Them

1. This little mask came out of the kiln yesterday. I want to go and work on some of the stuff that came out of the kiln, but today I am cleaning house. Sort of.

2. Yesterday I was supposed to wrap the presents for the giving tree kids, but I realized that we had no wrapping paper. I made do with some white tissue paper and ribbons that we had, but it was a pretty janky job at the end of the day.  After I finished, I realized that we have the extra car now and that I could have just gone to the store to pick up some wrapping paper. Silly me. I'm not used to having a car.

3. And today we went back to one car because the old girl is in the shop. She's been having some trouble with the clutch recently so we took her in to get looked at. I really like the mechanic we have now. They're painstakingly honest and do excellent work. I would recommend them to anyone for any reason--so long as that person has a German car, because our guys only work on German cars.  One of the great pleasures of taking our old car there (if there is any pleasure in taking a car to the mechanic) is parking our little scratched and dented and duct-taped baby VW next to the BMWs and Mercedes.

4. After we dropped off our gifts in the afternoon, we did a little shopping for dinner. We ended up having grilled cheese sandwiches yet again. I wanted some tomato soup, so we got a low-sodium version that turned out to be not very good. That was dinner.

5. Like I said, today I'm cleaning house. I scrubbed down the bathroom, counter, sink, and toilet. I replaced the shower curtain and swept and mopped the floors. I changed the kitty litter boxes, filled up the dish drain with washed dishes (only about half of what needs to be done!), scrubbed the stove, and wiped down the appliances on the counter. I've been decluttering as I go, getting rid of things that I know we haven't used in a long, long time. Now I'm taking a break from dusting the bookshelves and sweeping and mopping the front room. I skipped spring cleaning this year (and fall cleaning, too), so I'm way behind. Maybe by New Year's we'll have a pristine environment. Ha-ha-ha.

6. I made a dent in the New Year's cleaning and then took a shower and a nap. My reward for doing my chores was getting to watch several episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

7. Dinner was eggs and vegetarian sausages with red chard and tortillas. Dave cooked--I wanted to order a pizza--and did the dishes after.  Maybe we'll get a pizza tomorrow.

8. Here are five things that I was happy about today: Getting some cleaning done. An overcast day that smelled like snow (though there was no actual snow). Having a nap in the afternoon. Stopping for a coffee this morning on the way to dropping off the car at the mechanic. Little Saba sitting with her little face about four inches from the blasting heater. She refuses to move from that spot until she's good and ready.