I cleaned the kitchen!

What did you think this post was going to be about? Last week, I cleaned the bathroom. Next up was the kitchen. This week, I cleaned the kitchen. Since the kitchen also functions as a mudroom for the dogs when they come in the the backyard, this is actually pretty exciting news. Especially having a clean floor. And clean walls next to the door, where they shake their jowls after eating grass and rooting around in the mud. Amazing what I scraped off those walls!

Next up: The dining room. This is the room where the mail piles up. We get an amazing amount of mail.

Bootsie: I'm happy to report that Bootsie the Cat enjoys figure skating. She especially likes it when the skaters spin. They must look like fluttering moths. I watch skating on my computer (though Ice Network), and Bootsie sits beside and behind the monitor and cranes her neck and watches the skaters for minutes at a time. She also likes the cursor, though, so I can't say her interest is really in either sport or in culture.

Work: I've had over a week now with nothing to work on, and I'm going crazy. Yes, I realize that normal people take a week's vacation now and then. In the last year, I've had two long weekends and a few days off here and there. Otherwise, it's been seven-days-a-week busy. But I don't have a job from which I need a vacation! I love my work! Still, judging from how much I slept last week, I guess I did need some downtime. Doug keeps telling me, "It's okay, honey. It's okay." He's a sweetie.

My e-mail's been down all morning. Maybe some authors have returned files to me, or maybe I've got some new projects. Not having e-mail makes me a little crazy. I just invoked my ISP's online chat helpline, and they know about the problem and have no idea when it will be resolved. Bleh!

Fun:

• The U.S. Senate race in Minnesota was so close -- only a couple hundred votes out of 3 million separated the two candidates -- that a manual recount was invoked automatically by law. So folks are counting ballots, and some are interesting. Apparently, filling in an oval next to a name is challenging for some folks. And then there's the Lizard People . . . See challenged ballots at the Minnesota Public Radio site, make your own decision, and see what other people think.
• This is interesting: Nanowrimo. National Novel Writing Month is what I've always known as a "novel dare," in which a group of writers challenge each other to crank out a novel in a compressed time frame. They often blog about their daily word counts and blockages and e-mail each other to show support. Nanowrimo is like that but with global participation. The year 2007 saw 100,000 participants with 15,000 crossing the finish line with a 50k novel. Participants can write by themselves or find others in their local area to meet up with physically. There are forums and other ways to bond (and procrastinate). The point is quantity rather than quality, to break through any blockages and just write-write-write. Since November has been a slow freelancing month for me for the last couple of years, perhaps I should plan to do this in 2009?