Well, my first full day back home in a while was eventful.
I had a meeting this morning with yet another legal recruiter. It went pretty well. I am hopeful she can steer me to some good job leads. I'm also available for temp work for them. Filling out the paperwork took forever.
I actually got some reading done this afternoon.That's rare, but I needed it to unwind.
I am reading Rosanne Cash's autobiography, titled Composed. She writes very well. My dad was a huge Johnny Cash fan, but that's not why I bought the book. Rosanne is a gifted wongwriter in her own right. I listen to her music all the time. She also writes well. She studied Creative Writing at Vanderbilt. I am also reading a thriller called Firefly, by P.T. Deuterman. He writes well, and has a lot of fascinating detail about internaitonal terrorists, but there's too much about Washington DC politics, to suit me. I get pretty impatient with thrillers that don't move along quickly. I've read too much James Patterson, I guess.
I'm reading a terrific book with Michael called The Magician, by Michael Scott. We missed the first book in the series, but I was so fascinated with this one I didn't want to go back and hunt down the first book. His book has a lot of fantasy elements, which I usually don't like, but it's really well-written and rich with detail. If you liked Harry Potter, check it out.
Michael came home not wanting to do his homework or go to school. I had to have quite a talk with him. I pointed out that he will start high school at 16, and he can quit then, legally. However, he would never get a decent job without even a high school diploma. He said he thought being a bag boy at Kroger would suit him fine. I went through the exercise I've done with Alesia several times now, about how hard it is to have a decent place to live and a car when you are only making minimum wage. I don't think that's what turned him back to the books, though. I pointed out that he wouldn't be able to support a wife and children unless he had a good job. He finally got through the homework, after several hours. He dawdles so bad, I can't let him do anything after school besides tennis. He'd never get his homework done.
I made what I thought would be a great dinner, but it fell short. I sauteed beef tips and portobello mushrooms for stroganoff, then forgot to make noodles. Nobody much cared.
I made turnips au gratin. You boil turnips until soft then slice them and put them in a white sauce with a lot of cheddar cheese and garlic powder. Problem was the turnips didn't get as soft as I'd like. These had been in the fridge a while and needed to boil a LONG time. I let them boil about 30 minutes. They were not holy enough - I hadn't really boiled the hell out of them. Old joke.
I made some banana bread for dessert and it turned out pretty well. It should be called banana cake, though, really. Nothing bread-like about it. It's pretty nutritious though, filled with bananas and walnuts.
Instead of a movie, I had ordered some Seinfeld TV episodes from Netflix. I had forgotten how funny he was. We watched the first 3 episodes and the kids loved them. I remember watching the show, but not until the third season. It was fun seeing the show from the beginning. It's a very wry, sarcastic show, and I love that. I remember his slogan - no hugs, no learning. It's also fun seeing the retro clothes, and remembering a time when nobody had a cell phone, and people wore their pants at their waistlines. There was a joke made in the second episode about Jerry having a tattoo - outrageous then, unfortunately commonplace now.
Anyway, I let the kids watch and yada yada, they love it. More will be ordered.
BTW, I did another post on Bad Date Stories. Check it out: http://deescribbler.typepad.com/bad_date_stories/
