Recipe for a Quiet Day

Though it was sunny when I awoke, it was also rather cold for April in Southern New Jersey, probably in the mid-50s. I snuggled into bed, read the lunacy that is Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and wrote in my journal before switching on Brunch With the Beatles. "Beatles B-Sides" was the theme today, and we heard a great deal of them. Among the "B sides" of singles were such well-known hits as "I Saw Her Standing There," "Something," "I Am the Walrus," "I Should Have Known Better," and "Strawberry Fields Forever."

My breakfast didn't go as well as the show. I wasn't paying attention and accidentally burned my first Oatmeal Brown Sugar Pancake until it was tough and didn't cook the third enough. Oh well. They still tasted pretty good. I tried to call Mom, but she had my sister Anny and her son Skylar over; I'd call back after work.

Spent the rest of the afternoon doing things around the apartment. I went online to check my bank balance and see my paycheck at PNC.com. I'm going to continue to go easy on shopping. I really do need that laptop, and I don't want to spend myself into an empty account, like I did last year. (It also helps that I believe I've gotten more hours this year than I did in the winter and spring of last year.)

I also took another glance through that huge photo album of recipes. While the recipes themselves seem to largely be in good shape (especially the recent ones taken from the Internet), the album they come in is showing its age. The recipes aren't sticking to the pages any more, and the cellophane is coming off. While the clippings themselves are fairly well-organized, anything copied from a website or magazine was thrown in pell-mell. I do want to keep most of the clippings...but I'm going to find a newer album to put them in and integrate them with my recipe clippings from my own collection.

Since my Reading List is working out so well, I decided to apply the same principal to my massive collection of music. I have almost 400 records, over 270 CDs, and over 50 cassettes. I'm going to take time for the next few months to go through them on-and-off and see what I want to keep and what else can go. Of the three I listened to today, I'm going to keep the Air Supply album Now and Forever (I always did like a couple of songs on that album, especially "Even the Nights are Better"), but not Bread (the hit "Make It With You" is the only thing I like on that one, and I can get that elsewhere). Mickey Mouse Disco isn't quite as much fun as some of the later 80s "Disney has fun with fads" albums, but it does have some decent songs; my favorite is "Welcome to Rio" for Jose Carioca.

Work was crazy-busy when I got in, but that's kind of par for the course on even non-football Sundays. By the time I left at 8, it was dead. Other than a few annoying customers (including one grown man who thought he was being cute by asking for the stickers we keep for the kids; I told him no), there were no major problems, and I was in and out.

I did finally get a hold of Mom when I got in. She has Skylar over her house every other weekend. She enjoys the company, and Skylar loves visiting. His nana lets him do fun things like play with her Wii or cruise the neighborhood with her on his new bike (Mom gave him one for Christmas). Mom's glad that it sounds like Rose and Craig are settling on the house, but is worried about my brother Keefe. It sounds like he may flunk out of the Navy. He broke up with his girlfriend Vicki a few weeks ago. Without her, he has no one to support him, and Mom claims he's fallen in with a bad crowd, too. I hope he can regain some sense and pick himself up enough to do better.