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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary Week of -2 January 2004 Latest Update: Sunday, 04 January 2004 18:58 |
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Monday, -2 January 2004 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Welcome to the New Year minus 2 and counting. As you know
or can read on Bob's page, he likes to have our diary pages even out to 52
weeks a year. This year I have two minus days to take me up to New Year's
Day.
I was the only one from my office area at work today. David and Sheila took the day off. It is actually fun working all by myself. The guy that delivers the interdepartmental mail pops in a couple of times during the day to say hi. A few of the IT people at the other end of the floor were working today and I ran into them a couple of times going out to the bathroom. I made a stop at the bank today to close out Lenore's checking account then came home and decided to go ahead to the gym this afternoon. Bob wanted KFC for dinner so I stopped on the way home to pick him up a three piece meal and me some of the popcorn chicken. Tonight after dinner I started moving the opened gifts out from under the tree in preparation for taking it down on Wednesday. Last night I finished up the Robin Paige mystery. Tonight I plan to read the second book in the John Dunning series. Guess that's about all for tonight. I hope you had a wonderful holiday. Thanks for stopping by and visiting my pages this past year. I enjoy doing my daily journal, sharing our lives here at the Thompson Techno Grotto with you, and talking about books.
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Tuesday, -1 January 2004 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I have been to the gym, spinning class, which Mary
joined me for. She seemed to really enjoy it. I am taking tomorrow off to
take my tree down. That will give me all day Thursday to get a couple more
rooms done. I want to finish up the cleaning project this weekend. We are
not off tomorrow or Friday but I had enough hours leftover for this year
to take tomorrow off. I don't want to use a day off in the new year this
early so I will work Friday then have Saturday and Sunday to finish up the
cleaning.
Guess that's about all for tonight. [Top] |
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Wednesday, 0 January 2004 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Happy New Year's Eve to everyone. I have accomplished a
great deal of work on my day off today. I had the Christmas decorations
down, tree untrimmed, and stuff boxed up by noon. It was such a beautiful
day outside, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the low 50's,
that I decided to abandon my indoor deep cleaning and do it outdoors
instead. I fired up the lawn vacuum to get the leaves up that had
accumulated along the drive and hedge then did the entire yard. It looks a
lot better with all those little American Elm leaves gone. All the
Christmas boxes are downstairs waiting to packed away in the closet. I
will do that this weekend.
Well, another year has come and gone. It has been a rough couple of years at the Thompson Techno Grotto but I look forward to the new year. We lost Lenore and Kerry and will continue to miss them dearly. We have two wonderful dogs in Malcolm and Duncan who try our patience and keep my busy. Bob has new book contract and I have a full time job. I am very lucky to have a good husband like Bob, a wonderful family, and a healthy and active lifestyle. We have a roof over our heads and food in the cupboards. What more can you ask for from life. Tonight our plans are to keep a friend company while her husband is out of town. Homemade pizza, brownies, and a bottle of wine will be the menu. No champagne for me, can't stand the stuff. We may or may not make it to midnight. [Top] |
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Thursday, 1 January 2004 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
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Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to Duncan, who turned nine today. I was up at the usual 7:15, read the paper, ate breakfast, then started taking the den apart for cleaning. I worked solid until my lunch break a little after 12. I did turn on the Rose Bowl parade and watched off and on while I worked and while I ate lunch. After lunch I finished up the den, all I lacked was moving the love seat and one end table and mopping the floor. From the den I moved on to the hall, scrubbing down the walls and doors, cleaning pictures, and finally mopping. On to the foyer for more of the same. By this time it was after 3 pm. My goal was to get the kitchen done leaving just the living and dinning rooms for Saturday. Bob came in to move the fridge out so I could vacuum the back and mop the floor underneath. By the time I finished that I was almost out of 409 and energy. I did scrub down the lower cabinet doors before mopping the floor. It was after five by the time the floor dried and I could fix some dinner. Bob is cleaning up the kitchen for me so I can rest. While he is doing that I am writing this post. I need to do a few other things to finish up the kitchen before I can call it a night. The house looks so clean and fresh it makes it all worth while. Last night we were back from Mary's by 9:30. We played ball with Malcolm while I watched a little of Dick Clark show. I went to bed to read turning off the light about 11. I didn't even hear Bob come back to bed. The firecrackers woke us up at midnight as Malcolm started growling and barking and Duncan levitated onto the bed in fright. Poor guy was shivering from fear while Malcolm was barking. What a circus. Everything finally settled back down around in about half an hour and I finally fell back to sleep. I don't make New Year's resolutions. First off I think they are stupid. Second, I try to set goals for myself all year long as needed.
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Friday, 2 January 2004 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| This on again off again work schedule is the only thing I
hate about this time of year. Back when I worked for the library system I
always had enough vacation to take the entire two weeks off at the end of
the year. Then I had three years working at home. Last year and this year
I am back to the work a couple days, have a couple off, etc.
I went to the gym straight from work then made a quick grocery store run for a couple of things we needed to get us through to next week before coming home. We were meeting Mary for dinner at the little diner at 5 pm because we thought we had an astronomy public observation. It turns out our newsletter person published the wrong date. The event is next Friday not tonight. We keep our dinner arrangements with Mary but moved it to 5:30 to give me a little more time. The last couple of weeks Malcolm has been having intermittent spells of barfing. We have an entire upstairs house of hard wood floors but so far he has barfed on the couch, my foyer rug, and this afternoon the bed. He did this just before we needed to leave to go meet Mary. I heard the barfing noises and got the spread and blanket off the bed before it soaked through to the sheets. Bob started the bedspread washing before we left but had to stop the last rinse and spin cycle until we got back incase the load became unbalanced. It just so happens I have several bed spreads we can interchange with since this is not the first nor will it be the last time we have a dog accident on the bed. Part of letting the dogs have run of the house and be allowed on the furniture and beds is the periodic accident. We just got back from dinner. Bob let the spread finish washing. I will put a temporary blanket on the bed and the other spread for tonight. We can wash the blanket tomorrow. I am not worried about the barfing. I think it started right after I opened a box of dog biscuits our neighbors gave us for taking care of their dogs during Christmas. Evidently they don't agree with Malcolm. Time to call it a night, play some ball with the guys, and get some reading in before bedtime.
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Saturday, 3 January 2004 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Whew, it's done! The house is spick and span from one end
to the other. I spent an hour or so this morning putting the Christmas
decorations away in the downstairs closet and garage area and vacuuming
the carpet and the stairs.
After that I got started on the living room. I had one side done by 11:30 so I stopped to take a break and eat lunch since the book shelf side was going to be hard and tedious. I had all the nick knacks stored on those shelves during Christmas. Each one had to be taken off, dusted, and put on the clean side of the room. Then I dusted all the book shelves, four This End Up book cases worth, and the tops of the books. After I finished up the living room I tackled the dinning room. Again, all my collectable birds had to be dusted, the cut glass in the cabinet and then walls and floors vacuumed. I finished up around 3:30 with the cleaning but did not get the two rooms back together with books on table tops, nick knacks, etc in place. I took a shower then check my mail. I started working on the Friends newsletter that needs to go out Tuesday morning in the mail. We have our Annual meeting this coming Saturday the 10th. I worked on it until time to eat dinner. We had Mary's left over homemade pizza for dinner. Easy meal, easy clean up after working all day. Tonight I will spend the evening relaxing and reading. In addition to the John Dunning mystery I am also reading a copy of a history and genealogy of Mary's family written by her mom. She had copies made and bound at Kinko's rather then try to shop it to a publisher or POD. So far I am really enjoying it. Her mom writes very well. She has included some really interesting facts about Ireland beginning around the 1800's that I did not know happened. For example, they had a tremendous wind storm in the early 1800's that leveled thousands of trees and homes. The genealogy portion of the book is also interesting even though it is not my family. She incorporates so much Irish history surrounding her family and other families that adds such a richness to the book. I am about halfway through at this point. I read on it while out in the den before bedtime then read my John Dunning in bed. Today was really warm for January, highs in the low 70's with lows tonight only in the 50's. That means cold weather will be coming in sometime next week I bet. Usually when we have these really warm spells they are followed by some cold weather and in the last few years some type of snow/ice/sleet precipitation.
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[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Dad and I played golf this morning. I played eighteen
holes, dad skipped a few on back nine when his knee started bothering him.
It was cloudy and windy with occasional peaks of sunshine and/or it would
spit rain briefly. But the temperatures were in the 70's making it very
pleasant.
I finished up the living room this afternoon this afternoon, worked on the newsletter, and took a couple of walks with the dogs while we have this nice warm weather. It is supposed to turn cold by the middle of the week. Guess that about wraps it up. Time to grab a book and hit the couch for some reading time before heading off to bed.
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