"So, Anne," I can hear the throngs of frustrated readers asking. "Where the heck are you these days?"

"Here I am," I say, with a guilty twitch.

Sorry for the extended silence. After spending the first week of my unemployment cleaning and tidying like a fiend, I felt it incumbent (reasonably good word) upon me to spend time during my second week actually, you know, looking for a job. So, I spent some time sending out resumes last week.

Not like I did that one time, sending out to the ads that promised weird and interesting responses. Nope, this time I responded to real ads.

I suppose it's a reflection of how aggravated I got with Bernie's constant neuroses that the only things that really appealed to me the first three days were writing jobs. (I like the idea of a job where I just sit and type this kind of stuff, but the Sensible Me knows it won't pay.

I even have an interview! Think of me tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:00 MT, okay? I like the sound of this one. Let's hope the reality matches my imagination and that they find me the most suitable of all their applicants.

Also, winter returned last week and we had light snow Thursday and Friday and then Sunday, when they'd promised that the storm would move on out of here, we had heavier snow. Nothing radical. It was barely freezing most of the time, so the snow was melting almost as fast as it fell, but I got cranky about it.

What else?

Various yarn projects either finished, ripped out and restarted, or progressing normally.

Last week's gardening experiment seems to be bearing fruit. The seeds I planted have sprouted! Three in one pot and one in another. It's very exciting. I wonder if flowers will actually bloom at some point?

I revisited some of Eddings' earlier books and have decided that while the Belgariad is still interesting, it was in the Mallorean series that his writing started to get annoying. I had this vague impression that some of the things that are annoying me in The Dreamers were things that bothered me in his earlier books, so I went back to review them and I was right. He suffers from the flaw of finding some conversational tic or gambit really cute and repeating it ad nauseum.

Having decided that, I think I'll put his stuff down for a while and return to Cornwall's Sharpe series.

I still have the new Bradbury waiting to be read (Farewell Summer) but Dandelion Wine was such a seminal book for me that I'm really more than half-afraid to pick up a sequel, written so many years later, you know? A bad sequel can ruin the original book for you sometimes.

So far, no drawing practice. I did finish tidying up that last pile o'papers in my room, so that the drafting table would be clear to spread my drawing stuff out on (and found a letter to my niece that I thought I'd mailed a month ago) but I haven't gotten to the point of getting out the drawing supplies, much less working on anything.

Everything in my room is so tidy. I know that part of the reason I tidied it up so ruthlessly was so that I'd have room to spread out a project or two, but now that it's neat and clean, I'm reluctant to mess it up.

Today's schedule includes--very little. I drank coffee, showered, and ate breakfast. I checked the job sites and sent out two more resumes. At 3:00 I'm having my hair done in preparation for tomorrow's interview. At some point, I need to give myself a manicure. Today or tomorrow, I need to get back on the company's website and memorize all of the information there. Interviewing is a lot of work.

Other than that--nothing. I'm sorry I didn't have anything more interesting to share, after such a long absence, but the weather was icky, I'm still trying not to spend money carelessly, in case my unemployment lasts a while, and once you've said, "I sat in a chair and read for hours" that pretty much covers how I spent most of my weekend.