What’s on the iPod: Ghosts by Six Storeys High
Last week to save!
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What a nice weekend. Stepdaughter was here one more day, and we were able to spend time with her in the city. We roamed from art gallery to restaurant to art gallery to coffee house to boutiques — just a nice day of walking in the brisk air. Her train from Philly to Providence was delayed for nearly a week thanks to the flooding in Manhattan. She departed yesterday, six days after her initial departure date. It was wonderful having her around for so long.
I managed to find two designer tops at one boutique — by a designer I’ve enjoyed for some time — for 75 percent off retail. With retail being $300 each, that’s one nice chunk of savings. It’s nice to splurge once in a while when you get the chance.
On Friday we opted for a nice dinner. I got to choose where. I “found” a nice French bistro. And what a find it was — it was fourth on the list of top ten restaurants in the city, and I agree. Exquisite food, right down to the cocktails. Pricey, but a nice treat to be able to get in. Others on that same top-ten list have up to a year-long waiting list. We got in the same day.
Yesterday we bid goodbye to our girl and went about our puttering. I ran off to Kmart for clothes hangers (they have my favorites), then off to the mall to look for a jacket I’d seen in a magazine. LL Bean – a Donegal tweed blazer with a lovely loden plaid. Good luck finding it. Apparently, it was in two magazines at the same time. The clerk in the store said it had been hanging on the racks for ages and barely moved until those two issues came out simultaneously. Luckily, she was persistent. We found one in a store in some place I’d never heard of. It will be here this week.
In the afternoon, we went over to Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge Park for Evensong. Absolutely beautiful — the candles on the ends of the pews were lit, the choir was joined by a choir from a neighboring church, and the music was divine (no pun intended). We left humming and singing. Then he said “Let’s go to Molly’s.” Off to our favorite Irish haunt for some more great music and some dinner. I had to split my attention between the music and the football game, but it was a great time per usual.
Today I have three phone calls and one project to get going. Plus I have to get a few more interviews scheduled for my article. I love that it has a long deadline, but I’m not going to sit idle. Holidays are coming and that usually means no one is in to be interviewed. Best get that sorted now.
How was your weekend?
Busy: cleanup, yard work, teaching, finishing the edits for OLD-FASHIONED DETECTIVE WORK, keeping up with schoolwork.
Good busy, but busy.
Need to hustle some freelance gigs today.
Major hustling for San Diego trip that's like 3-in-1. There are the visits with clients and prospects, vacation with lovely things like lunch with Anne, and then packing for the 3-Day, 60-mile Walk for the Cure. Trust me, there is a lot of paraphernalia associated with the 3-Day.
I created a checklist for all 3 trips in one and it ended up being 2 1/2 pages typed. I am the master roller of packing.
I leave Wednesday so I'm scrambling to get all my work duckies in a row. Can't wait for this trip!!
Your weekend sounds glorious, Lori – especially after prepping for Sandy last weekend. (I hope the basement window didn't leak too much.)
Saturday I walked the dog, painted the new porch railing, made Greek pizza (spinach, feta, olives and onions on a super-thin crust spread with olive oil and garlic), started knitting boot cuffs, and fought with my old sewing machine. The plan was to turn $1.50 of gorgeous remnant fabric into two throw pillows, but apparently, a little pink thread got caught in the bobbin mechanism when I made the pink sock monkeys. I gently extricated it, but it kept jamming. Frustrated, I decided to deal with it the next day.
On Sunday I "frogged" the first boot cuff attempt and started fresh; ran a couple of quick errands; raked; pulled out the spent tomato, pepper and cucumber plants; chatted with several neighbors; and….fixed the sewing machine! (I changed the bobbin to another color, sewed a few stitches, saw the top thread was leaving huge loops on the underside. So I tested different stitch lengths and gradually turned the tension know to lower and lower settings….until the stitches looked normal. Then I made my pillows.
I just realized I forgot to do laundry over the weekend. Add that to my Monday To Do list along with transcribing at least one interview, writing one article and writing a column. Also gathering more article ideas for Favorite Editor.
Devon, I'm hustling, too. Had a reminder pop in front of me this weekend — a building we'd passed was where I'd met a client prospect back in April. It was then I'd realized I hadn't reached out in a few months.
Time to do that. 🙂
Herd those ducks, Cathy! Good luck on the walk. You inspire me!
Paula, the leak was a non-issue. Not only did we not get as much rain as predicted, we had a sump pump sitting in the window well pumping the entire time (until the power went out, which was after the rains had subsided). Dry as English toast. 🙂
Sounds like you need a new machine. Stepdaughter has a new Husqvarna she got for Christmas. We've all benefited from it. 🙂
Nice weekend… some meditation, some reading novels and petting cats… laid back.
Glad your sump pump kept pumping… important and reminds me of bilge pumps 😉
Don't you love the word "bilge"? 🙂
Glad the window stayed dry!
I love my old machine. The new ones cost a fortune and I wouldn't know what to do with half of the bells & whistles. A new machine would be more than all of my birthday and Christmas gifts combined over about five years.
Luckily I got the good old machine running again!