Little Do You Know

Tired of looking the shopping list but happy to see the comments. I’ve been doing layout for a couple of months for the spring books and I’m just about done. This is one of the book covers, my favorite.

Here is verbatim the list I made for Mr. Tree today. I am very lucky to have a man who will do the shopping because I hate shopping.

porkchops with chicken rice soup
four thin pork chops
1 large can chicken rice soup
1 can crushed pineapple

Chicken Caper Rice
four pieces chicken breast (please don’t buy those giant chicken breast pieces.)
1 bag long grain rice (basmati or regular long grain rice)
1 bag frozen peas

Rigatoni with meat sauce
1 bag rigatoni
1 lb lean ground beef
1 can chopped tomatoes (I will make the sauce from scratch)
fresh basil if you can find it

Chicken dumpling soup
1 chicken breast
1 box reduced fat bisquick
celery
carrots

milk
1 bag frozen raspberries
1 bag frozen blueberries

bananas (about six?)
apples
cucumber
red bell pepper
zuccini if they have one

wet cat food
cat litter

bread
lunch meat

It was 66 here yesterday. The mountains of snow are slowly pressing down into water, water everywhere.

My new white car is black with street gunk.

I have been doing layout day and night. I’m on the last book for the spring. I updated our catalog and web site. I also did an inventory of the books on the shelf. And the intern is busy twice a week logging in the new queries. I made six trips to the dumpster with rejected stuff from the last two years. It felt good to get rid of it all.

We have a nephew, and just about no one in the family likes his evangelical mother. She’s awful. Today we got a fundraising letter from the nephew. He’s eighteen and going to graduate this spring, and he wants to go on a journey of understanding to Israel. He went a couple of years ago. Now he’s asking us for money to help fund the trip. We’re supposed to write a check to his tiny fundamentalist school, not to him, so as to be able to deduct it from our taxes. On the one hand, I like this boy and think he really was unfortunate in the parent lottery. But I don’t want to fund his creepy school or his trip that, as he assures us in his note, “God wants me to go [on].” My suggestion is to give him an early graduation check and tell him to apply it to Israel if he wants to. We’re funding our own daughter’s journey of culture to Spain in May, and I didn’t ask anyone else for money. It’s so weird. Why doesn’t he just get a part time job?

If you read my blog a year ago, you’d remember that it’s Fred’s birthday on the 8th. He must be 52 now. He was the guy who dated a fourteen year old. Back in 1981 or so. It was one of the best times of my life, regardless of the law. The timestamp on my blog is wrong.

I’m suprised that it’s been 10 days since the Smike post. It seems like just yesterday.

I have read no more of NN. Instead, I’ve been doing tax stuff. My accountant called me the other night and casually dropped this: Oh, I think you are probably required to start filing your payroll deposits with the three day rule now, not the monthly rule. You are probably in violation. You might want to check into it. The reason I didn’t mention it before is that I didn’t want to muddle your head with too many things right now.

I think he means well. And he was right; we are supposed to make the deposits three days after payroll.

I saw Pan’s Labryinth. Pretty makeup. But I would never see it again.

I’ve been working on stuff all week. On Wednesday I didn’t have to leave the house at all, and it was quiet and I got so much done. I thought to myself that agoraphobia might not be so bad for me, but I know the opposite is closer to reality. I was thinking back to a year ago when the old site broke and the post I’d made on my blog about being kind of depressed. It was right after Christmas. Maybe that’s just something that happens to me every year? If we’re all still around in 12 months, we’ll see how I feel. I am having a better sex Continue Reading »

Famous last words, but January is going to be rough with all the tax and other stuff happening, so I’m taking a little blogging break. I also have a cold. We spent about four hours chipping the ice from the driveway yesterday. I need to get my life organized.

I’m starting to lose track of what day it is. It doesn’t feel like any particular day, and when I look out the window, all I see is piles of white. We shoveled today for a couple of hours, piling snow on snow on snow. Thirteen is starting to get cabin fever from being sick and being at home all this time. We did get out between storms to Loveland, but mostly we’re home and the glare from the snow comes in through the windows.

I received an embarassment of riches yesterday.

Books: “Front Cover: Great Jacket and Cover Design”; “Falling Upward” Literary Criticism and essays by Lee Siegel (present from my very literate brother in law); “The Seven Basic Plots” which is Bible-length and all about our core story ethos.

DVDs: The Office (seasons 1 and 2); Boston Legal (seasons 1 and 2); Silk Stockings; An American in Paris

A crock pot (old one, 20 year old and hard to wash)

A TV for my home office.

For dinner at my grandparents’ house, we ate lasagne and green salad. It was nice after all the sweets. The prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve was good, but now I feel I’ve eaten enough red meat to last me a long while.

As I mentioned in a comment, I’m still a bit snowed in and pretty tired of the mess. We have a jeep, but that’s the only car that can deal with this much snow and ice. So Mr. Tree refused my suggestion that he skip work today and I’ll be at home. I have an accountant appointment tomorrow at 2 and I’m so not ready.

It’s weird not to receive mail for two days in a row during the holidays.
The neighbors got together and shoveled and snow-blew the cul de sac today. I googled my address and was hoping to see a white snowy mess, but it must be an old photo because there are green leaves and grass. That ship sailed a long time ago.

I’m hoping to get out of here tomorrow or Saturday, at the latest. I still have a bit of shopping to do, and have to go get my Tyler (Perry-Madea) Florence prime rib.

Yes, it’s a big one. It started snowing about 5 a.m. and the state is socked in. So if you were coming to visit, and you know I’d give you real whipped cream if I knew you were coming, wait a few days. Mr. Tree will soon be home and we’re making chili and maybe getting drunk. Who knows?