Week in Review: Week 208
MONDAY, FEB 24
Last week of February. Back to a 5-day workweek. With people.
TUESDAY
My mother gave me that little red new testament when I was young and still went to Sunday school (until my friend and I started ducking out and going to the nearby hardware store and buying goldfish with our collection plate money). When I was moving some things around I opened it and found this picture of my mother and father on their wedding day right inside the front cover. I don’t know why it was there. But. It seemed to need a picture.
WEDNESDAY
A little birdie told me today she had inquired at Mejuri about buying One Earring…and you can! I so appreciate her thoughtfulness in taking the time to look into that…I would have said imgonnaimgonnaimgonna for weeks. But now I have a lone earring headed my way! And this time I’ll take them to both straight to a jeweler to get the clasp tightened up!
I was going to go to the movies this evening…but in the end, it was dreary and I was tired…so I just grabbed some snacks on my way home from work and came home and watched The Intern with Robert De Niro (love) and Anne Hathaway (meh). It was sweet.
THURSDAY
Feeling tired. Grateful it’s almost the end of the week. Finally I got my tax refund. After 20 years of getting it quickly via direct deposit, this year for some reason it took 4 weeks and arrived by check. Ugh. Now I can seriously look at computers. This one is sad and old and tired. And maybe get a few things off my spring clothing wish list.
FRIDAY
Valentine’s month is over.
Finally I got a new computer. Hallelujah. I will try to get it set up over the weekend. I have to transfer all my files from the old PC onto an external hard drive and that could take a while.
SATURDAY & Sunday
The weekend was pretty much a blur of COMPUTER HELL. Setting up, things not working, trying trying trying again, returning to store, resetting up, things STILL not working, installing uninstalling rebooting help me help me FINALLY around 8pm Sunday night I got enough things sorted out to function. But really…other than a lunch out with a friend on Sunday (only cuz I was already out to take the computer back to store)…the entire weekend was devoted to computer setup problems. And some reading and napping on the sofa Saturday afternoon.
In other scintillating life news, my car hit 100,000 miles. I’d hoped this car would last me till I retired and then I’d live in a walkable area so could get rid of the car. But that was when I thought I might retire at 62. Now I’m thinking 65 is more reasonable so now the car needs to last three extra years! I don’t want to have another car payment between now and then. So far it’s treated me well and has only tortured me with tire and brake issues. Fingers crossed that trend continues.
MONDAY
I didn’t realize when I announced the Amazon Gift Card drawing, that this week’s Week in Review would NOT be on Monday as usual because of the Ageless Style Linkup. So I’m doing the drawing now but you won’t read this til Tuesday…
So…here we go…
Pamela Gray is the winner! Woot! Woot! Your Amazon Gift Card is whooshing its way to your inbox at this very moment! Let me know when you get it!
WHAT I’M READING
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. First: I give this book a 5/5. That is RARE for me. I think I’ve given like three other books (To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre and The Power of One) a 5 EVER! Here’s the thing: it’s one of the most relentlessly disturbing books I’ve ever read…but also the most beautiful. The writing was almost poetic to me and was the kind of writing I like: direct. Not flowery or overly-descriptive. The subject matter was very difficult…sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, pedophilia (are you thinking and this is the best book she’s ever read??)…but it was contrasted with friendship and strength and unconditional love.
I’d started reading it a few years ago…and just couldn’t get past the first bit – there were so many characters, I couldn’t keep them straight…and I gave up. Lizzie Hadfield from Shot from the Street read it recently and so raved about it I thought I would give it another try…and I’m so glad I did. And once I started again I couldn’t stop. And it’s LONG…over 800 pages, so it will take you a good chunk of your life.
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee. Uhm. Before you mark me as having a “type” of book, let me say I had No Idea what the premise of this book was. Someone recommended it, I don’t even remember who, but I read it based on recommendation alone. Anyway, guess what it was about? Pedophilia and sexual abuse. Also, a very lyrical, poetic style of writing. Things weren’t said outright, it sort of felt like you were just seeing shadows through a filmy screen. It was only afterward that I was like, oh, wait, is THAT what was going on? I’m giving this a 3.5 for lovely writing and handling difficult subject matter sensitively. But…it just never really got into me. It didn’t get me emotionally invested. In A Little Life, I felt like I KNEW Jude, the main character. I loved Jude. After I finished the book I felt that I MISSED him. Edinburgh was like yeah yeah yeah okay it’s over. Maybe I was just overly saturated with the subject matter and couldn’t absorb any more.
And now I am taking a break from dark stories and am reading Shrill, by Lindy West…but I’ll give a full report on that next week.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
Mostly catching up on series I watch and had fallen weeks and weeks behind on: Grey’s Anatomy, This is Us, A Million Little Things, Modern Family, Shrill (the series). I already told you about the one movie I watched, The Intern. And that’s it.
That felt like a long week. But Monday is already behind me with the alteration in the posting schedule. NEXT weekend I intend to have some FUN and R&R to make up for THIS lost weekend.
Marceline Miller
A mechanic told me once that if you have a Nissan, Toyota, or Honda, and change the oil RELIGIOUSLY every 3K miles, the engine will go and go. So that’s my two cents about getting more years out of the car. My personal triumph was 324,000 miles out of a car once. I’m still talking about it. Don’t know if that’ll ever happen again.
bettyewp
Wow, 324k! That’s amazing! What kind of car/Year was it? I definitely feel like older cars lasted longer than new cars do. And I’m putting it on my calendar about the oil changes! Thanks!
Marceline Miller
And oh gosh, those luscious tulip photos…
bettyewp
I bought my boss flowers for her birthday… and got some extra for myself 🙂
Marian
That’s a real photographer, catching a photo at 100k. Not like me saying oh boy, it’s almost on 100k, I’ve got to take a picture oh no it’s on 100,002, damn I missed it!
Japanese cars las. But the hard part of keeping an aging car going is the catalytic converter and passing smog checks. Get every oil change and recommended maintenance on time and find a very good mechanic who can get you through any situation and you’ll have it running past 200k.
Setting up a new PC can be like giving birth alone in the woods. But now you know you did it and you’ve got your new baby.
bettyewp
Oh. You have no idea how anal I’ve been about this for the past month. At the last 25 miles I would barely let anyone else into my car in case we hit The Magic Number and I had to go all obsessive-compulsive about it. That last day when I KNEW I was going to hit it, I was videoing (yeah yeah I know) for the last mile, getting closer and closer to home. I really wanted a VIDEO of the ticking over. I’d been at 99,999 for what seemed like forever (apparently A Mile is WAY longer than I’d thought) and was STILL at 99,999 when I got to my driveway but I needed to get it NOW cuz the next time I drove would have been to work the next morning and I wouldn’t have time to muck around with this. So I turned down a side street across from my driveway…still videoing…it’s a culdesac…and after all that, it ticked to 100,000 as I was doing the sharp wheel turnaround to drive around the culdesac circle…I couldn’t believe it when the steering wheel straightened out and it was at 100,000 and after all that I hadn’t actually seen it happen! So I have a stupid video. But at least I was able to stop and get the picture. And I realized that since my car has a digital display (not old school analog) that the numbers didn’t really “flip over,” the digital numbers just changed the way they always do. But still. I wanted it.
Yep, last night I had the workday wardrobe picture to take, download, and edit and it was lovely. Except I can’t find where my photoshop actions are to load them into the new photoshop so the picture is a little lackluster to me. I’ll find them.
Pamela Gray
Woo-hoo! Thank you Bettye!
Now to decide what present to give myself ♥♥♥
bettyewp
Something fun!
Iris
Oh, so glad you could order one ear-ring.
I can relate with the computer. I didn’t wind up returning the last one I got, and I’m fairly used to it now – but it certainly wasn’t my dream computer at all. Good luck with yours.
Grace & Peace,Iris
http://www.IrisOriginalsRamblings.com
bettyewp
“I didn’t wind up returning the last one I got, and I’m fairly used to it now” – I don’t recall what was wrong with it or what you didn’t like about it.
So far so good (knock on wood), since the weekend it’s been behaving nicely. Does all the things in a prompt manner. I’m pleased.
jodie filogomo
Only 100,000 miles on your car? LOL!! Both Rob and I have more than that. Getting a new car is always the worst besides the fact there are those pesky car payments. That’s what we always say when we take it in for any maintenance.
OXOX
Jodie
bettyewp
I know 100,000 is not a death knell, but I always feel “safe” when I’m UNDER 100,000…and like things are bound to start going wrong once I pass 100,000. And that means Mo’ Money. I feel like my cars usually die somewhere in the 175,000 range…but those last years can be costly. It’s been so nice the past few years to have no loan payment and not really have any repair expenses.
Leslie Susan Clingan
Nice to catch up with your through this post and your lovely photographs. Glad you snapped the picture of the older red books and the wedding photo. Quite a keepsake. The photo of the little hearts in the trash can is kind of bittersweet. Feels almost like a break-up. All of your photos evoke emotion.
I am watching many of the same shows you are. Started watching the mini-series Olive Kettridge on Netflix. Good but kind of depressing.
bettyewp
It was a little bittersweet taking down our paper hearts at the end of February. But the good news is we put up a bunch of shamrocks! This is at work. We try to decorate every month for holiday for whatever holiday/seasonal change, etc is happening that month. I guess next month will be Easter eggs 🙂 I’ve had Olive Kettridge on my watchlist for years but it never seems to make it to the top! The list is long.