Things are...

never as bad as they seem.... the kids took the news of my existence in stride.

never quite as easy as they appear on TV.... WOW... Smallville sure has turned up the heat. High school seniors making out in the boys locker room shower.... they made it look so effortless... all I manage to do is get my elbow where it shouldn't be... maybe I need a bigger shower?

all quiet on the work front.... for the first time since I took this job (8 years ago) I am not nervous about my annual review. (Maybe I have finally made the job 'mine'?) I also have no goals for the coming year. That could be a problem. :-) Couldn't I just cruise for a year?

never quite as urgent as they first seem.... I spend some time working in my basement this weekend. I am quite sure I was the only one inside.. the weather was beautiful. But I had two days to myself and the half-done kitchen cabinet was calling to me... I didn't get much accomplished... there was a lot of measure-7-times and then think seriously about cutting before measuring some more going on. But I had fun... revved up the table saw a number of times and ripped my way to a big pile of sawdust. And as I'm watching all this sawdust flying, I am noticing that the back of the TV is sucking up a large amount of dust... oops.... sudden visions of grain elevator explosions dance in front of my eyes. The saw is not hooked up to a dust collection system (haven't build one yet) so it pretty much goes everywhere, including the laundry room next door. Oops. So then I got to thinking about ways to contain the dust. So far the easiest/cheapest option is extra-long shower curtains (in clear) to block off the workroom, hung from quarter inch steel rods strung thru eyes screwed into the ceiling joists. Two six foot rods, two shower curtains, four eyes and I should be ready to go. Back to the urgency.... went shopping with BB on Monday to get rods and shower curtains and wound up getting nothing... BB was worried about the rods bending so we decided to go with rope to string the curtains up, but Wally World was out of shower curtains so I scrapped the whole thing. I was planning on stopping at the store tonight to pick up the supplies and fretting about the time and all the things I needed to do (there is that time thing again!) and I thought.....

Whoa, Nelly!!

Am I going to do any work tonight? No.
Tomorrow? No. Have another, less polluting, project to do Thursday.
Friday? No. Am thinking dinner and a movie with BB sounds much more fun.
Saturday? No. Going to Mom's for the day.
Sunday? No. Am working the mercenary job.
Monday? Probably not.
And so on and so forth.

There is plenty of time to pick up the rods and the shower curtains and eyes next week. And I can put the stuff up on Friday night and saw to my hearts content on Saturday next. Although I should really get some kind of dust collector to put under the saw. I have a plastic bag (really BIG bag) taped under there now and BB is concerned about dust explosions with the motor. Time to hit the Sears Hardware or parts store.

I love shopping. :-)

So, the urgency has been mitigated. At least, mitigated until 3 am when the results of my plate of watermelon make themselves known.