I was very excited when I went to the post office this week and discovered that the Postal Service had issued a bunch of cool new stamps recently. I picked up some of the Jimmy Stewart commemoratives, mahogany speed boats and beautiful blooms. I may have to start corresponding with friends and family just for the opportunity to show off these spiffy stamps. I did a bit of stamp collecting as a young girl, and still have a soft spot for good looking stamps.

I also went shopping on iTunes this week. Music: Pretty in Pink by the Psych Furs, and Sympathy for the Devil and Gimme Shelter by the Stones. I also picked up some audiobooks, including Sherlock Holmes and the latest by Jon Krakauer - Into the Wild - a book about a young man who wanders into the wilderness of Alaska, and who's body is found six months later by Elk hunters. His books on an ill-fated climb of Everest (Into Thin Air) and about the killing of a woman by her fundamentalist Mormon brothers in law (Under the Banner of Heaven), have both been excellent.

They are playing a couple of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies this afternoon on AMC - High Plains Drifter - in my opinion, the best of the spaghetti westerns, and Escape from Alcatraz. I'd be happy staying home, knitting, and hanging with the girls, but a friend is dragging me out to a local restaurant/bar to see a band she likes . . . they are pretty good, but the older I get, the harder time I have trading off evening entertainment for being tired in the morning, when Hanna wakes me at sunrise for a walk.

The NFL season is just around the corner. In one pool in which I participate, there is a "33" pool - if your team scores 33 points (as the final score), you win the cash. We draw for teams, and last season I had the Chargers . . . they came close, but not close enough. Actually, through the whole season, no team ended with a final score of 33. This year I have the Patriots, so I hope Brady hasn't injured his throwing arm dating supermodels, and adding to the number of single mothers.

And finally, "EL,EM" (eat less, exercise more), is paying off and I have dropped about 4 lbs in the last 12 days . . .

I hope everyone is enjoying their 3 day weekend!