LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

Congrats Joe from Stratford! I was at Home Depot!

The store’s playlist really boggled my mind. I thought that a home improvement store would have more…manly…music. (No offense to the Wandering Minstrel or any other guy who digs girly power ballads.) I was expecting George Thorogood, Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones. Music that would inspire someone to take up his power tools and “git-r-done!”

Instead, I get easy listening. Oh well.

Had to take the picture down because of some rule against advertising an agent outside the permissible arena of real estate advertising or something like that. No biggie. It still lives on Flickr anyway. Hm…does white type show up in newsreaders?

WM and I have spent the last 2 Saturdays and last Monday night trying desperately to get the house ready to show. BvP is off in Greece for the month with his new lady, so we’re handling getting it staged and ready to show. I did get to use a Dyson vacuum (apparently, I can be replaced with an archaeologist and a $500 household appliance – I keed! I keed!) and it was…just okay. Sucks as much as my cheapy $85 vacuum. Sucks! Ha! The second house showing was tonight. (crickets chirping)

The days are flying as the 35th birthday looms ahead in September. But I do have 2 WDW trips on the horizon (Inner voice: Shouldn’t you be…um…saving for a new house?) And I’m happy. Amazing the surprises 12 months can bring to a girl.

Easter, sadly, doesn’t really mean much to me anymore. I’m still trying to find my way, religion-wise, so I didn’t observe Lent or go to Mass. I don’t go to church on a regular Sunday, so I’d feel hypocritical going on Easter.  In any case, it was a nice spring day, capped with dinner out and some time with Mom. And Chipper.

(you’ll notice that my nice brown haircolor is fading. I can’t win)

Chipper’s doing well. He’s a non-stop bundle of energy (read: he’s tearing Mom’s house to shreds), but when he slows down to below 30 mph, he’s very cute. Here he’s gnawing on a stick in my backyard.

Here he’s foiling my attempts to photograph him:

He’s almost as big as Max is…just much skinnier. Here he’s getting into Max’s business by standing on top of Max’s (read: my) sofa and trying to look out of Max’s (read: my) window. Max tolerates him. Barely. You can see the “love” in this photo:

BvP and I rearranged our bedroom furniture into the only OTHER configuration that would fit in the room. This means that if I want to get into bed, and BvP is sleeping in it, I have to leap over the footboard to get into bed because I sleep on the far side of the bed.  You can see the rearrangement below, including the two non-Max creatures that live with us. Yes, we still have Misty (gray cat, left) and Charlie (orange cat, right). They are 10 and 8, respectively. I don’t blog about them much because they’ve passed into the lazy, middle-aged, borderline obese stage of cathood.

We have yet to tackle the wallpaper in the bedroom. My clock radio does not permanently stay on my pillow. And yes, that is a Mickey Mouse throw.

Today Thor and I put up most of our outdoor Christmas lights. All we need now is to borrow a ladder tomorrow to finish them. They look beautiful and magical. What’s even better is that this year we OWN the property that we’re festooning. Only twenty-nine years and six months to go!

I just hit the 40,000 word mark on my crappy novel, Tumble Dry. For padding’s sake, I just had the main character (whose name I changed from Anne to Meg) find out that her newly outed lesbian sister and her boss (Anya, which was too similar to ‘Anne’ for both names to stay) are girlfriend and girlfriend. I have to write 10,000 words in 4 nights. That boils down to 3,333 a day if I don’t write any more tonight. Once I finish, I’m going to put it away until January. Then I’ll edit it and put some of the better scenes up here for you to peruse.

I went to the gym today for the first time in months. I did a difficult 23 minutes on the treadmill, a difficult 5 assisted chinups, and a difficult 48 stomach crunches. It was the first time I had brought my iPod, SirenSong, along for the journey. It was a lot nicer than wearing the Sony DiscMan in a bulky pouch around my waist. And my exercise playlist was fun!

As I excited the Y, “Naughty Girl” from Beyonce came on. Which, of course, was the impetus for a slinky dance down the walk in front of the building. Nobody was around, anyway. I hope.

The Black Friday Photo gallery is up at Ofoto now. You won’t need to sign in. And below, I leave you with a shot of Mom and I on Thanksgiving night, planning out our Black Friday strategy.