I have been like a woman without a country, a cordless phone without a base.

A month or more ago, my old hand-me-down laptop died. It was helped along by a crazed, my-spacing 13-year-old and two manic monkey four-year-olds, at least according to the 13-year-old, who blamed it all on her younger sisters. Anyway, I was without a computer at home. I contemplated what kind of spiffy new laptop I would order for myself. My darling husband, ever loving and oh-so generous, sent up a trial balloon that he might get a new one for himself and give me his current, burned up laptop. You can imagine how well that idea went over, especially since it was his old broken-down laptop that had up and died on me in the first place. He slinked off to dream up other great ideas, tail tucked between his legs.

And then I didn't have a desk at home. I had moved my home office to the office, before I couldn't take working there anymore and fired myself. So you can imagine how productive I have been and it's been driving productive me crazy.

Tonight all that changed. I couldn't decide what kind of laptop to get so I just brought my computer from the office home. I brought a desk too. And then next week I'm going to go get all my note cards, postage, pens and files. My stuff. So I can be a person. A productive person with stuff.

And did I mention that my oh-so generous hubby did actually buy me a fancy fax/scanner/copy machine? It was new, and he just took it out of the box. My new plan is to learn how to scan.

At this point you must be wondering, what the heck is that hideous looking piece of furniture at the top of the blog. Well, it's the beginnings of the bar that Lauren and I transformed one Sunday afternoon in a manic episode. I've been promising to take pictures of the finished product and share them with the world, but I keep procrastinating because the vignette is not yet complete. I'm busy and I haven't had a desk. And a few other excuses I won't bore you with.

Have you ever seen such hideous pleather? Rest assured it's rotting away in a landfill right now.