Nobody? Not even toastedbeagle who posted it? Okay, I'll start. Birthday on Sunday was great, but this week has been a trainwreck since.

1) The horse who had to be hospitalized in January got sick again on Monday. It was thankfully minor this time, but after January, I'm going out of my way to try to keep hothouse-flower horse as comfortable as possible. So I treated her, and stayed up with her most of the night, and nursed her along until she was better.

1a) I do not cope well with lack of sleep. It makes me move more slowly and feel like I'm walking around in a fog.

2) One of the dogs is having a bad reaction--to a treat that was previously okay--of the "waking us up every few hours all night to go outside" variety. Unhappy pup. Poor li'l guy, his allergies make it so hard to give him goodies. Okay, will give away the rest of that bag.

2a) I do not cope well with lack of sleep. It makes me move more slowly and feel like I'm walking around in a fog.

3) Sick horse knocked me down accidentally yesterday, and I feel battered from chin to knee. It wasn't really her fault; if my reflexes were better, she wouldn't have done it. That doesn't change the fact that I aaaaache.

aww, hugs, galadriel.

1) someone found a link showing that the mr's cancer shows 30 percent survival over 5 years.
2) doing audio typing of some damn reverby-ass shit, plus Chinese accent.
3) tandoori chicken for dinner.

1. Still working too hard. Feeling very very fried in the head.

2. I have a beautiful book about ballet history that I've been waiting and waiting for from the library and now that it's here I can't focus enough to read it (see #1).

3. Somebody who appears to be cute and fun and rather perfect emailed me for a date. I sense a scam.

1. OH MY GOD THE EARPLUGS WORK. J's snoring is no longer a potential threat to the wedding (and my sanity). We're still going to try to get it checked out for apnea, etc., but warmer weather and (my) better insurance will hopefully put the need off until after we get hitched.

2. I went back to the beginning with my awful writing and tried to rebuild my characters from scratch. Already it's coming out better. It's the Six Million Dollar Crappy Romance Novel!

3. I really, really need to go to trivia tonight. I've been flaking like mad. (What else is new?) This includes last week, when I would have been late due to an appointment and ended up going to the bridal store (and gnashing my teeth) instead. Hopefully #1 (above) will keep my baseline exhaustion at a minimum so I can get out and be a person more often.

(earplugs do indeed work, Madamina, and are the reason I was able to marry mine. Unintended consequence is that I can now no longer sleep without them, even if he's away)

1. Seem to alternate days of complete slackdom and of Doing All The Things. Today is a slack day and I feel pretty bad. I'm assuming that tomorrow will be better, given current pattern.

2. Given 1., I might cut my losses and go home and do something semi-useful.

3. Risotto for dinner. Nomnomnom.

1. The prof says the AvP paper is just about ready to be sent out for publication and will likely be done by the end of the week. I got the translation paper back on Monday with a "revise and resubmit" but the editor said she thinks it's a good topic but just needs some fiddling (which makes complete sense since that's the first paper I've written for publication). Still no work on the Excel paper but I'm not expecting to hear from them until the end of the month (even though they said mid-March, I know that never happens). Realized that I need to find somewhere else to send the Access paper because doing 2 papers in the same journal within the same year is NFG. So now I need to do a ton more research.

2. There's an Irish dancing event at my public library tomorrow that I think I want to attend (and I have a book waiting for me to be picked up) but I'm afraid that I'll be too tired/too-socialed-out to go because tomorrow is work, then the property tax assessment hearing with pops, then the tailor and Target with my mother, and then grocery shopping and I could just pick up the book tonight when I go to the gym since it shares a parking lot with the library.

3. This 'leaping into my life' shit is tiring. I'm ready for bed at 830pm and have finally been sleeping through the night (with a slight wakeup but not enough to get me out of bed and fully awake at some point around 3-6am) but am so groggy when I get up at 730. I'm planning on trying to wake up a little earlier in the next few weeks (shifting my first alarm 5 minutes earlier each week) to see if maybe I'm just waking up at a bad time in my sleep cycle. (Plus, I want to see if I can do more stuff in the morning, like morning pages/write one leaf/more stretching since I found these awesome yoga videos on youtube of short things that are designed to be done in bed.) I have half an inkling that dehydration may also be playing a factor in this tiredness because I know that I don't get enough liquids but straight water (tap or bottled) makes me feel ill. (I've been reading some AskMes to figure out how to potentially get around this, as well as a bunch of fitness/working out/exercise ones that have me almost thinking about doing Couch to 5k but I'm worried that I'm too fat, have previous knee problems, and oh yeah, I can't really stand being outside for very long and combining that + running (which I've always been told I do weirdly) + freaking out about my elderly iRock and the potential for badness since I live on the edge of a bad county but I do have a nice park across the street with trails = uneasiness.)

1. Current work project nearing completion, and I'm happy with how it's coming out. (It sucks to work on something for 3 months and then wish you weren't even affiliated with it, which has happened..)

2. The weather today is GROSS. After a couple of nice, warm, sunny weeks, we've had a full week of gloom, darkness, cold, and rain. I really hope this is winter's last hurrah.

3. Feeling the need to tackle some kind of creative project this spring to shake off my depressive mood of the last few months. I'm letting a couple of ideas roll around in my head- it may be something as simple as a few home improvements that I've been wanting to tackle for awhile.

1. Still waiting for decent weather to start running outside again. Meanwhile I'm being good about sticking to my training schedule for the 100th anniversary Bay to Breakers 12K in May, only on the treadmill, and did 5.2 miles on the hamster machine Saturday, 4.1 miles last night. So mileage is going up. I created a Crooked Still Pandora radio station and that was surprisingly wonderful running music.

2. My guitar lessons and nightly practices finally seem to be making a difference. I'm still ridiculously beginner level, but I can now actually pick out the notes on my guitar and read and play some simple songs and chords.

3. Still pretty much vegetarian since January 1. The only meat I've eaten is salmon a couple of times a week and turkey breakfast sausages on Sundays.

1-February sucked. March only slightly better.

2-New boss is a PITA.

3-Working on my attitude. So far, no luck. See #1, 2.

1. I got a job. Yay? This should be making me happy but the combination of ongoing and unbelievable and really really fucking bad family drama that I do not want to talk about PLUS the fact that this is pretty much a McJob making less money than I've made for 20 years (remember here that I have never made more than 34K a year) PLUS the fact that I am going for my piss test this afternoon for said job is making me, well, not ecstatic about it. In the immortal words of Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, I don't wanna piss in no cup unless Nancy Reagan's gonna drink it up. Still. It is a job. Cashier at Home Depot! Whooo! I am trying to ease myself back into working gently, here, and I am also hoping to get an employee discount so I can afford my garden this year, not to mention the roof repairs that now look imminent. Still, I shouldn't bitch. I am grateful to get anything, really.

2. The dogs all have whipworm - thanks, son's friend with puppy who lived with us for a month! - ; the last of my money is going to the vet; all the animals are behind on shots; they will have to be on expensive heartworm pills 12 months a year instead of 6 now forever due to the whipworm and to cap it off, Django's ear issues have gotten worse and he must go on a fancy expensive grain free diet.

3. Aaaaand the fucking bank just called and an account that I had forgotten about - thought was closed - has just been dwindling away due to fees over the last year and now they say it is overdrawn by $30 and I have to go down there and pay them.

4. Fuck. My. Life.

1. I am 35 years old and I just watched the finale of 'Greek' - yes that's right and I watched every episode of it, too - and I cried. I am pathetic.

2. Out running errands at lunchtime and mis-timed my trip to the library and ran into my daughter's pre-school class. Oops. So we had to go through another goodbye for the day.

3. Only have about an hour more work to do for the day and I'm putting it off. Procrastination is awesome.

1. Work stress is mostly over, but I'm still really grouchy and tired. Don't know if I just need to recover more, or if it's PMS, or what, but I feel like I spend my day internally growling at everyone, and it's just not very pleasant.

2. Boss #2, who's always bee difficult to work for, has taken another position. It's a huge step up for her, which is nice. Things will change quite a bit around here. Hoping the changes will be positive, but you never know. We could end up with someone who's even more difficult. Or, difficult and incompetent. For all of Boss #2's failings, she does know how to make sure things get done.

3. Most exciting news I have is that the grocery store a block from me, which has been vacant for ~9 years, is about to open up again. Finally, I can just run out and buy an onion if I need an onion!

1. Tonight, I'm paying a condolence call to an Orthodox Jewish family who's sitting shivah. I hope I don't screw anything up, like walking in while they're reciting Maariv or something. (I went there for Shabbat once, and starting blathering loudly during that point before washing hands when you're supposed to be completely silent. And it took me way longer than it should have to realized that all their hand gestures meant "shut up".)

2. I wish I was born with more charm. I don't understand it. My father could work a room like it was nothing, and go home having made 6 new friends. My sister is the same way; even my mother can strike up a conversation and have the person be interested for more than half a second. I just say things like "How about them Red Sox" (a topic that usually generates tons of enthusiasm from the males in this area), the other person says "I dunno," and then I wind up walking away. Hate it.

3. I liked the Askme question about how to deal with the response "well, you wouldn't understand because you don't have children." Happens to me all the time; I want to say, hey, just because I don't have children doesn't mean I don't have thoughts and feelings.

4. Feeling grumpy today, obviously.

1. I worked from home today, and am doing so tomorrow, so in between working on my cases I've been able to do a few errands, laundry and other things that I need to do in the next few days.

2. My spare bedroom no longer looks like something out of 'Hoarders'.

3. Lucy is being a diva and has decided she doesn't like her cat drinking fountain any more, so I'm going to put it on Freecycle. It takes up too much floor space in my tiny kitchen for it to be there if she won't use it. But aside from that, she has turned into the most affectionate cat, always wanting to curl up with me, now her mammy's gone.

1) I'm seeing someone! Life's fun :-)

2) Both new bosses are useless. Work stress is at an all time high - BOOOOO.

3) My girls have lice. LICE. GAH. So annoying.

1. Wifi problems, GRAR. The building's wifi is flaky, the process of ordering our own wifi is nutty in the most predictable and dull way. To sum up: A) GRAR; B) my online life is shutting down unpredictably for a while.

2. The migraine that started yesterday evening is finally receding. This is my second two-day migraine since Saturday, so I am not in the finest spirits. (However, I expect my upcoming wisdom tooth extraction to diminish those, and new glasses/contacts will help, too.)

3. Hugs, whuffles, and love to everyone!

1. When I got home tonight, I was so f**king exhausted that I planted myself in my recliner and Could. Not. Move. I ultimately wound up crashing for an hour or so.

2. This afternoon, I called my health insurance company to inquire about several outstanding bills related to some medical services I used last year. Turns out all the bills have been paid. And that I need not worry about anything. This is rather nice. It more than makes up for the work-related exhaustion in #1.

3. Did you know that pumpkin ice cream goes very well with rich, fudge-filled chocolate ice cream? It's true.

1. Didn't get a refund for my address corrected checks because it was too far away from the original order (July!).

2. However, I took in my tuna can of change and got a $20 dollar bill. Covers the 17.05 for checks. Cool beans.

3. Did a little bit of pitiful creative work on a languishing project. It's not so bad once you just. Get. Started.

Yep.

Oh, on preview...

4. Finally checked MetaChat. I really need to check earlier to catch these threads. Plus I'm on Pacific Time.

1. I have discovered that the solution to getting the cat switched over to wet food is Fussy Cat Tuna & Chicken. (Runner-up solutions were Whiskas Chicken Flavor and Tiki Cat Ahi Tuna.) She is eating again, which is good, and seems to have gained a bit of weight back, which is also good. But mainly I think it's hilarious that there's a cat food called "Fussy Cat."

2. I have been completely exhausted for days and I wish it would stop.

3. I've been reading a string of good books, which is cool. I feel like I'm diving into all sorts of different worlds.

1. Feeling down and there isn't really a reason. I am doubting everything- job, relationship, friends, apartment and wondering what it all adds up to.

2. Life errand crap is piling up and I just want to hide in bed and not do taxes, laundry, healthcare stuff, dishes, go to the post office ever again. How do people just keep doing this?

3. I am sick of having a runny nose. And I want to be skinnier because I put on tights yesterday and looked in the mirror and my stomach/hips were huge. Muffintop doesn't even begin to describe it.

Is it EVER early-March in North America! Almost everyone I know is sorta bummed out. I think we're all snow/cold/rain weary. Let's all go to the Caribbean? Good idea, no?

Also, nroberston? Check this out...it might make you feel better about missing stuff.

Here in Wisconsin (not even speaking about, y'know, that OTHER stuff), we got three inches yesterday, and I felt like it was spring already. The snow dumps we've had over the past few years, and the resulting frozen hills of sludge, couldn't get more depressing.

(I'm sure we'll find a way to get worse next year, though.)