I'm taking the week off to clear my head and get a few things done around the house. You know, the sort of chore that only takes two hours in itself, but four or six hours of elapsed time, which means that it chews up the whole day.

Like waiting for thinset adhesive to cure so that you can apply the grout. I fixed the soapdish in my bathtub: I had pulled it out of the wall when I was cleaning a couple of months ago. Now the grout around the soapdish is sparkly clean, and it's making the old grout look dingy. I'm thinking that regrouting everything would be a cool idea. And the caulk definitely needs attention. I'm not really keen on tasks that spawn twice as many tasks like that. Sometimes the best way to keep your job jar only half full is to leave it alone.

I cleaned the section of stockade fence between my neighbors' deck to the northeast and my deckless, horribly messy backyard.

I went shopping, which is sort of a chore that needed doing. Most of the time, if I see something in a catalog that I like, I'll set the catalog aside while I ponder whether I can really afford it. If I wait long enough, if I let the pile of catalogs get thick enough, the question answers itself because the object of my desire goes out of stock. So anyhow, I dealt with the wish list pile. Did you know that you can buy things over the Internet?

Something else that's subtly changed in the last year or so: about half of the online merchants I dealt with requested my credit card security code. It used to be that I scuttled for my wallet when that field showed up on the form. By now, I have the code memorized.

Why is it that when you spend a week at home, it seems like every day you're doing laundry? It's certainly not the case that your wearing seven times as many clothes each day, but for the rest of the year, laundry once a week gets the job done.

Oh! oh! and I installed a freeware spell-checker that I can use with Radio UserLand. Let's try it out...

posted: 7:32:48 PM