Flooding from Sandy

This was the worst of our town's flooding. The river runs through the middle of the picture. You can see the tops of the pylons for the docks/piers to the left and the right. So the river over ran its sides into the surrounding blocks. We live about a mile from here and didn't have any flooding.

If you give a moose a muffin

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=if+you+give+a+moose+a+muffin&tnr=21&vid=&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DU.4586244161929436%26pid%3D15.1&tit=If+You+Give+A+Moose+a+Muffin

My life is very much like the children's story, If You Give A Moose A Muffin. I go to do one thing, which reminds me there's another thing I need to do, I go to do that, only to realize there's some item I need in order to do that item, then go off to the store, where I remember all the things I'm running out of at home, I get groceries, only to discover upon arriving home, that I forgot the very thing I went to the store to buy in the first place.

So that's what has been happening since May. MAY for Pete's sake, MAY! Of course, I am busy, I am accomplishing a lot, but I've gotten so busy, that I don't have any down time. I think to myself, "just get through the semester, then you'll have a break and don't take on so much next time." Then I find myself trying to help other people out of their scheduling binds, and before I know it, I am over scheduled again.

Once again I am teaching a double overload at school which causes stress with all the grading I have to do. So on the weekends I don't have grading, I like to get a lot of home projects done. Thus, every weekend is over scheduled trying to get so much done.

So this weekend I told myself I would relax. The only thing we had scheduled was a progressive dinner.

The weekend started out so promising. We went to the movies to see Cloud Atlas with a friend. After the movie, we got home, walked the dog, then stayed up late watching t.v. I slept in a little later than usual for me, got up and went to have bagels. I was on such a roll to have a relaxing weekend, so close.

I went to take a package to the post office and was near a favorite store of mine, so in keeping with my plan, I thought I'd go shopping for something nice.

While in the store, their garden stuff was 40% off. I found the heaviest duty rubber gloves I'd ever seen and decided they would be perfect for yard work. I make some purchases and head home. As I'm coming up the back walk I see saplings growing in our gutters. Hurricane Sandy is supposed to hit us tonight, so I think to myself, "I probably ought to clean the gutters. Hey, those new gloves will be great for that." So I get out the gloves and ladder and climb up to clean the gutters. I can't reach very well and the dog is trying to climb up the ladder behind me, which isn't safe, so I decide to go up on the roof to clean the gutters.

The cleaning of the gutters goes fine but when I turn around to come back through the window, I notice how blistered and peeling the paint is around the window. So of course I pick at the blistering paint. Then get paint for the window. I can't just paint the window sill because the paint on the side of the house is blistering too. So I decide to touch up the sill and the wall where it needs it. Then it's really noticeable where I painted, so I paint the whole side of the house and window frame. Then I notice how bad the rusty down spout looks and paint that too.

Can you see how one thing leads to another and why I'm always so busy? I've got to learn to go through life with blinders on and not get distracted and do more than I planned.