What a Difference a Week Made!

On the 22nd of November, I was running around without a jacket. In fact, I was rather warm.

On the 29th of November, it was a bit cooler. I went from no jacket to my Iowa Hawkeyes "Starter" Brand jacket, the down filled one that makes me feel like, Vim, the Michelin man, in the span of a week.

Oh well, it is the Midwest. This is the end of fall and the beginning of winter. And I really wouldn't enjoy living year 'round in a place where the temps are always the same. I think I need that cold bracing air. There's nothing like inhaling it on a crisp January day and feeling as if you've just frozen any virus that dared take up residence in your body.

Plus, you can't have a white Christmas without temperatures cold enough to freeze dry the rain.

Beverage: China Black Tea

Deb

First Snow of the Winter

Overnight, we got about 4 inches of wet snow. It's borderline slush actually, the kind that is going to produce snowballs but will also make you really wet when playing in it.

My task this morning was finish shopping. I had one framing project to drop off, one stop at The Bookstore in downtown Glen Ellyn and a swing through Whole Foods for fresh fruits and veggies. Four-wheel drive into the street and we're off.

It is beautiful out. This kind of snow sticks to everything and makes things look frosting covered. Walking about with a tiny camera means I can keep it drier than if I had a large one like Carole and David have. Of course, I'm limited in my shots to what the camera can do, but, as this photo of the tree in downtown Glen Ellyn shows, it takes perfectly wonderful photos on its own.

The forecast for tomorrow is partly cloudy. It might be a time to wander parks for good photo opportunities. There are too many people scared to be out in this actually out driving in this when they should be at home for me to feel comfortable driving about now. I'm home. I got 90% of what I needed to get done, done.

This kind of snow makes the upcoming season more real for me. HO x 3!

Beverage: China Black tea

Deb

Five is Right Out.

There are days when I feel just like King Arthur.

[Holding the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch]
King Arthur : How does it... um... how does it work?
Sir Lancelot : I know not, my liege.
King Arthur : Consult the Book of Armaments.
Brother Maynard : Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.
Cleric : [reading] And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu...
Brother Maynard : Skip a bit, Brother...
Cleric : And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.
Brother Maynard : Amen.
All : Amen.
King Arthur : Right. One... two... five.
Galahad : Three, sir.
King Arthur : Three.

One... two... five. Yup. That's exactly how I'm feeling.

See, I got my paycheck yesterday. It's not as fat as November's but it is adequate. In preparation for this, I hauled out the checkbook over the weekend, to balance it. Everything the bank said I withdrew or added, I said I withdrew or added. This is good. No surprises. But, their total was $3.66 MORE than what I said I had. With 5th 3rd, I would have given up, thrown up my hands in the air and said, "Screw it." Finding an error wasn't going to happen. But with Chase, there's more optimism that the error is much easier to find. And, just to be sure, I called them last night and asked if I could bring in my checkbook if I couldn't find it. "Oh of course!" the gal said, "We'll be happy to see if we can find it with you."

So, I jumped back into a month's worth of figures. You all know I hate math and I'm mildly dyslexic. That's not a good combination. Plus, I know what the figures should read so I have, in the past, seen an error not as an error. But I set the checkbook aside when I couldn't figure things out on Friday. Maybe, in the cold light of a new day, the numbers wouldn't look like they were dancing on the page.

28.90
-3.48
_____
21.76

See that? How I got $21.76 when I subtracted $3.48, I don't know, but I did. It took me 30 minutes to slowly go through a month of transactions, checking the numbers and the math. November was a month of doing math in my head or on small scraps of paper with no back up to check what I'd done. I guess this is a lesson to me to, at the next opportunity, find a calculator and redo the math.

Now I can move on with the month and pay my bills knowing I have $3.66 more than I thought I did.

Beverage: China Black tea

Deb

A Fresh Start to a New Month

It's snowing today, the first measurable snow of winter 2010-2011. That's a nice way to begin December. It's not much, just enough to make roads slick and to pile up around the edges. It reminds me that I need to get salt for the front steps, but I can possibly put that off until the weekend.

I started the month by getting legal again. My driver's license expired on my birthday. I've had the notice on the fridge since mid-October, but a number of things transpired against my getting it done before today. The first was, of course, finances. Even at a low rate of $30, that's $30 I don't always have. Second was the busy-ness of my life. Suddenly, I have to be out of the office doing things or in the office fielding phone calls. It has sort of slowed down but I'm still covering more things in the field than I have in the past year. Then the holiday showed up and they aren't open on my birthday. Monday, after work, the line was out the door so I went back on Tuesday, earlier in the day, but the result was the same, a line out the door. So, I went at 8:45 today and there were 4 people in front of me. It took all of 15 minutes.

After that, I went across the railroad tracks to Starbucks for a hot beverage. For my birthday, my friend, Patt, gave me a Starbucks card. What a great way to celebrate being legal, a hot cocoa and a slice of their low-fat banana chocolate pound cake. The guy behind me in line said, "No!" when I took the last piece of cake. "That's his favorite," the clerk said. It was okay. I make better but it was okay.

This is a good start to the month, knock, heavily, on wood. I'm legal again. I've had hot cocoa and pound cake. Thanks, Patt. We have snow that frosts the landscape and I have a bit more income incoming which will make this December less tense.

I'll drink to that.

Beverage: Duh

Deb