Ten Good Things Weekly--ON TIME for Week Eight

Time again for the Ten Good Things list from the most recently past seven days of my life. I feel like I just did one of these…

With the weather brightening and things chugging along in the business-buying category, I think this week’s list shouldn’t consume my entire morning. I had intended to get outside straightaway this morning and dig back in to my yard work, but a bank of clouds blew in and decided to dump rain on that idea. So as long as I have to wait for the sun to reappear, I have time to dash off this list. Here goes:

1. Drove up to Tacoma to attend the Northwest Restaurant Show. Gotta admit, it wasn’t much, but at least it was free. I got a kick out of wearing the ID card around my neck, and having people ask me if I "made the buying decisions." Made me feel like a real, grown-up business owner for the first time.
2. Decided it was finally safe to start thinking about wearing sandals (safe, as in, I won’t get frostbite if I do…) so I stripped off the chipped remains of my Valentine’s toenail polish and gave myself a pedicure. For some reason, this is something I usually do in the middle of the night, after I’ve had a few glasses of wine. Maybe I need the wine to lubricate the joints enough for me to be able to reach my toes…
3. I personally got out of my truck and poured myself a tank full of Bio-diesel. This is significant, because in Oregon, it is against the law to pour your own gas. However, since Bio-diesel is not gas, I guess they figure the average idiot can access it without immolating himself and everyone else (don’t ask me why only Oregonians are too stupid to pour their own gas.) Anyway, it gave me a such a feeling of satisfaction, both the "I did it myself" factor, and the knowledge that my ninety bucks (Ouch!) was not going to line the pockets of Bush, Cheney, et al.
4. I found the bumper stickers that I got for Christmas, and applied two of them to Great White. My ridiculously huge, noisy, fuel-guzzling conveyance now proudly sports a "Powered by Bio-Diesel" sticker, along with a Mahatma Ghandi quote, and my version of "Support the Troops." Lest anyone think I’m just another red-neck cowgirl driving a big-ass truck strictly for the effect...
5. Our purchase of the "Old Town Café" took several steps closer to becoming a reality. I hope you are all still keeping your fingers crossed for me…
6. Went out on a plant-buying tour on Thursday. Set myself a $100 budget for the day. I burned a quarter of a tank of gas (um, I mean, french-fry oil…) but I got home with a decent haul, and only exceeded my budget by ten bucks.
7. On that aforementioned buying tour, I made a list, and I actually stuck to it. When I go plant shopping, I’m like a kid in a candy store. Anything new or cool or "pret-ty" jumps right into my cart. Unfortunately, I can’t do that anymore, because there is very little that will grow in my yard. But it’s been hard to kick the habit. Which has resulted in a greenhouse full of plants that never make it into the ground, and just languish and die in their little nursery containers. This time, I bought only things I know will survive, and they’re going to be planted…as soon as it stops raining L !
8. We went out for Easter Brunch yesterday. We’d had reservations for the actual day at Salty’s, a Portland restaurant with a killer brunch buffet. But husband managed to come down with a pukey stomach virus on Easter, so that took care of that. Missed the following weekend, as husband spaced making the reservations, and last weekend we were out of town at an event. So, yesterday was our Easter. The weather was almost as crappy as the real Easter was this year. But the food was good, the view was wonderful, and the champagne was bottomless. J
9. Husband finished his favorite landscaping chore: Weed burning. This is quite the undertaking. First, you have to run around the property with the "Round-up" and spray the weeds. Then you wait a week, or two, or three, until they are all dead and look like hell, and it has stopped raining long enough for everything to be crispy and tinder-dry. Then you haul out your huge torch-thing connected to its five-gallon propane tank, wheel it around the property, and char the living shit out of what is left of those weeds; and, occasionally, the fence, and the shrubs, and the lawn, and the bark mulch. Always keeping a live garden hose at the ready… I tend to hide in the house while he’s at it; but the place does look much nicer once he’s finished.
10. I lost two pounds! Two weeks ago, for the first time in two years, I weighed inat more than two pounds over my lifetime goal at Weight Watchers. Bummer! So, I had to break out the points counter and the journal sheets and go back on the program. At this rate, I shall be sitting pretty by my next weigh-in in a couple of weeks. And fitting a little more comfortably into my "skinny" pants…

Voila! It still took me over an hour to come up with this stuff. But here it is. And the time spent on this is certainly not wasted. It’s never a negative to take time to focus on the positive. It puts me in a great frame of mind—at least for awhile—to face the new week.

Have a good one, all!