Sick Day

The Boy and I are both sick at home with some sort of soul-draining, energy-sapping bug. Exercise and errands are beyond me.

I'd purge my files of excess paper, which doesn't require much mental capacity, but I did that the last week of December.

I'd read, but I devoured two Annie Lamott books in the last two days, and now I need to give her glorious, dreadlocked sense of humor a rest.

The best thing left is to fix myself a big pot of tea, sit down with my basket of unread magazines, and dive in:

Hey! Another use for those funny little mini-ramekins: They make perfect gingersnap holders!:


Meanwhile, stretched out on the family room sofa, The Boy demonstrates how said ramekins are the right size for just enough Nutella to cover one whole-wheat pita:

Anyway, back to my task:

When a new issue of one of my beloved magazines arrives in our mailbox, I zip through it once, rather fast, to get an overview of what's inside. Then I put it in a study basket with big handles until I have time to digest it. Slowly.

I dog-ear pages to photocopy, flag interesting bits with little Post-Its, scribble down quotable quotes, circle promising-looking websites and recipes, cut out beautiful and inspiring pictures. Generally, I love the magazine to death, and then I pass the poor, ravished periodical on to the Other Woman in my life, my wonderful cleaning lady. (For her sake I try to photocopy more, and cut less.)

In the big basket there's a little basket. The little basket has scissors, Post-Its, a marker, leftover old business cards from The Hubby's office (just right for writing down a quote or a couple of websites), and a beautiful gold Cartier pen one of his verrrry grateful clients gave him years ago:

I have had to swear on a stack of Bibles that if we split, I won't go loping off with this pen into the sunset, because even though we live in an equal-property state, The Hubby earned that pen, fair and square.

Anyhow, I pour myself a cup of tea with milk:

Oh, good lord; is that a pug hair floating on the tea, at the five o'clock position?

Yes, dear reader, it is. I left it in the picture (but took it out of the tea) because 1)I don't own Photoshop and 2)I am all for showing Life As It Is. And life with two pugs means the occasional dog hair in your soup. Or tea.

And now, to this current issue of House Beautiful:

Keeper Alert! The entire issue is devoted to BLUE! My cleaning lady is so out of luck.