3 Ring Binder

Amy did this little exercise a few days ago and I found it rather irresistible reading. I had a similar reaction to Trey Givens ’ walk to work video he posted some time ago.   It’s plain fun read about or see the normal activities of someone’s day in a brief format or encapsulation. What my day lacks in action, it more than makes up for in extraordinary attention to lack of household cleanliness. - Woke up, drank cold, black coffee on my bedside table (it was hot when delivered 2 hours earlier) - Went through emails, read some newspaper articles, filed some as “to be read.” - Spied new coffee stains on freshly scrubbed bedroom carpet. [Not typical: the “freshly scrubbed” part.   Seriously, white carpeting?   What were they thinking?] Feeling like Lady Macbeth, I scrub the spots again. - Heard, “What’s for breakfast?” voiced in my general direction. Smile at the hope springs eternal attitude of my youngest. - Was repulsed by “fish smell” that greeted me in kitchen, espe...

Last night I had the cocktail party that I’ve been working on since I got the book, Mix Shake Stir , out of the library in November.   Apparently, I was working on the idea of the cocktail party (sharing fabulous holiday drinks with friends) more than the execution of the cocktail party.   The gleaming glassware, festive lights, roaring (but non-smelly gas fireplace) fire, cedar candles, George Winston playing Vince Guaraldi’s Linus & Lucy music wafting through the air, fancy clothes (beads, fur, wraps, fuzzy socks, Christmas bulb earrings, and goggles) were no match for my lack of actual immediate availability of drinks!   You see, I have rules. As my objective for the evening was to share my new found enthusiasm and information about different cocktails, my plan was to make one of each of the seven drinks in the offing and have the ladies pick straws.   There were no short straws, only straws in ten different colors (apparently straws are another thi...

This past August I attended a Women’s Adventure Weekend in the White Mountains. My attraction to this event was the opportunity to diffuse the disdain I had developed for hiking based on one ill-fated hiking trip there over twenty years ago. As I happily reported here , I completely exorcised those demons, had a great time with my friends, and met some other good people. Part of the weekend was devoted to self-improvement through workshops focusing on sharing self-exploration. I opted out of most of those, but one which followed immediately after a yoga class was about creating a Vision Board . As someone who loves to flip through glossy magazines, appreciates attractive layout, and has developed a pretty strong “cut and paste” skill set over the years, I was interested and stayed for this workshop. A vision board, as the workshop leader explained, is a 2-D collection of magazine cut-outs, photographs, drawings, and other ephemera that represent your goals and desires. The function o...

I have a problem. Okay, I may have more than one, but right now I want to address only one: Crap Creep. Those of you who are also afflicted with the problem know what I mean without further explanation. Those of you who are excellent housekeepers, who have a place for everything and manage to keep everything in its place, those of you who would never, ever , even temporarily, store stuff on the sides of the stairs because you didn’t feel like going up them to put that stuff away, I’m here to explain the issue. Crap Creep occurs when the stuff of your life begins to take on “hazardous” proportions; when no horizontal surface is safe from your stockpiling stop-gap measures at keeping your house livable; when you can put your finger on Christmas decorations without leaving the kitchen – in July! These are some of the signs that Crap Creep has reached capital letter status. Until very recently (maybe a few weeks ago) I could live with my random piles of “Stuff I’ll Get to Later” because I ...

Since I've been a little concerned about our ever decreasing savings and the soon to be shrinking value of the dollar, I've altered my investment strategy to counter those negatives. I've decided to start investing in something everyone needs: shoes. That's right. Shoes. I began small with the purchase of a single pair of these stunners from Dansko ! I've never owned a pair of Dansko shoes before, but I have to tell you that I am incredibly pleased with them. Sure they're clogs and I have some remnant clog snobbery from the 70s, but I love them! Apparently, as the name implies, these are professional clogs for women who stand or walk all day on the job. And I can understand why. They're so comfortable to wear and walk in, and, oh, did I mention fun? Red patent leather! It's true. I was only window shopping on our recent Girls Weekend and went into the store to look at the animal print and pony hair clogs (from Sanita ), but once I tried these on, I kn...

A recent exchange between my oldest and youngest children. 1: Well, that man was helpful. 3: Really? 1: Yeah, why? 3: Because when Mum* says that, she's being sarcastic. Ouch. Sarcasm: it's just not a good teaching tool. * 3 is quite the Anglophile and has begun to refer to me (both in writing and speech) as Mum. I fully expect her to don her wellies and go play in the garden before I have to call her in for tea.

Blogging is a fun activity because it gives me the opportunity to learn new skills and practice old ones. HTML coding, albeit limited to only the simplest of codes, is one of those skills which I am learning s l o w l y. For reasons which I still do not quite comprehend, but most probably have to do with my impatience and (unexplainable in this particular situation) lack of attention to detail, I continue to post responses on other people’s blogs in which I misspell, misspeak, or just generally miss. I honestly think that when I decide, last minute, to add a word, a bracket, or a punctuation mark, my cursor, in direct correlation to the exigency of my fingers, jumps position to some other line. Because the addition is minor relative to the rest of the words, I never really notice the misplacement until after I hit “submit”. If you, like me, need to improve the mechanics of your response skills, I have one word for you – tinyURL (yes, thanks to the wikiworld, it is one word). I know it’...