New year, same old me

Hello, I did not mean to quit blogging at you for so long but the thing is, I have been too busy sneezing. Sneezing, blowing my nose, throwing away tissues. That is all I do now. There's no time for anything else.

We're all sneezing really, even the dog, and the reason we're sneezing is that Phase One of our big home improvement project has been completed, and that particular phase involved cleaning out closets and clearing bookshelves that hadn't been dusted in ... well, EVER ... and also ripping out 9-year-old carpet that had been professionally cleaned ONCE in its entire life, and now we're all dying of dust poisoning. I had no idea how much dust was lying dormant in my house until it all rose up in a great big angry tsunami which is still swirling around a couple of days later, trying to kill us all. You'd think opening the windows would help, but this is what's going on OUTSIDE the house right now:

Image courtesy of Your News Now.

Do you see that second column? The cedar? That is the pollen to which I am most allergic in the world. THE CHART IS NOT EVEN HIGH ENOUGH TO CONTAIN IT. I am going to die, I'm pretty sure.

I did manage to accomplish a few things earlier this week, before the very air I breathe went on its murderous rampage:

1. Bath and Body Works put their tiny little holiday-scented candles on sale, one candle and one little glass holder for $1.50. I am not even going to tell you how many of these I bought, but suffice it to say that the next several Christmasses around here are going to be EXTREMELY fragrant.
2. The prize I won during NaBloPoMo arrived! And I was very excited. And very sad that I no longer read real books. And then I looked it up on the Kindle and it was only 99 cents, so I bought it. That's right. I WON A TOTALLY FREE BOOK and then I BOUGHT ANOTHER COPY. Please mark this down as reason #4,583 why I am not a millionaire, and reason #52 why husband P is in charge of all our money.
3. Speaking of (Kindle) books, I read Darcie Chan's The Mill River Recluse and liked it well enough, and then I intended to read Jennifer McMahon's The Island of Lost Girls because I very much enjoyed Promise Not To Tell, but I accidentally read a free sample of Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends instead and decided that I had to read that next. So I am. And it's good.
4. I took advantage of an Amazon gift card and bought a whopping ton of MP3 music, including the first album I ever bought with my own money (Queen's News of the World) and all the Florence + The Machine I could get my hands on. (Also The Head and the Heart. And some old Chicago. I know, I am so eclectic! Or maybe just weird. I'll let you be the judge.)
5. I bought a poodle calendar for 50% off and hung it in my bathroom next to the toilet. Yes. That happened.

And that pretty much brings you up to speed. More soon, I hope. If I don't die.