Since I have to work on Saturday this week, I took today off. It always feels odd, to have a day off work like this in the middle of the week, but I like it! 🙂

(Of course, this means that my plans for Saturday… will have to be canceled. I forgot about that part….)

I took the opportunity to plan a day with my friend, Amy, whom I met on Facebook. We had met briefly in person at the first HHS rally, but this was to be our first chance to actually get together. I make friends with people so quickly, I had to keep reminding myself that I was still pretty much a stranger. LOL! 🙂 It was such a lovely afternoon! And passed by all too quickly!

Can you believe that I spent an entire day off and didn’t take a single picture?! I even brought both cameras with me!

And, I never did find out what jobs she had waiting for me…. 🙂 Perhaps next time….

I wake up throughout the night, usually. Since today was a day off, I got to sleep in until about 7 am. I had originally intended to go to the 9:30 am Mass here in Troy, but knew that I had some things to do before I left the house and that it probably wouldn’t be practical for me to get them done and fit Mass in also. Plus, I wanted to make sure that I felt well enough to visit this afternoon. So, I ended up laying around in bed reading a book until 9 am or so. It was a really good book, which added to my lounging. 🙂

Finally, I dragged myself out of bed and went to tackle the laundry situation. See, I only have one pair of shorts. And I had worn them to the picnic last week where there was the possibility of them (and me) having come in contact with some poison ivy.

I hate poison ivy with a vile, vile passion.

So, they had remained in a little heap by the laundry room, waiting for me to “decontaminate” them. Which I had put off. Until today.

But I couldn’t just do this pile of clothes. That would be too easy. I had let laundry pile up. I hadn’t laundered those clothes because I had a load of towels in the washer, needing to be dried. And I hadn’t put the wet towels in the dryer because there was a dry load in there waiting to be removed, folded and put away. And I hadn’t done *that* because every time I thought of it, I was exhausted and couldn’t possibly bring myself to take them out of the dryer, carry them to the bedroom and put them away.

Because taking clothes out of the dryer and carrying them to my bedroom makes me short of breath. And I’d have to make at least two trips to get all of the clothes out.

This disease really makes my life complicated sometimes.

So in order to get ready for this afternoon, I had to empty the dryer, run the load of towels again (since they were starting to get that mildew smell and had to be washed again with some detergent and vinegar — remind me to sing the praises of vinegar for you one day…), toss *those* into the dryer, run the load of picnic clothes, dry *them* and then get dressed.

I don’t have the world’s fastest dryer. I asked for “cheapest” when I went to buy it. It has three dry cycles. I use two of them. “Automatic high” for everything, and “Timer” for warming up clothes in the winter or getting the wrinkles out of dirty laundry that I’m going to wear again (yep, I’m a bachelor). It has three cycles because apparently they don’t make a dryer that only has one. Truly, I only need “on” and “off”. The salesman looked at me oddly when I asked if there were such a thing.

Needless to say, I was running late. 🙂 I stopped at a Biggby coffee to get drinks for Amy, me and the kids. For the kids, I ordered 100 oz. of frozen hot chocolate. 🙂 For Amy and I, I picked up some iced drinks and for once ordered them *with ice* like a normal person. However, I managed to slop part of one of the iced drinks on me when trying to get into the car. Luckily, I had a towel inside and could wipe off. And, thankfully, I had a dark shirt on, so could arrive without a glaringly obvious coffee stain. 🙂

It was a lovely visit, and not only did I get to spend time with Amy and her family, but I also got to meet her friend, Lydia! 🙂 And, I had some of Amy’s pot pie for dinner! Yum!

Too soon, it was time to head home. I listed to another episode of Catholic Answers Live (which I had heard previously) on the way back, because I am *certain*, or at least 87% certain, that I heard one of the guests say on the program that Pope John Paul II wrote something where he made a distinction between human life and human personhood. I had asked Fr. John what this writing might be, as I wanted to read it, and he said that this didn’t sound right — that JPII wouldn’t have said something like that. So here I am, listening to all the episodes from the past week, trying to find it….

I got home and was surprised at how tired I am. Just hanging out here on the couch, playing online a bit. Today’s a fasting day, but I can’t fast from food, so I decided today to fast from TV, since I’d been creating a habit of vegging out and watching DVR’ed episodes of House Hunters until late in the evenings. Amazing how that can get to be a routine, even though I’d gone without watching any TV for about 8 months or so until recently.

For the rest of the night, I think I’ll be online for a little bit, read for a little bit and spend some real quality time in prayer. 🙂

Have a good night!