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Barbara
Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week
of 12 December 2005
Latest Update: Sunday 18, December 2005 1:00
p.m.
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Monday,
12 December
2005
Sorry,
no pictures to post tonight. I have trip pictures plus my tree. Bob
forgot I wanted to post pictures tonight and started a process on his
PC. At some point he will teach me how to process and post my own
pictures rather than having to rely on him. Hopefully he will have them
ready for me for tomorrow night's post.
Last night we watched a disk of a program from our local public
broadcasting station. If you are into Celtic music I highly recommend
this CD/DVD of Five
Celtic Women. Taped live in Dublin, the program features some of
the newer and younger talent from the musical genre. Or, you can go to
their web site for more
information about these young stars plus a sixth one who joined the
group after this show was produced. This site also features a link for
purchasing their individual CD's.
We dodged the weather bullet yet again with only a slight sprinkle
falling late this afternoon.
I am reading the third book by Lee Charles Kelley, To Collar a Killer. He has a new
one out last month which I need to get. Retired NYPD detective now
living in Maine finds himself the number one suspect of a copter pilot
found washed up on the beach during a 4th of July party. I enjoyed the
first two books in the series but am finding this one to be the best so
far. His characters are very likable, especially his girl friend Dr.
Jamie Cutter.
Tuesday,
13 December 2005
Many thanks to Bob for taking time out from
his busy schedule to put my pictures up for you to enjoy.
The first set is of course me decorating the tree followed by the
finished product. My village along the other wall and Malcolm getting
into the holiday spirit.
In line waiting to go into the Carolina Opry Theater, Frances is
standing the closest to the camera with dad and mom right beside her.
The others are from our group on the bus. The ladies standing directly
in front of Frances are sisters, five of them in all and one
sister-in-law. They were a lot of fun.
Next, the front entrance to the Opry. Inside, one of the many beautiful
decorations. Behind, hanging on the wall are pictures of the
performers from the show.
The tree in the middle of the lobby as you enter the theater. One of
several small trees along the stairs with those lovely dolls hanging on
them and finally, the cast in the last song of the show.
Bob took the dogs for their after dinner walk tonight so that I could
make the 6:30 spin class. It was a very busy day at work. I had to go
over to our off site storage facility for about two hours to see how
things are looking with the 1000 boxes we have coming from a trial
somewhere in New York. The boxes are being shipped directly to our
facility. Once the department responsible for the litigation gets all
the boxes accounted for from the index I will have to go back over and
put our bar code labels on them. Then I will have to enter the contents
of all 1000 boxes into our data base from the index.
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Wednesday,
14 December 2005
I forgot to change the date and current link
last night. Be sure to stop on Tuesday's page and check out the
pictures from my trip and of my Christmas tree.
Very successful day. I took a day of vacation to get the last of my
running around done before Christmas. First thing this morning was a 9
am appointment at Tim's to get the oil changed and service on my truck.
From there I worked my way across town making stops at Wal-Mart, the
bookstore and the mall before heading back across town. I took a lunch
break at 11:30 while at the mall and grabbed a sandwich. The bookstore
and one mall stop was to pick up two Christmas presents, one for Shane
and one for Kim's daughter, both neighborhood kids. At Sears I bought
us a floor standing humidifier to replace the one which no longer works
on the furnace. My sinuses cannot take the indoor dryness from the heat
even though we keep it set on 68.
Back across town I stopped for gas and made pet, grocery and drug
stores runs before finally getting back home at 3:30.
The weather folks seem to think we may get some sort of freezing stuff
tonight and tomorrow morning. I plan to use the remainder of my day
wrapping Christmas presents and tackling the major mess on my desk.
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Thursday,
15 December 2005
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Winter wonderland. We did get our first ice
storm of the season over night. The law firm, like the library system I
worked for previously, does not close for bad weather. Bob seems to
forget that I have been driving around in this stuff since I was 18. I
went to school in the mountains of NC. I never missed a day of work due
to weather conditions in all the years I worked at the library both
before and after I married Bob. While I know he worries about me I am
used to driving in all conditions and am as careful as I can be.
Fortunately I went in because my boss Steve lives west of us which got
hammered. Jackie has to stay home with her kids. Someone has to be in
the record center at all time to cover file request, so I was it as
usual. Steve came in about 12:30. It was a very busy day thus I will
not miss the fact I cannot go to the gym this evening.
The drive in this morning was actually fine. The city has started
putting a brine solution down on the roads 24 to 25 hours before the
start of bad weather. So far, it seems to work pretty well. The roads
were slushy all the way in except for a couple of spots. I put the
Trooper in 4 wheel and just took my time.
Coming home it was just rain. However, the trees are continuing to ice
over. My poor pine tree looks like it has lost some more limbs after we
just had it trimmed and cleaned up. Thankfully, we did have the ones
over the house taken off. This mess is supposed to blow on through here
tonight. Tomorrow morning may be a little tricky but it is supposed to
warm up later in the day.
Last night I finished To Collar a
Killer. Of the three books in the series, I liked this one the
best. I bought the fourth book in the series yesterday for my TBR
shelf. Since it is a Christmas story I may read it during the week of
Christmas and New Year.
Tomorrow our off site storage center boss is taking us to lunch. Then,
we have our Firm Christmas party tomorrow night from 4:30 to 8 at a
local country club. They use their big reception room. This is the
first year spouses/significant others are invited. Bob does not want to
go but Jackie and her husband and Steve and his wife are going. Should
be a lot of fun.
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Friday,
16 December
2005
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No update.
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Saturday,
17 December 2005
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I had a wonderful time at the Firm party last
night. We had a good crowd, the band played oldies type music, and the
food was very good. It has been a long time since I have actually been
to a party and I really enjoyed myself. As with a lot of these
functions everyone can get up and dance to the fast tunes. I danced
with my boss as well as in a group of us girls. Although Jackie's
husband was there he does not dance. It was a lot of fun mingling and
talking with the paralegals and secretaries I work with on a daily
basis.
The power outages are still wide spread and sporadic. Part of the
street directly behind still does not have power. The gym was still
closed this morning due to lack of power. I did a few things around the
house before taking a shower and heading off to visit my folks. I had
one errand to run on their side of town. The forecast for tonight and
tomorrow is rain/snow mixed so I went over to their house for lunch
today since there will be no golf tomorrow.
And, although it has been almost thirty years since I graduate from
Appalachian State University in Boone, NC I still am very proud they
won the I-AA national title in football last night. The first ever
national title won by the school in its history.
And finally, below is the letter to the editor I sent to our local
newspaper concerning the support our local government officials do not
give to our library system. We continue to suffer from budget cuts and
lack of money for buildings, staff, and materials for other departments
in the county. Our local school system is a city/county system drawing
money from both budgets but they continue to drain our county budget.
It is time the citizens of Forsyth County get mad and do something
about the neglect of our library services. The letter was printed in
this morning Journal.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Ugly Stepchild
Winston-Salem Journal
I see the Forsyth
County Public Library system will again have funds axed in order for
our school system to build more schools ("One budget, many demands,"
Dec. 7). The 1954 main library building has not seen any considerable
renovations since a small addition was made back in the early 1980s.
All of the busier library branches continue to be housed in small
locations without adequate space for books or staff to handle the
demands of helping patrons.
The library
continues to suffer from decreases in its share of the county budgetary
pie to the point that we are now starving what has become our county
manager's "ugly stepchild." Budgets for books and other materials
continue to be cut or remain the same despite the increased number of
users.
As county
government continues to build school after school while forsaking all
others, it seems to be forgetting just how important our libraries will
be for all of these new families who will be moving to our community.
Without an adequate
library system, who will support the kids when they leave school each
day with their homework assignments and book lists?
BARBARA F. THOMPSON
PRESIDENT, FRIENDS OF THE REYNOLDA MANOR LIBRARY
Winston-Salem
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Sunday,
18 December
2005
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Missed again. The weather liars really missed
it this time. Not only did we not get snow/rain but when we got up
around 8:15 it was already reaching 40 plus degrees with blue skies and
a little breeze. Oh well.
I really don't mind house cleaning but it seems like that is all I have
done for the last month. With the deep cleaning going on I guess it is.
At any rate, yep, the weekly! house cleaning has been accomplished. I
took everything off my desk and the wooden shelves and piled it on the
card table I had been using for wrapping. After giving the desk a good
cleaning I am now in the process of sorting the rather high pile of
rubbish as I place stuff back on my desk. Other than that, no deep
cleaning today though I did also mop the bathroom floors.
Yesterday I used the electric blower to give the basement/garage area a
good cleaning out. I organized my lawn equipment though I will most
likely give the yard another vacuum next weekend.
Guess I better get back to work. I still have ironing to do this
afternoon. Later on we are going over to help Paul and Mary with some
computer stuff.
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Copyright
© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by Barbara
Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.
