Realization....

I realized yesterday that, in order to keep from jumping off the roof of my office building out of frustration, I eat all day long. Yes, I said ALL DAY. (Actually, it is more like 3/4 of the day.) Here is what it looks like:

4:00 AM - Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich before workout
6:15 AM - Glass of chocolate milk post workout
8:30 AM - Granola or Cereal bar
11:30 AM - Frozen entree
12:30 PM - Yogurt
1:00 PM - Carrots and hummus
2:00 PM - Cherries
3:00 PM - Apple and String Cheese
4:00 PM - Handful of nuts

If my carpool buddy hasn't been able to escape her duties yet by about 4:30 I go stand in front of the snack machine and just think about what I'd like to have. Mind you, I don't take any money with me to avoid the actual purchase of those Grandma's Cookies or that Mrs. Baird's Cherry Pie.

7:30 PM - Popcorn or a frozen dinner or scrambled eggs....pretty much anything that is hanging out in my kitchen

Okay, so maybe I'm not eating all day, but definitely filling up my afternoon with some great bicep curls getting all that food from the little Ziploc baggies to my mouth.

Updates

There are a couple of things that I need to update you all on.

Furniture for Casa ABBA - After my rant yesterday, I received a phone call in the afternoon and the rest of my bedroom furniture is to be delivered next Wednesday.

Broken Toe issues - So, I don't actually think my toe is broken because I am able to wiggle it. It started out with just a little red dot, but by the next morning there was a thick red line going down the length of the toe and purple encircling it (although the tip was still pink and normal looking). I also developed some swelling and a greenish/blueish bruise in the top quadrant of my foot. I ended up NOT putting shoes on all last week and this week have been suffering through wearing some of the ugliest loafers that I have, but they are comfortable and supportive of the whole foot. I am having a little issue because I finally went in yesterday to work out with my trainer and while I obviously wasn't lifting weights with my little toe, we were doing all lower body which meant a lot of pushing through my feet and today my foot is swollen and sore again. Ah well, hopefully with more icing it will improve.

Accomplishments from stay-cation - I had a great stay-cation. I completed 3 quilts (two just needed binding, one needed quilting and binding) and now they just need to be shipped off to their new owners. I quilted another one that I'll bind at some later time. I pieced another quilt and started embellishing a quilt that I made the base of over Christmas. I also got a massage, got caught up on a bunch of movies that I had recorded and all in all relaxed. It rained every day of my time off, which sorta put a damper on any plans of going to the pool, but in all honesty it didn't really break my heart to not go lay out. I know I still owe pictures of what I've accomplished, but I want to at least get them in the mail...

I think that is about it. I can't really think of anything else that I owe an update on.

Furniture Frustrations

As I'm sure you are aware, I'm in the process of furnishing my new abode. While, I already had many pieces there were some that I needed to acquire:

• sofa
• television console
• bedroom suit

In April, I made a concerted effort and found the bedroom suit and sofa. The sofa and two of the five pieces of the bedroom suit arrived within a week. The remaining pieces were on back order and I was told that it would be mid-July before they would arrive. I'm thinking "okay, I can work with that." As of yesterday, it was 12 weeks AND pretty close to being mid-July. so, I call my salesperson and ask when the rest will be arriving. She has no idea, the computer still just says "mid-July". I'm annoyed, but I'm not getting snippy yet because the receipt does say that it could take up to 15 weeks for delivery. Believe you me, though, come July 27 if I haven't heard anything, I'll put on my angry face and call again....not that I'll actually open up that can of whup ass that I'd like to open....maybe I'll set the Queen to instructing this person on how to lean on getting stuff delivered.

Now, my REAL frustration was all around my television console. I went to a different store to find that piece. I had something fairly specific in mind, well, I had pretty clear dimensions that would work in the space and what would work with the furniture that I already have (an eclectic mix of restored antiques and made by my dad or granddad). I found a piece that I thought fit the bill, ordered it, paid for it and left after being told that the computer says it is probably already in process and should be here in about 3 weeks. That was a month ago. I came into the office on Monday and had 2 voice mails from my salesperson telling me that the style has been discontinued and they will not be able to accommodate me. I'll need to come back in a made another selection.....Um, if it was being discontinued why the {BLEEP} was it on the sales floor and looking all available? I did go back to the store yesterday afternoon and picked out a new one, that I think might actually work a little better, but still. Luckily, they have 18 in stock and will be delivering it to me on Saturday.

With the delivery of the console, my "public" space will pretty much be taken care of and I'll feel okay with having people over. Now, if I could only get my bedroom stuff here....

Books on Tape

I have found that listening to books on tape is a great way for me to multi-task while I'm sewing. This past week I managed to get through a lot of quilting (pictures to come soon) by listening to Steig Larsson books.

The first in the series is Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In this book, we are first introduced to the characters. Here is the write up:

Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail libeling a shady businessman, and the multi-pierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable super hacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption - at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman.

That one I "read" earlier in the year when I was still living at the castle. Great book, at first a little slow, but once you get into it it is hard to put down.

This only enticed me to download the next in the series to keep me "company" while I worked this past week. Here is the write up on the second in the series:

Fans of the intelligent page-turners will be more than satisfied by Larssons' second thriller, even though it falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which introduced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and punk hacker savant Lisbeth Salander. A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden's sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. While Blomkvist strives to clear Salander of the crime, some far-fetched twists help ensure her survival. Powerful prose and intriguing lead characters will carry most readers along.

This is a great second in the series and really kept me intrigued during my work. Larsson is really good at writing about despicable men and their stupidity. I won't spoil any of the book, but can I just say that the way he has some of the men in these books written really, really angers me because I know that there are people out there that really do think this way.

I've now downloaded the third in the series:

The exhilarating conclusion to bestseller Larsson's Millennium trilogy (after The Girl who Played with Fire) finds Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head in the final pages of Fire, alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old cover up surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Sapo, Sweden's security police. Estranged throughout Fire, Blomkvist and Salander communicate primarily online, but their lack of physical interaction in no way diminishes the intensity of their unconventional relationship.

I've just started "reading" this one and it already has me hooked.