The Blog With No Name

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Amazon is so incredibly…incredible! I found yet another mass of books in the basement (oh, the basement – that’s a story for its own post, yes it is…) that I know I’m never going to read (never mind that – the real question is, why on earth did I ever buy them?). My options are 1. pitch; 2. save for the church yard sale or 3. try to sell. Option one hurts. Throwing away books! Whoever heard of such a thing. Option two, well, these were not, in some cases, books that you’d want to bring to a church (one was a vaguely Mapplethorpean book of photography, for example) so that was right out (plennnnnty more for the yard sale down in that basement, don’t worry) as well. So I listed a few that were in better condition on Amazon. One sold within 24 hours!!! Can you imagine??!! To some guy in Montana! It just never ceases to amaze me; ten years ago this was all so far beyond imagining. OK, my early morning rant for the day is done (It’s 5:30 am, cold as hell too). Thanks for listening!

My boss called this morning, from the beach, in Florida, where she is attending a conference. How fair is that [NOT!] ??? Of course today it snowed, a rarer and rarer occurence these days. Is it just me, or did it snow a LOT more when I was a child (thirty years ago, more or less…) ???

I got sucked into a viral marketing meeting this evening – “Tastefully Simple.” As with many things in life, there is something about these programs that is just ANNOYING AS HELL. George Bush and his pals will drive all the jobs overseas to India and we will all be left trying to make money selling candles and dip mixes to each other.

January in a church office is even busier than December! I am shocked, shocked! It’s all the blasted end-of-year reporting – annual reports for the congregations, pledges, the synod breathing down one’s corporate neck for their cut, so to speak. But I still like my job. Everybody is so *nice* and most of the time I’m the only person there! It’s weird. I putter around, make lists on my Palm, and throw things away. I could work for year and years on simply throwing things away. I enjoy that. Need to do it at my residence more, but don’t tell my husband I said so…

I”m still writing 2003 on most checks, of course I don’t write that many so that’s not a big deal. Everyone here is still sick (so far – one bad cold, one inner-ear infection) as a result of our post-Christmas excursion up to Dubuque (or “Bubuque” as one of the kiddies called it) to the Grand Harbor Resort. I had a lot more fun that I thought I would, despite the beating my elbows took going down various waterslides with kids on the lap. Oh well. The HOT TUB made up for a lot of that. My brother was right – avoid the hotel restaurant, go back into scenic downtown Bubuque and find a restaurant there. Next time we go, we’re going to the Mississippi River museum too – I hear they have huge catfish in there. Hm.

www.grandharborresort.com