Happy Labor Day to all in the U.S. who celebrate it. It's traditionally a day to eat too much from the grill. Hoping to avoid that.

I had mentioned that I wished to learn to drive a tractor. Well, thanks to YouTube, I've taken a lesson and feel that I could drive one now. I could also turn one over since they have a high center of gravity and need a bit of experience to drive then anywhere the ground isn't flat.

My snacking has been under control for the past three days - I'm on a roll at last.

Glad it's the snacking control that's on a roll and not the tractor Bill. When I had the new front walk put in the landscaper and I jokingly talked about front end loader accidents - tipping them over, driving them into swimming pools, etc. So one of the first things his guys did on my job was to topple the front end loader onto my front steps . Our lawn had a couple of weird sloping spots on it that were a bit noticeable with the lawnmower. Much more so with the front end loader and it's high center of gravity.

I am celebrating Labour Day mostly with Nattie. DH opted to stay up until 3:30 a.m. so I probably won't be seeing much of him before this afternoon.

I'm going to go for a long walk on the lakefront without DH or dogs to worry about and just take in the big lake and big sky. Then I'll start the case study for my Forensic Science course. I am proud to say that I now know what all of the stuff on CSI means.

Dagmar

Merely walking around my apartment this morning making coffee was enough to make me sweat. Sure enough, the humidity level is at 94%. This will either mean on-and-off rain today, like a tropical climate, or an explosive thunderstorm, I don't know which.

I like having more time on my hands than I know what to do with. I'm trying to accomplish useful tasks, like throwing out a bag full of paper, and getting rid of magazines, but there's also time for daydreaming, too.

DH and I were thinking of going golfing this morning but overslept. If we don't hit the links right at 7 AM it gets too hot to finish the round. I do long for November!

No overeating on our Labor Day plans. I'll have my eggwhites while I fix McMuffins for DH and DS. We'll go out to lunch but I'll be careful. We'll see the 100 Foot Journey and then come home and I'll make bison burgers and corn on the cob for dinner. Nice and simple.

Allison... Great movie! Hope you like it...

Sometimes I swear we are twins. Guess what we are having for dinner!? Bison burgers and corn on the cob! Plus guacamole.

Very tired. Had to get up at midnight to post a donors choose project so I didn't miss out. Had trouble going back to sleep after. Then I logged in this morning and realized I had missed a step and it wasn't posted. Hope it's not too late now. Chevron is going to fund projects and they fund them typically in order of posting. Last year I posted on September 2 and was too late.

We are doing a fantasy football league for the first time and the draft is today. The rest of our day is planned around that.

Off to bikram yoga. Hope I don't fall asleep.

to all!

Labor Day was truly a day of labor for me - IKEA stop, and then 4 1/2 hours of nonstop work putting together a queen-size bed. Took a break for dinner and then spent another .5 hour completing assembly of DS's desk. His room looks a lot different and he's really happy about having room to sprawl. Today I have all sorts of interesting new bruises and sore spots.

Saef, we had our thunderstorms yesterday afternoon. One good line that lasted all of 15 minutes, but still managed to dump 1.4 inches of rain on us. Happily, that humidity seems to break behind it!

Tomorrow's our meeting with our financial advisor; we will get an update on how soon DH can retire. I forecast 3 years.

Hi everyone! I'm still around, just quiet the last few months. I may be starting to catch back up with myself, though.

Becky - we tend to use our work holidays for huge projects as well. This was the first one in a while we weren't tearing up dirt and building things. Glad DS's room looks good. Ikea is my favorite of the assemble yourself furniture.

The heat and humidity were oppressive yesterday. Honestly, I was bored and uninspired, and felt guilty for being bored, since my life was so frenetic just a few weeks ago.

It's not as though I didn't do anything. I threw out several pounds of papers, magazines and newspapers. This involved scanning and yes, reading some of them. It also reaffirmed for me that I should never subscribe to any magazines, even though subscriptions are cheaper than springing for single issues. I like paging through them as an occasional treat but I don't want them showing up in my mail slot every four or five weeks. It's enough for me to read one at the hair salon while my highlights are setting, or during a pedicure.

Also, you'd think having a laptop and the Internet would free me of paper. Not so. I still need these occasional purges two or three times a year.

Also, throwing out stuff or getting rid of it is addictive. I'm moving onto clothing next. There are things that still fit but that don't interest me or don't flatter me or that I don't love, compared with other stuff in my closets and drawers. Also things that have gotten worn or have tiny holes. They all need to go.

Saef, I did a full-wardrobe purge yesterday and it was a great feeling. It only took about 3 hours, and at the end I had three bags of clothes to donate, a small pile of clothes for the rag bin, and (sigh) three pairs of pants that still need hemming and had therefore migrated to the back of the closet.

I so need to redo my son's room. Poor kid is 6 feet tall and still sleeps in a twin bed! The plan is to make the room more of an office (why, I don't know, but that is what DH wants) so we'll get getting a queen sized sofa bed. I just don't know when we'll get around to doing it.

DS's fall schedule will make it very difficult for him to come home for weekends as his last class on Friday night doesn't get out until 8 PM. Granted traffic would be a little lighter that time of night, but he usually goes to pick up his friend in UCLA first so it'd still be a long commute. So I imagine we'll only see him for Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas.

I did a little closet cleaning myself. Specifically socks. I've amassed several dozen white ped-like socks over the years and as they've been constantly been washed they tend to shrink a little to the point where they won't stay on my heel when I walk. I pulled each and every sock out and tried them on, sorting them into a keep pile and a chuck pile. And then I matched the keep pile so they'll all be perfectly matched (something that DH, who does the laundry, isn't adept at doing). So now I know when I pull out a pair that they'll fit without my having to dig around for a better match!

I had to limit myself to 2 magazine subscriptions at a time. I was buying all sorts of magazines and not reading them. I love printed magazines though and refuse to give up on them. Plus I switch out the subscriptions each time, except for "O" which is ongoing. Right now I'm reading "O" and "Real Simple" each month and I'm actually getting through all the issues.

Dagmar

I subscribe to More for myself. DH gets Sports Illustrated, Motor Track, Golf Digest and Popular Photography. For family magazines (that we all enjoy) we get Popular Science (recently dropped Popular Mechanics) and Wired. My latest subscription is for Atomic Ranch (a Mid-Cenutry Modern quarterly). I've considered re-upping my subscription to Mental Floss but read enough of that online.

I love throwing out stuff, or donating it. Feels so good to get rid of things that you don't need. I read an article about getting rid of five things a day and I did it for a while but then life got too busy. I'm good about not buying stuff anymore. I just don't want anything. I have had to buy clothes for smaller sizes (yay!) and did get rid of the bigger sizes but you all are inspiring me to go through that messy closet again.

I'm going to have to check this out. When I lived in Idaho, I was a member of the Mod Squad, the mid-century modern branch of the historic preservation society. My fondness for mid-century modern must be because we moved into a new house in 1957 when I was 4 so I grew up in a mid-century modern.

I belong to a group on Facebook that is devoted to MCM. So fun seeing all the photos that people post!