life the universe and everything

Hello again. I find myself home alone for a few hours, with just the cat and I say to myself, hey! I can use the computer, so I get ready to set up my computer scrabble and then I realize I could actually blog, so here I am! Today has been an intense day, egg day. To explain, we have dinner theatre here, which is a community event. I already put in my 5 or 6 hour shift of kitchen duty last weekend. I haven't done that for a few years. Every spring, I volunteer to make 144 devilled eggs. Every year I try to make them better, make the process faster, easier, neater. One of my few goals in life, hey? I start at 9 a.m.; they are wanted by 3 p.m. Today I had good peelers, I was actually done by 1:30 p.m. This time I checked the internet (much as I wish books were everything, I do really appreciate the instantaneousness of the internet) and found a way of cooking the eggs that was a bit different. They call for 9 min. I had to do a bit longer, because of the quantities, but it was quite accurate. I was amazed. It may have helped. I just think I had really good eggs today. One year I had desperately terrible ones, swore I would never ever do this again, but the lady who asks me said, "oh you will" and of course I do. Never let the eggs win!!! Over the years it gets easier, I acquired a lovely pampered chef tool that lets me dispense the filling in a very controlled and beautiful manner. I now know that the eggs will sit still on wax paper when I am filling them. I know that used croissant boxes are just the right size (this year I messed up, didn't eat any croissants until a couple weeks ago, and even then forgot that I needed the boxes, although I did keep it. I also used two clean cardboard boxes and a tupperware pie keeper. All my rectangular and flat tupperwares are currently busy in the freezer. I know which knives I prefer to cut with and that a damp paper towel is good for wiping out the interior shell of the egg in case you have that greenish stuff. I have somehow never managed to master eggs that don't oxidize. I think it is because there are so many and it takes so long. I think if you did them quickly, they would be fine. My new steamer also cooks eggs, but only half dozen or so. I suspect I will be making potato salad this weekend with the remains. I always make extra, for Bruce, as they are one of his favorites. Usually I cook 9 dozen, in order to get 6 doz that are perfect, but today for some reason I only cooked 7 or so. So there are about a dozen in the fridge for Bruce, and some chopped up ones that are either going into potato salad or egg salad. It really did go well today, Bron likes to peel and helped me when she got up at lunchtime, so she peeled a couple dozen for me. The only major problem today, and I look on it as a challenge, is that my sink is bunged up. I tried chemicals over the last couple weeks and finally Bruce bought a snake (thing to unplug drains) yesterday, but he wound up making it worse. Now the sinks won't drain at all and I suspect I won't be able to use the dishwasher for awhile either till it is fixed. The plumber was called last night, but of course, not home and not terrible reliable at calling back. It's good to be the only show in town. So today I did many dishpans of dishes where I dumped the dirty water into the toilet. I used to think that dishwashers wasted water, but I dumped a lot of full dishpans and didn't do that many dishes. AT least we have hot water and all the other drains are okay. Could be much much worse. Can't imagine what would have happened if the water had been shut off for instance. I guess the thing to do would be to go to the hall and do it there, but not the same as being in your own house with your own stuff. Today I did a bit different. I usually use miracle whip, yellow prepared mustard, sometimes sour cream or a bit of extra vinegar to give bite. Sometimes I make my own mayo, but I really think you need the tang of miracle whip. When I do my own mayo, I have to add something acidic for the tang. I don't think it is as good. And because you are making it for public, I feel you have to use pasteurized eggs if you are making a dressing from raw eggs and the boxed eggs cost as much as the miracle whip, so you may as well stick to that. Anyway this internet thing had a dash of worcestershire sauce in, so I tried that this year, plus I also added dry mustard. I think they were very nice this year. This time I did the filling in batches. Instead of one huge bowlful and trying to get it all smooth enough, etc. I did three batches in the mixer. I think that was less messy overall. Although the house reeks of egg now.

I went out around 2 to take these eggs, and to go to the lib and make posters. My assistant called the other day and quit, as of now, got another part time job in a correctional institution. Pay is way better. I must say I am dying of curiousity as to what he will do there. I can't say I blame him. He calls himself semi-retired. I am assuming that is what our generation will have to do, who will be able to just quit work and live on pension. Everyone at work who has retired from the rank and file in the past couple of years has gone on to find part time work. Can't live on their pensions. Makes me wonder what us part-timers will do. Work till we die, I figure. I think my pension at this point will pay for a loaf of bread, a stick of butter and a box of milk.

I was feeling quite downheartened at first.My assistant was just getting past the stage of making lots of mistakes, etc. Now I have to start over. And if it is as hard to get any applicants as last time....I live in fear. No one wants to work for three hours or so a week. I really liked when I had a retired lady, had her for two years. She was just fine, until her arthritis did her in and she had a hard time holding the books...My eyesight is getting worse, I am having a harder time reading the tags on the spines. Some are faded out, but I know I need stronger reading glasses. I find I can't even cook now without them. Can't read the backs of things for instructions, can't read the fine print recipe books. Blarg, middle age!

I find myself ignoring stuff when I can't read it easily. Have to be quite frustrated before I will go dig up the reading glasses. I think when they go on sale in Costco in April, I will buy lots and stash them all over. I already have one at my sewing table, one for the house and one in my purse and a weaker pair at my city work. I don't need them often there, must be the bright flourescents. I do find I need them at work when I am on the desk, for phone books and maps and such. So I plan to get a pair and stash them there, even though I am only on the desk so rarely.

Another Murphy's law thing. When I get extra shifts, work weekends, I complain that I am too busy. When I just work my normal shifts, seems like I don't have enough work. I notice the weekends just go though, even when I am not working. I had figured with weekends off, we could go visiting once the winter storms stopped. Could visit friends, could do stuff and what do I find myself doing on my weekends off? laundry, usually, housecleaning. This house is so dreadful. Year of neglect plus a kid who does not pick up after herself AT ALL. I got home at 5 today, after delivering posters, getting groceries, making sure everything was done. I come into the house for a well deserved rest. The kid had tickets to a home and garden show and wanted to go, so convinced her dad to take her and a friend. Strange outing for a 16 year old but she went last year and enjoyed it. Hmmm. Lots of people from work wanted to go. Might be nice if one had the cash to work on the home and garden....Anyway I come home and there are the pj pants, stepped out of in the middle of the living room, the laundry I folded for her last weekend, the dirty lunch dishes, the piles of other stuff she owns....EVERYWHERE! There is not a room in this house without her mark on it, except perhaps the room we use as a guest room/ office and i am pretty sure I could find stuff in there too if I looked.

I have this horrible desire to get my house in order and this horrible dread that tells me it will never happen. I am hoping with kids home this summer we could all work together, as I am never going to get it done on my own. As a matter of fact, right now I should be going through digital files, looking for photos to print as Costco has a coupon deal right now. And it is on my list of stuff to do soon. Trouble with digi cam is the photos are too easy to neglect. I want the instant gratification of seeing them on screen right away, but I also still want to have albums to page through later. Who knows what will happen to the ones in the computer. Even on the discs. A person needs to pick the best ones and put them on archival discs.

My uncle has 8 mm film of me as a baby and my parents (that was one thing my mother never got a chance to clip herself out of ) and I would love to have it. He did finally get it on videotape I believe, but won't send me a copy.....sigh. I know he wants us to visit in order to see it. I know we should go. Maybe later this spring....

I know that when they inter Grandma's ashes, there will be some kind of family thing. This is the other side of my family but the same area, so not far to go for a visit. Usually there isn't enough time to do both. Another rant of mine, the great "not enough time to spend with loved ones who live elsewhere" thing. We keep putting it off and next thing you know they are dead. I guess I feel so used up by my life. Seems all I can do to phone the oldest daughter once/week. Hadn't even called or seen Dad in a couple weeks here. Finally managed a call last night. Talked to the son one night, briefly. He is hard to get ahold of. I guess I should realize that if I have any energy at bedtime, that is when to get ahold of him. After ten. The daughter is two hours ahead, so early a.m. is best on weekends. By the time I get home during the week, she is often already in bed.....Don't know what I will do when the youngest goes. Or even if she starts dating. The house is already too quiet most of the time anymore. Two middle aged people and a barfing cat, that is who lives here most of the time.

okay well I could go on and on forever, as you well know. So I will wind this up. Today I am thankful for sunlight!!!!Yes, the sun!!!!!a Bit of springy weather and some light in this place. Seems to have been very dark lately. I am grateful for Harry Potter audio books and all the other good books that I have been reading lately. I am thankful that perhaps later I can have a lovely hot bubble bath!!! and the water will go down the drain on it's own. Truly a miracle. I can remember bathing in a galvanized metal tub, as a little kid, with my uncle and aunts, as they too were little kids. My grandparents didn't have any running water until a few months before they moved out of the house. That makes me feel ancient when I read what I have typed. My best friend's folks only had one cold water tap into their porch, so they also used the outhouse and such. They didn't move into a house with plumbing till after we graduated and left home .wow. The other day some of the ladies at the dinner theatre were talking about party lines. Now I remember that well. My friend and I always got told by the neighbours to get off the line. Just imagine today's cell phone toting teens coping with that???My daughter doesn't like using outhouses when camping even. Makes you think.

Yesss indeedy, thankful for indoor plumbing, toilet paper, kleenex, the internet, my cell phone and lovely direct lines. Not to mention movies you can see at home on your tv. Funny to think that it wasn't always like this. The oldest one keeps saying that on her birthday she will be closer to 30 than 20. I just laugh, but yeah, having a 25 year old, who was around when there was no VCR or any of that stuff, is also making me feel older.

However, I am still incredibly grateful for my three lovely and talented kids, who continue to amaze me. who knew it could be so much fun, shoulda had the fourth one as per the original plan. Probably could not have coped however. Three seemed to be just right. Funny coming from parents who only have one sibling between us.

Okay, going to play scrabble now and defeat the evil computer scrabble player. I am also grateful for that. My mother always wanted people to play with. I prefer people, but will take the computer as a poor substitute (after all, it can play four games in a row and not complain,even when I win!)
D.

feel better now

Okay just got off the phone, I don't feel quite so bad about it, because apparently the city is also a sheet of ice. One of the women lives in the south end, takes the same route as I do into work most of the time and she said that the whole thing was bad. Very icy. So obviously no one is surprised I called in...gack, just so sick of this. It is so time to be spring.
Anyway guess this gives me carte blanche to go and start the laundry, yay! (too bad you can't hear sarcasm on the net...) Actually I think I will throw a load of towels in, then come and challenge my computer scrabble game. It's bad when you are glad your spouse is in bed so you can get the computer....how things change. Although I can't deny part of me would like to go burrow under the covers again with my book....guess I should just bite the bullet and get going on my day. All my days off are the same, housework, housework and more housework. Steal some time to read or sit in the tub. Maybe today I will give myself a real treat and watch a movie in the afternoon. After all, have to fold laundry anyhow....wish my back didn't hurt. Makes sitting here kinda painful. I think it is better when I am on my feet. Should go for a walk later, I wonder if the streets here are icy? I am surprised the city wasn't sanded yet.
Okay, definately done now. I love how I can use this blog to get things off my chest. Otherwise I think I would explode. I suppose it is the same concept as keeping a journal or diary, when people act like the diary is a person who is reading the letter. I am assuming no one is reading these very often, but there is always the potential of someone reading them. I don't know why that matters at all. Somehow it makes you feel more validated by the thought that someone out there might care. Although the things I write here are purely personal and not interesting to anyone. Weird. like writing a diary and leaving it out for someone to find. Like here are my thoughts, my private thoughts, don't read them, but okay, you found them so go ahead.....I am sure some psychologist could make something out of this....

I mean, my kids blogs are pretty much just a way to communicate with their relatives in a bulk fashion. My son uses his in a cathartic way, as I do, I think he uses it to gather his thoughts, or perhaps just whine about how much work he has to do and how he chooses his essay topics....I read it anyway, gives me a window into his head. He is so much like me, it is sometimes weird to read what he writes. Although he is so unlike me, in terms of being a young man. Nothing effeminate about that kid. I think I can understand him better when he lets me see what he is thinking. I can see that right now he is totally stressed about school and ready to be done for the year. He is thinking of moving home for awhile, so that will be interesting. I guess I will need to find someplace to put him... we have a big house but the whole thing is full of junk. I have this great plan when the kids are home this summer that we can go through and purge. I often have these thoughts, but I really really mean it this time. I hate to take time off work to do housework, but I think that is the only way it will ever get done. Taking time off means I have no money to do anything anyway.

Not too nuts about losing today's wages. I have lost about 4 shifts worth this winter already (3 due to weather and 1 due to cancellation) and my schedule is reduced in the first place. I mean, I am really happy to have this weekend off but my wages will be pathetic. You can't have it both ways, I guess, time or money, pick one. somehow I never have enough of both, though. Guess today I will be grateful for the opportunity to see my kid a few hours earlier than usual. yay.
D

not again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot frickin' believe this! I HATE HATE HATE this weather! Oh yeah, it is lovely outside, just a few degrees below zero, a few lovely flakes of snow falling quietly outside. The wind seems down, after blowing all night. and here I sit again--the highway a sheet of ice, according to the hotline. Bruce is sick today, otherwise I would have just got up and obediantly gotten in the car and we would have somehow made it because he is great that way. Now I have to decide what to do (eg. just before getting dressed, I checked the computer again to see if it had gotten better and it had gotten worse....)The storm missed us yesterday, I was so glad, there was only the wind, followed by a covering of snow on the car when the wind went down. I was not anticipating this. The chunk of highway that is just south of the city, is always worse, that one is labelled travel not recommended, but I was thinking, it is only ten miles, surely I can manage that. But now that the most recent update is that the rest of the highway is ice covered, makes me wimp out again. I thought icy patches was bad enough. Now is a sheet of ice again and I have to sit here and wait and see if it gets better....really I am sitting and waiting to for the time when I can call work and someone will be there to answer the phone.....AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! (I had such a nice hot bubble bath that was waiting for me too, this a.m. but I had to get out fast and get ready for work; I let it all go down the drain, sigh!) My back has been hurting for a week, some days worse than others. Before that it was my neck and shoulder...my shoulder for about a month or so for whatever reason. I am thinking maybe I did something to it in a vigorous aquacize class. My foot problem comes and goes, funny how the back thing makes me not notice the foot thing.....I think the back thing is from too much sitting and sitting improperly at work here. The chair is too big for me, and although I put a pillow behind my back, I tend to perch and then the desk area is set up for reaching and stretching. My chair swivels but has developed this horrid shreiking squeal when it swivels, this past couple weeks, so I wonder if I am somehow making my back swivel and not the chair, so as to avoid the earsplitting shreik. I have WD-40'd everything I can see under there, but I am starting to think the noisy part is sealed in a rubber thing. GAck, such small miseries in the grand scheme of things but I am wallowing in the discomfort of my life today.

I should have left for work ten min ago....I can still make it in time for my program if I leave before 9.....I will wait half an hour and then check the hotline again, but I don't anticipate any good change. Then I will call work, where I have a newish, temporary boss, who is very kind and understanding (as opposed to being screamed at, I know she will be kind on the phone, but I feel so guilty) I have already missed more work this year than any other. I am just so scared of ice.

Last week it was so nice, dry highways, and the streets were wet but it was too warm to be icy. Our mountains of snow disappeared like magic over the course of the last few days...I drove all over with nary a care. Silly me to start relaxing. I knew winter isn't over yet. I actually wish it was blizzarding, then I would feel like I had a legitimate excuse.

The other thing is that my co-worker and I have hardly seen each other this month, imbetween me missing days due to bad roads and her son being sick and then she was sick. We managed to see each other on tuesday for a couple hours to discuss some stuff and now here we go again. I am so falling behind in my work. I hate this time of year. Why can't we just go to spring?

Okay this is a big enough rant. Not sure what I can feel thankful for today, other than the safe warm home and the computer to keep me company. I may have to play some computer scrabble to take out my frustration.
May life improve tommorrow.
D.

i'm such a wimp

I am sitting here at my computer when I should be halfway to work by now. The sun is shining and I feel like such a loser. You see, what happened is this. This a.m. I decided that sleep and the desire to exercise for cheap was much more important that going in with B at 6:45, and killing time until lunchtime....I figure the gas costs is about equal to what I probably would have spent on food etc. so I figured today I would take myself in. B gets done two hours before me today, so I had originally thought he would come home, make supper and pack, so that when I got home we would be ready to leave for the farm. Never mind that last night we decided to wait till Sat to go.

Okay so that is the background. Now the story. B calls at 8:15 and says, if you go, leave an hour early. So I plan to do that. Figure I have time to get back from exercises, change and hop in car and go. So when I leave for exercises, I see that the loose snow is blowing all around and it is icy underfoot, so I am rather reluctant to go to work today. But keep in mind I blew it off last week due to blowing snow and bad visibility. Okay, so while at exercises, the instructor mentions that she is leaving at noon, no appointment or anything but she MUST get some shopping done for this rally this weekend. Okay, so then the nurse, who comes from Pense, through Regina and out here, comes in and she says it is not so bad. Mind you, an older lady tells me her son just came in and told her there is cop car on it's lid out there....B had already told me about a jacknifed semi. I assumed it was the same one we saw last night, but no, actually this is a different one.

Okay, so the sun comes out, and I figure, if the nurse, who says she went 70-100k all the way says the visibility is not so bad, most of the time, that I can do this. So I go home, change clothes, and set out. Yeah it is a solid sheet of ice when I leave town, but it was worst at this point last night too. I am gliding along quite smoothly and slowly, noticing that there are NO other vehicles on the highway. The radio is telling me that there is bad highways by S'toon, and on the number one, but no where do they say anything about the one I am on. In fact, I had checked the highway hotline just before i left, and it had just been updated minutes before and sounded like it was better than this a.m., so I felt quite righteous in my decision to go. (Not to mention did NOT want to call in two weeks in a row...!) The highway improved a bit and I am going along, when I realize that the approaching vehicle is driving on the shoulder, then I realize that the whole bloody highway is a solid thick glossy piece of ice! I slowed myself right down, got onto the shoulder and made the executive decision to turn around and go home! There was a highway truck waiting at the junction to turn the other way, so I turned also and made my way carefully along the shoulder. Then got passed by a half dozen vehicles and thought to myself, you are such a wimp!!!!!So I moved back onto the road when it got better and was thinking maybe I should not have turned around, but now of course it would be too late (as storytime starts at 1:15 and I start at 1, there is no leeway there for being late)

Anyway as I got closer to town again, back onto another solid sheet of ice, I met three cop cars leaving town, a few min. apart. So I think that should tell me that they are out there rescuing people, one of which is not me. I think I made the right decision. I would have been mega stressed by the time I got there. If I got there. It just didn't seem worth 5 hrs of wages....! But I felt really guilty, as this happened last week. Last week I was okay with it, as B called in, and I sure wasn't going to go if he didn't! If he thinks it is bad, it is really bad. I didn't take Bron to her appt on Wed, because he said it was terrible. I figured we could make another appt...

I called work right away, but of course, the boss had gone out for lunch, so I told someone else what a wimp I was. Luckily I had all the stuff ready so my boss can take over, as she did last week. Last week I actually felt kinda crappy, so took it as sick. Today will have to be a holiday day. Except I don't feel much like a holiday. The house is a mess but I don't feel inclined to do much about it. Maybe plan a nice supper....for a change. Bron told her sister that "fend for yourself day"(which has always been tuesday night) has turned into fend for yourself week, which turned into fend for yourself month. I was a bit insulted as I usually have something in the crock pot on wednesdays and am usually home to make supper on mondays.Thursdays can be bad, as I work all day. She works a couple days over suppertime also, so has to feed herself before she goes to work. I do admit that I seldom cook and that friday is always pizza or other frozen thing night. Last night we didn't get back till past 8 as I now work till 6 (although I think that might change in April) and we had the misfortune to be out of bread and milk so had to go groc shopping last night. I don't usually let us run out of stuff, but I just feel kind of overwhelmed lately. I am so sick of having to care about the weather every single bloody day.

Monday I worked a night shift because someone was desperate for help and actually I had been signed up for Thu night as well. Luckily I found out Wed. night that Thu night was cancelled. I don't honestly think I would have had the energy for it last night. The roads were icy coming home too, which I had not anticipated( B driving thank goodness). I had worried about visibility, and when B and I went in on the thu. a.m it was quite nasty in places, mostly from meeting vehicles. It had snowed quite a lot on Wed and was still snowing when we got up. Can't bloody win. stopped snowing and now we have ice. I suppose this is what it is like in the east and the middle states. Personally I liked it better when it was 30 below.....at least then the roads are good. We have had so much wind and this place, well, it is the flattest bloody place I have ever lived. When there is any snow at all, it just blows. There hasn't been much this year so I guess we are lucky really. I think that we have this mentality over the last few decades that we can just go about and do whatever we like and carry on our normal life, no matter what the winter does. I mean, we have not had winters like in the past, although my dad says there were a lot of mild years then too. Maybe we just remember the really bad ones. You know, we all have photos of ourselves in the early 60's standing on drifts as high as the house....or the roads being totally buried in snow, where they had to cut lanes of snow, where it was piled higher than the vehicles. You never see that now. In 1978, I was off school for a week, snowed in. I saw a house the other day with windows like the ones we had in our house, where the panes are horizontal, our windows were about 3 or 4 feet tall and divided into 4 panes, like a sandwich. That year the snow came up to the 3rd pane (eg. only the top pane was bare) in our kitchen. Our van was completely buried outside. Dad had to climb up out of the house to get out. I remember that I was in gr. 12 and my aunt and her baby were staying. The baby was sick and after the blizzard, men had to come on snowmobiles 15 miles with the medicine. I can remember Dad standing on the drifts outside my bedroom (hedges completely buried) and the men reaching down to where he was standing on top of the hedges, which were about 4 ft. tall...My camera had gotten wrecked. Don't know about mum and dad's camera, maybe out of film. But afterwards, I borrowed the schools camera and I made a few prints, black and white, of course of the snow pack when the van got dug out, etc. I suppose all those negatives are someplace. A person should really get prints made from them. Do a scrapbook.

I think perhaps, seeing as I have been given the afternoon off, that I might just play several games of scrabble with that bitchy computer partner I play with (not a real person, the computer player), who cheats. Sometimes I win, but not much lately. Sometimes it is close. Bron got it for herself at Xmas, but I really enjoy it. She says I am addicted, but no, my husband, now he is an addict. He plays games for entire days. I am lucky to get 15-20 minutes alone with this thing in a day. Been wanting to play all week, so I think I will. I used to do solitaire sometimes. I am no good at that either. I usually figure if I can't win in three tries....I usually play three games in a row, or till I win....same with the scrabble if I have time. Usually I just play three and give up.

Anyway if my eyes are not totally square by then, maybe I will do like I wanted to do before xmas and try to pick photos off the computer to get put on an archival disc and decide which ones to print. That is a project I never find time for. When I do have time, I don't have computer access. Should do laundry, but maybe I will leave it till Monday as planned.

gaack here I am, a huge long blog again! good thing nobody reads it. I must admit I feel better now. My boss called back and she is so nice about it. My previous boss would have shouted and gone ballistic and said I was doing it just to make his life miserable. Sometimes he would apologize later. I think they all realize that it is better safer than sorry. They wouldn't want to see you dead trying to get to work. But I always have this thing hanging over my head, because when I was hired I think there was a certain amount of prejudice because I am a commuter. Never mind that there were times I got into work when city folk were stuck in their streets. There was a time I got in, didn't realize the street was closed, my co-workers couldn't get in by taxi or bus, but I made it. Mind you, had a much bigger car then, just steamrollered through the drifts. I usually do miss a couple of days a year from weather, usually in the spring. I am terrified of ice. This year, I think I have missed three days. I always feel like I am letting people down. Sometimes I wish I had a nice little job where I could just call in sick and not feel guilty. B's work waits for him. Not that he often calls in sick. I keep telling myself that it is bad to drag yourself in when you are sick. Your co-workers would rather have you home...I guess the thing is, that a person has so much low-grade, in general feeling crappy but not crappy enough to not go to work....This week my body has been complaining, feet, knees, shoulders, etc. Makes you feel like you are falling apart....Feel better today, but of course, here I sit at my very uncomfortable computer chair....I should go change back into house clothes.....maybe make a cup of tea and then beat that scrabble game good and proper.... I guess today I am thankful for sunshine, which always makes me feel better, having the sense to turn around, guilt-ridden or not, I am warm and dry and safe now. It is my mother in laws birthday today and I am extremely grateful for having her in my life. I will call her later. She is one special lady and I am very grateful she is here for another birthday. She is still herself and anticipates our visit, as we do. That is a major thing to be grateful for! I really think that life is made up of these little tiny things, smiles and laughter and shiny floors and goofy cats and all sorts of little things that make you feel good. There are big things, like getting a job, or getting married or whatever, but it is the little things that sustain you. I think friends are a big thing and a little thing. I am so grateful for them too. Now I sound like one of those horrible forwards in my email. But I Really do appreciate hugs and friendship and little babies and roses. I just really hate goofy forwards about them, particularly when they insist I send them on or bad stuff will happen. Really hate those. Okay, done ranting now. Going to go turn on that kettle and change clothes...take care out there in the world, winter is a nasty place and spring is still not really quite around the corner (in spite of predictions of plus temps in the next few days which will result in lots of water with no place to go, not to mention mud and slush. I hope April gets here soon....)
Take care, love D