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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary Week of 5 May 2003 Latest Update: Sunday, 11 May 2003 08:22 |
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Monday, 5 May 2003 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| After I finished cleaning house yesterday morning I took
the dogs out for an hour of yard work. I needed to move some landscape
timbers I was storing under the deck and do a few other assorted tasks. By
the time I was almost finished Bob came back home from visiting
Lenore.
After lunch and a quick mail check I hit the couch for some reading/nap time. About two hours later I woke up and felt somewhat rested. I decided to go on over and visit Lenore so I would have my evening free. During dinner Bob and I watched an Angel episode. Once we gave the dogs their after dinner walk I hit the office for an hour or so of work. Guess that's about all the news fit to print. Hope your week gets off to a good one. It will be another busy one for me. More on that later in the week. [Top] |
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Tuesday, 6 May 2003 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Sorry folks, this will be a short post. It is late, for me
anyway, 9:10 pm Monday evening. I fixed an early dinner, visited Lenore,
and attended the 6:30 Body Pump class. By the time I got back home it was
going on 8. I fixed popcorn for us for a snack and watched another episode
of the Manor House. Bob and I have called this PBS's version of reality
TV. Modern day British citizens are playing roles of 1905 living in an
upstairs/downstairs lifestyle. While the shows themselves, there are six
episodes and we have watched three, are not all that great, it has been
interesting.
The weather remains rainy, cool, and with threats of thunderstorms all week. The mid-west and the states west and south of us are getting nailed. I lived in Nashville for a year, known as tornado alley, and I can attest to the horrific storms we used to get almost everyday during the spring and summer. Here, we have already been under tornado watches twice in the last three days with a chance of more severe weather to come. Time to wrap this up and head off to bed to get a couple of chapters read before turning off the lights. [Top] |
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Wednesday, 7 May 2003 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I came home straight from work, fixed a bite of lunch, and
spent a couple of hours checking e-mails, etc. Around 2:30 I went over to
visit Lenore. As Bob discussed on his page yesterday, Lenore still thinks
she can come home to live. I had a very frank heart to heart talk with her
explaining all the reasons why it is not practical for her to live here
again. In past, she will listen to me for some reason instead of Bob. I
also talked with the nurse and asked her to get the doctor to prescribe a
medication she used to take when she lived here that helped to calm her
anxiety and nerves. Hopefully it will help.
By the time I got back home it was time to start dinner so we could finish up and I could get to the library by six to break down the book sale. I took a truckload of books over to Goodwill. When I got home Bob wanted to take a run over to visit our friends Paul and Mary at their new house. They have not moved in as yet but were over there painting. I grabbed a couple of beers and a bottle of wine as a house warming gift and we took off. We had a nice visit, we watched them paint, getting back home a little after nine o'clock. Their house is only five minutes from us. After giving the dogs some playtime I came back to get this post written before we walk the dogs for last time out. I finished up the Joan Hess. Not sure what I will start next.
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Thursday, 8 May 2003 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
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Whew! I got a bit of a breather at just the right time. As I promised I have exciting stuff going on here to talk about. Tonight, the branch library where I used to work and now volunteer will be hosting three wonderful mystery authors for an informal talk and book signing. I spent most of yesterday getting next to last minute things done such as picking up the books the books the Friends will be selling (more on that in a minute), the fruit basket, and getting the library auditorium set up. Our distinguished quests will by Rhys Bowen, Donna Andrews, and Lyn Hamilton. They will driving down from another book signing in PA arriving here in Winston sometime this afternoon. I am going to drop the fruit basket by the hotel on the way home this afternoon to make sure it is in their room when they arrive. Bob and I are driving over to the hotel around 5 to pick them up for dinner and take them on to the library. A local used/new book store Encore Books (not a chain), who is very supportive of our library bought the books for us at cost. We will be selling them for full price to those who wish to buy copies to have the authors sign. I am really excited about this event. Last year I e-mail Rhys after she posted a message to the Dorothy-L list that she was making her 2003 tour schedule. I asked her if she was ever in this part of the United States would she come to our library. She contacted me back in March and we got the ball rolling in making all the arrangements. Having Donna and Lyn is an even bigger bonus. When I went by Encore Books yesterday afternoon I make a quick browse of their mystery section. I found an early Joan Hess the library system does not have and a first edition hard back of a Lyn Hamilton for Bob. I went ahead and bought it for him since I could not remember which one of her books I ordered for the signing in hard back. We ordered older copies of books in paper to save costs. The weather has finally given us a break. It was partially sunny when I got yesterday. I very quickly fired up the lawn mower and got the grass cut again. The yard card was pretty full but I managed to jam some in there before they come to empty it today. As I mentioned, I am between gigs, sort of. The Microsoft project has temporarily ended. Tom may get funding to start another one later this year. I am getting ready to gear up for the web site annotation stuff for NoveList next week. In the meantime, I am going to try my hand at some author promotions for the company I did one of book reviews for. The pay is not all that great but it will give me some experience/contact in the author field and might possibly lead to something else down the road. At least when I have some down time I can fill it with making these contacts and earning a little bit of extra money. Well, guess I have rattled on long enough. I will report tomorrow on how things went with the author event. Hopefully a few people will show up! [Top] |
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Friday, 9 May 2003 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Lyn, Rhys, and Donna are just wonderful. Bob and I
enjoyed getting to meet them during dinner. We did not have a
very good turnout for the event but the ones who showed up seemed to enjoy
themselves and have a good time.
In the picture below, Rhys is on the left sitting on the stage, Lyn behind her, and Donna in front in the chair. It is late and I am tired. Time to wrap things up.
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Saturday, 10 May 2003 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| In my twenty plus years of working I have never had the
experience of working in a cubicle environment. That will change starting
Monday. When the six of us were hired by the law firm to work on this
project we were given old fashion wooden desks in a conference room.
Actually there were only two desks two be shared by four workers, two
working in the morning, two in the afternoon. The other two had to sit at
the end of the conference table without even the benefit of desk drawers
or work space. They did find a small typing table to put against the wall
to give them a workspace.
As of Monday, we have all been moved into the office where the other project employees work. Two of the full timers, who are doing the marketing for the project within the firm, are moving to the big office building up the street where the firm actually has their law offices. I am not sure how well I will like working in this new confined space. Yesterday afternoon Bob took advantage of two days without rain to blow the helicopters/maple seeds from the gutters. In a matter of three weeks, when they started to fall, they had already started sprouting in the damp environment of the gutter bottom. The others had rotted which STINKS to high heavens when Bob dislodges them with the blower. Even though the last couple of days had been hot and dry there was still a lot of water and muck to be cleared out. It took Bob at least half an hour or longer to get them cleared. After he finished I made a quick trip to the garden store to pick up some plants and buy a hanging basket for my mom for Mother's Day. By the time I returned the wet muck had dried so I get all that mess up off the ground. First of all I trimmed all the bushes with the gas trimmer. I also dug up the bricks I was using as and edging along the curb in front of one natural area and replaced them with landscape boards. Instead of trying to blow all those seeds on the ground up I got out the lawn vacuum and got everything up with that. Between the seeds and the bush clippings I emptied the bag three times. By this time of day it was almost 5. Bob had gone over to visit Lenore while I cleaned up the yard. It was hot, near 90, and very humid. Everything I had on was soaked to the skin. I finished up for the day and jumped into the shower for the second time in one day. Needless to say after two long days in a row I was beat by last night. I watched West Wing and ER and the final two episodes of Manor House, walked the dogs, and was in bed by 9:15. I lasted 15 minutes of reading time before turning out the light at 9:30. Bob let me sleep in this morning. I got up around 8. I am off to the gym this morning then to visit Lenore. This afternoon I need to plant my flowers and put the landscape timbers in the ground. Yesterday I just laid them into position. Tonight is a public observation at Pilot Mountain. The weather for today is to be hot and muggy again. That means tonight, even if it is clear, will be hazy. However, with the moon up we would not be able to do deep sky stuff anyway. Guess that's all for now. Have a great weekend. [Top] |
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[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there. I will be
going over to my folks house later on this afternoon to deliver my mom's
hanging basket and take her out to dinner. Frances will be joining us as
well. Bob will have dinner with his mom at the nursing home.
After another five hours of hot and sweaty work in the yard yesterday I finally have things back under control. Having been so busy this spring I have not had the time I needed to get small things done in the yard. It took two full afternoons of work to get things caught up. All I have left is to order a load of mulch and get it spread. I was so tired by the time I finished up in the yard I asked Bob to see if he could manage to fix dinner. He stirred up some eggs to scramble for himself and started the bacon cooking. I fixed a couple of frozen waffles and a bagel to go along with my bacon. Late yesterday afternoon our area was once again under a tornado/severe thunderstorm watch. Bob had talked to several FAS members and decided it would be best not to go up to Pilot Mountain. Around 6 pm things started clearing to the west of us and most of the severe weather had gone east. Steve called and said he was going up so we changed our minds and decided we may as well go up to support the cause. We made a quick visit with Lenore on the way getting up to Pilot by 8 pm. We had a good turnout of club members with scopes but some lines started forming with spectators so I had Bob get out our scope too. I looked at the moon, Saturn, and Jupiter with its moons. The clouds rolled in from time to time obscuring one or more of the above. I was too tired to make much of an effort to do any serious observing but the moon is always fun and easy to look at. We packed up and left around 10 pm getting home before 11 to walk the dogs. I did read until 11:30 just to wind down a little. After I get the house cleaned this morning I plan to spend the afternoon at my desk until time to leave for my parents house. I did not even check my e-mail yesterday so I have a lot to catch up on. No Winston Cup race today. They do not run on Mother's Day.
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