Walldogs!

This is just one of the many murals painted by The Walldogs who visited P-town a few weeks ago.

Too cool, huh?

Next visit I want to get pictures of them all. Some are found in alleys like this one and others are in more prominent locations. All of them have some sort of historical significance to P-town — gee, even I remember some of them…

At any rate, the tourist traffic is increasing in ol’ P-town and these murals will surely help!

And so it begins.

My work furlough week starts Monday. It’s sort of a “keep the business afloat” situation affecting everyone at work.

Aside from missing a week’s pay, I am not so upset about it.  Got several projects lined up:

1. Last chance to pull all my tax stuff together. Note to self: NEVER let this go like this again. Keep up with it! ARGH! Oh…and Sophie does not like the paper shredder. At all.
   
2. Rearrange the hall closet.
3. Make at least one room upstairs “livable”. UPDATE: It’s a work in progress. So far I have shredded stuff dated 1993-1994. Good grief!
4. Teach Sophie some new tricks.
5. Unteach Sophie some old tricks.
6. Rearrange bedroom closet.
7. Go through clothes to take to resale shop/take H’s.
8. Go for walk with Southern Cousin on Tuesday — the weather should be glorious. Even if it is not, we must go because she promised to tell a very funny story. Her stories are ALWAYS very funny.
9. Go for lunch with a co-worker who indicated she wanted to…not sure what’s up with that, but what the hey…<puzzled>
10. Can’t forget to go online to qualify myself for unemployment.
11. Call telephone company to eliminate some monthly features.
12. Call vets to board Soph later this month.
13. Call to register Sophie for more doggie obedience classes.
14. Clean out dresser drawers. UPDATE: Cleaned out other drawers instead.
15. Laundry. How could I forget that?!
16. Oil change for the G6.
    

Or I’ll scrap the majority of this list and netflix/hulu myself into a stupor.

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NP: babbling heads on TV talking about the mom with the bazillion kids.

Where’s Sophie? Behind the couch with the knot end of her chew. This morning she was bringing it to me for a game of toss and chase. So far I think she is over her excessive possessiveness attitude. She was really sweet and fun to play with.

Yay for me…!

It’s my birthday holiday tomorrow — which means no going in to work for me!

So my plans are as follows:

• Make appointment for Sophie to have her nails done.
• Go to said appointment.
• Put gas in the car.
• Maybe…just maybe…make those Elvis cookies to take to work on Friday. It has been a tough week for everyone and the treat would be, well, nice.

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NP: The local newscast…waiting for Lost to come on.

Where’s Sophie? Freshly freed from her latest stint in the “too bad” jail, she is here in the living room chewing the living daylights out of her Kong. I think it has a treat stuck in it…

Why I am sweating: Just finished thirty minutes of a boot camp exercise DVD.

And what do I think of the new episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Fringe? I am totally blown away.

How about 24? Haven’t been able to watch any episode completely through yet. Thank goodness for hulu.com!

Snow Report

Well…it could have been a lot worse — seems we have six-plus inches of a snow/sleet combination on the ground in O-town. The electricity flickered on and off around 4:30 AM and fortunately has stayed on since.

The car dealership called and canceled the Grand Am’s oil change. Haven’t heard any different from my hairdresser, so I guess my 4:45 PM appointment is still on.

I got to snowblow this morning again — this time a full-on deal: the driveway and all the sidewalks and the neighbor’s sidewalk down to the corner…but first…

I had to scoop out the end of the driveway where the state plows dump the highway snow. No small task as that snowy slushy combination is HEAVY. The snowblower won’t go through it, hence the manual labor. Plus the shovelfuls need a heave-ho off to the side far enough that we are able to make the turn into the drive.

So now I feel a bit washed out and not inclined whatsoever to do what I planned on my vacation day.

Oh well. I am away from work and that substitute switchboard duty… that’s good enough for me.

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Exciting news! I just ordered tickets to see Gordon Lightfoot in R-town next March!!! Southern Cousin, H and I will be going. I am hoping that having something to look forward to will help this winter get a move on…

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Cooking on the stove: DH’s chili

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Where’s Sophie? In the dining room, looking at me…whining. Silly girl.

What happens to you when you were planning something else

Yesterday’s migraine was still hanging around this morning so I called into work and switched my Friday vacation day to today.

Sigh… I had so much planned to do on Friday.

Much to the chagrin of Sopher, who thought Mumsy was taking a day off to play with her, I slept most of the day away. As Time Goes By was in the DVD player so I watched a bit of that while dozing.

Around 4 PM this afternoon I felt like I could once again rejoin the human race. The migraine seemed to be fading a bit — mostly on its own, since I took the last of the Tylenol this morning.

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NP: A whole host of emergency vehicles are zooming by, headed north… we are getting freezing rain. (DH just called and he will be awhile getting home from work.)

As you can see…

…it’s been a slow-blog-month here at The Shape of Yellow.

I pretty much know why I’ve been mostly below the radar — no one wants to read the rantings of an overwhelmed-with-it-all person.

But right now, I think I can just about see around the bend … so here’s a bit of what’s been going on – the good parts – in random order:

• I just bought tickets to see Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain Tonight! presentation this Friday night! H and I will be going. It’s at a beautiful renovated theatre in downtown R-town. And we get to park in H’s work parking lot — what a perk!
• My workplace is encouraging its employees to join Tangerine — a corporate wellness program — that has an online personalized weight goal, a weight tracker, and calorie counter. I log in what I eat and the program totals up the calories eaten and compares the ones spent exercising. Cool, huh? Anyway…it seems to be working for me.
• DH, H and I visited with J and her rat boys last Saturday. Made me miss Carney. It was fun playing with the youngest one of the three — he loved being snuggled and skirtched behind the ears.
• My dad has been having health problems since December, however the doctors are getting their heads together and are coming up with a game plan to put him right again.
• All the months of turning down the Rinnai to the lowest temperature setting to have lukewarm water filling up the washing machine ’cause the cold water filter was all limed up have come to an end! DH used nearly all of his vacation last week working on what’s been broke around the house — and the washing machine was on his list! He even knocked down the cobweb city that was growing in the laundry corner of the basement. My hero!
• Netflixed the first season of Laredo and had some fun watching a show I loved as a kid. Anyone else remember it?
• Finished watching Martin Chuzzlewit on Netflixes “watch it now” feature. Pretty good Dickens, that.
• We are supposed to have rain and ice pellets on Thursday. I really want blue sky and sun. Oops…this list was about the good parts…
• I crocheted a couple covers for the couch pillows…a basketweave pattern…out of the tweedy yarn that once was a simple awful poncho I made. Like I always say — be ruthless when tearing out crochet boo-boos — the yarn is still good for something. Oh and I also made two star-shaped recliner arm covers with it. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” Something like that.
• Easter service at church went well. One young lady sang a special — her older girl at her side…and then the youngest daughter got away from her dad, ran up to the stage, picked up the candle holders on the communion table and turned around to grin during her mom’s solo…
• It IS spring, ice pellets or not…

You too can join!

I did!

I belong to the “Head Cold of the Month” club!!

I fulfilled the requirements of having one head cold a month so far! I had a doozy of a head cold in January. This week (in February!! I am sooo excited) I started on a newer version. It is soo fun!

And it gets better! Another requirement is that you must miss work at least for a day or two! Now who couldn’t use a day off now and then from the old grindstone? Never mind that you only have vacation time to use for those days — now, really — what other vacation plans might you have for later in the year?

This is a fun club! You get to eat chicken and rice soup! You get to take cold medicine. You can even cough your head off!! It gets better: you can also make a mountain out of all the Kleenexes you use!

So don’t wait! JOIN NOW!!!

I could get used to this…

When I was a kid — and I believe the year was 1968 — my folks bought a set of encyclopedias from a door to door salesman. Actually it was two sets: Encyclopedia International and Our Wonderful World. Cream and navy covers. And a two-shelf bookcase.

Oh. wow.

“Now where is that kid?”

“She’s in her room reading.”

…the encyclopedia — not really cover to cover, but if something sparked an interest, I was off and reading. And if my reading sparked another interest, well, I’d read some more. Encyclopedia International was a hard read, but I’d stumble through it; Our Wonderful World was more kid-friendly.

These books were special and I took care of them.

And then I took one to my sixth grade class. It was for some sort of assignment. The annoying girl in the class — who liked to tell me she was my cousin — “Hi coz! I’m your cuzin!! La la la…” — and she was a third cousin (sigh!) — managed to mark several pages with red ink! I was not happy.

So where is this going? Well, today I spent nearly the whole day surfing the net. Yup. Just like the encyclopedia thing. I was able to keep to the subject (genealogy), but there I sat … reading, typing, taking notes, updating my records.

Sad, but it was bliss.

Then this evening DH and I watched the first two episodes of Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes series — A Scandal in Bohemia and The Dancing Men … that was fun too. We watched the whole series on PBS years ago with the girls.

…and speaking of the girls, guess we had a pretty good cookout yesterday. The rain stayed away and the grilling was done by H and DH. The raspberry fluff and peach pie both had their “oops” moments — otherwise I think the food went over well. I am certain I’ll make the Italian chicken again.

Tomorrow DH get his stitches out — so that will make for an early trip to R-town — but the rest of the day is still holiday for me. If I can manage it, I’ll be bringing a bookcase down from upstairs to our bedroom. It will be the new home for part of my CD/DVD collection which is scattered all over the house.

Must…stay…away…from…computer…

Knock! Knock!

“Who’s there?”

“Boo hoo!”

“Boo hoo who?”

“Oh stop yer cryin’”

That would be me doing the boo-hoo-in‘ — ever since I heard a co-worker say she and her daughters were going to Door County, Wisconsin for the holiday.

DH and I just love it there! We spent a few days traipsing up and down the peninsula last year over our 30th wedding anniversary — it was a struggle to make it a real happy time, since it was right after DH had been let go from one job due to budget cuts and right before being officially hired at another place — but we managed somehow.

We stayed at Lull-Abi Inn in Egg Harbor. I guess it’s all in what a person is used to, but we really enjoyed our stay there. Right next door was the Village Cafe — and the breakfast was excellent! I think I had their homemade granola with yogurt and … hmmm, was it strawberries and/or bananas?… and chopped cherry jam and toast every morning. Yum!

We did a lot of the touristy things: went to Washington Island and visited the ostrich farm, took the trolley tour, went to a lighthouse, shopped at Made in Britain Ltd…it was such fun.

Golly! Was that nearly a year ago?! So much has happened since then.

Anyway — in other news, we are staying home for the 4th. We usually go to my folks and celebrate my nephew’s birthday. And until the city moved them to the country club, we used to be able to watch the fireworks from their deck. That was pretty cool for the kids when they were little. Haven’t watched the fireworks for several years though — we just head home because of work the next day. This year though, my department is closed the 4th-6th, which is nice, but having these days off left only the day of and after for Christmas. I expect I’ll be moaning about that later, but for now I’m really liking the days off.

Both J and H will be here for the holiday. I hope to have a cookout sometime during the day — not sure when because they have places to go and friends to see whilst they are here. H suggested BBQd or some kind of Italian marinaded chicken which sounds good to me. DH is the “grill out” man around here, so guess he will be supervising somebody. I hope it is H…