First off, let me say how envious and proud I am of my dear friend Amber who’s been Facebook-less for a week. DAMN DO I WISH I COULD DO THAT. But alas I am too attached, at least to my family who are near and far. Since moving I’ve found that I post more for them to see since we aren’t around each other every day and perhaps that is something I’m going to have to let go of someday, but for now I digress.
Speaking of, I went to a Book Repair Workshop in Yorktown today which involved passing the Mechanicsville exit I used to take to see my friend and couldn’t help but reminisce a bit. All the fun had and how I miss having such large gatherings of good people and good conversations about life. It was always interesting to get such a diverse crazy group, but it was always to much fun getting together for drinks and surprise parties and so many good laughs.
So updates from this past week: more of the same really except for the book repair workshop. Unfortunately my predecessor left long before I moved in and so left without any sort of training on how/why she cataloged a certain way, leaving me to start from scratch. Today was mostly about prevention of further damage on our most well loved books and I won’t bore you with the details but I can officially say that I’m an expert book cover-er/enforcer now, paperback and hardbound.
In addition to it being COLD, SO COLD, SO DAMN COLD, as in the coldest it’s ever been my entire life, we had a bit of snow here over the week (and more tonight!), leaving me with the ever burning question of: What are HOA’s good for if they don’t do the job I pay them for? We’re in a suburb where I pay $1k a year for maintenance of the roads, access to the lake, gym, and whatever “amenities” they provide us with. Well, I live in the far off back of the place, so far back it takes about 10mins to get it and it took the Maintenance 5 DAYS to plow/salt/sand our roads. Which I still don’t think they did because it warmed up a bit and all the snow and ice just melted away anyway. So I was only out of work 1 day last week, and you can figure my problem: you haven’t experience cold or pain from the cold till you try having Rheumatoid Arthritis in negative temperatures. Also, why does no one know how to drive in the snow? I know I’m not an expert but I know that when your going down a hill and then need to go right back up another you don’t slow down!
But ya know I can’t hate on the winter, it drys out my skin, makes my hair frizzy, and ruins my lips but you just cannot beat breathing in the fine crisp cool after a long day stuck in your office. It’s quiet, the cold, and so peaceful with the snow begins to fall. If I just didn’t have to drive in it, or worry about having the right shoes for the tundra, I would always live in the cold. How badly I dream of not having RA, living in Boston, and working at the gorgeous! public library. Which reminds me, tomorrow is #libraryshelfie day! Will post pictures for that and #museumselfie that was last week tomorrow, ~ promise.
In good news we bought two lovely wingback chairs for our library/den Sunday. And my parents, being the awesome people they are, came down to visit and helped us deliver and assemble them. We don’t have a truck. So with the completion of removing an exterior door that lead from our Master to the den (thank God and the men in my life that’s gone) and a little paint plus bookshelves, we should have a pretty good setup here soon. And I can’t wait to get my standing easel and a little storage cabinet for my paints. And I’ve got great plans for a new wall desk unit too. Of which I promise to post pictures of once it’s all presentable. As in we still need to paint the room a different color (I hate the terracotta brown that was haphazardly splashed everywhere) and we need
In other weird news: My cats are obsessed with pens. Which lead to my hospitalization over the weekend because one of them went falling off the bed after one and in doing so decided to reach for my hand, essentially splitting apart a good 3/4’s of my ring finger. The most important finger of all! So hospital and skin glue plus pain meds: my kind of a Saturday night. And I thought they liked me. Hyde (the short-haired one) likes E more anyway.
As for the title, it’s been a year today since my Grandma passed away. Many thanks to my best friend for taking the picture you see above, the sunset on this day last year. Tonight I am especially thankful to be writing this post sitting at her dinner table.
The Mad Historian 