I feel that I have been less than entertaining lately. Not that my main purpuse here is to entertain: it is to practice my HTML and my writing skills (both of which are a little soggy at the moment), but I do feel that while people are reading this, I should do more than just take up a little webspace.

I've just been going through a fairly boring patch. I haven't been to any movies, shows, festivals, or the like in a while. No new restaurants to review. I haven't even done much web surfing. Most of my time has been devoted to finding a good job, possibly career-track, and getting out of my enormous debt-hole while spending as little money as possible. The stars seem to be aligned against me, as far as that all goes.

Still, there are a few new tidbits. Today I was not able to get a teaching assignent, so I am spending the day searching out samples of past reviews that I've done to polish up, for a possile shot at an arts writer job (longshot). I've also gotten one call in response to my babysitting ads. Unfortunately, it was for a family that lives veeeeery far away from me--Mazo. They are already pretty far out if you are on their end of town, and I live on the opposite end. I'm considering it, but a northeast side to Mazo drive is just not an exciting prospect. Still, where there is one there may be others.

I spent the past two weekends up north at my dad's house, undertaking some housecleaning of a massive scale. There are literally years of clutter and as-yet-not-unpacked boxes (from 1991) that are crying out for attention. Entire rooms are unusable because of the crap. This weekend I mostly tackled the basement. I filled one huge bag with trash, plus two bags of old glass jars from my great-grandmother.

A frugal Swede, the woman never threw anything out if it might be usuable. Shelf after shelf was stocked with empty molasses, jelly, mayonaise, peanut, peanut butter, and instant coffee jars, just to name a few. Some of them still held traces of the original contents. I haven't even gotten to all of them yet. I won't toss any of the Mason, Bell, or Kerr type canning jars. I will, however, have quite a project when it comes to dealing with the jar that still contain ancient canned goods. Some are as old as 1967. Greyish blackberries (I think) from the mid-80's float forlornly in a dark liquid. Suspicious brown sludges defy identification. I may dump the contents and save the jars, but I'll be wearing a hazmat suit to do it.

I also unearthed boxes of "Oh my god! I always wondered where that had gone!" Things I hadn't seen since we moved from the original Irving Place. And after hours of work, I have still only scratched the surface. It's going to be a loooong project. God help my sanity and patience.