Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone - funny, I don’t feel any older! Mr. SCL had to work this morning but he left flowers and a card. 
And a TJMaxx gift card. Do I go shopping today or tomorrow? Decisions, decisions…
The hubby has finally decided to get himself cleaned up so we can head out and pick up our bed. It’s kind of a long drive out there, so I was hoping he’d get cleaned up sooner. Oh well.
It’s kind of cool and a little gray today. They say it’s not supposed to rain. I hope it doesn’t.
Tomorrow I need to do some shopping. I need to go the bookstore and I need to buy a birthday present for a friend. I’ll probably pick up a couple of other items too.
“morning” all, I just woke up (after playing WeffRiddle til after 11pm, then TastyPlanet (which btw is not a java game, it’s a downloadable with a demo and purchase fee - just so’s you know) until 2am)
No plans for today - maybe a little "going thru the now 4 months worth of mail)
Oh, and this is cool, on a minor scale but still - my tenant agreed to pay me his rent thru PayPal - saving trees and knees (I don’t have to go to the bank - well, I’d probably use the drive thru if I did, but I couldn’t find a way to rhyme that with ‘trees’)
oh and -
Happy Birthday SCL
I’m a tahred bear. I enlisted the help of ACBG this morning and we cleaned out and rearranged my big storage building. Everything is neat and tidy out there now. We also filled up my Blazer and truck and took stuff to Goodwill. Then I treated him to lunch at the good Chinese buffet place as a reward. He tells me he’ll collect the other part of his reward later. I have no idea what that means. 
There’s leftover cheesecake in the beerator. I think a piece may be callin’ my name.
Happy Birthday, SCL!
Happy Birthday, SCL!
I’m all better today. My car, however, failed its smog test. For the third year. I thought I’d replaced the entire emissions system by now, but apparently not. I was hoping it might actually pass the first try this time. Well, if they can repair it enough to pass the smog test this time, I’ll have 2 years to replace it. It’s not too unreliable and repairs aren’t excessive, yet.
I went to ToysRUs and bought toys for the Giving Tree at work. Now I just need an Etch-A-Sketch and I’m all done. I also went to Barnes & Noble to console myself. I have plenty to read for the rest of the weekend. I think I need to go out in search of cheesecake. I should have bought a slice at Barnes & Noble, they have Cheesecake Factory cheesecake there. Mmmm, cheesecake!
[sub]Stoopid car.[/sub]
What books did you buy?
The library just delivered me a terrible, terrible mystery novel and a cookbook.
Happy B-day, SCL!! * <flings confetti with wild and reckless abandon>*
Class went well, except for the one psycho who seems to thing the world revolves around her. I shan’t miss her. When I got home, **FCD ** and I went out for a late lunch followed by a stop at the grocery store. Since we’re not motivated, we’re gonna be bums for the rest of the day. Except I’m going to make another loaf of the buttermilk bread, and maybe the peach pie I couldn’t make because I didn’t have peaches.
Oh, and we got ice cream - chocolate moose tracks and something with caramel. So dinner’s made.
Off to toss ingredients in the bread machine…
I forgot to mention the swampcave is all Christmasy right now. Part of storage building cleanup was to drag out and go through Christmas stuff. I actually gave a bunch of it to Goodwill. I bought one of those fiber optic Christmas trees to use instead of the six and a half foot artificial one, which went in the giveaway. The fiber optic tree is purty. It’s four feet tall which I’ve decided I like better cause no major furniture moving is involved in having it out. I also have a ginormous Santa Claus collection. I didn’t give any of 'em away, but I didn’t put 'em all out either. Anyways, my storage building is all clean and organized and I know where everything is, for now, anyways.
I have cornbread in the oven and veggie soup simmerin’ on the stove. A perfect supper for a cool evening. MMMMMMM…
Happy Happy SCL!!!
All done making tamales, trying to jam a few into the CD drive for y’all.
MMMMMMMMMM.
Having a beerverage or two now and ready to go have one or two with the Wife before we come home, rest and get ready to spend the day in the cold making sure the Bears whip some Viking tail tomorrow.
Lili, I bought:
[ul]
[li]Forbidden Planets, sci-fi anthology edited by Peter Crowther[/li][li]Women’s Studies by Julia Watts (she’s *usually * funny, but she’s been iffy lately, and this is a new publisher for her)[/li][li]Punk Like Me - JD Glass (it looks like another uber-Xena I assume, but beggars can’t be choosers)[/li][li]Shelter From the Storm, Peggy Herring (sometimes she’s good, sometimes she’s awful)[/li][li]Salon Fantastique, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (I’m glad they’re working together again on fantasy anthologies)[/li][/ul]
Pure junk food for the mind, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Perfect for snuggling up with the cats and a cup of tea.
Bread is baking. Pie is baking. Clean dishes put away. Dirty dishes in dishwasher. I’m now enjoying a toasted almond with the last of the half-n-half that I needed for the peach streusel pie.
Oh yes, life is good.
I don’t mind trash, as long as it’s reasonably good trash. I attempted to read the new Carole Nelson Douglas, and now my brain hurts. Look, lady- it’s trash, but could you as least make like you’re trying? A little? I gave up and re-read more parts of Luck In The Shadows.
Hmm. I’m trying to decide what to do for the rest of the evening. I want to flake out watching Buffy, but I could do some sewing.
FCM - what’s a toasted almond? Amaretto and Half&Half? becasue that sounds yummy. is there another ingedient?
My local SIL (as opposed to the out-of-town SIL) came by and brought me a Bath and Body Works gift card for my birthday. A shoppin’ I will go!
I have done laundry and baked another batch of beads. I think I shall do nothing other than read for the rest of the evening. I started Dan Simmons Ilium and so far it is very entertaining if slightly on the weird side.
Congratulate me, folks. I managed to get my beayootiful new serger threaded right the very first time to do a 3-thread overlock stitch! Yay me! Man, that machine is going to be a challenge. Once I can get over being afraid of it – there are so many settings! But I was so pleased with myself, I proceeded to make a duvet cover. I feel very successful. 
Of course, next I have to learn how to do everything else on the machine, how to thread all five threads (since I only had to thread three), all the different needle positions, the loopers, and on and on. Clearly, this is not a machine for beginners. Or even one an experienced sewer can pick up easily! Patience. That’s the ticket.
And now back to the dog show. I only care about the sporting group, and then only to see if the Clumber spaniel wins. My SIL has a show Clumber, who’s still quite young but whose littermate just took best in show at the national Clumber show. So we cheer on Clumbers. Plus they’re great dogs. The softest coats I have ever felt on any creature. Oh, for those of you who’ve never heard of a Clumber, which was me when my SIL got into breeding them, this is what they look like.
Wow, MamaTig, those are awesome looking dogs. Very distinguished looking - are they playful? My SIL has a serger and frequently attends classes to learn what else she can do with the thing. I am ashamed to admit that I own two sewing machines and don’t know how to operate either one of them. One was my great-grandmother’s and one belonged to my mother in law.
Blaugh. And more Blaugh tomorrow.
rosie, I thought of you today when I was Krogering. The store had a giat display of Christmas trees set up, and some one had put a bottle of Manischewitz under one.
Happy birthday, SCL!
Helped Mom do more Christmas shopping today, this time for the grown-up guys. The boys (which are any male family members younger than about twenty) are easy to shop for. They always want movies or something easy like that, but the grown-up guys will never tell you what they actually would like. Mom and I talked it over and we agreed that if the guys would just start carrying purses, it would make things so much easier. We could just get all of them a nice new purse and that would be that.
I think we’re going to get a cat.