1. Went through the wringer and back again last week so thank the gods I have this week off work and that finally I am getting some much needed solitude, peace, quiet and the opportunity to clean the house. Wait. One of those things is not like the others.

2. Staying home all day has clued me in to the dogs' schedule. It's tight & action packed: 30 minutes sleep on chairs, 20 minutes squirrel patrol around the yard with lots of barking if there's been a squirrel perimeter breach, 5 minutes bounce around the house, 5 minutes annoy the cat (my daughter and her cat have moved back home; see point 1, above), 30 minutes sleep on chairs, lather, rinse, repeat.

3. Yesterday the gnomes stole my glasses. 24 hours later they returned them to a spot I must have looked in 40 times yesterday. Gnomes are weird. Now if only they would return the olive oil I swear I bought last week, we would be cool.

1. Off from work this week (whooh whooh!) - which means it's afternoon and I'm still lounging around in boxers and a t-shirt drinking coffee and listening to records (aka - best vacation ever).

2. Finalizing my 2009 Music Best of list, which is a huge deal for me. After a month of relistening to albums and laboring over rankings I think I'm ready to put it to bed. I look forward to making my list and seeing others lists all year, but by this stage it's almost a burden since I'm so damn anal retentive about it. Now over the next two days I'll write 50 mini reviews and then go back to listening to old records for a while.

3. There's some snow that needs shoveling and grocery shopping that needs to be done, but like I said in #1...boxer shorts, lounging, records.....

1. Have a scratch on my hand from helping the neighbor's brother-in-law catch neighbor's indoor cat Cooper which he let out, carelessly. Neighbor is gone. Took about an hour but he had him on the side of the house, between the house and a fence which he could have hopped over had he not been an indoor, ignorant cat all his life. First pass, through my legs. . .it took about 20 minutes to get him in this side-of-house space again, then, in my grounder-catching stance (legs open, but ready to go down on knees if need be) I got him, but then on the way to the house he got me, plus got muddy knees. Don't like Cooper much.

2. Took daughter back home yesterday. Stopped at Powell's and got this, which should be great. Murphy is sort of like a nautical John McPhee, in that he explains scientific concepts for somewhat smart laypeople, and also introduces said laypeople with interesting people that they otherwise would not learn about. Met Bryan (or Brian), the small frog that is now the pet of daughter and her gf.

3. I new this already, but schools are nice to work in and around when teachers and students are not around.

1. Up 'til dawn with back spasms. I finally fell into a restless sleep on the sofa around six.

2. The Fella went to bed early, then woke up alone thinking I must be furious with him for some unknown reason, so furious that I refused to sleep next to him. Since that's unprecedented, it led to some domestic confusion.

3. He's picking up a late lunch/early dinner of Thai food and beer, and we'll lounge around and watch either "The West Wing" (a gift from his parents) or "Freaks and Geeks" (a gift from me to him).

1.) Took a caffeine-fueled dump.

2.) Did a post on MetaFilter.

3.) Only time will be able to judge the relative merits of each contribution.

1. Pretty much of the narcotic pain meds, and I can walk around and do stuff, but still restricted from heavy lifting

2. Kids are at hub's house for the afternoon, and the silence is bliss.

3. I've run out of disk space on my hard drive so I'm cleaning stuff off. I've never had that happen before. I think it's a load of duplicates in the Documents folder. I'm pretty bad about keeping files organized at home. At work I'm a nazi.

1. The in-laws have departed. The silence is sweeter than the music of the spheres.

2. I had no idea so many people liked Glenn Gould.

3. I don't care what industrial by-products it's synthesized from. That McRib is a tasty sandwich.

1. My brain has been weird lately. Lots of paranoia, weird dreams, and flashes of my novel. (Hey brain? Mind giving me NEW scenes instead of rehashing the same 2 over and over again? kthxbai) I do not approve, especially since I woke up at 2am this morning. I take enough meds to keep that from happening, damnit.

2. I'm tired and haven't felt like doing anything all day today, but I'm going to go home and play my zills and hopefully that will make me feel better. I hope my brother cancels on our plans tonight because our father has been yelling at both of us to deal with it, but it's about 2 hours just driving roundtrip out there and then having to deal with his crap is just FAIL.

3. I'm still undecided on how I want to word my third resolution for 2010. This is slightly problematic. (I have a motto and 3 resolutions every year. I did 2 out of 3 this year, so one gets shifted over.)

1. New Dog! Yay! Jack Russell, @ 1 year old, from a shelter. Cute, smart, clearly destined to be Evil Genius.

2. Son home for vacation, but he's spending 95% of time with friends. Still, nice to see him in passing.

3. oh, yeah, have to work. Bummer, but I can go home to cuteness soon. And delicious potroast leftovers.

1. Woke up to a powerless home. Some twat of a Telstra contractor failed to seal the end of the conduit that is in the pit out near the street. Because the house is lower than the street, when the pit flooded, the conduit acted like an overflow and water started pouring inside. Shorted out a powerboard under the desk. Can't complain too much - I knew about it from last time it poured and forgot to get it fixed.

2. Just over 70mm of rain overnight on the back of a week of on-off rain and one other (72mm) heavy overnight downpour. Enough already!

3. Going shopping today - new shirts for work (if I'm gonna get this promotion, I gotta look sharp) and new glasses.

1. Back from Xmas with the family. It went well but seeing mom always makes me sad since she slips more into dementia every year.

2. Trying to get a lot done at work without my co-workers around this week.

3. Seriously pondering entry in the half-marathon in May. If I do that I'll have to start training right now.

1. Ate crap (2 full b ags of pirate's booty) all weekend and stomach is paying for it now

2. Some people are back at work and having them here just makes it clear how far behind we all are

3. Would like a giant white bird to come pick me up, put me on its back, and fly me over rainbows to an island far away where I don't have to work and my friends and family and my bunny all magically appear and they don't have to work either.

1. Went to see Up In The Air with my sister today.

2. About to leave again to see Sherlock Holmes with my husband. We're going to dinner beforehand.

3. I never knew Gwyneth Paltrow had a website. GOOP

and my bunny all magically appear and they don't have to work either.

Your bunny has to work? What's his job (other than Senator)?

1. My toenails are Hooker Red thanks to the mister

2. New entertainment centre is put together, old tv in place, 2/3 of our dvds are in place

3. I can't believe how many dvds we have that we haven't watched

4. "zills" is my new favorite word

5. Hard disk is 35% free and now the system zips!

1. Niece and nephew are hard at work on room-rotation project that will put me back in the house (I don't want to pay for heat in the apt all winter). Things are being unearthed that have remained in place for over two decades.

2. I was enjoying the snowblower so much I even worked on the curb cuts down the block that renters don't even pretend to try to shovel. After it starts to half-freeze, though, snow-plow-banks are murder to cut through. I eventually did just enough to make a difference.

3. I'm foam insulating these ridiculously large gaps in the floor of the rental we own that was rehabbed very incompetently 15 years ago (my dad bought a pig in a poke for too much money, frankly). No wonder the first floor costs so much to heat.

He works very hard on all those laws and stuff. He helped push through the healthcare reform bill, you know. Also, the hopping won't do itself, and my alarm clock needs to be shoved off the nightstand every morning by someone's nose.

1. Back to work. Very quiet at the office, on the subway, on the bus. I like it! I can get stuff done. And it's only a three-day week.
2. Looking forward to champagne at Marc's place on NYE. I plan to buy the good stuff!!!
3. Cream of celery soup for dinner. It's too hot! Cool down, soup!

1. Yesterday was a crap day. Got the blahs for no particular reason.
2. Bought a present for the friend that's watching over my house.
3. Bought some kick-ass boots at Salvation Army. Also spotted: a dildo. Who would donate that? Better yet, why did they put it out on the sales floor???

1. Just got back from Christmas in Missouri with the bf's family. It was good. Less drama than last year.

2. Bf's sister's new kitten bit me hard enough to draw blood. When I prudently asked if kitten had all its shots, I was told "Yes, except for a booster shot but I don't remember what that was for." Not too worried, as all the bats kitten has been exposed to have so far been negative for rabies. (Can you tell I'm a little worried?)

3. Email waiting from boss, telling me and other coworker who also went away for the holidays to please catch up on our work tomorrow. WTF else was I going to do?

1. Haven't spoken to best friend since last week when she lectured me about Jesus and my family of non-believers and our secular holiday and took credit for something good that happened to me that she "prayed really hard" for.

2. We woke up with a tear in the fitted sheet the whole length of the bed wtf.

3. yay! fish tacos for dinner!

(it's still Monday here)

1. All family has finally departed.

2. Went to gym at 8pm after dropping my father at the airport in order to work off all the various frustration, annoyance, and general malaise that had built up after his visit.

3. Exhausted, but now in a good way.