I don't have any. Or maybe I forgot what they were . . .

I'm going to try to avoid that SUDDEN CURVE AHEAD!

Actually, no... I'm just gonna make sure I'm READY FOR IT!

Sleep, I hope. It's 4:45 a.m. and I'm still awake. Tried to sleep, but even a couple OTC pills didn't help.

Other than that, not much. I watched the first two Harry Potter movies (again) today/yesterday. I'll watch the rest of them over the weekend.

Today I have the kid all morning so husband can sleep in and then go to the gym. We are meeting up for sushi for lunch. At the moment however, kid is lying on the couch watching tv because she got nowhere near enough sleep last night and is all blah but nonetheless was determined to get up at a ridiculous hour.

This afternoon we are meeting friends at a mutual friend's wine bar in Brooklyn.

Nothing tonight. Watch a movie, probably. We watched Scott Pilgrim last night, which was totally cute and much better than I expected.

Tomorrow I am running a 4 miler in Central Park, then we are meeting friends for brunch on the west side.

At some stage there will be playground visits and running in sprinklers.

I get off work at 2:30 on Fridays so my weekend begins then.

Yesterday afternoon, I went shopping on Queen St., got home at about 6 and did my usual once-a-week cooking session: a big salad, hard-boiled eggs, a banananut coffee cake and mashed potato cookies, plus washing and stemming fruit. (This seems very dessert-heavy of course, but this was just the week to make desserts. They've all gone in the freezer for now and will last for weeks. Next weekend I'll be making casseroles or some such.)

This morning I shall be doing some housekeeping stuff: dusting and vacuuming the house, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, cleaning the fridge, doing some paint touch ups here and there.

This afternoon I'll be sewing - I want to make some stuffed toys as presents for a couple of impending babies I know, and also a new night gown for me.

This evening I'll be hitting Home Depot and watching a copy of "The House of Mirth" that I picked up for $2 at Value Village. I'll work away on a cross-stitching project while I watch.

Tomorrow, Sunday, is work on the house day. I want to rehang the attic door, install a hook rail in the front hall, and work on a vanity table and chair that I am refinishing.

Best of luck to you on your date, Senyar!

I hope your date is great, Senyar!

I just saw off my two overnight visitors. I tried sleeping with the seven year old on our pullout couch, but I only made it until 5am. Damn thing is so uncomfortable! Our guests have baldly lied when they said this thing is "alright". Plus, the seven year old snores....

Today I have a couple of morning meetings, I suspect an episode or two of Deadwood will be in the offing. Other than that, no plans. I really hope it stays that way.

Good luck with the date, Senyar! (And curly hair RULES!)

Still sick with the flu (!) but I think I'm going to the gym anyway...I just feel so sluggish, I haven't even been outside in like 48 hours. Then I'm going to the Corcoran to pick up a prize for my photo! Which I won because no one else entered the contest! Hmm...

Tomorrow we might go check out an interesting junk shop in Baltimore that's always closed when we go by. Mr. Arkham leaves for a week in Oklahoma on Monday, so we're going to have to get supplies at some point too, since I'm stuck in the suburbs and don't drive.

Right now I'm reading The Highly Sensitive Person. At some point I need to:

- go to Goodwill
- go to the liquor store for more boxes
- pack my clothes and kitchen stuff
- go to my parents

And tomorrow my work is having a summer picnic, which I will probably skip.

A hike to Tidbits Mountain. . .then symphony in the park tonight. . the only complication is that it's frigging raining right now!

Tomorrow, working out, then probably to a bar where they are showing the Women's World Cup finals.

This morning I got some groceries early (could not have coffee with no half+half), then just put together the shelf unit I bought yesterday. It was a lot harder than I was expecting for a 5'3" person to wrangle the 74" x 48" thing in a small space. I had to stand on a stepstool to get the top shelf on. Either the shelves are a bit crooked, or the floor is; I don't care right now. And it may not be that sturdy. Am kind of pooped and listening to grateful dead radio. Later on will be more pottery-related activity, but the only social plans are knitting group tomorrow.

I would like to run in sprinklers today!

We have lunch with friends today and tomorrow I go to a cocktail hat-making workshop tomorrow. V. exciting.

The dog woke us up bright and early. THANKS DOG! Grrr. I went to the employee gym this morning- perk of living so close to work! It was nice although the building with the gym is completely inaccessible from the outside on weekends. I had to go through another building and use a tunnel that's underneath the entire complex. Strange, but that's this place for you!

Later, we are going shopping for home goods- I saw some nice trunks on Thursday, and Stynxno really wants one. We'll probably bum around home tonight, do more unpacking/organizing things. The place is really coming together nicely!

Oh, and tomorrow, we go to the church where Stynx interns during the year- one of his friends is preaching. I imagine there could be brunch after, and I am always open to that.

Friday night I helped make dinner with my enormous visiting family: first lobsters for the kids, then lobster rolls for the adults. This was genius planning on my mother's part. She knows all too well that by the time you've finished helping children crack lobsters, no one's interested in cracking one for themselves: just toast buns, scoop lobster salad, and serve with corn. I also made a salad of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Yum!

Today, I will tidy up the apartment and fix that loose joint on the futon, then make peanut noodle salad with plenty of veggies. Also miso dressing, cinnamon streusel coffee cake, cold-brewed coffee, shredded chicken.

Hey, does anyone have suggestions for delicious shredded chicken to top peanut noodle salad? The recipes I peeked at all suggest plain poaching, which sounds, ahem, kinda plain. I think I'll poach it in water seasoned with ginger and garlic, then toss with sesame oil and lime, but I'm open to ideas.

Tonight, The Fella has a rare Saturday night free, so I'll surprise him with supper and a peaceful night at home. Maybe we'll take a late-night walk around the neighborhood or a beer with friends.

Sunday night we're having 4 friends over for dinner: cold peanut noodle salad, shredded chicken, pan-fried sweet potatoes, velvet tofu, and a salad of avocado in miso dressing on a bed of cucumbers. One of the guests is bringing dessert. Two of the guests will spend the night, hence the futon and the coffee cake.

I need to buy pajamas. My pajamas are full of holes.

Bake banana bread.

(My weekend starts on Thursday.) Yesterday I fiddled with my budgeting a bit and went to Ashton for dinner, where I had a super long chat with pops about the future. So far today I've gone for a long walk (and even very slow jogged a few bits since the weather was pleasant enough, because if the humidity gets too high, I can't jog worth a damn) and taken a super luxurious bath with new bubble bath that is smells AMAZINGLY good.

For the rest of today, I need to do schoolwork, work on my palmistry project, and then go over to Ashton to go clean my car (even though in theory I can wash my car at my house, I don't have a shopvac to really get the inside super clean) and then I have Wicca class tonight.

And then tomorrow is the start of the week for me.

Off to the Verizon store to check out the Incredible 2. I'm 90% certain that's what I want and was about to buy it online but decided that I should try it out in person. It's a beautiful day so it'll be a nice walk downtown to the store, maybe I'll pick up some coffee at Nicolas Roasters.

Probably do bills and finance update this AM, then drop off crappy old mountain bike at nice bike shop to see if they can make it better, then hoping for a long bike ride out to a bakery and back. Maybe the final Potter movie tonight, we'll see. Sunday, hot yoga, then farmer's market and breakfast, then guitar lesson, then maybe long run with the pup or at least dog park with the pup.

Saturday: Finish coffee; get dressed; go water/weed the garden; try to trellis the sprawling tomato plants that I've neglected to trellis over the past weeks; hopefully find some red tomatoes (it's more like October than July here too, and the veggies have no idea what to make of it); come back home and mow both the front and back yards, in the process reminding myself that the backyard gate has rotted off its hinges and needs to be fixed; contemplate fixing backyard fence, maybe tomorrow; use the weedeater on the overgrown raised beds in the backyard; hose the chicken shit off of the back porch so that it's a nice place to sit again; sit on back porch and read book purchased from SPCA thrift store yesterday for $.50; put sheets in washer; vacuum; open bottle of wine; watch Netflixed True Grit.

Sunday: Women's World Cup; any leftovers from list above.

And thanks for prompting the to-do list!

My weekend plans are shot to hell. The kids will be back tonight, instead of gone until Monday. So this morning, I am sitting here listening to psychedelic-turned-glamrocker Steve Harley and trying to decide whether I want to replenish my stash on Monday or Tuesday.

Update: The date was excellent, although the weather was awful for most of the time, so we didn't do much other than go to a couple of different coffee shops. But we talked over tea and coffee for five hours and are planning another date for the weekend after next.

I get 3 day weekends every week, so I started yesterday. I did plumbing yesterday, and fixed a bunch of stuff.

Today I'm doing laundry and other chores. We are taking a short trip to CA Wednesday, so must get everything done for that.

Tomorrow is house cleaning, and I hope to make some cyanotype prints as well. Maybe go to the nursery and get some more coneflowers for our front garden.

I'm such a domestic boy...

Yay Senyar!

Hmm, Verizon Wireless just sucks. Apparently the same phone is $40 more to buy it in the store than it is to buy it via their own website.

Sunday Mr. Ant and I and a friend will be riding our dual sport motorcycles to Buzzard's Roost (that's I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge waaaayy down below there).

Monday (we work Saturdays, so Sun and Mon are our weekend) I will take workerdog for a hike around the lake, then swimming in the lake,

And now I'm going to a movie.

That movie looks great, OR. I love John C Reilly. It'd be interesting, too, to see Creed Bratton is, well, not Creed-from-The-Office Bratton.

It's an unusually active summer weekend for me (I can go a week without getting dressed in the summer). But this weekend started Thursday when Jon and I went out for some yummy barbecue to celebrate my birthday. My fingers still smell like smoke from the baby backs. And Jon gave me the cutest stuffed Nibbler which I love-ed (he even has an atomic boom-boom in his diaper).

Then today, I went to see Cirque de Soleil's Zarkana at Radio City, which was excellent (we saw O in Vegas a few years back, though, and that was even better). Still, Cirque never disappoints, and I'd never been to Radio City before, which was very comfortable and a great place to see a show -- I definitely want to go see the Christmas special with the Rockettes this year.

I also splurged and finally bought us a new bed, a king-sized pillow-top Simmons Beauty Rest. It was such a good price I couldn't resist. It'll be delivered this week. I can't wait; our old mattress is small (only a full-size) and saggy and needs to go. Jon, bless his soul, keeps rolling over and smacking me in the head. Plus, now I get to buy all new bedding.

Then Monday we're going to see Zevon Helm and Emmylou Harris.

Yep, busy, busy, busy. No week in pajamas this week. No sir.

My partner got laid off from his job at the newspaper yesterday, which means he's home this weekend instead of away all day to photograph City Name Sports Teams. We'll be taking advantage of his now-free weekends next week by going to the Texas Shakespeare Festival to take in a performance of "Earnest in Love," but this weekend we're just sitting at home having some Lone Star, grilling some hamburgers, and watching Jason Statham movies. This is our Job Loss Therapy.

(It's okay - he has an offer for another job already, so it's really one of those blessings-in-disguise things. Still, Lone Star and Jason Statham soften the sting of having been laid off at all.)

My brother-in-law emailed us yesterday and said he was in Vegas, and could be fly up to see us, and we said of course! It's very surreal to have him here, because he's usually 7,000 miles away. BONUS VISITOR!

So we're very happily squiring him around Portland: this morning we went to the farmers' market and bought all flavors of local produce, had some delicious tamales, and admired all the pretty locals. Then off to Pottery Barn (I hate the consumer paradise that is Pottery Barn, but they have a dresser we like, which we bought), grocery shopping, gourmet chocolate shopping, and then home for a nap.

In a little while, we're going to Pok Pok to gorge on amazing food and drinking vingears (I dare you to read this menu and not start salivating), then maybe catch a movie at one of the cool second run places in town.

Tomorrow is brunch at Pine State Biscuits, a trip to Multnomah Falls (hopefully my tendonitis-y ankle will let me hike to the top), and then home for roast pork shoulder with Walla Walla onions, fava beans, and new potatoes.

Boy, we're pretty food-oriented, aren't we. No wonder I can't shift this last ten pounds...

Hope your date goes well, Senyar!

Happy belated pips!

Still slogging through pinkeye/bronchitis. Need to get fresh chamomile tea bags.

The most recent winner of the book prize I fund is reading tonight in a scary part of the city and the publisher became ill and bailed.

My aunt had surgery, but she's going to be ok.

While not planned, the wife and I went for a late supper at the Chip Shop on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn. Since I was still a bit wary after my recent stomach issues, I had no fried food. The wife had the cod and chips, which she thought was wonderful. I had the Beef Shepherd's Pie with peas. It was lovely.

I've had a few shepherd's pies and they are usually a greasy mess. This one was sublime. The addition of a few pints didn't hurt. It was a Belgium IPA, the name escapes me, but very nice. In fact the waitperson brought me a third for free that was a mistake at the bar. I was amazed at that. Usually a bar won't do that. They essentially gave me a pint that I would have paid for and didn't get any money for it. Of course this was reflected in the tip. A fine place and if you're in Brooklyn looking for authentic fish and chips this is the place to go.

BTW, they will pretty much deep fry (with batter) just about anything you bring in. The table next to us had deep fried Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

I spent so much time on bills I missed my bike ride. Hoping foe enough energy and time tomorrow for bike ride AND run AND yoga. Totally want to go to Pok Pok and afraid to check our any other linked menus. I'm down 15 pounds and want to keep losing.

Thrilled with the good dare for Specklet! Yay indeed!

Grr that was supposed to read DATE for SENYAR.

It's the Fringe Festival so a lot of time working at the theatre and it's also my neighbourhood's Walkerville Art Walk so a lot of walking and picture taking and some birthday gift buying and we have to fit the last Harry Potter movie in Sunday morning and fresh Rainbow Trout on the BBQ Sunday.

After work, my BF and I went to Atlantic City. I really haven't been to the casinos in ..oh.. a dozen years or so. We had a blast (he won $500.00 on Three Card Poker - I came home only down by $35.00); especially love the people watching.

We didn't get home until 3am! Woke around 10 and had brunch at a local diner. It was a perfect day; got to hang out with my kids; spend time with BF, and play in my garden. Exactly what I needed.