I need a day of rest...

So it's Sunday.  The traditional day of rest.

(that all depends on your background of course....but in modern day America it is usually the day where guys kick back on the sofa and watch the perennial sporting event ... which ever one floats your boat.... while the gals get to clean the kitchen in a futile effort to NOT watch whatever sporting event is on).

Me, I was hoping for a day to get some down time. 

I could:
Stare at a wall  (hopefully, one of the few clean walls in the house.... Number Two Son's finger grime apparently has gone farther afield than I previously imagined).

Read the rest of the book that needs to be finished by TOMORROW.

Eat / drink something soothing (take your pick -- whichever was less work)

Maybe play a game with the boys at some point.

But NO....

again, no day of rest.

Started off the morning with church .... and my newest add-on to the schedule.  When the priest asked for some new lay readers / lectors, I stuck up my hand, and put myself on the list.  I've done this before. No sweat, just get to church a bit  early to read the lesson through so I can practice my biblical name tongue twisters.

But.... turns out, I somehow signed up for Lay Eucharistic Minister which is a WHOLE lot more than reading something out loud.

Today was my first gig.  I got through it with some help from the other people up front (more than just the priest up there nowadays) and hopefully it will sink in soon, but man, it was a bit more than I was expecting.

A quick change and Number Two Son and I pulled out the Cub Scout popcorn during coffee hour to sell some for his pack.

And then, this afternoon we have more scout stuff.

And more tomorrow.

And when I got home, I looked around, realized we have TWO WEEKS until my Venerable Mother-in-Law (yeah, I'm starting to run out of stuff from the Charlie Chan books to use for nicknames.... Honoured Husband, Venerable Mother, Number One Son, etc.....  I'll have to move on to something else soon...)

Getting back to Mother-In-Law .... she's coming in two weeks time for the annual fall get-together. Which means my house becomes command central.  Which, in turn, means that I have to have a CLEAN house.

Remember that lack of weekends that I've been having?

It continues this weekend.

And next weekend.

And the weekend after that... the one where she'll be here?

Yup.  Just found out that Soccer try-outs for the winter season start on .... the day of her get-together. 

All is not lost however. The try-outs are (miraculously) going to be about three blocks from the house.  Only one boy at a time has to go... so I'll be ferrying one over, watching .... then ferrying the next over.... and THEN we'll have get-together time.

This does mean that I LEAVE MY HUSBAND IN CHARGE..... should I repeat that?  I don't really want to. Once is bad enough.

And, my family will be all over my kitchen.... without me there.

(Wailing commences)

I may not survive the next three weeks.

I really could have used a day off today.

What a Week!

Technically, it started off last week, so I suppose you could say - What a Fortnight!  if you prefer, but I like it the way it is.

It started last Thursday with not being able to get any work done at home (and when I say at home, I generally mean working on the computer at my day job.... book selling, ya know).

Then Friday, Venerable Mother said, don't forget to take your stuff to the church rummage sale.  First thing.  Do it now!

So I went to the computer and started working -- which was  my way of ignoring the situation until I had gotten some badly needed work done......

but....


And there's ALWAYS a but...

Venerable Mother called again.  You REALLY need to get down here.  Bring the books now.  So I finished my bill paying, checked the email and gave in and dragged the twelve boxes of books (you remember that ongoing project to get rid of old, not so great book stock?  Well the dregs have to go somewhere and if they weren't bad enough to pitch, then donating them is the way to go.  And by the way, these twelve bags / boxes are STILL all from the A's.) down to church.

  I thought, "I'll just drop them and RUN."

Which NEVER works. I got there at 11:00AM.  I left at 4:50 PM because I had to get Number Two Son to soccer practice.

And that's pretty much how it's gone since then  -- I keep thinking I'll sit down and do paperwork / data entry...and something else comes up that is just as important.

Saturday it was two soccer games, rummage sale help, cub scout popcorn selling, and then back to church to pack up the leftovers from the rummage sale,  box them and stash them in a LARGE van to be taken to some other place.

Sunday was an all day trip to Columbia with the scouts to the Trout fishing farm.  Did I mention that the weather spiked again during this time period and we're back up to 100's each day?

Monday.... I totally forget what happened Monday.  I've blocked it out completely (except for the requisite hour and a half stop at  Number Two Son's school for math help.)

Tuesday.... same thing.

Wednesday was my yearly physical. Yippee.  Took an hour and a half. Met a very nice nurse practitioner who was taking over for my regular doctor for a while.  Nice lady.  Still don't like the stuff women have to go through for a yearly physical and probably never will.  I survived.  'Nuf said.

Yesterday was my job interview.  So OF COURSE I stopped off at Number Two Son's school for an hour and a half to help - realized that I had STOPPED watching the clock and nearly had a heart attack racing down the highway (did I mention that the interview was a half an hour away from home?) to make it in time.
And yes, it was 98 degrees in the shade at the time.  I was DRESSED UP.... and the air conditioning in my car is non-existant.

You try showing up for a job appointment with a sweaty red face, a dress stuck to your back and your legs (bare) sticking together when you walk.  YUCK.

On the good side, I think I might have made it past the first round.

And today.... well, here's hoping that I can get some data entry done today because I'm REALLY behind.

Tomorrow I won't be able to as the soccer stuff / scout stuff starts all over again.

Have I mentioned that my house is a shambles and that cleaning has gotten cursory at best?

Yup.  That's my week.


Oh.... can't forget the new pairs of pants from Lands End that arrived the other day.  Same pants I've worn forever.  I guess I can't pretend that I'm the same size anymore -- my imagination can keep the dream alive, but my body just doesn't want to stuff itself into something too tight.  Dang.  AND I have to send them back and get replacements -- which means at least a two week turnaround.  In the meantime I have to find something to wear that is decent (the reason I finally broke down and ordered pants was because the other pairs had holes so large they were obscene) and that half-way fits.  :(

Passwords, passwords, and damned passwords

Yeah, there's my quote for the day.

Just updated my Thunderbird and it asked me for my master password.

My WHAT??????????

So then I have to ask it politely, which ONE, dang you?

Then I have to go through all the passwords in my head and try them all.

Of course, the ones I try WON'T WORK.

Then in desperation, I try my normal password (which, by the way, was the first one I tried....)

And it took.  Sigh.

One of those days, huh?    Of course, I have LOTS TO DO TODAY. And I've just spent 15 stupid minutes wasted on passwords.

Hopefully the rest of the day will improve from here.

Oh, by the way, I got an email yesterday for a job interview.  This is GOOD NEWS.  Now all I have to do is look and act like the right person for the job.   Keep your fingers crossed.

Do you know how hard it is to get a cat to SIT STILL for a picture?

FIVE PICTURES....

Just to get this.

Sigh.  

Other people's cats sit still for pictures because they LIKE getting their pictures taken.  

Mine, well,  Izzie here isn't the only cat in the house, but after it took so long to get this sad photo, I gave up for the day.

The thing in her mouth is her ball.

Izzie fetches.  But only if you have the Izzie approved type of ball.  Has to be soft and fluffy with some sort of puffiness to it. It has to be something you can throw far away. 

Then she has to be in the right mood to bring it back.

Don't know if I've mentioned this before but Son Number Two named Izzie -- officially she's Queen Isabelle or Queen Isabella of .... (don't remember what he said about where).

NO one calls her Isabelle. Or even Isabella.

She's Izzie.  

She's a tomboy.

She's BIG.

And she's very playful.

So --  there you go.  The requisite cat photo.

I'll have to see if I can get pictures of the rest of the gang another time.

Back in the saddle again.... metaphorically speaking

Yup, definitely metaphorically speaking, as I am NOWHERE near a horse at this moment and haven't been in a saddle with a horse under it in oh.....15 years at the least.

The Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair is now old news.  I did better than expected, which is to say I expected to not be able to make my booth fee out of gross receipts.  I was happily surprised that I not only made back my booth fee (so I could pay it....) and that I actually made MORE than that.

HA!


Well, it was nice while it lasted.  Unfortunately, since the last two months prior to this book fair have been DISMAL as far as book sales go... well, lets just say a couple of bills got paid from the proceeds of the fair, but it would have been nice if there had been even more sales.

I did take pictures of some of the dealers and their booths.

 Chris Lowenstein of Bookhunter's Holiday.

Lovely booth, lovely books, lovely lady.

 Some of Chris's stuff. 

 More of Chris's Stuff.

 Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books with a few of his books.

Cool stuff. Always.

Three goofballs-

Wendy Maxwell, wife of Bill Maxwell of Maxwell's Bookmark.

Cool Lady as well - and a great Jazz singer. (she's on the far left)

Next comes Peter Siegel of Bea and Peter Siegel's Books - Cookbooks to DIE FOR!

And Susan of Robert Gavora Fine and Rare Books (sorry Susan, I don't remember if your last name is Gavora or not, so I'll be safe and not sorry later)

Blurry picture. Sorry.

Also notice that I FORGOT to get pictures of my own booth, and of several other booths that I SHOULD have -- but time ran out and my camera battery started to wobble as well.  I took the pictures about 10 minutes before opening bell (which didn't actually go off and people were thronging in while dealers were chatting and away from their booths).

More info on the fair to come as I think of it.

Overall, better than expected, at least for me. Others I know... not so great. 

I'll get to that later.

Remember that work thing? Well, here's what I'm doing tomorrow and Saturday.

Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair

Sept 18th -- That's THIS SATURDAY!!!!

Thirty boxes + packed in the car today and I'm nearly ready to hit the road tomorrow.  As you've probably guessed, I tend to over-pack (Ya think?). At any rate, I'll take the thirty boxes with me -- whether I stuff all those books onto the shelves is entirely a different matter. But I'll have them if I need them. Tomorrow is set up day, with the book fair on Saturday, bright and early at 10:00. 

Personally, I'll be out the door on Saturday morning at 6:30 AM to make it to Sacto with extra time.

I'm bringing a goodly number of new items in all sorts of subjects -- I've got a bunch of new Modern Fiction, some funky Non-Fiction items, some ephemera (found the sheet music the other day, so I'll have some of that too) Most Science Fiction / Fantasy and more (yeah, thirty boxes worth -- here's the math for you ..... thirty boxes of books with approx. 35 books per box (more for the picture books -- which tend to have 60-75) ...
averaging out to 1100 books.

Yeah, I'm over-packing. But hey, it works for me.

As far as sales -- well, I'd love to have LOTS, but in reality, I might have somewhere around 35-40 books sold by the end of the day (and yes, this is a fraction of a percent of what I'll be bringing ....  if my calculator is correct, and if I've worked the problem the right way around it comes to .0333 percent of the books I bring).

If, however, one of those books has a somewhat higher price tag, it works for me.

So why, you might ask, do you bring ALL THOSE BOOKS when you might just bring your high end stock and sell one or two?

You try it and see why .... I've said this before and I'm not the first one to say it. Book fairs are like a game of craps... it's entirely up to chance what a customer is going to buy. Sure, you might get J. P. Getty type come past your booth and wave his hand and buy up your entire booth, but more likely you'll get the guy next door who's looking for a $20.00 book that will fill a niche in his collection.  Nothing wrong with either end of the spectrum... it just means you have to have VARIETY (price and subject matter).

That's why I tend to go overboard with my boxes of books.

Ce la vie!

Hopefully it will be a good day. We'll see soon.

In the meantime, if you'd like to attend, let me know and I'll email a free pass.  If you're not able to or not interested in coming this time, I'll try and have a blog summary about it sometime next week.


See you there!

Another month gone by in a flash.

You'd think I'd be able to keep track of time better than this -- it's nearly a month since my last blog entry.  School has long since started, the soccer games (not just the practices) started last week, even Cub Scouts have started for the year.... and still I can't get my blog updated daily.

Yeah, about that.... well, all of the above have now ADDED ON extra time.

Soccer takes up four nights a week (minimum two hours per day- right at dinner time). Plus all day Saturday.

School.... Son Number Two signed me up as a volunteer (well, to be accurate, I signed myself up, but he bugged the teacher into remembering) and now I'm at the school for an hour+  Monday through Thursday helping with MATH class (if you know me, that's an interesting fit). 

And then there's scouts....

Scouts (sigh).  I love the Cub Scouts. I love being a den leader. I don't mind volunteering to do extra (Popcorn chairman... sure, sign me up.... and yes, my garage is filled with popcorn  for the foreseeable future), but when the Cub Master from last year couldn't continue (for a variety of reasons that don't matter here), well then we had to re-organize.  Luckily, I dodged the bullet and didn't end up Cub Master myself -- it was a close shave however.  On the good / GREAT side, the Cub Master who has stepped up has already done more in two months than the last one did in an entire year. 

However, currently, I'm the senior person .... NO, not the OLDEST... I'm the person who's been there the longest because Son Number One started several years ago and has since moved on to Boy Scouts...now I'm finishing up with Son Number Two (he's a Webelos II and will be graduating to Boy Scouts in February).  I'm the only one who remembers what sorts of things the pack has done and generally how we did them.

Not to say there won't be changes. Of course there will, but for the moment, we want to keep continuity going and I get to do extra work to help facilitate this.

Which means that so far, in the past four weeks I've spent no less than 10 hours a week (not including my own den meeting times or prep for my den meetings) working on Cub Scout stuff.... including endless emails, calls, making up and sending out fliers, driving all over town, etc.,etc., etc.,.

I don't mind, but in the mean time, I still have WORK to do -- which has to squeeze into an ever smaller amount of time.

AND THEN--- this weekend is the Sacramento Book Fair!

Don't ask me how clean my house is -- you'll either get a rude answer and a foul gesture, or I'll start to cry. (CAT HAIR IS EVIL INCARNATE!!!)

Yeah, I might see some time off sometime after the month of September, but I have a feeling it's probably not going to happen.


I'm enjoying all of this but.... and this gets back to why the blog has languished....

My time is a bit lacking lately, and the blog suffers because of it.


So that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Now I gotta get back to work.