What is “that” you ask…well, today, “that” could be anything, and 71 attempted photos with varying expressions, this is how I feel about “that”:

It’s been one of those meh kinds of days. I was doing an upgrade to MQResource, and for the most part it went OK, but good heavens, why does everything always take about 10 times longer than I expect it to take?

I’m surrounded by piles and piles of paper and fabric and yarn and notions and etc and etc that need to be cleaned up and put away (and have needed such attention for oh, 2 years??) and I really ought to be doing about a bazillion other things, but all I really want to do is READ MY BOOK.

Plus, we needed groceries, and we ended up dawdling around all of the stores and now my feet hurt.

And my back hurts.

Plus, it’s raining.

Maybe I should go to bed, eh?

I braved the crowds and did some shopping this afternoon. I needed to pick up a few things for stockings, needed something for Mom (Yes, Mom, I was shopping, even though I tried to deny it to your face…), and found some things for Mark. The man is hard to buy for. Me? I’m easy. Him? He still wears clothes he’s had for 20 years. And still uses an original iPod, one of those thick-as-a-deck of cards things. It’s pristine.

I also needed to go to Staples and finally get the chair that I have been wanting for school. The chair I’m using is terrible. Shockingly bad. The new one was approved ages ago, and I kept thinking that I needed Mark to go with me, that it wouldn’t fit in the back of my car.

I walked in to Staples and headed back to the furniture section – I was a little worried that they might not still have it, but I was happy to see it, all bright amidst the boring blacks and greys:

There weren’t any sales people around, so I wandered away to pick up some things I wanted for stocking stuffers, and when I went back, a young man was there helping someone else. I caught his eye, and told him I which chair I wanted.

He went in to the back to look, and after a few minutes returned and said “Well, we don’t have any in back, but we can order it online for you and have it shipped to you for free.”

I knew for a fact that it wasn’t available online, which is why I was buying it in the store. We’d already tried to order it online. I told him this, and sure enough: his computer agreed with me. No dice.

I was a little flabbergasted when he went on to say “Um, OK. We do actually have 2 of them, but there’s like 6 full pallets in front of them.”

Dude. Seriously? You lied to me? Seriously?

He went off to shift pallets and 10 minutes later I was checking out with my brand-new chair. I’m only a little bit embarrassed that I’ve been waiting all this time for Mark, when I just needed to pull up my big girl panties and deal with it.

When I got home Mark sort of sympathized and said “Well, it just BARELY fit.”

He put it together for me, and then loaded it up in his truck, and we took it up to school tonight, so that it’s already ready for me Monday morning.

Back before the boys were born, when I was young and stupid, I loved dressing up for work. I had some nice stuff, and I suppose I had some stuff that my sister would make fun of me for wearing. After the boys were born, though, the nice clothes slowly filtered out of my closet and into the bags and boxes headed for Goodwill.

Some of it no longer fit, some of it was way out of style, and some of it just never got worn anymore (see above, re: giving birth to boys…), so what was the point of keeping it around? When I started working at school this fall, I had some pangs of regret over things that had been lost, but only slight pangs, because hey: I was required to go shopping, baby.

And while I don’t love shopping, I do have a store I love: Waterloo got a brand new Dress Barn this summer. And they send me 40% off coupons on a regular basis. I *have* to use them. Just think of all the money I’m saving!

I was feeling especially adorable in the outfit I wore today, and I tried to take a picture of myself, but alas, I have nothing I’m willing to share: blurry, weird expressions, toothpaste spatters on the mirror…nothing quite turned out.

You’ll just have to imagine me wearing this jacket…

…with a white pleated shell underneath, a narrow black skirt (with pleats at the bottom, like this grey one. Only black…), white tights and black patent leather Mary Jane pumps.

One of my coworkers is also a fan of Dress Barn,  and the other day was wearing a necklace from a recent shopping trip. One of our students complimented her on it, wondering where it was from. The poor young lady had to work really hard to control her look of horror when Patty told her it was from Dress Barn.

Patty forestalled any potential foot-in-mouth-syndrome and just said “Yeah, it’s the old lady store. You’d never find anything there, but us old ladies like it…”

Patty is just a few years older than me, and I’m increasingly aware that us late-30/early-40-somethings are not OLD.

As far as these teenagers concerned, though? We are ancient. Decrepit. Practically in the grave. Which is funny, because they think it means we no longer remember what it is like to be a teenager, and that we are too stupid to understand exactly what nonsense they are trying to pull…

Sorry my dears, we’ve been there, done that, have a gigantic stack of t-shirts to prove it…

Except some of us are now feeling pretty spiffy wearing our fancy red jackets instead of those ratty old t-shirts…

(I have to laugh: my grammar checker does not approve of the word “LADY” suggesting that it is “bias language.” Huh?)

Do I listen to an audiobook on my iPod, read a book on my new Nook, or read the dead tree book from the library?

Yes, I have three books going at one time.*

Uh…three books that are currently active…I could probably find another book or 3 that I have started and temporarily set down…

I’m not sure which is my favorite reading method. Audio books are awfully nice when I’m attempting to knit or quilt or do housework,** but sometimes a book is too slow on audio. I tend to skim when I actually read the printed word. The book I’m listening to now was really slow to start, and I’m not crazy about one of the narrators (it alternates between 2 people), and if I’d been reading it, I’d be done with it much sooner.

There are some books and authors, though, that are best savored word by word. I started reading Terry Pratchett’s first books, and liked them, but I kept getting confused and would have to backtrack, because I had missed something. I have subsequently listened to many more of his books, and I adore them — not only do I follow the story better, but the wordplay, the puns, the clever wit: I would be missing it all if it weren’t being read to me in a lovely British accent.

As far as e-book vs. printed books: I know some people make a big deal of enjoying the physical act of reading a printed book, but I have come to love my Nook*** (and this is actually my second, I just got the newer, smaller one today…), and would prefer to read books on it. But…I’m not made of money, and I still like to support my local library, so, lots of library books still come home with me.

Having said that…my library does have a membership in an online program that was originally for downloadable audio, but now includes quite a few ebooks, so I’m getting the best of both worlds, there.

Part of the reason why I have so many books going at once is because I’m in a race with myself to meet my self-imposed challenge of reading 100 books in 2011. Originally, my “rules” were only new-to-me books, but I slipped earlier this fall and reread a couple of books (the Hunger Games trilogy, if you must know…). My count is 94,95**** and while it’s just the beginning of December, and there’s that whole Christmas break coming at the end of the month…I have this irrational need to finish this challenge up now…

2011 Reading Challenge

Suzanne has read 95 books toward her goal of 100 books.

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95 of 100 (95%)

view books

 

So really, my problem’s not so much that I have so many choices, it’s that I’m probably going to pick one, and stay up until the wee hours because I’ll get caught up in the story. Which ties in to that whole needing-more-hours-in-the-day problem I mentioned in my last post…

*From top to bottom: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt, The Next Always by Nora Roberts.

**Can you believe I typed that with a straight face. Yes, I occasionally do housework.

***Why do I love it? It’s light, stores a gazillion books, and is a bookstore in a teeny tiny package. I can make the print huge and read it while I’m walking on the treadmill. Because I’m sticking with a model that uses e-ink (instead of one of the new, bright color tablets), it really does read like a printed page, and traveling with a Nook beats traveling with printed books, hands down, in my opinion. Plus, I love living in the future. I love technology, and this thing is just really, really cool.

****Yes, I ended up staying up too late and finishing the Nora Roberts…

Last weekend, Mark went out for one last pass with the mower before the snow comes, mostly to chop up the leaves. He came in and told me that there was a “swampy” spot out in the northeast corner. People were called, consultations were held, and the conclusion reached was that a pipe (the incoming water?) was leaking, and probably had been for some time.

Lucky for us, the plumbers he called could come Tuesday morning to dig up the yard and fix it. At some point Monday night, a backhoe was delivered to our yard:

(I didn’t realize until it was too late that the pictures I took through the screen window mostly just showed…the screen window…)

When I saw it out there this morning, all I could think was “Damn, that looks expensive.” As in: Suzanne’s Christmas presents this year consist of fun things like Having-Your-Yard-Dug-Up and Getting-Your-Water-Fixed. That kind of expensive.

The people who built our house and lived in it for 14 years now live across the road from us, and the wife often subs at school. This morning, when she came to my office to fill out paperwork, I asked if she had seen the backhoe — she said she was wondering what was going on.

After I told her the situation, she said “I’m glad I don’t live there.”

When the boys and I arrived home from school this afternoon, one of them had to use the facilities right away. I was looking out the window at the piles of dirt the backhoe had left, when he came running in and said “I flushed and there was a really loud bang, and then there was another smaller bang.”

Ah. Air in the pipes. I turned on a faucet and it sputtered at me. I decided I’d better call and find out what Mark knew. The ultimate verdict was a cracked coupling. Repairs were made, and very little of the yard had actually gotten dug up. The plumber had turned on the outside faucet to run some water, but there’d likely be dirt in the water for a bit, so I should turn on the faucets and let them run for a bit.

Remember that. I was doing what he told me to do.

I turn on faucets and flush toilets and then discover that the boys’ toilet is not flushing. Again. So I start working on that…and realize that it’s going to take more energy than I have at the moment, so I go back to the faucets. The ones I check are running clear, so I wander back around the house to turn them off…to discover…

A waterfall.

My bathroom sink wasn’t draining, and hadn’t been for some time. There was water all over the floor and it was starting to ooze into my fabric closet.

I might have said some bad words at that point. Thankfully, a boy heard my swearing and came rushing in to see what was wrong: I sent him for towels. I was having such a blast crawling around mopping up dirty water, in my work clothes, and contemplating the toilet I still had to unclog (which I did, thankyouverymuch), and wondering if I had any drain cleaner to use.

I only mention the drain cleaner, because I did have some, and nearly killed the cat with it. I poured it in the sink, and let it sit, as you do, when you follow the instructions on the bottle.

I was at my desk when I could hear slurpy sounds: the cat was drinking. Oh s@#$%. I could just picture the cat in the sink, licking up the drain cleaner.

He’s smarter than that, though: I found Miles perched on the toilet, drinking some of the nice dirty water. Yum.