It's been a rough week

The situation with the hot spots on my wall came to a head this week. I had a total freak out after I thought I wasn't going to get any help and am now doing much better. I told my mom I was probably supposed to go through this because it reminds me of how my clients feel when they ask for help and no one will help them. It's a fairly awful experience. That's the lesson I've decided to take away from this.

Amanda and Kelly and I had a lovely day. I cooked for them. I was relieved to learn that Kelly will eat food with bananas in it, like banana corn fritters. One of the recipes from Eating Well that I love and go in spurts of cooking. Sometimes I cook it every week and then I get off of it for a while. I also made collards and black bean soup. The soup was from a carton so I was not at all offended when Kelly didn't want any. She was saving herself for homemade black bean soup which she's been trying to make all week. I guess it's one of those meals that gets cooked in several stages. I hope it's good.

The whole heating fiasco as well as other logistical issues put a damper on exercise for the week. I'm seriously re-thinking the running goal. I think I need a more general goal, measured in the amount of days I exercise or something. I feel like if I go to the gym and don't run then it's a wasted trip. Which is silly. Even sillier is how that belief translates to, "if I go to the gym, all the ellipticals will be full and I don't want to run so I won't add miles to my goal, so I just won't go at all". This is a problem. I'm thinking about ways to address said issue.

While I ponder heat and exercise, check out some of the things I've found recently:

Harry Potter is one of my favorite series ever. I was interested when I saw this headline on Yahoo: JK Rowling Outs Hogwarts Character. I clicked on the link expecting to hear some random piece of information about a less than important character, and instead read that one of the main characters is gay. I had a mixed reaction of "oh, ok", part "yeah, he did wear purple a lot, that makes sense", and part "well, it's cool that she is so comfortable with this idea, and presents it in a way that expects others to be comfortable with the idea as well". And then she started bashing the groups that have been bashing her forever, which took some of the classiness out of the whole event. Love the "oh the fan fiction" comment. Hee hee.

Click here to see a newspaper clipping of a letter seeking advice and the best response ever.

11 USB Toys Your Boss is Sure to Hate is a fantastic article about all the toys you don't want if you have a laptop. I didn't know you could make all of those things plug into a computer. Why don't you want them if you have a laptop? Any accessories connected through a USB port (a mouse for example, or a lava lamp) draw off the laptop battery and that's just a dumb way to use the power source. It's articles like this that make me consider getting a desktop.

Amanda, Click Here. For everyone else, link to a story about a bacon flavored candy bar.

I'm totally freaked out by the latest iPhone accessory. Doesn't that picture just look slightly wrong?

The next great meal at Denny's. Now that's man food.

The Power of Birth Order is a fantastic article about how being the oldest or youngest impacts your life. Me? I am an only child. In some ways I related to the "oldest" thing. But I am the second youngest of all of my cousins, for a while I was the youngest. So in some ways I really took on the role of "wild child" in the extended family. It's a great read. One of the only things that seems to mitigate birth order effects? Child abuse. How sad.

I read the headline: Football sized cockroaches featured at Underwater World. Read the first line of the actual story. Way to get the name right. It's called "Underwater Adventures", which is actually in the text of the story. Someone just didn't read and re-named the aquarium in the headline. Doh.

A new discovery about Alzheimer's and Diabetes. Very relevant to both my work and family life. Diabetes and Alzheimer's is on my mom's side of the family. Oh, the things I have to look forward to.

Given my comments about the running routine an article about How to start and keep an exercise habit seems relevant. Check out number 1. That might be the next plan. Also relevant is number 11. Doh. We'll see how I do this week. Right now I'm still sore from putting together the dresser from Ikea so I can't think about exercise yet.