Some good stuff that happened today:
--I took a leisurely drive up to Williamsburg along the river and through the woods.
--I had a delicious lunch and spent an hour shopping for rubber stamps.
--At work, Karen told me how much she appreciates me and the work I do, and Denise said that they call my work "the beautiful mind of Janelle." Unbelievably nice!
--My friend Cheryl stopped by with some Target Dollar Spot treats for me: mini clothespins, mini binder clips, and mini paper clips.
--Only three hours of work today, and the customers were all sweet.
--The sky was full of big poofy white clouds this afternoon.
--A box of Therm O Web stuff was waiting at home for me to play with.
--I had a nice little phone chat with my mom and an even littler chat with my niece Kylie. She's got this gravelly voice that cracks me up.
Life isn't perfect, but it's good.
Book talk: I picked up an old copy of Nicholas and Alexandra at the used bookstore a few weeks ago and finished it last night. I've never had a paperback literally fall apart in my hands as I was reading it, but this did--it ended up in three pieces at the end, as well as a few loose pages. It was awfully old!
But what an amazing book. It read like fiction--each character sprang to life, and the story was so compelling. I think the thing I found most interesting was that Nicholas II was such a good man--he loved his wife and his children so much, loved his country intensely, loved God and strived so hard to do the very best he could, to be fair and honest and just...and that was probably the very worst kind of person to be ruling Russia at that time. It's amazing and frightening to think of how much a country depends on the characteristics of its leader meshing perfectly with the circumstances of each particular crisis. Churchill in England. Roosevelt in the U.S. (althoug I know some conservatives who would say that Roosevelt was a disaster--sorry, I don't buy it.) And on the flip side, Hitler in Germany. Lenin and Stalin in Russia.
Makes me wonder about George W. Bush. Will we look back and see that he was the perfect person to guide us through the terrorist crisis that exploded upon us on September 11? Or will people look back 100 years from now and shake their heads with pity over the mismatch of his personal characteristics with the era and the crisis? I wish I could see how it all turns out.
