Neither rain, nor snow….
I was really bummed to see that it was still snowing when I woke up this morning. It was about eight thirty and it was still coming down at a fast and furious pace. Turned out to be a second storm that was on the tail of the first one that hit us yesterday.
I was not happy to see this.
I decided to tackle another carpet.
Before I went to bed last night I did the hallway, so it was dry this morning and I could vacuum it. It looks good, but still has an odor. I tried washing it again.
The next spots I was most interested in dealing with were the places in the living room that had taken the place of the litter box. I didn’t want to move a lot of stuff around so this was fairly easy to do.
There is a certain sense of satisfaction in doing this job. You can see immediate results. It’s the Aries in me, I crave instant gratification.
The snow stopped at about noon, so I hopped in my car as quickly as I could to get to the stamp show.
Of course it took nearly a half-hour to dig the car out of the pile that had plowed around it. The parking lot is actually in awful condition. The plow couldn’t have had the blade touching the ground, and the rest were several inches deep. It reminds me of one of those rides at an amusement park where they let kids try driving cars but have a rail that it can’t get over.
It’s treacherous to walk there, too. The thing that most irritates me is that no effort has been made to actually clear the parking spots. If it starts to melt and freeze it will be really dangerous.
I spent too much at the stamp show, though not nearly as much as I spent back in January. There are always new images to get, or sale images that I haven’t noticed before. I also watched a couple of demonstrations that involved stamping with bleach and bubble wrap (not together). She also created backgrounds using markers that I’ve been trying to master for a couple of months, so now I think I might have the hang of it.
Pity I can’t stamp. I have to clean. Actually at this point I don’t remember the last time I actually saw the surface of the dining room table. It’s just covered with piles of stamps and supplies.
My other mission of the day was to go out and buy hair color. I thought I had everything that I needed, but as it turned out I was missing one of the colors I needed, so I couldn’t "wash that gray right out of my hair" last night.
I hated having all the dark roots and gray strands, especially in the back where my hair is cut very short (hence making the gray even more noticeable than in the front).
I think I would have gone out to get what I needed even if the blizzard had continued. And the place I needed to go to get the dye is about ten miles away. My mother thinks I’m nuts, but I’m just not willing to let the gray go. It’s been with me since I was eighteen, but it’s really starting to take over my entire head and I don’t think I want to look at that in the mirror everyday. I feel old enough without that added attraction.
Listening to: Whistle Down the Wind
Reading: Call It Destiny Jayne Ann Krentz
Weather: gray and cloudy, mid 30’s
Trivia:Who built the first express highway?
Since it was the Romans who built the first roads, it seems appropriate that the genesis of the express highway we know today came from the Italians. In 1924 Italy began the construction of toll motor highways, or autostrade, that soon totaled 320 miles. Although not quite what we think of today, they did incorporate the features of limited access and elimination of grade crossings. The first true express highways were built in Germany and were called autobahns. Although the idea originated and plans were formulated between 1930 and 1932, a national network, the Reichsautobahnen, totaling 1,310 miles ended up being completed in 1942 by the Nazi regime for both economic and military purposes. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., two of the earliest limited access highways, the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, were completed shortly before the nation's entrance into the war in 1941. After the war the express highway movement slowly gained momentum. By 1950 eight U.S. states had toll roads with the total number of expressways coming to more than 750 miles. By then virtually every state began constructing some form of express highway. By 1944, Congress had authorized funds for the most ambitious of all express highway systems, the National System of Interstate Highways. Originally limited to 40,000 miles, it incorporated existing roads built to its specifications, but by far the largest part resulted from new highway construction financed mainly by the federal government. But the actual program stalled due to postwar concerns. In 1956 the program went into high gear, with Congress authorizing $25,000,000,000 in federal funds towards the project. Additionally, the Highway Act of 1968 extended the total mileage to 44,000 miles and pushed completion to 1974. Thereafter, the building of expressways in the United States continued until today, when the U.S. boasts what is the largest system of interstate highways in the world.
Cool word:homiletics (hom-ih-LET-iks) - The art of preaching.
"Not one to be swayed by the homiletics of the candidates, Mel preferred to look at the individual records of those speaking before casting his vote."
sate (sate) - To satisfy completely or to excess."Her hunger for information sated for the evening, Lydia turned off the news and began watching a game show."
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