Today was one of those days when I really just wanted to stay inside and do nothing. Of course the last TWO days have been the same way, but hey--that's what mini-vacations are for, right?!

Well, my plans for today hit a bit of a snag when I looked out the window and saw my neighbor Todd & his wife Christi going back and forth from my yard to theirs. They were valiantly attempting to clean out some serious underbrush between the two yards----and not accomplishing very much! I felt sorry for them as I watched each of them struggling with the various branches and masses of briars that they were trying to clear----so as I started to close the blinds, the phone rings. It was Chris the roomie---he was on the way home with what's called a brush hog and wanted me to alert Todd & Christi to this. Curses! I just KNEW what this meant! I was going to be recruited to HELP!

There went my plans for complete laziness!!
Sure enough...within 30 minutes I was right in the middle of the mass of brambles, branches, & assorted outside creatures! I didn't mind so much because you would be amazed at how much of that crap you can get rid of with a brush hog, but unfortunately we were having a bit of a weather dilemma here in Central North Carolina today---winds that were sustained at around 30 MPH with gusts up to 45 MPH!!

Trust me when I tell you, it does NOT feel good when you get hit in the face with a branch full of briars at 30 MPH!! It's also not fun to walk along minding your own business and have to flee from the cover of a hot tub that has become airborn and is heading straight for you!!

Thankfully it didn't get me, but only because I had the good sense to duck!!
IN OTHER NEWS:
---> I'm finding that I'm in much better spirits the last couple of days. It looks like things are going to work themselves out in the manner that I want them to as far as financial stuff goes. I'm relieved to say the least! I've decided though that I'm going to have to take some steps to better handle these types of crises when they come up. I've got a couple of ideas in mind, but I don't want to jinx them so I won't mention them right now.....
-----> Quite a few years ago, I joined a site called Classmates.com---I figured it would be a neat way to reconnect with some friends from high school that I hadn't seen or talked to for many years. Most of the site back then was free and I actually did reconnect with some old friends which was very cool! Well, a few years ago this site started charging for things such as being able to read your messages or read anything on the message boards. Naturally, I said "screw that" and just stopped going to the site and instead joined "MySpace". Get this--I've found (and been found) more old friends on MySpace than I could have even imagined on that site! Pretty cool, huh? So one day for kicks, I posed a question for the folks over at Classmates--"why should anyone pay to be a member of your site when they can hook up with old friends on MySpace?" Their response? Nothing. Boneheads.
Well, that's about all for now! Hopefully I won't spend my last day of my mini-vacation fighting my way through brambles & underbrush--but somehow I think I will. *sigh