Home

I am back home, and I have to say, it feels spectacularly amazing. I drove about half the day yesterday, so getting out of the car was the first part of feeling major relief. Thank goodness I have a chiropractor's appointment today because 700 miles in a couple of days? Makes my back hurt. A lot. Oh, my neck too, for some odd reason.

Anyway, I did stop in at my parents' house on my way home to take my dad out to dinner for his birthday, and we had a great time. My mom was working, so we went to his favorite Mexican restaurant and had burritos and fried ice cream. Delicious!

After dinner I headed home, because I wanted to make it home before dark. I left at 6:30 stupidly thinking that "It won't get dark until well after eight, right?" Not right. It's getting darker earlier, and it's happening really fast. It was dark at a little after seven. I hate driving in the dark because, well, I can't see well at night. That and I always freak myself out thinking about running into a deer.

I made it home just fine at a little after eight, and cuddled in on the couch with Aaron. We talked and watched a little television, but mostly just cuddled. It was just where I wanted to be.

Stunning Admission

I'm about to admit something to you all that alternately shames me and makes me happy. Here goes: I am a coffee snob. Like, seriously a snob about it. So much so that it is actually paining me this week because I've been drinking things like Folgers and *shudder* Maxwell house all week long. Seriously? Ew.

Aaron and I met at a small independent coffee shop where we both worked. The owners got their beans from a small local roaster and had the beans specially blended and roasted to their specifications. They also taught us more than we ever expected to know about coffee, to the point where we really didn't consider ourselves "coffee shop workers". We were baristas. (Gah, I'm even annoying myself right now.)

There is a small, local roaster across the street from my office, and that's where we get our coffee. We grind our own beans every morning for our drip maker. We don't own a home espresso machine because they don't have the proper pressure to make a real shot of espresso. We don't even drink Starbucks, because they burn their beans (except I will drink a Pumpkin Spice latte, because, um, delicious!).

So, I guess what I'm saying is that we're picky about our coffee, even if we do drink it with liquid CoffeeMate in the mornings. Up here in the Great White North, there aren't very many coffee shops, at least not than I can find, so I'm stuck drinking Maxwell House made in the hotel room coffee maker. Yet another reason that I can't wait to get home.

Workin' It

This should be an interesting week. I'm out of town on business to meet with some of our project sites. Tonight I'm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and then after a meeting in the morning, I'm headed back to "troll" land (that's what the Yoopers call it because the lower peninsula is "under the bridge") for a meeting with another site on Thursday.

The drive here was beautiful, and definitely interesting. The leaves up here in the Great White North have changed colors and are incredibly vibrant and beautiful. About half-way here I rounded a curve in the road and had to swerve to avoid a dog running down the middle of the freeway. A few minutes later, just as my pulse had returned to normal, I noticed something that looked like it was falling out of the sky. Then I realized what it was - a bald eagle swooping to grab some small animal from the side of the road. It was incredibly gorgeous and flew with such grace. I just love it in northern Michigan. So much nature and there's wonderful scenic views around every turn.

The only part of the journey I didn't enjoy was crossing the "Big Mac" (the nickname of the Mackinac Bridge). It was a really windy day today and so there were advisories to slow down, and police escorts for large vehicles. I'm not a big fan of bridges in the first place, so I white-knuckled it the five miles across the bridge.

An hour later, and here I am at the hotel. I'm in Sault Ste. Marie and the hotel is right across the street from the Soo Locks and was just greeted by a long loud horn sounded by the huge ship that is passing through right now. I sort of hope that they don't go through at night, because that will definitely rouse me from whatever sleep I manage to get tonight. I've never seen the Locks before, and they're pretty cool. I'll have to take some pictures. (Fortunately I remembered my camera; unfortunately I forgot my cable, so I won't be able to upload the pictures until this weekend.)

I miss Aaron already, but I'm sure he'll have a great week, full of man food and video games. Plus being out of the office is sure to make the week fly by. Even though I am up here for work, and have a lot of work to do while I'm here, I love traveling to northern Michigan, no matter the excuse. It makes our possible move out of state even harder to consider, for sure.

For Pete's Sake!: Redux

Well, I've finally had my first troll. I didn't expect for it to hurt my feelings at all, but I do have to say it hurts my feelings a little bit. On this post someone decided to call me selfish because I want to get out of jury duty.

Well, of course I want to get out of jury duty. It's boring, unlike my job which I think is fun. Also, even though I try not to blog about work, as a rule, we've recently had lay-offs and so we're a little extra swamped because we've had to take on extra work (which I've done gladly and willingly), plus it's the end of the funding year so all kinds of final reports are due. This is the first weekend I haven't worked this month, and I've worked 10 hour days almost every day since the end of August. In addition to having a nasty head cold, which has tried to slow me down even though I can't afford to be slowed down at this point.

I haven't sent in a letter asking to be let off jury duty like I said I might. I think that if I'm called I'll gladly serve. It's my duty as a citizen. That's why I vote, too.

I don't know why I'm defending myself against someone who didn't even leave their name, email, or URL. They obviously don't care.

But hey, now that I've had a troll, I feel like I've really made it in the blogging world. Thanks for that, Anonymous.

Holding On

Well, I'm still sick. It's been over a week now that I've had this headcold, and I'm done with it.

I just wish it were done with me.

I've developed a really fun new symptom in the past few days, which is sneezing every 5 minutes. What makes this worse is that I'm not one of those dainty sneezers who lets loose a little "achoo" and is all better. No, I have loud and powerfull "AAAACHHOOOO"s that happen two or three at a time.

This constant feeling of having to sneeze is not pleasant. Neither is the distinct ache in my abs from this incredibly repetitive sneezing. In fact, I sneezed myself awake this morning 20 minutes before the alarm was set to go off. That is the very definition of a "rude awakening".

Aaron is still sick as well. He started being sick about three days before me and still has the sniffles. We've followed pretty much the same sickness pattern - sore throat to headache to runny nose to itchy throat - but he hasn't gotten this sneezing thing. If you couldn't already tell, I'm pretty annoyed about being sick.

But, not one to keep good things all to myself (I wouldn't want to be considered selfish after all) we're going to visit my parents this weekend. We've been couped up in the house for about two weeks now, not venturing out except for to work or the drug store, and we've got a little cabin fever. I just hope at this point we're not contagious any more.

I also hope that we don't forget the box of tissues for the road. That could be a disaster.

The Loneliest Number Since the Number One

That's right, just two short things today:

1. I've been sick all week, and earlier this week I was feeling much worse than I do now. One day I decided to sleep in a little bit and forgo a couple of my morning routines, including putting on makeup. At work throughout the day, people stopped by my office to ask how I was feeling, and each and every single person told me that I didn't look good, in fact, I was looking pretty pale. Lesson learned? Wear makeup to work.

2. I don't know how I could have forgotten this yesterday, but yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year. That's right - it was the premier of this season of America's Next Top Model. My absolute favorite show, for God knows what reason, but it is. This year's cast seems ripe for the fighting - people are already being bossy and annoying.

Also, everyone seems to have a sob story - there's one girl who survived a plane crash due to her mother's body being on top of her and keeping her from dying of hypothermia (also, this girl looks remarkably like Kim from two seasons ago). Then there's a girl who is a cervical cancer survivor.

There's also a couple of wild girls who will either be a lot of fun, or will become annoying by next week. They're already showing fights over the phone. I can't wait to see the rest of the season. This is going to be fun!

Weirdness in the World

A few years back, right after I graduated from college, I moved back to my hometown and worked at the local coffee shop while trying to find another job. I always worked the morning shift because that was my favorite. Well, when working the morning shift I had to get ready and leave the house by 5:30 AM to get there and open the shop, because if I didn’t have the coffee ready when the shop opened at 6:00, there was hell to pay from the regulars who came in at that time.

My hometown is pretty small, and at 5:30 in the morning, I was lucky to see another car on the road, let alone someone out walking, but one morning as I was driving along, my headlights flashed across someone who was doing just that. Walking down the street at 5:30 in the morning. And not just someone, it was a guy dressed up like Jesus. No lie. He had on a long white robe and sandals, and had long brown hair and a brown beard. He looked just like every picture of Jesus hanging up in my church. It was bizarre, but hey, who am I to judge what other people do, right?

Well later on that morning, Ray, my co-worker for the day looked up and in a startled voice said “Jesus Christ!” and had a surprised look on his face. “No literally,” he said, “Look! Jesus Christ!” The same guy I had seen earlier that morning was walking past the store. He was in town for a while and would pop up in random places, and just confuse the heck out of everyone. My hometown, though I love it, is small and conservative, and anyone not behaving “normally” confuses people. And this guy definitely fit that bill.

Now, fast forward to this morning, when I met yet another strange character on my way to work. This was the second time I’ve seen this woman, and the first time I thought it was a fluke, but this morning there she was in the same exact place.

So, yes. There’s this woman that I’ve seen twice now, that stands on a highway overpass, dressed like a character straight out of a Harry Potter book. She wears a long black robe, a floppy polka-dotted bow tie, a black top hat, has wiry hair sticking out in every direction from under the hat, and is leaning on an umbrella. She stands at a point in the road that is just on the other side of a hill, so when I come upon her it startles me a bit, because she seems to come out of nowhere. I’m very curious as to what she’s up to, because it’s a strange place just to be hanging out – on a highway overpass located on a country road. It’s also right next to a small cemetery, which just makes it even weirder. Someday my curiosity may get the better of me, and I’ll have to stop and ask.

Yeah, probably not. I might be to big of a scaredy cat to actually stop and talk to this particular stranger.

While these people may seem strange to me and others though, I have to admire them. They bring interestingness to this world. Far more than I ever have, that’s for sure.

Planning

Well, this has been the month from hell, and yet it's far from over. Next week I'm going on a business trip to a couple of beautiful locations in northern Michigan, but I have to work the entire time so I don't know if I'll get a chance to enjoy it. I also still have to finish a couple of reports and work on a couple of grant proposals, and those are things I have to do this week. It just never ends, it seems.

But! It is coming to an end. Well, at least it won't be too busy starting in October. Aaron and I have decided to take a mini-vacation during the first weekend in October, and so we're starting to plan it. I suggested day trips to attractions around the lower portion of the state, but he wants to go camping. It will be cold, but also fun, and I'm really lookng forward to it. Mostly because it's time off work and time for the two of us to be alone together.

So since I agreed to go camping, now we have to decide on a location. I'm hoping we'll go geocaching somewhere up north. I've been reading all about it ever since I first learned about it over at All & Sundry. I understand that it's a fairly geeky pasttime, but I never claimed to be anything but, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm sure Aaron will want to go fishing too, since he recently bought yet another fishing pole. I told him I'd go fishing too as long as I don't have to touch any bait or fish. He laughed at me. Think that's a good sign? I'm thinking it means I don't get to fish.

We also want to do some hiking, and some sight seeing. The other thing we'll probably do is take pictures of the fall colors, which are starting to change down here (which, Bullshit! because it's only September, and it's not technically even fall yet), so they'll probably be even further along up north.

Geez, reading about all of that above, I really sound outdoorsy, don't I? I never thought of myself that way, but it seems that Aaron and I have become quite the outdoors enthusiasts lately. And I'm loving every minute of it.

Trying to Enjoy It

Today is the Last Guaranteed Nice Day of this summer. Fall officially starts this week, and the forcast definitely shows that's true. The highest temperature expected for the next 10 days is 67 degrees, and it's supposed to get down into the low 50s or 40s every night. Gotta love living in the northern U.S. I guess. We tried to enjoy the day as much as we could, but seeing as we're both pretty sick, we didn't do much.

The two things we did do were 1) go out to breakfast at our favorite breakfast restaurant, and 2)go for a walk on the local university campus. So, since my brain is all foggy, and my writing skills seriously compromised by sickness (seriously - see above paragraph, where I blogged about weather, and that right there is really scraping the bottom of the blogging barrell), I will share with you some of the pictures we took on our stroll through the botanical gardens at my alma mater.

(More at Flickr, as usual.)

Hope you all enjoyed the last weekend of summer! I'm really going to miss it.

Rainy Days and Mondays Get Me Down

Also? Fridays when I have a ton of work to do and have come down with a nasty cold. Blech.

Also? For some reason? The fact that another woman at work is pregnant. She hasn't told us yet, but I saw that she was wearing maternity pants yesterday and she's definitely starting to show. I'm really happy for her. Babies are exciting! But for some reason it made me cry. I think I'm jealous.

We're not even trying yet, and it still kind of scares the crap out of me. In fact, the longer we wait, the more frightened about becoming a mom I get. I'm scared of the pregnancy, I'm scared of being a mom, I'm scared of how it will change my relationship with my husband, I'm scared of its effects on my bank account, and I'm scared about how it will affect my body. I'm really just scared. To top it all off, we're thinking about moving far away within the next year, so I don't know if I'd want to do that hugely pregnant or with a newborn.

But I'm definitely jealous, and every time I see a baby I positively melt. I think I'm ready to be a mom, no matter how scared of it I am. Now I just have to convince Aaron. Seeing how he reacts to babies lately, I don't think it will be too hard.

Breaking "Hiatus" for this Very Important Post

I am sad. Something happened last night that I was expecting, but really didn't want to see.

**Spoiler Alert**

That's right. My very favorite person on Project Runway was "auf'ed".

Kayne, I'm so sad to see you go!

Now, like I said, Kayne was my very favorite person on PR, but not necessarily my favorite designer (that distinction goes to Michael, for he is awesome). Kayne was just plain fun, and I think I want to be his best friend. Or at least hang out with him and another "auf'ed" designer, Robert, to hear them be all snarky. Those two crack me up.

So yes, I will survive, but I am sad that Kayne is no longer on the show. I'm also sad that it's almost time for the show's finale! Can you believe the season is almost over?

At least I'll have "Top Chef" to fill the void in my heart caused by the finale of PR. (Wow, I am far too addicted to Bravo reality shows!)

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Can I just tell you how much the following headline on People.com made me giggle?

"Baby No. 2 for Patrick Dempsey"

Does it not sound like he just birthed his second child? Way to give credit to him and not his lovely wife who went through the actual labor/birthing.

Hiatus: Reinstated

Be back next week. Hopefully.

You might see me commenting on some of your sites - I can't stay away completely. I may even post. Just not very day. I am just too damn busy.

Work. Gah!!!

For Pete's Sake!

So a while back I wrote about how much I hate jury duty, because I always get stuck serving, and I always mess it up. Well, hey. Guess what. I got called to serve! Of course I did.

I got a summons on Saturday for U.S. District Court. I have to serve from October 2nd to the 20th. That's one long time to serve! Gah! I just hope that if I'm seated on a jury that it's early on in the period so then I can be done with it.

The summons also said that on my first day I should expect to stay the entire day - 8 to 5. Can I tell you that I don't even work that long most days? Of course, this month I'm working longer than that, but that's my own fault. I'm thinking about sending them an email to try to get out of it, using the fact that I'm hellishly busy at work next month too, to get out of serving. My luck? They'll say "tough".

What makes it even worse? I think they're going to call me in for sure because I only live 9 miles away from the court, while the district covers the entire west side of the state and the Upper Peninsula, and so some people called may live over 300 miles away. I'm sure that they'll keep that in mind when they decide who to have come in. Damnit.

I'm Back!

Well, one week of hell down, only three left to go. September is a super crazy month for both me and Aaron. For work, I wrote one final report last week (actually finished last night - gotta love working on the weekend, which is something I'll probably do every weekend this month), I have one final report to write this week, a couple of grant proposals to get out the door, revisions to do on the two reports as needed, and, just to make it a little more interesting, a nearly week-long business trip the last week of the month. Fun, no? Aaron is equally busy at work, so I'm sure we're a fun bunch to be around right now.

I did take one day off this weekend. On Saturday my friend Molly and I had a girls' day because Aaron was up north doing some more packing/cleaning for his parents. We were going to go to one of those places where you paint your own pottery, just to do something creative with our day, but every single one was closed. We think the universe is trying to tell us something. Maybe it was a bad day for us to be around breakable things or something.

Anyway, so then I took Molly hostage in my car and made her go grocery shopping with me and push the cart. Aren't I a great friend? But then we came back home, baked a caramel apple upside down cake, made pot roast for dinner, and watched two movies that Aaron would never watch - Just My Luck with Lindsay Lohan, and Kicking and Screaming with Will Farrell - and had a couple of glasses of wine. Very fun.

The caramel apple upside down cake turned out awesome, so I thought I'd share the recipe here:

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Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake
(source: Cooking Light, September 2006)

Cooking spray
1/3 cup fat-free caramel topping
2 cups thinly sliced peeled Granny Smith apple (about 10 ounces)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (about 5 1/2 ounces)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup applesauce
5 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350°.

Coat an 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray. Drizzle caramel over bottom of pan. (Caramel will not completely cover bottom of pan.) Arrange apple slices over caramel, overlapping slices slightly.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine buttermilk and baking soda in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Stir in applesauce and remaining ingredients. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; stir just until blended. Pour batter over apple slices in prepared pan. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack. Place a plate upside down on top of cake; invert onto plate. Serve warm.

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And there you go! Not only is it yummy, it's pretty healthy too. I did do a couple of things differently: Instead of fat free caramel topping, I made a caramel sauce out of brown sugar, butter and corn syrup, a la caramel cinnamon rolls. I also used soured milk instead of the buttermilk called for in the recipe. To sour milk, put 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup, and then add enough milk to make 1/2 cup. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. The cake turned out light and moist, and just to make it a little more delectable, we added extra caramel sauce on top of each slice as we ate it. It made an awesome breakfast cake yesterday morning too.

So, there you go. My weekend. Exciting, no? But, I am back. For now.

Hopelessly Addicted to You

I am realizing I'm really addicted to blogs, both mine and yours. It's starting to be a problem. Blogging at work is taking more time than it should and I'm behind on one of my important tasks, which really bothers me. So, I'm taking a brief hiatus from blogs - once again, both mine and yours.

The problem is that you guys entertain me so much. You're all so funny, and such amazing writers, and I eagerly devour everything you have to say. But it's too much and I need to cut back.

Sorry if I'm being a drama queen today. I got about zero hours of sleep last night because I'm just so stressed out about work. But this is how it needs to be. I'll probably be back Monday. I won't be reading blogs at work anymore. Just at home. I'm deleting my favorites list there first thing this morning (thankfully I have them saved here too). It's really bothering me that I let it get like this.

Good Man

I'm tired, crabby, and I feel like crap. I called Aaron and told him that we are definitely having pizza for dinner tonight because there's no way in hell I'm cooking. Usually he'd remind me that we're trying to save money and that I said I was on a diet (like I do every week), but he took the smart route today, and agreed.

What a good man.

He also usually refuses to eat something twice in one day, and they fed him pizza for lunch at work today, so he's really stepping outside his usual behavior to let me have my way tonight.

The only way this can get better? Is if he picks up alcohol on the way home.

I also guess this means I'll have to be nice tonight, despite how I feel.

Because I'm Random Like That

The kids in this area are all far more lucky than I ever have been in my entire life. How could they be so lucky, you ask? Oh, it's easy. They had a two-hour fog delay on their first day of school today. That's seriously lucky. I still had to drag my ass to work though.

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Aaron will kill me if he reads this, but I'm totally going to tell you anyway. A few weeks ago he bought some pre-marinated pork loins at the grocery store, and decided to cook one of them on his next "in charge of dinner" night. He cooked it for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees "just like the package said to" he claimed, but it was still pink in the center, and the meat thermometer read only 120 degrees. But! Martha Stewart said one day, when he happened to pass through the room, that it is okay to eat pork that is slightly pink in the center, and actually it's so juicy and tender that way, you should really only cook pork to medium. So, he served it.

I ate a piece to be nice, he ate two pieces, threw the rest away, and we were both visited with some not-so-nice intestinal issues the next day.

Today I decided I'd be brave and try the other pork loin, so I thawed it out and set about to cook it for dinner tonight. I looked at the back of the package and read the directions for baking, "Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes per pound of meat". Those last four words there are important to note: "Per Pound of Meat". The loin is a pound and a half.

Aha!

So, I threw that sucker in the oven for an hour and it came out perfectly, and boy was it delicious. Aaron talked about how great it was, as were the green beans and tomato salad I served. Then he admitted he'd rather have eaten pizza tonight.

Why didn't he just tell me in the first place? I'm always up for pizza. Looks like tomorrow may be a pizza night. Woohoo!

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I'm a little ashamed to admit this, because I always thought it was weird, but here goes: I've started visiting a chiropractor. I decided to try it out to see how it affects my ear issues I've been having for about six months now. I've only been once, but my second visit is tomorrow.

I do have a question for those of you who have been to a chiropractor before, though. I don't know exactly how to put this, but does your chiropractor repeatedly rub their hand (lightly) up your butt? Because mine did. I couldn't tell what she was doing it for, maybe to move my jeans higher so she could see if my feet were even? At least that's what I'm hoping it was for. Or maybe I had a lot of lint she was brushing off? That's kind of what it felt like. I was a little weirded out by that, but the rest of it went pretty well. Her partner in the practice is doing my appointment tomorrow, so I guess I'll get to see if she does it too or if it was an isolated, somewhat disturbing, incident. Wish me luck?

My Labor Day Weekend A Pictoral Report

This is how we spent the last weekend of summer. I can't believe it's over already.

Saturday was the first college football gameday of the year. As is tradition, we made a big spread and then settled in to watch both the U of M and MSU games. We ended up making BBQ Meatballs, Crispix mix, veggies and dip, and cookies. Unfortunately the cookies didn't turn out too well, but the rest of the food was great. Both of our teams won, so the day was off to a great start. We sat around for a while after the games ended, and then decided to head out for a light dinner. At dinner, I found perfection in a glass.

Perfection's name is "Pina Colada".

Oh. My. God.

I may have died and gone to heaven.

So anyway, that was Saturday.

On Sunday we ended up having to go up to Aaron's parents house to help them get the house packed up. Here's the house where Aaron grew up:


Here's the view from their front door:


It's beautiful there and we're pretty sad that they're selling the house and moving away. To make things even worse, they found out last week that the family dog has to be put down, so Sunday was a pretty sad day all around. Here's Aaron with his dog, Tippy:


Sunday was also Aaron's brother's birthday, so after a long day of packing we went out to dinner, and then came back to the house for cake and pie. We left after dessert and got home late.

Today we decided to be lazy for a while and then we headed out to the local zoo. All of the animals were out and active for once, so it was quite fun. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the zoo:




Of course, there are many more pictures over at Flickr.

After the zoo, we headed over to Best Buy to buy a wireless router, so I could finally stop illegally using someone else's signal, which is how we ended up here right now.

And that was my Labor Day Weekend. Hope yours was just as much fun, but maybe slightly less eventful.

Passive Agressive Much?

Lately I've been sleeping much better than earlier this year, and it's been heavenly. I've been sleeping through the night almost every night, even if I go to bed early or drink something after 6:00 pm. I've even slept in a couple of times, and I've never been able to do that even as a teenager. I'm an early riser through and through.

Well, to get to the point, last night was different. I had a hard time getting to sleep and didn't manage it until an hour past my normal bedtime. I had vivid dreams all night long and woke up the first of four times at about 1:00 am. It took me a little time to fall back asleep, but once I did I fell right back into an incredibly vivid dream. I don't remember much of it, but I think I was fighting someone off by hitting them about the head.

Now, before I get to the fun part, I have to tell you what makes this whole thing really funny to me. Aaron and I were bickering last night about not much. We're both stressed at work and trying our best to not take it out on each other, but failing at times. Last night was one of those times. Every time one of us opened our mouth the other one got upset. It just was not a good night for us to be in the same room.

Well, you guessed it. The second time I woke up, was because I had just, in my sleep, hit Aaron in the face pretty hard. I immediately woke up, shocked, and worrying that I'd really hurt him. Thankfully I hadn't, but I was incredibly embarrased, and he was confused. He fell back asleep quickly, but I didn't. I felt so bad for hitting him, even by accident and unconsiously. But then I couldn't fall asleep for another reason - I thought it was hillarious.

Seriously, how much more passive agressive could I get?

(This morning we're getting along fabulously. Apparently a crappy night's sleep fixes everything.)

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I'm still interested in hearing your answers from yesterday's post - for some reason I'm really curious to see if I really was the late bloomer I really imagined I was. Plus, it's fun hearing your stories.

Also, hope you like the redesign. I'm a complete programming amateur, so if you see something that looks really off or that I missed, let me know. The one issue I do know of is that the page works much better in Firefox than it does in Explorer, but other than that I haven't noticed anything.