Vacation?

Gainesville

The Muffler Man venture was unsuccessful-- despite being the owners of TWO nav systems, we relied on Map Quest and then didn't even closely read the detailed map it gave us. We set off early, doing a tag team maneuver, so two vehicles were lost in morning traffic, their drivers very embarassed. Bill had to get to work, so we gave up. Realized later that both of us missed the detail that Midas was actually on Archer Road west of 34th Street, not east, as we'd presumed.

Now that I know where it is, I'll probably just take it in myself and wait around. It's right in the neighborhood of Barnes & Noble, Target, Best Buy and even a Starbucks. I'm sure I can keep entertained.

But at least my vacation week finally got started. I concentrated on Blessings, and am just about back on track-- only the bathrooms to do tomorrow. Then I can start some long overdue decluttering. One Blessing I did was the magazine tower on my end of the coffee table. It's once again a reasonable height, with just the latest issue of each rag. The new books covering other surfaces have been moved to the table in the big room (the functional attic), and I wrestled the box awaiting re-shipment to Sony out of the center of the room. All of which makes the room look almost normal again, and very much more... peaceful.

I cooked an ill-advised "Barbequed Lamb in a Minty Sauce" (Leanne) which was a whole lot more trouble than it was worth-- a messy jelly-based marinade for six hours, then had to break out the Gadget for the first time in ages. Bill didn't get home until 7:30, which is our target dinner time-- and I didn't want to start grilling til he was home. Took 45 minutes to get it to the table. Part of the problem was probably the quality of the lamb-- two lamb leg slices about a pound each. And of couse, the Gadget was a bear to clean, all that burned on jelly-stuff-- took me til after 11:00 to restore the kitchen so some kind of order.

Last night's rather simple-minded "Amber's Grilled Chicken" (grilled on the grill pan, topped with two kinds of cheese, chopped tomatoes and crumbled bacon) was way more successful.

No work on comics at all. No work plowing through email, nearly 200 messages AFTER spam disposal. This is too crazy.

Mom, your Nordic progress is astounding! And congratulations on discovering the joys of low cut sox, not so dorky after all, and sticking with your lace-up shoes. Great that you already have a summer pair. I'm very proud of you, and so is FlyLady!

Fun reading about Lizzie Knorsa voting at 80 and proud to have voted for Woodrow Wilson! But the other stuff is confusint: "Da Soares"? And who was "Mrs. Burt Julian"? One of Lizzie's daughters, and therefore Cordie's aunt, apparently. Again, thanks for taking the time to transcribe all this.