Squirrel Moon is coming right up. The early registration deadline is the 30th of this month. Micah and Ariel, will you be coming? Anyone else?

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/squirrel/

Did I mention that Josh and I signed up to play Volleyball with people from work? Anyhow, our first practice was today, and driving over there I was thinking to myself, "Why did I sign up for this? I'm going to have a horrible time and then feel bad about quitting but worse about staying on the team," but instead I had a really really really good time. I'd forgotten how much I liked volleyball... and I don't suck quite as much as I remembered either. Also, I don't think I've ever played in sand before. I actually liked it because I'm so clumsy to begin with it wasn't that much of a hindrance... and it hurts a lot less to fall down on than I've imagine the gym floor would (and tried very hard to avoid learning about first hand). We also purchased a volleyball on the way home so that I can maybe get in some extra practice and learn how to sometimes make the ball go in the desired direction rather than a random direction when I hit it. That would be useful...

Yay volleyball! Yay socialization!

I've done a significant amount of work on the desk the last 3 days (like, multiple hours each day), including a lot of use of the power sander. To update, when I started this evening, all the "outside" sides/front/back are done to 180 grit, and the inside "sides" were done to 80 grit. My goal for tonight was to do the inside "sides" to 180 grit tonight... which is probably only around 1 hours worth of work (not many corners/edges/curves, no more paint). However, I found after only a few minutes that I can hardly hold the power sander stable right now with my right hand because my muscles hurt (or really, not because they hurt... the pain isn't so bad... mostly they just don't respond to commands with any level of precision right now). My left hand has the same problem... only without any pain at all and for an entirely different reason.

Sigh. I'm so excited about getting this project done... and I have a hard enough time finding daylight hours to work on it... it's disappointing when I have the time to go out there and find I am unable to work on it. Oh well. I spent a good long time out there admiring it instead. Our entire evening is double booked tomorrow, so I should have a day to recover before I'm giving up any more time that I might have spent on it.

On the somewhat related subject of office furniture, we need more filing cabinets. Our funky little two drawer cabinet we bought in Evanston is getting rather full. I'd like to get something quad high, and at least double wide... possibly in a lateral configuration, and hopefully reasonably attractive looking (like wood or laminate). However, we might instead buy one or two of these or these (if they stack safely, which might be wishful thinking). As Josh is quick to point out, we really don't need that much filing space at this time... but I am confident we will eventually and have some desire for matching filing cabinets.

On the non-related subject of labtops, Becca's old Inspiron 1450 and another even older laptop arrived in the mail today. We'll be building a combination laptop out of Becca's old 1450 and my old 1450, which I am way more excited about than I have any right to be. Thanks Becca! That's exactly what I wanted for my birthday... and a month early too!

Josh and I cleaned up the office today. It's been a wreck since... oh, pretty much when we moved in. We also moved my (old) desk out of here into the library/sewing room and the love seat in to take it's place... since I'd rather compute on the love seat than at a desk. It's nice in hear now that it's clean and organized.

I also spent 2-3 hours working on my (new) desk. The front, back, and one of the sides are now free of paint (or as free as they are getting) and fully sanded up to 180 grit sand paper (I need to work my way up to 300-something before staining--one or two more rounds). The other side is within inches of being done... but my light went away. Then there are the inside bits (where your legs go). The rest of the sanding rounds should go faster because I will only be smoothing out the wood from my previous sanding jobs... rather than digging out every last speck of paint. Anyhow, I'm really pleased at my progress in the last few weekends. I think I should be able to get all the sanding done in another 20-30 hours. And then it's staining and varnishing! Yay!

Also, there are some spots where there was a hole before the desk was painted, which is now full of paint... and where these holes are deep, there is precious little I can do about them. The final step (or maybe next to last before varnishing) will be filling the holes with wood putty and maybe applying a little brown paint to touch up these imperfections. I'm really excited though... I feel like the end is actually in sight, however far away a sight it is...

My goal, which Josh assures me I will make because he hates scraping snow off the car, is to get the desk completely finished and out of the garage before the first snow of the year. So I'm counting on having at least until mid-October.

Next up: Reupholstering Grandma's couch. (Don't hold your breath...)

Now to do some work work...

Edited to add: Today, just now (9:50pm), I set a personal record. That's right, I jogged 1 mile without stopping! Never done that before. At 11 minutes 20 seconds, it wasn't the fastest overland mile I've ever done on foot, but it is the only one I've maintained a jogging pace for the whole thing nonstop.

Our lock on our front door has been very stiff and hard to unlock since we moved in. Basically, it catches about 1/4 inch from unlocked, and it's really hard to get it that last 1/4 inch. It's a bit easier on the inside though, because you have more leverage. Shortly after we moved in, Josh put some WD40 on the shaft and in the keyhole, and that helped, but it was still difficult. Last Friday night, we ended up going in through the garage it was so stiff. I decided we should just replace the lock, but I didn't know how hard that would be. So I grabbed a screw driver and started taking the lock apart to see. Turns out, there's not much to disassembling a lock, but once we had it open and started fiddling with it, we could see where it was catching! We lathered it up good with the WD40 and put it back together. Now the lock works like a dream! Last night, coming home with my hands full, I was able to unlock and open the door with one hand!!!!! Ah, life's little pleasures...

( Run down of my full day yesterday )

Today, on the way home from work, Josh and I got the opportunity to see something we have never seen before (in real life): A house on fire. We saw a great column of smoke, just a few blocks north of our townhouse, in the subdivision north of Cross Country, so we decided to bike up there and see what it was. Not terribly surprisingly, it was a house on fire. When we got there, we could see flames on the back porch for a bit (then they disappeared), and an inordinant amount of smoke seeping out of the attic. A cop showed up right around the same time we did, first authority on the scene, and assertained that there was no one in the house. After an inordinant amount of time, the first fire truck showed up. 20+ foot flames were already coming out of the roof. They sprayed the house for a long long time. When we went around for a better look at the hoses, we saw that the siding on the house next door was all melted off. Wow. Eventually a few of them got their masks on and went in. We probably watched for an hour. We saw a fire truck arrive from Oregon (not the state, but a suburb decently far from us) as we were leaving. And we've heard a few more come by. It was actually a lot like what you see on TV... only longer... and I bet they are still working on it. Got to make sure there's no residual fire anywhere inside the house, in the walls, in the attic, etc.

It was quite a thing to see. Everyone in the neighborhood was out watching. I sure hope I don't see another.

It was a gas grill fire. We're grilling out tonight, and we were sure to put our grill a regulation distance away from the building before lighting it up.

Frogs: the other night Josh and I went walking in the neighborhood just north of Cross Country, that surrounds a wetland area... and while we've seen frogs there before, Monday night was pretty incredible... the sidewalks were hopping with them and we really had to watch our steps. Frogs are soooo cute, almost as cute as kittens.

CSA: Last Wednesday, our co-worker we share our CSA share with was unable to make it to pick up her portion, so we got it all. However, I am proud to say that we made good work of it... it wasn't too hard because we got good stuff last week. However, suggestions about what to do with fennel, tons of cilantro, or tons of lettice would be appreciated.

( Cut because I know you really don't care about a rundown of our veggies )

Now there's a shiny house! Right down town Verona. Over 100 years old (yay character), but updated with central air heating and cooling (yay comfort)! Unfortunately, we're not actually buying right now, nor planning to spend that much when we do.

But... but... but... SHINY!!!

My parents talked me into buying Quicken instead of continuing to make my own financial database in Access. Overall, it seems really nice. And when I was looking through it with my folks, it looked like the reports were really nice. So after I got home today I spent an appauling number of hours entering in all our data from the past year (aside from a little bit of data on two accounts for January, I got it all done). However, now that I actually have my own data in the system, I'm seeing that I'm not really liking the reports after all. You see, Quicken (and much of the rest of the world) has a very strange concept of what a "bill" is. Somehow Quicken thinks that the credit card payments count as "bills" (I consider them transfers and thought I had them entered as such), yet somehow "rent" is not a bill. WTF? Thus, a lot of the reports aren't seeming very useful. Actually, none of the reports I've found look useful at all yet. Ugh. Not upset about the $30, but I'm going to be super upset about all the hours if this program doesn't have useful reports. :-(

Also, in the pie charts, it shows that half or more of the money we *spend* goes *to* Epic by way of our paychecks. Something is clearly confused. This was why I was going to make my own freaking program.

For the first time in... at least a month or two... I woke up feeling really refreshed and well rested. Furthermore, I did it not only before the alarm went off (because I pushed it back an hour), but also only 7 minutes after the alarm would have gone off if I hadn't moved it. Even though I decided to stay in bed and relax for a goodly long while and give Josh a back rub, I was still at work earlier than I was yesterday.

Sleeping through the night rocks. I should do it more often. I should endeavor to be in a physical, mental, and emotional state condusive to it more often. Also, I think it helped that we ran the AC all evening, bringing the temperature of the bedroom down to 65 degrees, and then turned off the AC and didn't open the window or turn on the fan when we went to bed... so it was both cool and QUIET all night.

Yesterday was a big full day. ( Went to the farmers market and on an amazing bike ride. )

Anyone out there know how to use Access?

I'm trying to do some really basic things, like fill in values to one cell when another cell is changed (like you might do in Excel really easily), but I can't seem to make it happen... even after an embarrassingly large number of hours trying. Eventually I'd like to do this across a few tables and whatnot, maybe use some SQL stuff, but anything to get me going on the syntax and stuff would be great...

I feel like I am stripping paint off of Gabriel's trumpet.

So about 2 hours ago, our land lord came up and knocked on our door. She had a woman and two children with her. She apologized for disturbing me when I was busy moving and all, but Chris had said it would be okay for her to show the apartment this evening. So I'm just sort of standing there with my mouth hanging open... didn't know I was moving, and who is this Chris person, is he helping her manage her rentals now or something?? No, turns out it was just all a big mix up... she went to the wrong unit. Chris and Mandy next door are moving, not us.

Having the land lord show up unexpectedly to show people our home... not something you want to have happen! (Also not legal and all that, but that's another matter.)

Josh and I watched a movie called "The Prestige" a few week ago. It is about two rival magicians around the turn of the 20th century... and aside from being a little gruesome (not visually so much, but content-wise), and a little difficult at first to keep from confusing the two main characters, it told a pretty good story incredibly skillfully.

It's pretty new apparently (2006), so I suppose you've all heard about it and probably had the ending spoiled, but I recommend it anyway. I wont tell you why, because that would spoil the ending.

I just rendered 2 lbs of tofu for later use. Pressed it, cubed it, and froze it. According to "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" it is good that way. Apparently, since the water expands when it freezes, it forces itself out of the tofu and you get, like, super-pressed tofu. We shall see. Also, it seems actually pretty good plain and raw. I have not had plain and raw tofu since my mom was on her tofu kick sometime well before I was in high school. I remember not liking it plain and raw at the time, but the little bits that broke off today and I ate were pretty good. Maybe my tastes have changed. Or maybe the difference could be buying the expensive ($2/lb) organic tofu. And for a final thought on tofu of the day, I have always known that you are supposed to press* tofu before cooking it to get the water out. I assumed I learned this from my mom, but when I was on the phone with her over the weekend and asked her if she had ever tried freezing tofu to get super-pressed tofu, she claimed to have never heard of pressing tofu. So perhaps I learned the pressing thing from William (the vegetarian man next door who was like another father to me). I should call him at some point and see what he thinks of freezing tofu.

* Press as in with a paper towel, like you might do with bacon--though I have sworn off paper towels and used a linen towel instead.

We had a busy weekend. I don't really recall what we did on Friday. Probably we tried to relax a little. Saturday we got up early (for the weekend), and drove down to Mandy and Ed's place. We arrived in time for lunch and enjoyed visiting with Mandy and Ed. Eventually the Hyde Park folks got out of bed and made their way out to Oak Park too, and we got to see them. Then we went to Newt's 30 birthday party and had a great time there too. Talked some, played some bridge, and got attacked by children who wanted to have tickle fights with me and other such things as needing me to play jumping games with them and do the hokie pokie. Afterward we had another nice visit with Mandy and Ed in the evening, and then in the morning over Mandy's yummy french toast. It was very nice to see everyone, and I'm really glad that my work trip half of this weekend's trip got cancelled and I didn't have to cut everything short by leaving at 8pm to go to my hotel to go to sleep so I could get up ungodly early.

Then we drove home... by way of Prime Outlets for a lid, and ended up taking forever while Josh tried on lots of pants and dress shoes. We eventually found a promising pair of potential dance shoes and bought them... a major accomplishment... the last time he found a pair of potential dance shoes that seemed likely enough to try to buy, we were also shopping for wedding shoes for him. Yes, our wedding. No, he didn't end up liking them as dance shoes. Then we continued on home, but stopped at Goodwill, where we took forever while I tried on pants. I found some good dress pants that I've been feeling a lack of for go-lives, and we also somehow brought home a nice pair of dry clean only dress pants for Josh... one of us put them in the cart for him to try on, and whichever of us that was forgot to do anything about them getting tried on. Didn't realize the mistake until the tag was off... but they do at least fit him very well... which is good, because they fit me like crap. However, the awesome purchase of the day was this beautiful painting of a sunset over a stream flowing out of a lake next to a little cottage surrounded by snow covered evergreen trees. Very pretty.

Then when we finally got home, there was a UHaul outside Chris and Mandy's townhouse. Mandy was over at their new house, and Chris was loading the UHaul. We helped load it and with some packing, then went over to the new house with him and helped upload. (Small loads because the new house is 1/2 mile away.) We got a tour of their lovely new house, then went back with Chris for another load while Mandy went to the grocery store and made some dinner. Chris and Mandy, who have been at this since Friday, were pretty beat and decided that since everything that wont fit in the car was moved, they were done moving for a little while. There's still a lot of stuff at their old place, but they have the old place until the end of June... so plenty of time for those remaining trips. We had a nice visit with them over dinner and ice cream. I think we would have become better friends with them during the past 5 months had they not been so busy with getting married and buying a house and all that. We are a little disappointed they ended up buying a house this summer... they'd been planning to wait until next summer because Mandy had a condo in Milwaukee that wasn't selling, but then they discovered they could get a bridge loan, and then they finally sold Mandy's condo anyway. Anyhow, like I said, they are only moving a half mile... so not far or anything. Hopefully they like us well enough already that the difference between next door and 1/2 mile wont matter.

Then we finally actually come home, and turned around and went directly to the grocery store, which was closed because it was 8:30. Then we came home again and did laundry, a little (not nearly enough) clean up, showered, and wrote this Livejournal entry. Now I will go to bed because it is late and tomorrow there is work. So much for getting out to Indiana Jones tonight, or working on my desk project anymore... maybe tomorrow. It's good to be busy though.

Has anyone seen any flying pigs lately?

( I know they are around here someplace... )

A while back I made up a list of things I wanted to do while living in Chicago. I didn't get to all of them. Now I will make a similar list for Madison.

Spend a night or two at a B&B in the woods when there is snow on the ground.

Visit the Apostle Islands.

Visit Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

Visit Circle Sanctuary.

Bike the Military Ridge Trail to Governor Dodge State Park.

Make use of some of the other bike trails in Wisconsin.

Visit Little Norway.

Visit House on the Rock.

Avail myself of some of the cultural programs at Folklore Village.

Visit the University in search of the scenic drive people keep telling us about.

Visit Cave of the Mounds.

This list will probably be growing. Suggestions welcome as always.

Josh and I camped Friday and Saturday nights at Governor Dodge State Park. This is our second trip to Governor Dodge since moving to Wisconsin, our previous trip was before all the snow melted and when everything was gray and ugly... it didn't give me a very good impression of the park. As it turns out, it did not give me a fair impression of the park either. Governor Dodge is an absolute gem of a State Park, it is just about everything a state park should be. They have magnificent rock formations, lakes and streams, waterfalls, trees and wildflowers. They have car camping, 1/2 mile in "backpacking" sites, a significant amount of hiking-only trail, biking and horse trails, swimming, boating, and fishing. They don't have rock climbing or weekly big band concerts with dancing... but we didn't much make use of those features at Devil's Lake either. And furthermore, it is only 45 minutes from our home and we showed up at 7pm on the Friday before Memorial Day, and were able to get a site for the full weekend without a reservation (the second to the last available for the full weekend). I am in love.

In researching for this weekend, I also ran across Kickapoo Valley Reserve almost by accident, and it looks like a place worth a trip. It is about 2 hours northwest of here. And on the subject of places to visit, Folklore Village (which is on the way to Governor Dodge) has a number of events I may be interested in, and a nice listing of other things in the area I may be interested in. Little Norway also looks like it is worth a day trip, at only like 10 miles away. Speaking of which, it looks like I don't, strictly speaking, need to become a Pagan to celebrate the Summer Solstice with other people in this area... of course, I might just want to anyway.



( Pictures! )

Last Sunday, Josh and I were on a walk and we ran across a desk sitting out by the curb. The owners were evidently getting rid of it. We checked, they were. It has some nice shape to it, and the drawers slide like a dream. All-in-all, it seemed pretty well made. We drove back to pick it up (after completely forgetting about it) around 11pm. The folks were still up, in fact just saying goodbye to their guests. It ended up not fitting in our car, however. So we took the drawers and placed the rest of the desk up next to the house so it wouldn't get picked up with the trash. On Monday after work, we drove back over, verified that indeed it didn't fit, and then walked it home on the dolly.

Today we started the task of stripping the paint off. Stripping paint is a lot of work, especially if you do not use enough chemical stripper. Adding more chemical stripper (and then waiting around for it to start working) helps a lot. However, it is still a slow process, and of course all the nice curves and details that make it such an awesome piece of furniture are slow to strip. We got the top done, along with the routered edge. Also got three of the four front legs stripped from top to bottom. It seems to me that stripping paint off a routered edge would be easier if you had the original router bit to scrape with. Oh well. Planning to spend a lot more time on it tomorrow, this time applying plenty of stripper to one region at a time (rather than not enough stripper to the whole desk). Chemical stripper is pretty nifty stuff when you use enough of it.

( Too sexy for my paint. )

You know what is more fun than reading the interweb?

Going on a walk outside without a jacket!

Yay spring! Yay!

So if Josh and I are indeed invited to the wedding up in Duluth over Memorial Day weekend (and maybe even if we aren't), I'd like to think about making a trip of it. I've sketched out a possible route, including perhaps some waterfalls in Northern Wisconsin on the way there and the Missassippi River on the way back. Ideas on what might be worth stopping to see along the way?

Possible Route

Last weekend, it was warm and the snow was almost gone, so Josh and I went out to Governor Dodge State Park for some hiking. It was okay, but disappointing as everything was gray and brown... dead looking, like the middle of Winter somewhere it doesn't snow much. It kept it from looking or feeling like Spring had arrived.

Well, last night we had a huge rain and thunderstorm. Fortunately the electric-works hadn't started yet when Josh and I biked home in it, because is was miserable enough as it was: 30 mile per hour headwind, 30 degrees, and pooring down rain. Josh faired a bit better than I as he was a little better dressed for it. My legs were so numb and cold by the time we got home!

But anyway, this morning when I got on my bike it was a whole different world outside. That fresh smell the world has after a good rain. Worms up from the ground looking for air. Robins down from the sky looking for worms. A redwinged black bird pirched above the wetlands looking at his reflection. A mallard swimming in the water. A little mist for good measure. The grass has all turned bright green, and even last year's dead cornstalks seem to have more color. It's like someone painted the world last night while I was sleeping, and it is a beautiful masterpiece.

They have re-designed the REI Quarter Dome tent, and it is absolution genius! My biggest complaint with the Quarter Dome we have (the model from 3 years ago), is that there just isn't nearly enough head room. More height would be nice, but what I really wished it had was more side-to-side room. Check out the picture, what they have done with the poles is fracking brilliant! Why didn't anyone think of that before? Why didn't I think of that before?

I guess I should have let Josh recycle the REI catalog without opening it. I want a new tent now.

I had a dream last night that I was in bed with Obama. No, we weren't doing anything. Except I was explaining to him that even if he did become the President, "The most powerful man in the world is just a political distinction."

The are precious few signs of worms or compost in my compost... but if I don't miss my guess, the 4 little green things poking their heads up out of it are volunteer butternut squash plants.

Score!

Josh succeeded in finding an alternate bed. It was more expensive, but since the guy was kind enough to help us bring it home in his truck, it actually ended up being cheaper overall. The man we bought it from was celebrating his 75th birthday today, and apparently him and his wife are still trying to get used to apartment living--a while back they sold their house and then went traveling for 7 years, and are recently back. Kick ass! When can we be a sweet old couple who sells their house and goes on vacation for 7 years?

Anyway, they bought the bed recently at a store closing sale, but when they got it home they discovered that the ceiling in their guest room wasn't tall enough for it, so they were reselling it. Maybe I'll post a picture someday if we ever clean up the bedroom. Hahaha.

I'm tired of being sick. It was right around 3 weeks ago that I slept for like 22 hours over the weekend. I haven't slept that much all at once since, but I have been sleeping a lot, and am very tired the rest of the time. Add to this a little bit of a head cold, a little bit of a sore throat, and a little bit of nausea over the last 3 weeks, and really none of it is all that bad. But I am exhausted all the time and I am sick of it. I had myself convinced I was pregnant for a while, but fortunately that's not the case. I think I am going to go take a nap... even though that sounds like a totally lame way to spend my weekend.

I enjoyed Portal so much, I made it a user icon. And now I am posting about it because I do not foresee actually ever using it. But it had to be done... so I did.

The Aperture Science Enrichment Center reminds you that the weighted companion cube will not threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot talk.

Happy Spring everybody!

And Happy Birthday Rachel!

ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE - Friday, March 21st (note: this actually begins on Thursday, the 20th in the US)

For 24 hours, we will not post or comment to LJ. Not in our own journals, not in communities. Not publicly, privately, or under friends-lock.

This is a protest that will have long-lasting effects, showing up forever in the daily posting statistics: a permanent reminder of the power of the userbase.

This is a protest that will not harm LJ in the long run, as leaving LJ might do.

This is a protest that will demonstrate the power of community, as all users unite to support Basic users and the concept of adfree space.

This is a protest that will educate the new owners that LJ is driven by user-created content.

The 24-hour strike will begin at the following times for the following locations:

Thursday, March 20, 2:00 PM -- Honolulu
Thursday, March 20, 4:00 PM -- Anchorage
Thursday, March 20, 5:00 PM -- San Francisco; Los Angeles
Thursday, March 20, 6:00 PM -- Mexico City; Denver
Thursday, March 20, 7:00 PM -- Chicago
Thursday, March 20, 8:00 PM -- Montreal; New York; Toronto
Thursday, March 20, 9:00 PM -- Buenos Aires
Midnight -- London
Friday, March 21, 1:00 AM -- Paris
Friday, March 21, 2:00 AM -- Istanbul
Friday, March 21, 3:00 AM -- Moscow
Friday, March 21, 4:00 AM -- Dubai
Friday, March 21, 5:00 AM -- Islamabad
Friday, March 21, 6:00 AM -- Bangladesh
Friday, March 21, 7:00 AM -- Bangkok
Friday, March 21, 8:00 AM -- Singapore
Friday, March 21, 9:00 AM -- Tokyo
Friday, March 21, 10:00 AM -- Brisbane
Friday, March 21, 11:00 AM -- Sydney
Friday, March 21, 12 Noon -- Suva

Okay, forget those other beds I've posted, this is the one I want.

Unfortunately it is an hour away in Beloit. And I don't know how we are going to get it back here. Have I mentioned lately that I wish our car had a hatch back? I would gladly--GLADLY--trade both rear doors for 1 hatch back. Oh well.

There's a guy on Craigs List who move furniture for people in his truck, but for something this far, he'd probably charge around $100. That's probably okay, I'm probably willing to spend that... but would it be better to spend the money on a roof rack for next time? And would we even be able to get it home in one trip with a roof rack?

Just under 15 months since we started it, the bookcase is now glued together. Go us. Or something. We may yet decide to varnish it (we stained all the pieces last summer), but varnish is not intimidating compared to what we've already done. In the mean time, I have this wonderful feeling of accomplishment (and also $100 worth of pipe clamps... shoulda gotten this done while we still lived near someone who owned a set of these).

Next woodworking project, either:
1) A spice cabinet like the one Chris and Newt have, or
2) Shelving in the closets in the office.

Hopefully whatever we next choose wont take so long... (or should I say, we wont be as lazy about?)

Well, Josh chickened out on the meetup hike thing, and with 10 minutes to mentally prepare myself for going and meeting random people off the internet by myself, I chickened out too. However, we decided to work on the bookcase instead, so it's all good. We started by reassembling it without glue. I'm not sure it's actually been assembled since last summer when we took it apart to stain it. It was seriously warped, and took something like an hour and a half to get it all put back together, with a good deal of arguing along the way. It's now assembled with clamps holding everything just so. We're wondering how long we should leave it assembled (in the hopes it learns what shape it should be and gets back to it easier), or just take it apart and glue it today, because who knows how many more months it could be if we don't do it now? Anyway, I think we're going to go the today route. Because there's no time like the present.

But before we get to that, Josh is taking a break to save the world. We set the timer for 1 hour, and amazingly enough, I got the entire interweb read in that time. So I went and pressed the new hem on the pant legs of the first suit I got altered. I now have the suit on in the hopes Josh will take a picture of me in it when he is done saving the world. ( More details about completed and upcoming alterations. )

Tonight, over dinner, I asked Josh what day it was... because it totally feels like a Sunday night to me, but it's still only Saturday and we still have another day of weekend. I said I'd give him a hint, that it's not our 2 and 3/4 anniversary... at which point he promptly pointed out to me that actually it is (the equinox is on the 20th, so today actually is the last Saturday of Winter). Silly Josh.

For those of you who don't read Josh, the comment about it not being our 2 and 3/4 anniversary was prompted by this prior situation where I asked Josh if he knew what day it was: Our First Leap Day.

Anyway... Last Saturday of Winter!!!!! Less than a week until Spring!!!! Happy happy happy dance!!!! Yay!!!!!

Went to Goodwill today. Bought 4 suits. Three of them don't really fit, but I think I can alter without too much trouble. The 4th fits pretty well, but is stylistically a bit strange... I'm not sure if there is anything to be done about it, but it was $10 and I can wear it if I don't get the others ready in time for my first go-live (first weekend in April). Also bought myself a pair of jeans, a shirt that looks pretty good with all the suits, a pair of shoes that looks decent with the suit I expect to turn out the best after alterations, a picture frame for the cut family photo my sister send me at Christmas, and Josh bought a bunch of button up shirts, another wicking shirt that he says fits him like "shrink wrap" (I haven't seen it yet), and several CDs. We spent almost $100. I was impressed, it's hard to spend that much at Goodwill.

But anyway, about the title of this post. One of the CDs Josh bought was some "old school Madonna," some of which we listened to in the car. He was very impressed at how few of the songs I had heard before, even among the ones I had heard of. I mean, I had a pretty good clue what "Like a Virgin" would be like from the Weird Al parody, but I think today was my very first time hearing it. Likewise, while I've heard plenty of references to "Material Girl", I'm not sure I'd ever actually heard it either... though perhaps I'm just getting it confused with "Barbie Girl", which is pretty much the same thing for all practical purposes.

Maybe, if I'm not too lazy, I will even post some pictures of the suits, along with the gobs and gobs of other pictures I've been meaning to post... like the pictures of our Christmas "tree", and our Wisconsin Winter, and so forth.

Speaking of suits... I was going to try to make one also. Don't know if I still want to do that now that I have 4 from the Goodwill, but the pattern I have in mind, for my reference and so you guys can tell me it looks nice is: McCalls 5397, and if I am feeling really ambitious, perhaps also with a long sleeved top so I can wear it in the winter using Vogue 8333.

Tomorrow there is a hiking meetup at the Arboretum. I am excited. For some reason I've been really chearful since the end of the working day on Friday. It's nice. I like me when I am chearful. Should do it more often.

You must provide an email address to get your phone number on the no-call list. I'm not sure if I should consider this amusing, or just frustrating.

Josh likes that the stud-finder beeps when he points it at himself...