Leaving our mark on the world.

I'm procrastinating a little. I have a bit of a chore to do tonight - a chore I want to do, don't get me wrong, but one that overwhelms me just a little bit. So to avoid doing this chore, I made a fruit salad, did my exercise video, jogged around the block, read a bit of a magazine, wasted time on facebook (is there any other way to spend time on facebook?), and now can't really avoid the chore any longer. The chore is... downloading iTunes onto my computer and putting new music on my iPod. Or maybe even a podcast, or a lecture, or something equally as exciting but missing from my current iPod lineup. Because it's time to finally change the songs on my iPod. I am ashamed to admit this, but I haven't made any changes to what's on my iPod since January 2008, when I added the best from our wedding music playlist. I know, I know - what's wrong with me? How could I have listened to the same songs for the past 15 months? Beats me. I have no idea how I haven't been driven completely batty by the monotony of it all, except to say that I don't listen to my iPod all that much, and that the monotony of my iPod fits in with the monotony of my life in general for the past couple of years. Now that I'm going to the gym again, though, I'm listening to my iPod more, and let me tell you, there's only so many times that I can have the same U2 songs come up on my playlists before I want to scream. It's beginning to get so that whenever I hear an Adam Clayton downbeat I instantly hit the skip button. Can't do it anymore. Must change.

We changed some things around the house this weekend, too, one of which being the flagpole we installed on our garage (wanted it in the front of the house but for a variety of reasons that didn't work out). We wanted to install it just in time for Sarah Palin's visit to Boston - you know, to show our support for her politics and the Tea Partiers, of course - and we managed to make our deadline. I'm not so sure that we'll always be flying the good old Stars and Stripes (I'm feeling those holiday banners in our future, and I guess the next one will be something for Halloween? A pumpkin? A ghost? This one may be especially appropriate...), but putting the flag on our garage made us feel... productive. And a little proud to be a part of this great nation. So hey, whatever floats our boat.


The nook is floating Doug's boat now, too. He joined the legions of e-book reader owners, and his choice was the very sexy nook. I have to admit that I like it. I want to read books on it, too! It's fun to search for a book to buy on it, thinking of all the great reads you can store on the little device, and then actually try to read a book on it. You can change the font size and style, and you can bookmark stuff... it is pretty neat. I am not allowing myself one of those little toys until I finish all the actual paper books I have on my bookshelves, so that means the nook probably will be on its 5th generation before I can think about getting one. In the meantime, Doug can - and will - enjoy his. His first book downloaded: How to Decide, and maybe when he's done with it he can help shed some light on my decision to make a scarf this big: This, my third scarf, is twice as wide as any other scarf I own, and when I started making it I thought the size would be a good thing. More scarf to keep me warm. But I wore it to the Revs game on Saturday, and decided that the size, unless I'm out in negative-degree weather, really is just an inconvenience. It covers half of my face, which doesn't help me breathe or see.

Speaking of the Revs, Doug and I enjoyed the game on Saturday. It was actually a pretty good game (Revs won!), despite the fact that it was cold enough for us to wear scarves, hats, and sit under a blanket. I really like the fact that soccer games are so short and that the fans are so entertaining. Makes the time go by, and I'm not ever bored. At this game I was a bit embarrassed, though, and maybe you can see why: Do you see what's all over our blanket? Can you see all that cat hair? It's like we took Wyatt and Meg and Sasha and rubbed them all over the blanket before we left for the game, but in fact we did not do that. We didn't do anything, really, except pick the blanket up off of our blanket basket and put it in the car with us. That's just a normal amount of hair on our blanket. And I probably wouldn't have cared so much about it if, when we were getting up to leave, I hadn't noticed that a fair amount of the hair was left behind on our seats. Now that was embarrassing. We're like Pig-Pen, leaving a trail of cat hair behind us everywhere we go. Good thing we don't leave the house much.