Let's see - I'm tired.  Now that we've got that out of the way on to more interesting things.  For instance, last weekend.  Beau and I were lucky enough to work an event with MacKenna and the Hallstroms, which culminated in running through the belly of an abandoned old Free Masons building.  The History section of their website described it as being designed as a retirement home, but as we toured the dark halls of the rumored haunted ....mansion(?), our guides told us it had been originally designed to care for orphans and widows within the Freemason community, then became a hospital. Our evening tour was exceptional and even included balconies, basements and entry into a massive walk-in vault, filled with floor plans. Sadly, this massive and beautiful building is slated to be demolished... for condos.  Yay Seattle!

We also spent a good chunk of our weekend working on getting the permanent location for the coop ready.  And Coops be cray - don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Chickens are not easy pets.  Chickens are not cheap pets.  Chickens are cool, but coops, be cray. We picked up 20 feet of the recommended 1/4" hardware cloth that will be dug 12" down to predator proof the "chick shack" - and a number of bags of sand and dirt to level the side yard where it will be going.  John's been kindly digging the trench and laying out the wire -  mostly in the rain - and yesterday after a long day of work.

I have a massive deadline Wednesday and have been working like mad the past few days.  And we have dinner guests 2 hours after said deadline... so we spent a few hours last night (and will be again tonight) cleaning, shopping and prepping.  We've learned that setting the table the night before helps relieve that much more stress day of, and at least gives our guests the impression that we are ready for them when they arrive - even if dinner is over an hour out and we ran in the door 15 minutes before they arrived.  In general, when we have weekday guests, we're learning we really need to leave the two nights before open.

We're also learning we need a sabbath.  We haven't really been keeping one.  With a new house - weekends become never-ending work parties.  Heck, so do weekdays.  And we're trying to keep up with family and friends and coworkers and second jobs (why do we do that again?!) and lately seeking out volunteer work and we bought chickens!? (cray)

We are getting burnt out.  It's more obvious in me - I am irrational, cry when talking about unrelated things like wanting a dinner guest to feel welcome (no lie, this was two nights ago), and fall asleep on the spot at any given moment.  But, I'm finally connecting the dots and John's definitely getting burnt out too - there's just not as many tears involved.

So, we're hoping to instate a Sabbath night each week, where we have to rest, however we choose. This week would be week one. John's going to a bible study guys night and I managed to sign myself up for not one, but two volunteer design/marketing projects for that night. We haven't quite gotten the swing of it, but we will.  Maybe next week. ;)  After Omaha.

Which leads me to my final thought, and the reason I opened this post to write:  What book should I bring for my flights?  I would prefer something sweet, relaxing, and well-written.  I don't want cheese, and I'd prefer to really be drawn in to a good story.  Suggestions please? :)