Day Tripping

Hubby is painting our hallway dove gray with white trim. This is a huge job because, although our house is small, there are a bunch of doors off the hallway and the old paint job is a very hard-to-cover eggshell-like shade (which has probably yellowed over the years; it's quite ugly). For some reason, most paints we've tried in this house have just flaked right off the doors and trim. So, this time the dedicated DIY spouse is taking the doors off and sanding them before putting a layer of Kilz on everything. Huge job, just huge and he's doing it all himself. He took the day off to work on the first layer of gray.

And, I was in the way. I've been in the way quite a bit, during this particular home improvement because I'm not good at working in small spaces. So he kicked me out, today. Fun! I ran to the Big City (Jackson) and roamed around Target and my favorite garden center. I haven't found a corner where I can grow a hibiscus, yet (two attempts, two failures), but look at this! Who wouldn't love to have this kind of beauty outside their home? I think I'll try again, soon.


Apparently, people don't normally carry their cameras into Target; I got a few funny looks. It was kind of fun. I loved this little display:



It made me think . . . You know a 3-dog night? When it's so cold you need 3 dogs to keep you warm? This display had me thinking sometimes we have a 3-Buddha day. When it's 3 times as difficult finding tranquility. Which is probably a totally goofy thought but it leads, of course, to an update on the reading.

I'm back to The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking, reading about focusing positive thoughts and meditating to get rid of a negative thought track, an idea which appeals to me greatly. Having the spouse home messed up the time I planned to use to meditate, but I spent a few minutes alone and just being quiet to get a good start on the day. Author Christopher Hansard talks about times his teacher and he have used focused positive thoughts to stop a violent person, nearby. Hmm. I tried focusing my thoughts to get a left-lane hog to move on the highway, but it didn't work and it made my head hurt. Anyway, he says, "Don't do that, except in special situations." Okay, sorry, sorry.

I dipped into Start Late, Finish Rich - probably about 50 pages worth; I'm still far from completing the book, which is nutty because it's a quick read, but there you have it. The most recent tidbit I've picked up from it is his concept for investing: your life should be exciting; your investments should be boring. He has a little pie chart describing how to split your investments and I like this part of the book very much. It's slightly dull reading, but I like the concept.

Also added to my current reads is The Sex Lives of Cannibals, a travel memoir which is at times horrifying (the living conditions on a remote island) and consistently funny. The author, J. Maarten Troost, has a great sense of humor and the pages are flying. I am loving this book.

We watched an episode of Firefly (an entire series on DVD, checked out from the library), last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's quite cliche, but we're easily entertained - all three of us love sci-fi and this series (which I assume was short-lived, as the case says "The Complete Series") has plenty of action and humor. Unfortunately, the kiddo likes watching episode after episode on his computer and has absconded with the entire set. So, I guess I'll need to do some laundry in order to watch a bit during the daylight hours. Folding time is my only TV time - we have no cable or satellite service and I wiggle a pair of bunny ears to watch my one weekly show: House, M.D. We don't eat hamburger, either. Huh. Weirdos.

Sending positive thoughts to one and all.