No excuse. Just lazy!

I've been away so long I got behind on everyone's blog.  Not just one or two, but ALL of them.  And was there any reason?  No!  Just not having anything to say.

It's cliche to say, "I've been so busy," but it's actually true.  More so, my brain's been busy with non-blog-worthy activities.  Wait!  Do you want to see my new shoes?  I did order some and they're arriving very soon.

I'd eat this

I think I'll be back, but it will have to be when there's something interesting to say OR when someone comes to town so we can stuff our faces with food and take pictures.  (Hint hint:  Sluggy - coming this way again soon?)

TALK LATER,
Mrs. Trades

Some days, just getting up is enough!

Just getting up and starting the day seems to be an accomplishment some days. Now, don't take that wrong. It sounds depression-like, but it's not. At least, I don't think so. What it means, to me, is that a full plate (or rather, a confusing plate) makes me scale down my expectations.

 A Facebook friend said the other day, "Today I got up, cleaned and did laundry, and didn't do anything else the rest of the day." She deemed this a "fail." I would be happy to say that I cleaned and did laundry! Actually, I do both of those regularly, just not very much of either. I mean, it feels like neither are ever done, and I don't do a great job at either.

Now I've got a myriad of half-done, unfinishable things on my list other than cleaning and laundry: Academic work, bill-paying/family-finance work, let's see... I feel like a slouch if I don't post anything on this blog, so I can check that one off today. This is what I mean: On days when I feel like there is too much to do and I can't possibly make any progress, I just take small steps and cross them off a list, as such:

1. Made lame blog post
2. Emptied dishwasher, reloaded it.
3. Washed and dried three loads of clothes (other people can put them away. Why should I do everything?)

I know what is bothering me: There are things I don't want to put on the list because they are too hard. My desk surface cannot be seen. The mister has been ordered by his doctor to lose 25 pounds and in solidarity, I jumped in there with him to work on the usual 2-5 (see that neat trick? 25 and 2-5?) and let me tell you, I feel like a junkie on the skids.

And my grapestrades.blogspot.com work is going nowhere fast. Yesterday was a particularly demoralizing day; today may show more promise, but I'm tired of the roller-coaster. I say this like I was losing money yesterday, and I was not - I was simply not gaining enough, and I don't like sitting still. I like to keep moving.

My nose is bothering me. I'm allergic to something and I don't know what it is. There! I got all my complaining out of the way in just a few minutes of typing in the dark. I'm the only one up (other than the two who have left the house.) Three others are sleeping in the creepily dark house while I sip coffee and type to y'all. I don't want to go back to sleep (I've done it on a select few other days) on the chair with a blanket because once my brain is awake for the day there's no turning back and I'd rather not suffer through bizarre airport dreams (I don't even travel - at least not routinely or often - so why are my dreams always of major transportation modes like trains, boats, and airplanes, and many people in the terminals along with me? Weird weird weird.)

grand-scale transportation dreams

Anyone who reads all this deserves a medal. I don't even like to listen to my own whining, so it was very nice of any readers out there to absorb my mental diarrhea. I think it's time for more coffee. Signing off...

I did a bad thing

Look, I confess my sins; I don't know about you people. I have yet to be discovered for this one - in fact, I am still chewing on the evidence.

There were two pizzas. The smaller one I was "allowed" to eat from; the toppings: onion, green pepper, mushroom.

The larger: Technically not mine. Covered with pepperoni and pineapple. I asked for permission to have a piece and was begrudgingly granted clearance for one.

So later I went back to have another piece of the smaller approved-for-me pizza but wished I could have a slice of the other. I thought a good compromise would be to take a few pineapple chunks or stray pepperoni slice that might happen to be hanging off the no-access pizza, but there were none. So, working quickly so as to avoid arousing suspicion, I picked a few pieces of pineapple and a pepperoni slice off the forbidden pizza and added it to my tiny piece.

That was great; I hoped no one would noticed the excised toppings from the off-limits pizza.

Later, when no one was looking, I grabbed the piece of ravaged premium pizza and ate it. What better way to avoid questions like, "Who took toppings off this pizza? Why are there holes where the pineapple used to be?"

Will anyone count the pieces and realize that some pilfering was done? *burp* I don't know.

This was a really boring post, but no one responded to the coffee post, either. Is anyone reading this blog?

Coffee (No Coffee) Adventure

I don't have a lot today, but I didn't want to go too long without spinning a yarn or chewing the fat with my blogroll friends, so I'm going to extract a story I told in an email yesterday and share it with the whole world.

By some miracle, everyone in my house actually slept in until 9:30 or so yesterday morning (as contrasted with the 6-something usual awakening time and the 4AM alarm that was necessary one day last week.)  I had so many dreams during this brief respite from sleep deprivation that I thought I would never return to my right mind.  Then I stumbled into the kitchen to be the household hero and pour the coffee and therefore, start the day.  Then Coffeemaker Disaster ensued.

The first problem encountered was that I put the water but not the coffee in it Friday night (I always set it up the night before.) So I awoke to a nice pot of hot water (better than waking up to one drip of coffee due to forgetting the water.  And better than awakening to a thin sheen of coffee coating the counter and some of the floor.  Both of those have happened before.)  No big deal; I fixed this, but it just hissed and shut off.  My poor husband was going to have to be hospitalized due to no coffee; he was about to have a mental breakdown.  10AM on Saturday and no coffee?  I got ready to go out and buy a new one.  The dog was nearly crying, seeing me put my shoes on (he has separation anxiety.) But then I tried it one last time...

I don't know what happened but what it boils down to (pun intended) is that it has a stupid on/off switch that lights up, but who can see it glow in the daytime?  Everyone in the house agreed that they, also, could not tell which side is off and which is on.  So while I thought it was broken and was ready to go out and buy a new one, I had merely and misguidedly flipped the switch to "off," when I thought it was "on."  They agreed that it's an understandable mistake and that I am not senile or crazy.  Yay!  Coffee for everyone!  (Well,  just me and the mister.  The kids don't drink coffee, although we keep offering it to them.)

A suggestion from one of the kids has become reality; we now have Sharpie-scribbled words on the coffeemaker:  "On" and "Off."

Oh, but time for a minor postscript:

No coffee essay is complete without the recycled story of legend in which I bought a big can of ground coffee from Sam's Club, just the same as every other can I always bought (or so I thought.  This is the foreshadowing, here.  "So I thought.")

Sometime during the next week the headaches became recurrent and unbearable.  I remember taking two ibuprofen and it didn't even touch the pain.  I could only stand still and stare at fixed points on the floor.  No movement, no talking, no lying down.  The ride to the urgent care center was rough, to say the least (I could not drive; I had to be driven.)  Two shots in the hip later, I was sleeping peacefully on the exam room table.

The diagnosis?  I had bought decaf coffee without realizing it.  Same can, same words, same color... just one little word that I missed.  I wonder who else was victimized by this deceptive marketing, this mislabeling of daily maintenance drug?

Does anyone else have any interesting coffee stories?  No?  I didn't think anyone could top those (well, the second one is impressive; the first is merely pathetic.)   Send 'em in, though, if you've got 'em!