The Big DumpTruck

I have been lax in my writing. I will blame this on something external to myself, as usual. Today, I will blame being lax on a lack of high quality snack foods in my home. I will blame the lack of high quality snack foods on the fact that I detest grocery shopping and haven't gone in a while. I will blame the lack of grocery shopping on getting paid only once a month. I will blame getting paid once a month on my employer. So the fact that I haven't been writing is clearly the fault of The Man.

Based on a phone call I had with [Nameless Person] I am going to try to do better. I know that I can claim to be a "professional" author because of the thyroid-specific articles I have written for Thyroid-Info.com. But what happened to my excitement over the "new" book project that had me out registering domain names in the middle of the night? Lost that energy. So I was rethinking that book and I think I can tweak my approach slightly and still make it work. So I'm going to promise myself and everyone that I will have at least 500 words written by the end of the day Friday. And a minimum of another thousand by the end of the weekend. Of course, by writing that I will find 50 other things that just NEED to get done.

I have to wash my bedspread, for instance. It is covered with dog nose prints. I do not want to sleep with something that smells like a dog. (He probably doesn't want it to smell like a human, but I have opposable thumbs so I win.) I don't think it will fit in my washing machine, so I'll have to actually leave the house to get this thing cleaned. Do you know how much work it's going to be to get my ass to a laundromat? People, please! I'm only human.

Okay, off to find more coffee. These words aren't just going to write themselves.

Labels: chores, dog, writing

And she doesn't even have a cape! Wait, does Wonder Woman wear a cape? ("No capes, dahling")

I entered the danger zone this morning. Lowes. Oh man oh man, it's so unfair that they have so much stuff that I need. Er, want. I went to get some Scott's Step 2 for the lawn. I missed Step 1 for the 10th year in a row. Of course, that's the stuff that I really need. If I kill all the crabgrass, though, the only thing left would be the dandelions, and Step 2 is supposed to kill those. I'd be living on a dirt farm.

Yesterday The Boy, my wonderful awesome child, mowed the front lawn for the first time. I love 11! 11 rules! I get someone to mow my lawn for me for the next 7 or so years! Woot! We only put the Step 2 on the front because the dog has the run of the back yard so we don't treat it with anything. Other than dog waste, that is.

I mowed half of the back yard and The Boy finished it. I also bought a stand for the tabletop grill I got a couple of weeks ago. I'd say I put it together but it was more work to get the packing tape off the box.

Now I'm going to start some tomato seeds in a little "greenhouse" starter kit I bought. I may be starting it all too late, but hey, better late than never. Usually it's never. I'm going to sit and watch them until the tomatoes are done. I'll see you in a couple of months.

Labels: chores, weekend

I am home today because I have an earache and oh, because it's snowing like crazy outside. This is the 15th or 16th straight Monday that we've had a storm of some kind.

Okay, maybe not the 15th or 16th, and certainly not straight, but every storm so far this year, and I count ice storms, too, has happened on a Monday. I know this because we have the "do you think the rubbish guys are going to come today" conversation practically every Sunday night. The one time they did come, I showed you photos of them shooshing all over the street. So far, no trucks today, but I almost didn't expect them.

The other treat is trying to figure out where to place the barrels so that the plows don't knock garbage all over the yard. So you need to put them fairly far down (in case the rubbish truck does show up) but not so far that the snow thrown up by the plow doesn't knock it over. It's a delicate balance.

Personally, I'm ready for the next storm to be on a day other than Monday. Let some other part of Leominster deal with wondering if they should put out the rubbish.

Labels: chores, snow, weather

With NaNoWriMo over, I'm trying to catch up on all the other stuff I've been putting off. I have to do Christmas cards (maybe...I'm getting really bad about them) and our annual Christmas calendar (which requires a little more work than I've had time for).

I am also still going through all the Disney photos from October...slowly, ever so slowly.

Here's another one for you, because you've been patient. If you like this one, there are a few more like it over in my flickr photostream.

Labels: chores, Disney, photos

Mr Dump and Junior are painting the downstairs bathroom right now. I wonder who will be alive at the end of the day?

The reason for the painting? Well, it's tied to the living room, if you can believe it. We bought a couch yesterday (what, you didn't spend black Friday looking for a couch?) and the color they are painting the bathroom is the test for the color we eventually want to paint the living room and this is sort of a test of the color. That room needed painting anyway (the whole house does) so this is a good test. It's a kind of almond color - I think this means I get to go shopping for new curtains, don't you think?

We got a couch because the old one is just beat to hell. The arm is broken, the cushions have lost their cush, and the whole thing is just starting to look ratty. It is 9 years old - we bought it when Junior turned one, and we decided to just get something relatively inexpensive given that a toddler would be destroying it. And it lived through Phantom's puppy years, too. I think we're lucky it lasted as long as it did, to be honest.

So anyway, we have not put up the tree yet because the guys deliver the couch on Tuesday and that will be one less thing they have to work around. In the meantime, we are trying to clean the hell out of the downstairs, which should take the rest of the weekend given my complete disinterest in cleaning right now. In fact, to avoid having to clean the downstairs, I actually was cleaning upstairs. I have two garbage bags full of clothes to donate the Ginny's, a garbage bag of clothes to throw away, and I put away all my shorts and summer pants. And that is just my stuff. I will maybe think about doing Junior's stuff in the next few days or weeks. It's not like his stuff will fit next summer anyway. I probably need to locate all the shoes he's outgrown too.

Oh, so as for Black Friday, I was very proud of myself. We did not leave the house until almost noon. We went and grabbed a bite to eat and then went to Target to buy stuff we needed. I got some new socks, replenished my vitamin collection, got mouthwash, and bought a big snowflake to hang on the front door (I need to figure out the best way to plug it in, and then I'll take a photo for you). I think the only impulse buy, other than the snowflake which wasn't completely an impulse buy) was a small sewing machine. I have never owned one. I don't know if that's because I don't need one, or if I think I don't need one because I don't own one. But this was one of those "hey, if you need to sew a quick hem, you can do it" kind of sewing machine, and it was on sale for $10. I think for ten dollars I will attempt to sew something with it. I am wearing a pair of my new socks right now and they are delightful. For the record, ladies, if you have trouble finding socks that don't cut off the circulation because your lower legs aren't stick thin, Target has a whole line of very cool socks that fit wonderfully. I will try to take a photo of those, too, so that you will know what kind of socks I'm talking about. I love them.

Labels: chores, house, shopping, socks

Yesterday was laundry day around Casa Des DumpTrucks. I think I personally did 375 loads of laundry. I know that there were parts of the floor I hadn't seen in months that are now part of the family again.

We celebrated laundry day by, um, doing laundry. We also took in a showing of The Simpsons (only a couple of iffy words, I was more concerned about the content of the preview for Good Luck Chuck, or whatever it's called, which seemed to me to be more R than PG-13, given that the entire thing was about sex) and got some shampoo at Target. (Pantene, I got the one that has shampoo and conditioner combined because I'm so damned lazy that I cannot be bothered to do them both if it involves flipping the cap on two different bottles. I haven't done a 2-in-1 shampoo since Pert was first introduced in the Middle Ages and I hated how greasy it made my hair.)

Oh, okay, we also celebrated laundry day by playing a round of Travel Blokus (tip 'o the hat to utterwonder.com for bringing Blokus to my attention) and Mario Party 8 on the Wii. And then I ended laundry day by pretending I had enough money to buy a wide angle lens for my camera. (Anyone have an opinion on the Sigma 10-20mm? Is it too slow to use indoors?)

Okay, so I added a script to the page that will automatically turn key terms into Amazon.com links. Let's see how much of the above ends up sending you all on shopping sprees...

Labels: camera, chores, fun, shopping, Sunday