All day long I thought about coming home to new carpet in the family room. Lush, plush, sand colored carpet, deep enough to sink into up to my ankles, a surrogate for the actual beach. The ugly carpet that has been here since we built the house 4 years ago would be gone. (Yes, I picked out the original color, which appeared to have flecks of bluish-gray in the microscopic sample, but actually had a sickly, jaundiced yellow hue when it was installed. Yes, I am nervous about the new color - I have feverish dreams that it will be some hideous shade of tangerine with undertones of puce.) But then I came home and learned that the carpet installer had called in sick and that the installation won't happen until tomorrow. As long as it doesn't snow. Since it has already started to snow, my guess is that we'll see daffodils before I get to sink my feet into anything.

Tomorrow I get to visit my sleep doctor. So far, after seeing her for more than a year, she hasn't been able to suggest any treatment for my insomnia that works. Ambien continues to allow me to get to sleep, and using the light box in the morning helps me to wake up, but pushing my sleep time back to a normal timeframe just doesn't seem possible without pharmaceutical intervention. Here's to better living through chemistry.

Following the visit to the sleep doctor I will brave the wilds of Philadelphia to visit a photographer to get photos taken for work. The last ones this guy took were, by any standard, the worst pictures of me ever taken. The camera was aimed approximately up my nose. This was intended to be a "candid" picture, taken while I was talking and gesturing. They might as well have taken a picture while I was eating or blowing my nose or something equally disgusting. Let's hope that this guy has gotten over his creative urges and will be able to focus the camera while I sit in a pleasantly artifical pose.

The farmette on the corner was sold a month ago and now the two old horses, the big gray geese, the little black ducks and the black and brown dog who barked at my car are all gone to their new home, wherever that might be. It's sad not to see them on my drive to work every morning. The horses generally spent time together, even though there were 3 different pastures. During the summer they seemed to be having a tiff because they spent a few weeks avoiding each other. They eventually got back together, but now I won't be able to watch them wander from pasture to pasture, or stick a head through the fence to nibble the cornflowers on the other side, or just stand next to each other and gaze around their little world.