The Best Laid Plans

Well, that went poorly. New Year's Eve, I mean. I had started a post on New Year's Day, complaining about how a terrible, uninvited blow-hard turned our evening of fun into an evening of looking at your watch and yawning, but . . . I've decided that it's over so I should let it go.

See how mature I've become in the new year?

I'm back to work today, after nearly two weeks off (The Boy doesn't go back to school until TOMORROW, the lucky stiff), and I have to say that my vacation was a good one. Yes, we did all of the holiday visiting and stuff, and yes, we spent plenty of time in our pajamas, but The Boy and I painted the living room, and it's wonderful. He did all the taping while I did the trim above the chair rail, and then he did the trim below the chair rail while I rolled. The bottoms of the walls are a color called Brown Bag, and the tops are a cream/coffee with milk shade that changes with the light. The room is so much prettier and more welcoming that I can't believe I didn't paint it a long time ago.

The Boy and I also cleared out a ton of clutter over the break. His room is practically monastic (according to his usual standards, that is), and our porch is laden with old toys, clothes, books, and other things, waiting for the wonderful Vietnam Vets to take them all away. I was pleased to discover that there wasn't much trash from his bedroom (or from my basement, which we sort of cleared out too), but there was a TON of recycling. I love, love, love that I was able to clear out so much crap with so little guilt.

In other exciting home news, I have an awesome new shower head and a new dryer. A new dryer! And it was free! It was a hand-me-down from my friend R who bought it just before a flood in her laundry room killed her washing machine . . . and when she replaced the washer she wanted the dryer to match . . . so I have a fancy, pretty new dryer that dries things quickly and with few wrinkles. I had no idea how crappy my old dryer was until I got the new one. No idea!

I'm waiting for some library books to come in, and in the meantime am reading though A Treasury of Deception, which P gave me for Christmas. It's an entertaining read for the most part--Farquhar is a good writer--but some of the essays are sobering and sort of miserable, like the one on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I don't like being reminded of how humans will jump at the chance to hate sometimes, even if the hatred is based on a hoax. Some of the essays are funny, though, and they're all pretty interesting, so it's an overall thumbs up.

I'm also back to knitting, after a short break. Per my nephew's request, I am making him a hat for his birthday on the 25th. And I'm about to start a volunteer library job (thanks to the wonderful P) that may lead to an actual library job (thanks to the wonderful Babel Babe). Have I mentioned that I have wonderful friends?

So things are falling nicely into place at Chez Shirty, and I'm looking at 2009 with happiness and hope. Yay!