brrr. chilly morning!

It's a windy, overcast, chilly morning here in central New York state. Okay, 57 degrees isn't COLD, but with the breeze and the lack of sun, it feels like late autumn.

Here are my morning accomplishments:

Ten push ups and some weight lifting in between coffee number one and coffee number two. (Coffee made from freshly ground beans, oh dear yum.)

Laundry: re-washed a load that stayed in the dryer overnight yet wasn't completely dry, because it just didn't smell fresh.

Wiped down counters, picked up the fluff from a pillow that Little Miss Sunshine attacked.

(She's such a dum-dum. She goes crazy when I turn on the flashlight on my phone and project shadows from my hand on the wall...)

I checked and my passport is indeed processed, printed, and ready to mail to me. Yay! I was getting concerned, and I misplaced the papers they give you with the number to track your passport. It turned out to be a simple as can be to track it without that, phew. After buying plane tickets and registering for the conference we are attending in Norway, it would be a bummer to not get the passport. The little girls applied at the same time as me and got theirs weeks ago.

Last evening, Paul reinstalled the chandelier! The pics don't do it justice, it looks so much better black! Maybe also because now it actually has five working light bulbs in it, instead of the one.


We worked on painting a bit last night, too. Charlotte Claire, Camille, and cousin Danielle helped. We still have to finish up, but we got the downstairs hallway done.

Yesterday, we went out and about. First stop: thrift store. I'm looking for an old bench or chair to chalk paint and put in the foyer. The only chairs there were rickety or ugly beyond my DIY restoration expertise, you know the chairs, with the fabric seats...I am not into recovering or reupholstering, just painting and throwing a pillow on it. The girls were game to go because they were looking for jeans to cut into shorts. We also found a Little Tikes table and two chairs, which yes, you guessed it, I am going to clean up and spray paint. The table, anyway. I got a book I had already read, The Pilot's Wife, by Anita Shreve, she's good, the book is good, and I may have stayed up too late and read the entire thing last night.


Anne will be here any minute, and as much as I'd like to say we're staying home today, we are doing some school...then library...then stopping for some dog food at the feed store, and ugh, we are running out of half and half. We went to BJ's yesterday, the warehouse store. My membership ran out in January, and it's over a hundred for renewal when it't the 2% back rewards membership. So I just stopped going there. I decided to go there yesterday because I had a coupon for a free trial membership, but that is only for those who have never been members...so I got suckered into buying a new one, but for only $65. You get a better deal if you let it lapse for a few months. It's a trap of a store, you fill your cart and empty your wallet like magic, things you didn't know you needed! Like this giant bunny, for Anne!


I did feel evil, buying this huge bunny. But it was only $4.98! And if you could have seen the way her eyes lit up! She named it Little Bunny FooFoo, and it's almost as big as her. Her daddy took the last pic, she insisted Bunny get buckled up too. When he came to pick her up and saw the bunny, ha, I did feel evil, but she liked it so much!!!

Anyway. Time to get moving.