1. I am about half a day behind in my work this week. No Wednesday afternoon off for me!

2. This morning was the first morning in her new classroom that the kidling gave me a hug and said "bye bye" instead of grumping. Yay!

3. I was all excited about going for a run and now it's raining and I hate running in the rain. Treadmill it is.

1. The dreary weather went away and the sun is back!

2. I made the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

3. I did all my homework and now can watch cartoons w/ the cat on my lap for the rest of the afternoon.

1. I did 4 boxes this morning before the boss left, so I'm going to not bother with any more today because otherwise I wind up completely dicking my one coworker that's in the office today.

2. It appears that someone sent out some spam email to all the Hopkins emails and now everyone is doing reply-all with 'wtf is this shit' and it's quite hilarious.

3. I'm hungry and ready for lunch.

4. I wish my profs would respond to my discussion board post about why in the flippity fuck my CSS background is showing up banded on my webpage that's due Friday.

5. It is raining heavily and I heard one clap of thunder already. If we lose power here, I'm going to be pissed. (With my luck, it'll happen when I'm in the stacks and I'll have to pry the doors out of their tracks to get out.)

1. First official day of my spring break.

2. Am going to celebrate it by making fresh pizza dough and making a nettle and feta pizza for dinner. And maybe a bottle of wine.

3. If it's spring break, why am I reading next quarter's textbook and working on the examples? I think I may have to go for a wander to prevent this.

4. Really struggling to get back to my exercise routine despite the flabbiness that's developing due to its lack. Gah.

1. This month I have been analyzing my monthly expenses, and with the exception of taking the kids out to breakfast once, all my spending has been for necessary items only. From this experience and what I can glean about the HCR bill, I will be once again filing for bankruptcy on the eighth anniversary of my last filing. Since I am on a fixed income, I expect to repeat this cycle for the rest of my life. I'm not complaining, just saying is all.

2. The weather here is gorgeous this week.

3. I am beginning to doubt that my son will have any meaningful employment by the time he is 26, not through any fault of his own.

Sil, how do you prepare your nettles? I've cooked them a few times and been underwhelmed, but I'm betting there's something I could be doing different to improve the outcome.

1. It's spring break on campus, but that doesn't necessarily mean any relief from work for graduate students. Still it's hard to be motivated to work when the campus is deserted and the weather is the gloomy foggy sort that makes you want to curl up under blankets with hot chocolate and a good book.

2. I've been paying for my stupidity in not taking care of some tax stuff last year by having to go from office to office with my questions and finding the scenario for getting my tax refund in a reasonable length of time looking increasingly bleak.

3. Saw Up in the Air last night. Really loved it, Clooney and Farmiga were brilliant. Also, refreshing to see a movie with two major female characters, one of whom is not a love interest of the major male character.

Jan, you have a rogue tomcat pissing in your house? WTF? That's horrible!

serazin, my experience with nettles has been underwhelming, but we still like eating them (and trying to make nettle ale) because it makes us feel all forage-y and shit.

1. Ohhhhh god visa paperwork! It's not horrifying but it's freaking endless and persnickety. Please lord please make this go through quickly and smoothly please.

2. The boy went on a business trip and left me with all the dishes. I don't blame him, truly, but dang that's a lot of washing up.

3. My nails are ridiculously long. I'm not really a long nail type of girl, but I've painted them dark red and am enjoying the fact that they look kind of well, fake. (So nice for running the fingers through the hair, though.)

4. I exercised three times last week and today, even though it was Monday. This is most unusual for me, and I'm hoping it is the beginning of a trend. The beginning of a you-need-to-be-able-to-fit-into-those-jeans-you-could-wear-easily-a-year-ago trend.

1. 6--count 'em, 6--weddings since Friday.

2. Another tonight

3. This became our busiest web-traffic day ever at 1:00 this afternoon. Interesting to see where it goes.

4. Meet sperose Friday!

Jan, you have a rogue tomcat pissing in your house? WTF? That's horrible!

He's a boy, they like to mark their territory. He's been spreading the love round the neighbourhood ...

Jan, you have a rogue tomcat pissing in your house? WTF? That's horrible!

I used to have a male cat come in and attack MY male cat. Talk about rude awakenings! I wish that I'd had a microchip cat door then.

serazin, I mostly just boil them a bit in salted water to get rid of the sting and then toss them on a pizza before baking it. I think of them as a spinach replacement, but it definitely tastes nuttier and feels like there are more vitamins in nettles (don't know if that's the case or not, but it always feels that way).

Past tense monday update:

1) Went to MoMA, spent about five hours on the fourth floor.
2) Dinner at Lombardi's - marghrita FTW!
3) Drinks at DBA (okay now present tense)

No complaints on my last day in NYC (though where'd all this rain come from, the last few days had me thinking we skipped spring and went straight to summer)

1) Busy weekend at drug house across the street (yes again). Talk about burgeoning. Possibly related: frozen package of chicken feet found in our tree tonight. Chicken = snitch? Chicken feet = came from Hmong (which they are)? Hmmm. Landlord still thinks it's shits and giggles.

2) Big BIG insurance move and we can pay the assisted living bill. Whew.

3) Still no tenants but I'm painting and carpeting as fast as I can. My nephew, alas, too busy working to assist.

1. I made what I thought was going to be a ho-hum "I have to work until 7pm and I have no time to cook or shop" dinner, but it turned out yummy. Roasted halibut, steamed broccoli, and rice.

2. Ikkyu2 has just decided to start communicating with me by typing things into his text program and then telling his computer to read them out loud. It is amusing and annoying at the same time.

3. I got my new flats, but they ate up my heels. Boo.

1. Got back from visit to Mum's today. It was her 70th b-day.

2. Surprise visit from Bro#2 was delayed a day due to being bumped from a flight - boo! But it was still a surprise to Mum - yay!

3. Brought back lots of goodies from Trader Joe's - yum!