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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary Week of 21 January 2002 Latest Update: Saturday, 26 April 2003 08:54 |
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Monday, 21 January 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
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Quiet and restful. I spent the afternoon working on my puzzle while the dogs and Bob napped. It was nice to just sit and recharge the batteries. For dinner I grilled pork ribs and made rice pilaf. Last night I started a new mystery. I have not read Susan Conant though I had been bringing them to Lenore to read. In real life she owns two Alaskan Malamutes who are featured in her books. The one I am reading is fairly new titled Creature Discomforts. The reason I decided to read this one is the setting. Conant's sleuth, Holly Winter, has taken a nasty fall while hiking in the Acadia National Park. When she wakes up she has no idea who she is. Her two dogs find her and lead her to her car even though at first she does not even recognize they are her dogs. After finder her way to the cottage via a map in her car, she attends an evening social gathering still suffering from mild amnesia. I am only part way through the book but so far not very impressed with her writing or her plot development. If you have read other books in her series that are better than this one feel free to let me know. Perhaps I picked one that is not her best effort. I see from the review on the Amazon web site that her books are normally set in Cambridge where her character lives. Last night we had a "Kodak" moment though we could not get up to get the camera. At one point I had Duncan asleep beside me with his head in my lap and Bob had Malcolm beside him with his head on a pillow in Bob's lap. Both were sound asleep while we read our books. The "ultimate" in peaceful harmony. Cold, rainy morning to start the day and the week. I am off to the gym this morning to do Body Pump than back home. [Top] |
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Tuesday, 22 January 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Another rather quiet day meaning not much on the news
front. Body Pump class was great. I spent the afternoon working on various
projects and last night watching the early episodes of Buffy and and a new
Angel.
This morning I am off to SciWorks to work on library stuff for a few hours. After yesterday's cold rain the sun is out today and it is to be fairly warm. I noticed for the first time in a long time I could hear birds singing and calling to each other in the back yard. While spring is still a long way away even for our mild climate I guess it is nest building and courting time for our feathered friends.
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Wednesday, 23 January 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Busy day today. This morning I am doing the regular
errands: grocery store, bank, pet store, and gas up the truck.
When I get back from running errands I need to eat a quick bite of lunch and leave to be at my sister's house by 12:15. We are driving to a large bridal shop in Lexington to look at dresses for me and the bride's maids for her wedding. One of the bride's maids is meeting us at the store. The other two are not available today to look but we decided the three of us would get started taking a look at what is out there. Frances has ordered her dress already. I should be back home by early afternoon since Frances has to go to work at her evening job by 5:00. This evening we are having dinner with our friend Bonnie from the Astronomy Club. Her husband has been in Germany since the first of the year due to his job. While she is able to keep very busy with him gone we had planned to have dinner with her several times. One of her favorite things to do is hunt squirrels. She goes to a couple of different game parks that she is comfortable with. I have never eaten squirrel so I asked her if she would fix some for dinner tonight so I could taste it. She is also having something "traditional" in the form of a pasta dish. It should be an interesting experience. It is again pouring buckets of rain this morning. The local newspaper said the rain we have had so far has not eased the major drought conditions we are experiencing at the moment. We need above average rainfall for several months for things to improve.
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Thursday, 24 January 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| We did have a successful dress shopping expedition. You can
see a picture of the dress we decided on here.
It is actually very classy looking with a little flair to the skirt at the
bottom and the back of the jacket. The bridal shop had it in the pearl
color but Frances decided she wanted a little color so we are wearing the
color featured on this web page.
Believe it or not folks this is the first time in my entire life I will wear a long skirt. I did not attend proms during high school, wore a tea length dress to get married in and have never attended a formal function as an adult. As I am getting older my aversion to dresses of any kind gets stronger rather than going in the opposite direction. It felt funny to have on the long skirt but I can deal with it for this occasion. Once the wedding is over I will get the skirt hemmed up to a regular length and then have a very nice suit if I need one in the future. I got back home around 4:00 with just enough time to check my mail, give the dogs some attention, and fix Lenore's dinner before we left to go by the library and on to Bonnie's for dinner. To my amazement I actually like the taste of fried squirrel. To me it tasted sort of like a cross between chicken and turkey with a gamier taste. It is not something I would choose to dine on at a regular basis but I did enjoy getting a chance to see what it tasted like. For our actual meal she fixed a very good spaghetti pasta dish with turkey sausage and parmesan cheese accompanied by garlic bread. For dessert we had Pepperidge Farm coconut cake. After we finished dinner we sat and chatted for a couple of hours getting home around 10 0'clock. Very nice evening indeed. This morning it is warm and cloudy with a chance of more rain/thunderstorms this afternoon. We got over an inch of rain yesterday making it too muddy to play golf this morning. Instead I am going by the library for about an hour to do a little work with the gift books. From there I am going over to my folks' house for a visit and to have lunch with them.
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Friday, 25 January 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Yesterday after I finished at the library I dropped my
wedding rings off at the jewelers to be resized. I usually have my diamond
cleaned and the prongs checked every couple of years. I am pretty sure I
have not had them resized since we were married. I noticed that even when
my hands are cold that they are pretty tight around my finger. Between
weighing a little more now than I did 18 years ago and the arthritis in my
fingers I was surprised I only had to go up half a size. Since I wear my
rings all the time my hand feels rather naked without them.
I finished my puzzle last night. It was a lot of fun to work, sort of like visiting each lighthouse all over again. The gift shop at the hospital where mom works and dad bought the puzzle for me was also selling little individual light house puzzles of 80 pieces so I had mom pick up two for Lenore to work on. I will leave my puzzle up for a few days and then take it down. I may even start another one. Not sure yet. Bob has been working steadily on the book all week. Last night I was pretty tired by 9 o'clock myself. We took the dogs out for an early second time and then I went to bed early to read. I tried to finish Creature Discomforts but was so sleepy I finally turned off the light about 9:45 with only about thirty pages left. This morning I am going out to SciWorks for a couple of hours than back home. I hope everyone has a great weekend. [Top] |
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Saturday, 26 January 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I worked all afternoon on my web
site, my resume, and a flyer to post at the local universities. I
would like to get some local research assistant work with some of the area
professors if possible.
When I got home yesterday afternoon Bob said the clear sky clock indicated good viewing conditions. However, with the moon up almost full it was not really worth driving all the way to Bullington to do any deep sky stuff. He suggested we just observe from the front yard. He called another Astronomy Club friend, Paul, to see if he and his wife would like to come over for dinner and so some observing. His wife, Mary, was out of town but Paul said he would love to come over. Since I was going to my buns & thighs class at 5:30 anyway the plan was for me to finish up at the gym and go by the Chinese restaurant directly across from the gym and pick up take out. Paul was not coming over until 7:00, so the timing ended up being almost perfect. Unfortunately, Paul could not stay too long because he had to go to the airport to pick up Mary who was flying in last night. But, it turns out it did not really matter because seeing conditions were not as great as the sky clock predicted. We did get a look at Jupiter and its moons and Saturn. After Paul left we read for awhile before giving the dogs a last chance and heading off to bed. Today is odd job day around the house. I plan to change the bed linens, brush the dogs, and make a batch of chocolate muffins. (From a box, not scratch.) I hate to cook anything from scratch using chocolate. All that melting and stuff, ugh! We had enough Chinese left for dinner tonight. I finished Creature Discomforts and started a book I that came in on reserve, Robin Pilcher's Starting Over. I only got a few chapter read last night so I will wait to post more about it next week. [Top] |
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| Busy but productive day. I have decided to start unboxing
my stuff I packed up over a year ago. For those who are unaware, Bob and I
had thought we would move to New Hampshire. We took a week to visit most
of the state and discovered it would not be a good move for us. Some of
the nick knacks and things can stay in boxes but I have some books and
bookends as well as some of my cottages packed up and my stuffed bears and
Beanie baby collection.
At the same time we decided to move Lenore upstairs to make it easier for us to care for her. I had a lot of books and other stuff in that room and had to box all of it up. We also packed up all her kitchen and other things from the downstairs area. Now that we are not moving for at least another year or more I am getting some of that stuff back out of boxes. One of the reasons for going through the boxes is I thought I remembered packing away a jigsaw puzzle I had just purchased around that time to work and never got around to. Sure enough, I found it in one of those boxes yesterday. Now I have decided I may as well get all those boxes unpacked and haul off the duplicate kitchen stuff and things I really don't need to Goodwill. If and when we do move it will be somewhere in the local area and I may as well clean out now than later. I will work on it whenever I have a free afternoon. I stopped pillaging boxes around 12:30 and came upstairs to fix some lunch. I had intended to go back down and do some more but Bob decided to take a nap and the dogs settled down so instead I sat on the couch and read for a couple of hours while everything was so quiet. I also spent the entire evening reading my book. This morning is house cleaning. I have things to work on at the computer this afternoon. Very spring like weather again. High's in the 60's today and even the 70's by tomorrow.
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