Today, I am doing laundry. It is not my usual laundry day. My usual laundry day is Monday, but I decided to switch it up, change my world (ok, I’m really not that sad, this wasn’t a dramatic change.) I decided to do laundry today for a couple of reasons. First, because I haven’t done laundry in awhile. Second, because by doing laundry today I can do something fun or meaningful or interesting or constructive on Monday. I haven’t done laundry in awhile because I completely forgot to do laundry last Monday (and not because I was doing something constructive).

I love to nap during NASCAR. There is something about the noise that puts me right out. Plus, Sunday afternoon is the perfect nap time. The super NASCAR fan would be very offended that I sleep during the race, but, I’m giving them ratings, right? Today, I was just settling in, when the announcers woke me up. I put the pillow over my head. I was dozing off when Tess approached. She jumped on me to lie down, but something was wrong, where was my head? She peered under the pillow and meowed at me. I couldn’t help but laugh.

I went to the library today. That may seem like a small accomplishment, but it’s been ages since I made it to the library. And, it was an extremely efficient library visit. I found a great parking spot, but it had an hour time limit. Well, I conquered that one, was finished in 30 minutes having picked out four books. As I have said before, it’s the little things.

Cleared a little more brush from the yard, mostly without incident. I did stick a thorn into my thumb that. It didn’t hurt that much, but there was lots of blood.

I went to Lowe’s the other day and picked up some paint chips. As I lay them on the floor, it is interesting how few go with the carpet. The ones that match look strikingly the same as the current color of the walls. Funny how things look differently in the store. I’m not sure where the painting desire is coming from anyway. Painting downstairs would mean painting every room since everything is connected. Hmmm… maybe, I could do a bathroom to get it out of my system. What I really need to do is caulk and paint the baseboards.

I think I need to reevaluate my mail sorting method. My current method is to throw most everything on the floor and go through it once a week or so. Oh, I’m not completely foolish. Bills go into a drawer and netflix movies go on top of the dvd player, but everything else on the floor. Maybe, I should get some fine sorting shelf or cabinet and put the mail into little compartments. However, it hardly seems worth it since I end up pitching most of it anyway. I like holding on to it for a bit just in case.

Just finished my weekly or bi-weekly or whenever the hell I feel like it exercise of adding titles to my Netflix queue. My method is to watch the previews and add whatever looks remotely interesting. It is a good method, it works for me and I see a lot of movies that I normally wouldn’t consider. Of course, there have been some lemons, most movies look good in previews, but the good outweigh the bad. I now have 122 DVDs in my queue. Currently at the bottom is “Broken English.” I wonder how long before I am watching that one.

I wish that I could dance. I’m not talking about anything complicated. I’m not taking about Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance (is there really a show called that? I don’t really watch those things.). Anyway, I’m not talking about that. I just wish that I could do a simple 2-step across the floor, any floor. But, I lack that one element needed for dancing. No, I’m not talking about rhythm, although I’m a little short of that. Dancing, even badly done, needs a partner and I don’t know how to find one of those.

Snow, glorious snow. I know I have written about snow before, but that was pitiful snow, a couple of inches gone by morning. Finally, we had a snow storm. I admit that I was skeptical when they called for up to a foot. The office was closed early on Friday (which meant working at home for me), but there was little or no precipitation in the air. However, this morning I woke up to a sea of white and it’s still snowing. I went out and took pictures, but I feel no desire to move the car until it melts.

I have to go to the bathroom, I announce to no one in particular. I live alone, except for my cat and she only cares about my movements when she is sitting on my lap. I think the tendency to announce my actions stems from growing up in a house with only one bathroom. You needed to let everyone know, in case someone else had a more urgent need. This was especially important when taking a shower or a bath. “I’m going to take a bath now,” was often followed by “wait, I have to go to the bathroom first.”

Finally did my taxes. Of course, being me, it was a bit of an ordeal. The actual figuring out the taxes was easy using TurboTax. But, then, I decided to mail it in instead of e-file since I am cheap and don’t want to pay. The form will not print. Oops, my printer has not worked since I got my new hard drive. I try re-installing drives, troubleshooting, nothing. I connect the printer to my work computer, same result. Finally, I remembered the never used printer that came with my computer. It’s a cheap thing, but it did the job.

Watched Gandhi last night. Great movie. Well, more like a mini-series than a movie, since it’s over three hours long. Those kinds of tales always make me wish that I had something to believe in, something to fight for like that. However, I also wonder if I would be strong enough to do it. I may be inspired to fast a bit today, couldn’t hurt, might help.

It’s hard to go back to work on Tuesday. I think it’s difficult to have a day off when most are working. I always feel like I have to catch up on Tuesdays.

Venture onto match.com. Scary place. Try to set up a username and password, can’t register that email address. Hmmm… seems I already have a username and password. Not the first time I have gone down this path. The pictures are all mugshots, horrible. I’m not looking for someone gorgeous; I know I can’t expect that, but human would be nice. They aren’t that hideous, the photos are just awful. It’s hard to be attracted to a man who thinks that is a good representation of him. Find one prospect, theater major, lives with two poodles. Do you think he’s gay?

I was talking to someone about the match.com environment and how, for the most part, the men have awful photos. She said it is because men don’t care about their appearance. Not sure I believe that. But, if they don’t care about their appearance then how come their all looking for supermodels? I hate to break it to them, but there aren’t a lot of supermodels on match.com and if there are, they certainly aren’t going to look twice at a mug like that. I actually did find one prospect who looked human, who sounded intelligent. I’m sure he’s taken.

I went to enter my words this morning and on the homepage was one of my entries. It was a bit of a surprise to see my words staring me in the face. I had never seen one of my writings there, didn’t even imagine that it could happen. Interestingly, it was an entry about writing. Are the homepage passages assigned randomly?

I just noticed a grammatical error in yesterday’s entry. Argh. I hate that. I have all my 100 words entries in a word doc to making counting easier and to minimize errors. Guess I missed (at least) one.

I had a dream that I was watching Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart wasn’t in the dream; we were just watching her on television. Is that the best my subconscious can come up with? Something that I could do in the real world? The funny thing is that I don’t even watch Martha Stewart. Hmmm… maybe Martha is trying to tell me something. Can’t imagine what that could be. I need to decoupage something? Need to bake a pie? Please, Martha, come back, come back, your message is unclear. Maybe, I should look up Martha Stewart on those dream interpretation sites.

I haven’t been eating very well lately. Nothing sounds good to me. I go to the store and nothing catches my eye, so I just buy the same old stuff. When I get it home, I don’t eat it because it doesn’t sound good to me. Even chocolate and ice cream doesn’t hold much attraction these days (hard to believe). Mostly, I eat one meal a day, because I am so hungry that I figure I need to eat something. Wait, maybe this is somehow connected to the Martha Stewart dream. Is Martha trying to help me expand culinary experience?

Just watched a truly awful movie, sometimes my method of choosing movies based solely on the preview can backfire. It was called “The last sin eater.” I found out later that it was a Christian movie. Now, I am not a Christian, but I don’t have anything against Christians. And, it wasn’t the Christian part of the movie that made it awful, rather the acting, the writing, the cinematography (despite the pretty scenery), just pretty much everything. I lost interest about 15 minutes in, but I watched the whole thing, that way maybe I’ll remember not to rent it again.

I was thinking about my post regarding nothing sounding good to eat. There is one exception to this, bacon. Bacon always sounds good to my, so as a result I am eating way too much of it. I never used to ever buy bacon; I would confine my bacon eating to an occasional bacon cheeseburger. But, lately, ever trip to the store seems to include bacon. To makes things worse, I usually have eggs with my bacon. Eggs, scrambled in bacon grease. Afterwards, I feel slightly sick, but that doesn’t deter me from eating it again and again and again.

I am always writing. When I am not putting words down on paper (or computer), I am composing them in my head, reworking them before writing them down. I have this story I have been working on forever (must be at least a year). Sentences and scenes occur in my head throughout the day. I try to repeat them, so as not to forget before I can permanently record. Sometimes, I go to write them down and they are already there. I also go over my words before speaking, sometimes it’s hard to remember whether they were spoken or not.

Car in front of me has license plate reading, “LEXUS.” Yes, it is a Lexus (although not a very stylish one). If you drive a Lexus, why do you need a license plate that reads Lexus? Are you worried people won’t notice? On the other hand, I saw the license plate and I didn’t notice the Lexus in front of me (until I checked to see whether the car with the Lexus plate was a Lexus), so perhaps they are worried that the world is populated with folks like me and they need to make sure their Lexus is seen.

March Madness time. One of the best times of the year. I don’t watch as much basketball as I used to, but I still love the tournament. A colleague laments that his bracken is already busted. I explain how I stopped participating in serious pools because I wasn’t enjoying the tournament anymore. I couldn’t cheer for teams that I wanted to win because I felt obligated to cheer for the teams I picked. Now I only do a pool for fun, I enjoy the tournament, and root for the underdogs. I don’t know whether he believed me, but it’s true.

Funny watching Tess as I open a can of tuna. She’s cautious at first; she’s learned that not all cans contain tuna. But, she gets a whiff as it opens and she’s pretty sure, she rubs against me, meowing, begging in her way. I can’t get the can to her quick enough. Wait, I need some for myself first. This time, I accidentally drip tuna juice on her. She is oblivious. As she is busy with the can, I wipe her back off with a wet paper towel. She doesn’t even react; nothing can pull her away from the tuna.

Looked outside today and the sun was shining and the grass was green, yes green, and there was a cardinal enjoying the weather. Could spring really be here? They said last week it was the first day of spring, but I was skeptical, after all our only snow storm of the season came just 2 weeks ago. Won’t be long before I will be cutting the grass, chopping the weeds down – no stopping them. But, I’m not complaining, I’m ready for the sun to warm my skin and my soul. How about a Spring Resolution to spend more time outside?

I got up early this morning to watch Pyro work. It was a beautiful morning, dark, yes, but the moon was full. I love Keeneland in the morning. Not too many horses working, the meet hasn’t begun yet. I wasn’t sure I would know Pyro, but Steve Asmussen was there, so I just followed his gaze. Pyro looked pretty good out there, hugging the rail and stretching out. Only time will tell.

By the way, my proclamation of spring yesterday was a bit premature. There was a sprinkling of snow on the ground this morning and it's good and cold.

Stopped at McDonald’s. I know, very bad, twice in one year. This time, I went inside. Interesting group of people – customers and crew. I hated the counter guy for not understanding the cash register and having to ring things up multiple times. But, I liked him for trying to bond with the customers. They thought they were being charged too much. He agreed. They were paying what the menu said. Whether that is too much is a philosophical question that none of us wanted to approach. I liked him more for joking with the baseball team, who hit a homer?

My hair right now is the longest that it’s ever been. I haven’t had long hair since eighth grade. Back then, it was very straight and thin. Now, my hair is thicker and wavy. I don’t know how that happened. I started growing my hair out because I was tired of being mistaken for a man. These things happen when you don’t wear makeup. It seemed simpler than showing my breasts, which I was tempted to on occasion. I like the long hair, but I find that I shed a lot. Between me and the cat, there is hair everywhere.

It’s interesting that Tess knows when I am calling her just to be a pain and when I am calling her because I truly don’t know where she is or I have something for her. She hardly ever comes in the first case, but in the second she will appear almost instantly. There must be a difference in my voice. She certainly knows the word, “snack.” Sometimes in the 2nd instance, she will make this meow that sounds like here I am. She especially makes this sound when she is in plain sight, like “didn’t you see my here stupid?”

They have started playing a message on television that next year all will be HDTV, your antenna television will not work. I understand this. I have even thought that we need to do something about my father’s television. But, are they really going to broadcast this message every day until February? And why during Days of our Lives? Is it because the audience during the day is not as large, so they aren’t disturbing as many people? Or, do they broadcast the message during the soap because soap opera peoples are conservative and more likely to be relying on antennae?

I am coming downstairs after taking a bath carrying my water glass, my book, and a pint of ice cream (plus a spoon). The ice cream slips out of my hand, the lid goes bouncing down the stairs, and the pint spills onto the steps. Tess chases after the lid (must be something good) completely ignoring the lovely ice cream drips. Then, she catches up with the lid and stands guard over it. Quite the huntress my Tess is. Perhaps I should take this as a sign not to eat ice cream in the bath, but I don’t think so.

It is always good for your confidence to hear how an eight year old is a much better rider than you. And, I really don’t have any idea how to soften my hands. Maybe, I’ve reached another one of those plateaus or maybe I need to reevaluate the entire endeavor. Why am I doing this again? What are my goals? The fact that no answer immediately comes to mind is probably indicative of something, but what? It would be nice to be able to go to the track on Sunday, since Saturday is no longer an option for that activity.

Today, I bought an axe and a pickaxe. The axe was to chop up some of the large limbs, so that they will fit in the yard waste can. It was advertised as “the ultimate wood splitting tool.” I tried it out and I have to say that so far it’s as good as advertised. I was able to chop the limbs, letting the axe do most of the work. It was extremely satisfying. No tree is safe from me now. The pickaxe is supposed to dig out some of those annoying stumps in the flower garden. We shall see.