I went shopping yesterday and hit four stores. It wasn't fun shopping, it was necessary shopping. I picked up all kinds of exciting things (read heavy sarcasm) like a mop and a paper towel dispenser. Okay, so the paper towel dispenser did end up being pretty cool because I accidentally matched the handles on my cabinets. I didn't realize that until I got it home and put it out. I also (finally!) got some kitchen curtains. I took pictures of them and the deck. Check it out at House Gallery 9.
The shopping actually wasn't the long part of the day. That happened after I got home. The curtains had to be ironed and put up, I wanted to damp mop the floor so I vacuumed the entire thing and then mopped. Unfortunately, my new mop (designed especially for wood floors) wasn't too cool--it left my floor streaked and blotched--but I didn't notice that till I was near the patio doors and sunlight shone on it. So then I had to redo everything I already did and dry it as I went along. The bedroom, scrapbook room and hall also were vacuumed and today I get to do the computer room. Oh, boy.
Anyway, this all took forever, but the great room/kitchen/dining room/foyer all look really nice and clean now. Things got kind of ugly while I was on deadline and I wasn't doing one thing more than I had to do.
I have another assignment for my dad. I bought one of those cool magnifying mirrors that fasten to the wall for my bathroom. I had one of those in my old bathroom and I loved it! But now my dad has to do an installation.
After all the housework, I sat down and redid my fun website. Click the House Gallery 9 link above to see the new look. Navigation menu is at the bottom of the page. I think it turned out really fun! The colors seem more summary and not as heavy as the black. It was definitely time for a change and I enjoy doing web design stuff. Oh, and I also updated my official website yesterday morning before the shopping excursion. Same look, but I updated the information about the Crimson City anthology, updated the review quotes page for Eternal Nights and put the cover of that book on my home page. If you're interested, you can check this out at Patti O'Shea.com.
And while I was doing the updating, I flipped between baseball and The Discovery Channel. They did shows on jelly fish and killer squid last night. The jelly fish show followed two researchers in Australia. Apparently, there's this itty bitty box jelly fish that has extremely toxic venom. Both researchers ended up in the hospital in extreme pain. There's no predicting (yet) when these tiny jelly fish (can't remember the name of them) will show up and they're so small, they're hard to see, but if even one is spotted, Australian authorities will close the entire beach--they're that terrible.
I didn't expect to get hooked on the killer squid show. I mean, come on, SQUID! But the show ended up being very interesting and I'm glad I saw it. The killer squid is the Humbolt Squid. It lives in the gulf off Baja and comes up at night to feed. It's attacked men and each other on camera. But the researchers think that's because fisherman are pulling them up by the hundreds at night and they're stressed and under attack so they behave violently.
You know, I always say that I have eclectic interests and think this shows it. How many people can get hooked on a program about squid? In the past, I've also found myself pulled in and fascinated by a show about container ships among many other strange subjects. I guess it's all fodder for future stories. After all, I never thought all the reading I did on nanotechnology about 10 years ago would ever come in handy and then I wrote The Power of Two. :-)
