FREEDOM
Enticed by 50% off sales, I braved The Mall yesterday -- what a dreadful disaster! I'm not a shopper in the first place; I don't especially enjoy the mall experience during the best of times. Little did I suspect that mid-afternoon on the Tuesday after Christmas would be so very far from "the best of times." It was like the Zombie Apocalypse at the mall -- crowds, bad parking, strollers everywhere, lines of people walking 6-abreast deciding to stop all traffic in the mall while they decide what to do next. EXHAUSTING. The two layers of silver lining to the trip were that, indeed, I did score some great deals on a couple of needed or mostly "wanted" items. And second, now that I remember how much I hate going to shopping malls, I can nurture this hate through the next year or so and avoid putting myself through that again!
The whole experience left me feeling exhausted and like I'd really like some more time off work, however. So ya know what? I decided to take the rest of the week off! (Unpaid.) I went in for a few hours this morning to take care of a few specific tasks. Now I'm home free!
I'm cooking what I hope will be a most delicious dinner tonight. I've been such a bad hobbit, progressively worse since going back to work a few months ago. I never cook anymore. When I do, it's a forced march lacking creativity and love. I figure the simple trade-off for a few more days of my wages can be at the very least that I cook a few decent meals around here! While picking up a few things at the grocery store, I found some beef ribs on sale. I'm trying them in the crockpot over the course of the afternoon. I've been meaning to experiment more with that thing to make dinner cooking a little less arduous anyway. I'll bake some cornbread (oh please, certainly not from scratch! I'm not feeling that inspired), and probably fashion something out of a potato. Maybe not the most healthful or nutritious meal I'll ever cook, but it sure beats the endless dread of, "I dunno, honey, what do YOU want for dinner tonight?"
Putterfest continues! I ended up with $59.15 in Amazon.com gift certificates as a combination of two gifts with the receipt from cashing in a piggy bank over a year ago which I forgot about and recently rediscovered. Ian got me a gift card specifically so I could pick out whatever MP3s I wanted since we're trying to go all electronic with our music purchases whenever possible. I'm catching up with William Orbit's 2009 album, "My Oracle Lives Uptown" since I seem to be a few years behind on every one of his albums. I'm enjoying it immensely so far. Picked out a few others, including admittedly a couple of guilty pleasure tracks from Faith Hill of all people! I could not abide by letting the genre "Country" touch my music collection, however, so I relabeled them "Pop" to suit my own illusions.
I think I'll spend the rest of the afternoon catch up playing "Red Dead Redemption" on the Xbox. Yes, that sounds quite lovely!
Might do a few useful things -- I managed to clean off my bookshelf (onto which I just heaped things without rhyme or reason when we moved here in July). I think my next goals will be clearing out a few "wino piles" in the office where things collect, and maybe even tackling the utter (dis)organizational horror that is our office closet. Exciting, yes!
Any errands that need running need to happen soon. The Rockies are allegedly finally catching up with everyone else and getting some real winter soon. A little snow tomorrow, and a cold snap down to 0 (before wind chill) Friday through Sunday.
Trace
The whole experience left me feeling exhausted and like I'd really like some more time off work, however. So ya know what? I decided to take the rest of the week off! (Unpaid.) I went in for a few hours this morning to take care of a few specific tasks. Now I'm home free!
I'm cooking what I hope will be a most delicious dinner tonight. I've been such a bad hobbit, progressively worse since going back to work a few months ago. I never cook anymore. When I do, it's a forced march lacking creativity and love. I figure the simple trade-off for a few more days of my wages can be at the very least that I cook a few decent meals around here! While picking up a few things at the grocery store, I found some beef ribs on sale. I'm trying them in the crockpot over the course of the afternoon. I've been meaning to experiment more with that thing to make dinner cooking a little less arduous anyway. I'll bake some cornbread (oh please, certainly not from scratch! I'm not feeling that inspired), and probably fashion something out of a potato. Maybe not the most healthful or nutritious meal I'll ever cook, but it sure beats the endless dread of, "I dunno, honey, what do YOU want for dinner tonight?"
Putterfest continues! I ended up with $59.15 in Amazon.com gift certificates as a combination of two gifts with the receipt from cashing in a piggy bank over a year ago which I forgot about and recently rediscovered. Ian got me a gift card specifically so I could pick out whatever MP3s I wanted since we're trying to go all electronic with our music purchases whenever possible. I'm catching up with William Orbit's 2009 album, "My Oracle Lives Uptown" since I seem to be a few years behind on every one of his albums. I'm enjoying it immensely so far. Picked out a few others, including admittedly a couple of guilty pleasure tracks from Faith Hill of all people! I could not abide by letting the genre "Country" touch my music collection, however, so I relabeled them "Pop" to suit my own illusions.
I think I'll spend the rest of the afternoon catch up playing "Red Dead Redemption" on the Xbox. Yes, that sounds quite lovely!
Might do a few useful things -- I managed to clean off my bookshelf (onto which I just heaped things without rhyme or reason when we moved here in July). I think my next goals will be clearing out a few "wino piles" in the office where things collect, and maybe even tackling the utter (dis)organizational horror that is our office closet. Exciting, yes!
Any errands that need running need to happen soon. The Rockies are allegedly finally catching up with everyone else and getting some real winter soon. A little snow tomorrow, and a cold snap down to 0 (before wind chill) Friday through Sunday.
Trace