I simply could not log into ICE this morning.

I could get into e-mail, into the intranet...heck, I could get into stuff I don't use, like Excel, IMPACII (it's a Grants thing), and even the mainframe, which is going away soon. But ICE, which I needed, wouldn't awaken. I rebooted twice, and finally, in frustration, cleared out my Internet Explorer cache.

Well, that seemed to work.

But this explained why I was working until after 5:30 when I'm supposed to knock off at 4:30 on Fridays. Otherwise it wasn't bad. I got three more orders done, set up one more, sent e-mails about the others. During lunch I dubbed off Castle and also made a discovery: you can get spots out of the carpet without using carpet cleaner. Sadly, the carpet is champagne-colored; all the darker ones cost more. We had several spots on the carpet: a couple of places where the dog barfed and it left a stain. There were some spots in the dining room and between the couch and the computer that showed up after a party or game night, and they looked grey. I kept meaning to buy some spray carpet cleaner, but never did.

But about two months ago I had gotten really tired of a spot in the hallway where Willow had committed an indescretion and we didn't see it. It was dried by the time we found it and although we used the Urine Gone on it, it left a darker spot with a pronounced edge. In a fit of pique I had dumped some peroxide on it and rubbed it a bit.

Surprisingly (well, to me anyway), the spot lightened so much, but not enough to actually whiten the carpet, that, if you didn't know where it was, you probably couldn't see it. So today, curious, I tried it on the other spots, especially the grey ones, which I suspected were oil-based, and...wow. You can still see the shadows of the grey spots if the carpet nap is pointed the right way, but the "barf marks" and other fainter spots have disappeared.

I can see some others I need to treat, especially the Georgia red clay marks on the stairs.

James stopped on the way home and got us something from Fresh2Order. I had him get me a large bowl of the chicken vegetable soup. While he was on his way I made some little macaroni shells we found at Dollar General, and when I got the soup I put it into a larger bowl and added some of the shells and also some water, because this stuff is thick enough to be stew: nice pieces of chicken, lots of carrot slices, and other veggie bits. Boy, that filled me up. I enjoyed going to Borders to walk around.

Attracted bargain books, too, only $4 each—an illustrated volume about working class Britain 1900-1950 and a memoir called Parish the Thought about growing up Catholic in the 1960s (hey, been there, done that...LOL). In fact, in a fit of nostalgia, when we got home I put on From the Earth to the Moon ("Spider," of course...and "1968").

Oh, and I found the new Early American Life, too.

Labels: books, food, housework, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:07:00 PM

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