in 1968.

Not sure what day it is...

...or why I'm awake at 1:22 in the morning.

Let's see...

Garrett eats treats from my hand! Great sign! And, the nifty pill popper works! Yippee! No more bloody fingers!

Feeling a little jealous while watching professionals with their wide-blade mowers and weed eaters tend to my neighbors' entire yard in like 10 minutes flat. And, knowing that there's nothing but a phone call and a 30 dollar check between me and that. But, alas, I have a perfectly good mower in the basement and a perfectly capable body for mowing. ::sigh:: Question is, do I have enough energy or time?

Two days in a row of: finding sweet mid-afternoon parking spaces near my office; and ever-so-slightly inappropriately dressing for the weather (I'm blaming this on the changeable weather, not my hectic life, because that makes me feel less crazy).

Paying my tab to RC's Mercantile Exchange - and loving my new Pyrex storage dishes.

Getting my favorite earrings sent back to me in the mail - my ears are happy again and can rest for a while, but have also learned that a little bit of spice is a good thing. (Thank you, Sister.)

Finding a cool food blog: Eat Air.

Mid-weekend

Short night's sleep means napping later.

Proud owner of two new fire extinguishers, and a new bed-side table lamp.

Ordering a DTV Converter Box Coupon online, because there's no way I'm sending a perfectly good TV to the landfill in February of next year if I don't have to.

Missing memory stick for my camera.

Craving either a burger and fries, or a Mona Lisa cheese-less pizza.

Sunday mornin'

Lousy run yesterday morning - I'm blaming it on being tired and still a little congested. But it did feel good to get out and cover 3.5 miles worth of ground.

Forgetting to buy cat food from the Vet, again. Oh, I'm a horrible, horrible person. Plus, it means my morning goes like this (credit to Jen for finding this video)!

Guitaring and singing, very nice. Late night at Fellini's. Blurry drive home. Old-school SNL.

Plans for making chili on this cold, rainy day. But, first things first: what's for breakfast? I want something scrumptious for a change! Not the same old eggs/toast or oatmeal/yogurt routine.

I will finish my paper. And get my Whole Foods fix.

Saturday

An a.m. Riverwalk run, followed by an impromptu bagel tasting contest. It's a clear winner: sorry City Market place, even your awesome pear & walnut schmear can't stand up to a Bodo's Everything bagel. Also, finally bought local art from (and of) the City Market, which was promptly placed on the wall in the kitchen to begin the collection.

Secret confession: remember earlier in the week when I mentioned that I'd decided it was OK to "not like someone"? Well, akshually... I'd decided it was OK to "hate" someone. I just think that's such a strong word, that I didn't want to tell the whole truth about my decision. But, I had even looked up the word on Merriam-Webster.com and decided that for a few special someones the word seemed to apply, and I promised myself that I would allow myself to use it, if only sparingly. Well, here's the story:

About .2 seconds after hopping on the Interstate today - pop, whizz - a rock hit my windshield and cracked it! My first thought was, damn, if I'd left my house just 2 seconds later, that rock wouldnta hit my windshield (who knew I am such a fatalist!?). The next thing that happened, though, was that I heard these lyrics coming out of my stereo: "Always love. Hate will get you every time. Always love..." Thank you, Nada Surf. In some small way, I think I deserved that crack in the windshield.

Other thoughts of the day:

If money weren't an object I'd: own a VW Westfalia and spend 9 weeks every year tooling around in it; get a massage every week.

5 hours of road trip music included: Nada Surf, Songs from Candyapolis, Jesse Winchester, Elvis Costello, and Uncle Earl (pictured above at Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville, this past Monday on the last stop on their fall tour).