Round 2, Days 8 - 10

...don't think that because I haven't blogged, that I haven't been giving.

I've been so busy that I haven't had the free time to sit still and blog!

Day 8 ( Saturday ):
Friday's heft and haul of office furniture ended up being a long day. So I laid low for part of Saturday, ended up missing the Clinton rally, and initially decided that I was not going to do a darn thing that wasn't enjoyable.
I ached. A good, healthy ache, but an ache nonetheless.
Marie ( my best friend since I was in upper elementary school, for those who don't know her ) came by and she helped me finish up a project that I needed to get out the door ( a receive ), and from there we goofed around, ran some errands and I managed to sweet talk her daughter into babysitting in exchange for buying a book for her.

But it wasn't all R&R. The three of us ( Meems and I, plus Ward ) showed up for my office fundraiser and ended up staying to tear everything down - a give, with recruits! After I saying I wasn't lfting another finger for work crap all weekend.... well, I'm a sucker, but it needed to be done.

Day 9 ( Sunday ):
Did a slew of ad submissions for the school flea market, and worked on holiday gift crafts.

With much disappointment, I cancelled my events for the coming Thursday. I wa sso hoping to actually meet Neil Gaiman at the book signing. Driving all the way to a Chicago suburb for a pre-signed book and no interaction... forget it.

And so I focused of more purging to distract me; some into the trash, some into the 'sell' pile and some into the mess of stuff for the preschool.

Chris, Iain and I also worked on the back yard. Chris took down several small branches earlier last week, and we spent a chunk of Sunday afternoon on clean up.
I bundled up branches while Iain picked up the leaves and Chris tore down even more branches for me to bundle up, and swept the roof. A lot of work, but we had fun doing it.
Chris found a way to turn that into a give - he cleaned up branches from a tree ( that is not even our tree, but some of the overhang was touching our house and would soon be damaging our shingles... said tree owner's response to the problem was "if you want it fixed, chop away. I don't care but I'm hot helping!" so chop away we did ) that were damaging another neighbor's fence, and made arrangements with him to help remove more of the branches over the coming weekend.

It'll all go out in our brush pile ( which we have to pay to remove via city brush tags and leaf bags ), but better that we pay for it than it take up space and look awful in the neighbor's yard. We helped him remove several lengthy branches two years ago and they are STILL in his backyard, now a haven for skunk and whatever else decides to nest there and draw vermin to our block. Yuck.
A give for the neighbor, and for the rest of our side of the street, so that we're not all further invaded by nuisance critters due to one peron's lazy ineptitude ( I am not overly fond of said neighbor. It's because of him that we have to faithfull and vigorously mainatin a boric acid perimeter around our house. They have roaches so badly that you can sometimes see them crawling in the curtains... ewwwwww ).

Day 10 ( Monday ):
Worked all day, and worked on coloring book packets for the Harvest Festival.
I printed them off on Friday, but still had to touch up the site codes with white out ( I'll give credit to the links on the back page, but kids don't wanna color corn and pumpkins with a passel of weblinks on the paper ).
After I got home, I made stuffed green peppers for the family ( and stuffed calzone style sandwiches that sucked. The dough I bought was too easily soggy ).When dinner was wrapped up, I made a half a dozen or so bookmarks for Santa Claus Inc. ( www.santaclausinc.com ) that will be sent to an SCS friend who is helping with the program.

I'd been putting off working on the bookmarks, and had purchased several that I've found on clearance for ten to fifty cents apiece, but last night I had a really good time tinkering with some previously unused stamps. Fairies and fall leaf splendor came to life as I inked and colored.Hopefully the recipient kids like them as much I as do.
It's still too early on Tuesday to determine what the day will hold... but I'm sure it'll be busy and worthwhile.