Happy Days!!

I found my library book! No fines for me, thank you very much!!!

And now that the biscuits aren't burned, it's time to go back. But you don't realize until you tan that your stretch marks don't and the white will be forever singed in my memory...tan leg, shockingly white stretch marks. At least when I had absolutely no color, they blended in. You win some, you lose some.

At Last.

Got my friend from the airport. Went to the storage unit and got my towel, a bin, a can of mandarin oranges, and a ziploc baggie for the smelly cat poop, and now the bed is calling. Wiley has had a bit of a rougher night. They got started late today, and so at 11:30 or so, finally got to their hotel, only their hotel wasn't pet-friendly. So an hour later, they finally found a hotel where they could keep the dog. Hotels.com screwed up, as they thought the original hotel was pet-friendly. Oops. So Wiley has a little over two hours of driving tomorrow, while I work at my other job and then try to figure out where my library book is that's due on Sunday. I hate having overdue books, and originally it was on the desk before we moved. Now it has sprouted legs, and who knows which bin it fell into.

Biscuits Are Burning.

In more ways than one. 37 days to go until the wedding. 37, Dear Reader. And for those of you who haven't sent in your RSVPs, GET MOVING!

In honor of looking even more fabulous, I've decided to do a little bit of the fake baking. After going three times at 5, 8 and 11 minutes each, I finally got a little color. And then yesterday, I think I got a bed with new bulbs because I went for 12 minutes and managed to burn my back, my biscuits and even the twins. This morning the red had left the back, but not the front so much. And after contorting myself this way and that to make sure I'm getting evenly colored (can't really call it a tan right now, after all - less-than-pasty-white is as far as I can go), I noticed last night that along my spine was a nice bright white mark. WTF?! This morning it was less noticeable, but seriously, WTF???

Tomorrow Wiley goes to Princeton for two days while I move for hopefully the last time in the next ten months. Unfortunately, all of the cleaning I was going to do this weekend has to be aborted because the mom and baby changed their plans and will still be there. It's difficult to clean someone's house while they're present. Even if everything is cleaned, it's still not done by me, and I prefer to do it myself. So the weekend will instead be working at my friend's office and staying out of their way as much as possible, although since they will be without a car, I will be "on-call" just in case. Joy.

And my friend returns from India tomorrow night at 11 p.m. I will be greeting her at the airport. What was I thinking?

And Then Life Bites You in the Ass.

So yesterday's post seemed a bit trivial when I got wored that a former coworker of mine has been diagnosed with cancer. You go in for surgery to help your bowel become unobstructed, and the next you know, you have cancer instead. What a doozy of a surprise.

Feeling completely helpless, I have been able to mobilize a friend into being my legs in KC. I've found a DVD of KU basketball online that I'm going to order (because she is a huge KU fan and I suspect already has this DVD), and my friend is going to drop off a portable DVD player, as the rooms are not equipped with these. She's groggy and heavily medicated right now, but hopefully by the time the DVD arrives, she will be awake and able to somewhat watch it if she chooses.

And then after that, nobody seems to know. Seems trivial, getting her a DVD when she's facing a battle for her life, but I don't know what else to do. As my friend Cara says, if you're a praying fool, then do it, and if not, root for the Jayhawks.

Annoyances.

I'm not one to really diet. I've done so in the past, to my detriment. My mother was a dieter all the years that I knew her. And I never wanted to be like that.

However, upon returning to the U.S., there were lots of things I ate that I probably shouldn't have, and now my belly bulge is back, and it brought its cousins with it.

So today I decided to follow the South Beach Diet plan, which I've had moderate success with in the past. And of course, today we had a staff meeting with pizza. Four different kinds. And breadsticks.

Not to mention that my office is a veritable hell for people with weak willpower, such as myself. Candy dishes abound with Starbursts, Hershey's kisses and Miniatures, butterscotch discs, and Sweet Tarts.

But I screwed up my willpower, and ate my vegetables while everyone around me gorged on some mighty fine looking pizza.

So what do I find when I get off work?

Wiley ate a bagel.

Now, perhaps this wouldn't be a big deal to you, Dear Reader, but I was furious. First, we decided to do this together. Second, my willpower is really quite low. So I need the support. But I felt betrayed. How can I get support from someone who says, "I was hungry, and it was offered to me, and I wanted to eat?" I'm still mad about it. Yeah yeah, humans aren't perfect, and all that jazz, but it's not even the end of the first day.

Meh. You hear me, Wiley? Meh.

The Ring.

This weekend was a big blur. We went to Kansas City to order Wiley's ring
and to check up on mine, and here is the finished product:

Isn't she beautiful?

Yes, yes, she is. And yes, I realize it's not a diamond. What it is, is a simple platinum band with a sapphire in a half-bezel setting (those are reflections on the side of the sapphire, no diamonds or anything like that). It couldn't be more perfect for me. Wiley's ring is hopefully going to be coming in a couple of weeks...it will be tungsten carbide, so a little darker grey than what you normally see in a guy's wedding band.

I would write more, but I have to get to work.

There's No Hole in My Bucket...

You know, I didn't mind Wal Mart in KC. But here in Bloomington, I despise it. I needed to take a friend's car out for a spin to make sure the battery isn't dead, so we decided to go to Wal Mart in search of a 5 gallon bucket. We are going to make our own laundry detergent courtesy of The Simple Dollar. But do you think we could find a bucket at Wal Mart? It took quite awhile, and when we found it, we found the last one. And the lids are sold separately. So tonight, after getting home rather late from a friend's house, we will attempt to make the detergent. The start-up costs are a bit much - $5.30 for the bucket and lid, $3 for borax, $2 for soap, and $13 or so for some Arm and Hammer washing soap. I think it will be great fun, so long as a hole does not appear in my bucket, dear Liza.