Did more food shopping today, primarily because I’d run out of bleach, and that snowballed into needing rubber gloves and sponges, and then I decided to make chili for supper…

I finished scrubbing my study, and Ken and I cleaned out the cabinet over the washer and dryer, which mostly consisted of throwing out cans of very old paint. We found can openers from at least three decades. (Amusingly, when I went to make dinner, I realised we hadn’t unpacked _our_ can opener yet. Thankfully, I found it quickly.)

My kick-ass chili turned out even kick-assier, thanks to splashes of lime juice and tequila. Even more lime juice next time, I think. I considered adding jalapeños, but Ken doesn’t like things too spicy. I didn’t even put them on top of my chili in the end, in deference to my acid reflux. (I have a chiro appt next week, huzzah.) Anyway, we ate it with brown rice (which has a strong enough flavour to stand up to kick-ass chili), shredded cheddar, and sour cream. Mmmmm.

After that, we went to Lowes and dropped another couple hundred dollars on the sink/vanity for the downstairs bathroom, stovepipe for the cast iron stove, plumbing fixtures, and other various and sundry items. We ordered house numbers that have acorns and oak leaves on them, because they were so gorgeous that we couldn’t help ourselves. Ken’s already fixed the stopper in the upstairs bathroom sink and I’m thrilled; it’s one of those things I use at least twice a day, so when it doesn’t work properly, it’s really annoying.

Everybody think positive thoughts that the linoleum arrives soon…

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Okay, enough with boring you all with house stuff.

Uh oh, what do I talk about now?

Writing—yeah, writing. I think I’m going to start working on the Brava novella this week when I have time, because I don’t want to push myself and miss the deadline. I’m going to pop out to Borders tomorrow and read a couple of published novellas to get a feel for them. There are a couple of short stories I ought to be working on as well, but I think the novella is more important right now, because I’ve got a decent shot at something here.

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We were going to buy cookie dough on the way home, because we were craving it, but we forgot. Dammit. We do have good British chocolate in the house, but it’s not the same.

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We watched “From Hell” last night (the Jack-the-Ripper movie with Johnny Depp and Heather Graham and Robbie Coltrane). Interesting, weird, not amazing, but not bad, either. It did give me strange dreams, but nothing I could call a nightmare.