This is two weeks in a row when I didn’t get up and ride my bike on a Sunday morning. And it looks like it’s a lovely morning outside. I’ll probably regret the missed opportunity in another week, but for right now I feel kind of like I’m in a recovery or rebuilding time. Like I’m taking a little time off the recharge the enthusiasm.

So I spent this morning lying about on the newly re-aligned sofa. Marcella and I re-arranged our living room yesterday afternoon. We really didn’t plan to do it, but we got back from running errands, and I pulled out the vacuum to do a little cleaning and I was looking at moving some things around to get the vacuum around efficiently and I just started eyeballing spaces and thinking about what would fit where, and then Marcella asked me what I was thinking about, and soon we were moving the furniture. That’s how it goes. I think the sofa was rotated about 45 degrees, and the entertainment (TV) center was moved along to be centered on the big wall instead of in the corner. I feel like we’re making more use of the living room and it feels a little less crowded.

While lying on the newly rotated sofa, I’ve been checking out events on facebook, and listening to some music…just a random mix from iTunes, and working through some spanish flash cards. There are a couple of my current vocabulary words that I’m having a hard time keeping the articles straight…is it an “el” or a “la?” I did let everyone know that I’m taking a night time spanish class once a week, didn’t I?

If anyone is interested in seeing what I’ve been listening to this morning just click the “Lifestream” link at the top of the page and look for the entries with the little red icon next to them. Like I say, it’s just a random shuffle of songs from my iTunes library.

For the rest of the day I’m thinking there is more house-cleaning on the horizon. There’s always a litterbox to be cleaned. And I also want to spend some time reading. I read about half of Fragile Things last weekend, based on Finley’s vote as to what my next reading project would be. I’m hoping I can make some more progress this weekend. I was enjoying it, but somehow didn’t manage to read much during the week. There’s also the possibility of a little chess playing over at chess.com. I’ve got games going with Finley and Scott at the moment, my two most frequent opponents.

Well, I think that probably sums up my Sunday…past and future. What’s up in your world?

Technorati Tags: activities, Cycling, education, Music, relax, spanish

The Biltmore house was amazing, the weather was perfect, the gardens were beautiful and blooming with lots of spring flowers, and we had a terrific day out of work. I took some pictures, and I’ll try to post at least some of them later.

Here’s a list of things seen and heard during the day:

• Prisoners working on the side of the interstate collecting trash. They were followed by a trailer carrying a porta-potty.
• A song by the band Man Man called “The Ballad of the Butter Beans”
• A hiker walking along I-40 with a backpack; he was 119 miles from Asheville
• A sign for the “Iredell” county-line. I find this name memorable for some reason. I think it is the fusing of the disparate words “Ire” and “Dell” into one word that attracts me.
• More prisoners
• Cows sleeping, or at least lying down, in a dirt field.
• A water tower with a little roof. (I sketched this quickly in my notepad)
• A trailer loaded with canoes
• A sign at exit 133 labeled “Attractions” with no attractions listed, just an empty field of blue
• A girl driving a Prius with a bouquet of yellow flowers sprouting from her dashboard
• Marcella said, “I always like a band that has a xylophone” while listening to some more of Man Man
• A junkyard full of cars on a dirt hillside, the cars were gleaming with dented and smashed chrome
• The Eastern Continental Divide
• Lots and lots of blooming, greening trees
• A great big house with some very cool rooms, such as…

• Library
• Banquet
• Halloween (yes, there is a room they call the Halloween room—awesome)
• Stone hallway in the basement
• Main hallway with the waist high bookshelves filled with cool books and the seemingly endless parade of engravings of people
• Observatory
• Indoor pool

• Many engravings by Albrecht Dürer
• Paintings by John Singer Sargent
• A chess set once owned by Napoleon
• Bicyclists on trails crisscrossing the landscape
• Blue Sky
• Five different wines tasted…

• Pinot Grigio (white)
• Century (white)
• Festival of Flowers (rosé)
• Pinot Noir (red) (my favorite of the five)
• Syrah (red)

• A sign for “Old Fort” which we promptly misread as “Old Fart.” This sign was above another one labeled simply “Bed and Breakfast.” So we giggled for a while about the prospect of staying the night at Old Fart’s B & B.
• An auto dealership amusingly and confusingly named “Rooster Bush”

Technorati Tags: drive, relax, Travel, vacation, weather

Marcella and I have the day off today. The plan is to drive to Asheville to visit the Biltmore House. This is one of those things to do that has always been there, always been an option, and that I just have never done. So I’m looking forward to it.

Years ago I did visit The Breakers, which was the Vanderbilt family’s summer cottage up in Rhode Island. It was plenty impressive. I’m wondering how the Biltmore house stacks up after all the hype.

I think it should be a good day for me and Marcella, the weather is supposed to be in the low 80’s and sunshiney—a good day for a drive, and we’ve got plenty of music and podcasts loaded onto our iPods to listen to.

I’ll try and post a followup either later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Technorati Tags: relax, Travel, vacation