• Four of my least favorite words: "reshape and dry flat."


• Having said that, I had a good day! Yesterday at work was crazy. Practically everyone on my team called out. I -- like an idiot -- went to work. I was there for ten hours. It was incredibly rough. Today was a vacation in comparison. But my boss was really pleased with my performance from yesterday. \o/


• I was amazingly productive this morning. Took Hubby to the train at 6:00, went and got the car gassed up, came home, did a good workout on the treadmill, showered & dressed, took out the garbage, made a protein shake and packed my lunch. And got to work on time. Boo-yah!


• Ha! The impostor Life on Mars has perished, not even making it to the second season like the original. Dear TV people: stop remaking perfect British TV series. You cannot improve it. The Office was lightning in a bottle. Just stop it.


• I love love love my iPhone! I've discovered why the white noise apps like Binaural Beats and Ambiance are so popular. It's absolutely the perfect stuff for me to listen to while I work and concentrate on these long complex loan credit agreements! I spent a huge part of the day listening to both apps, and when I took my headphones off, I felt like I was coming up from underwater. I can't listen to audiobooks; the talking is too distracting. Even rock music makes it hard for me to concentrate. But I could listen to thunderstorms or wind or the ocean for hours.


• Another app I've come to love: Lose It. It's a simple and elegant calorie tracker. It makes it easy to count calories and journal your food. The database is huge, plus it's easy to add your own foods. Oh, and it's free! If I have an easy system to help me work on losing weight, I will do it!


• More reasons to love mah prezdent: Obama Suspends Bush Rule on Endangered Species. Yeah, it ain't sexy, but it's the right thing to do!


• How did voting in the 2008 election look when analyzing voter incomes? FiveThirtyEight.com knows. The answer... will probably not surprise any of you. But there are cool graphs!


• "A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations... were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day." Our prezdent gets it.


• Off to make a "brag book" album so I can have my favorite photos on... you guessed it, my iPhone! G'night!

• I was putting some bottles in the wine fridge this morning (w00t~!), and I noticed a tuft of cat hair on the bar countertop. The cats are obviously conducting their own building inspections. I hope we're up to code!


• I reiterate: kitties are not digging the "get locked up in the bedroom all day" routine. And of course if the door were open, they'd still spend 90% of their day in there! It's just the closed door they object to. But I don't care what they think. Until all the contractors and subcontractors hand me back their spare keys and I can be assured that no one else will be coming in and out of the house when we're not there, the cats stay sequestered in the bedroom during the day.


• Speaking of the remodel: stuff in the kitchen works! Like last night, I unpacked the microwave stuff and set up the little plate, and found a place to store the convection rack. (Ooooh fancy!) I ran it at very low power for 30 seconds. You know, just to make sure the plate was in right and able to move. And it works! Today we turned on the hood, and it's got 4 nice bright 50 watt bulbs in there. The fan is... kinda loud. But if you turn it down to 2 (out of 6), it's manageable. If I'm watching TV while I'm cooking and running the fan, I'll be very glad for those two speakers installed in the kitchen ceiling. I started putting in oven racks, but it feels too loose. Need to find the manual and make sure I'm doing it right.


• I'm wearing an inexpensive brown T-shirt I bought at Target a couple weekends ago and my new beige skirt. I look decent and am very comfy! I must go snag more of these cheap and cheerful shirts.


• Just saw a headline go by: "Unlike 1Q, Apple shares rise after 2Q report." Translated: when Charity buys Apple shares, she gets a decent earnings report but the stock tanks anyway. After they claw back up to a reasonable level, she sells them to Hubby, who then gets a hhhhhhawesome earnings report, and they go sky-high. Eh, whatevah. I am clearly not cut out to own individual stocks. I will stick to mutual funds. Or bonds.


• But yeah, so I got my Apple stock money back, and my 6-month CD matures next Friday. So when they announce the next release of the MacBook Pro, I am ready, baby! I figure they'll do a refresh in time for the back-to-school buying crowd. I'll wait till November or so to let them work all the kinks out, then SNAG!!!


• Today was "Bring Your Young'uns to Work Day." Remember when the whole idea of it was Bring Your Daughter to Work, so she can see different roles for women so she doesn't have to stick to "nurse" or "teacher" or "mommy" as a career path? Yeah, so that lasted. My company actually has organized programs for the kids now, and they shuffle them off to the auditorium or something so you hardly see them. This is a vast improvement from when it was just an excuse for the kids to eat all our cookies and download South Park cartoons at their mothers' desks. (Tru fax, saw that with my own eyes.)


• Dr. H and Dr. M back-cracked me yesterday. I consistently have tightness and issues with my mid-back, so I got the office ergonomics guru to give my desk a makeover. So he's got my chair rearranged now. It's weeeeird. Not bad, just weeeeird.


• Wanna hear something that sucks? Next month Hubby has to fly down to Tampa for a meeting at 1 p.m., then turn around and fly home! I mean, he prefers not to have to go away overnight and all, and there is value in face-to-face meetings. But doesn't that seem like a huge waste of money!? Not to mention an e-nor-mous pain in Hubby's posterior.


• I'm sneezing and blowing my nose like a mofo today. Hard to tell if it's the cold or allergies compounding the problem. Although I am grateful that the sore throat has finally! passed. Hopefully this won't last much longer.


• I do see my doctor next week, but that's because I need a new scrip for Wellbutrin. Even though it hasn't helped much lately with not overeating, I think I should stay on it. When I read that story a few weeks ago about Cabinet-level members of the administration sitting in on torture meetings, I literally got depressed. I had to shut off the TV and go to bed. Coincidentally, I had been alternating days on with days off, to try and get off it. After that, I was like, "Oh yeah. We're keeping it." I'll be interested to see what the doctor says.


• 3 shots of decaf espresso + large cup full of ice = free iced coffee at work. Take that, Starbucks!


• So glad I'm getting my hair cut on Saturday. It's becoming bushy, and no matter how much effort I put into blow-drying, I still look like a little Dutch boy with a bowl haircut by the end of the day.


• Back to remodeling news: we're meeting with a lady next Wednesday. She's a friend of Georgie's and does cool things with framing and mounting photographs. We're going to have a bunch around the 2nd floor, including two super huge ones on the dining and living room walls.


• To those of you on my F-list who need it, just know I'm pulling for you.


• And finally, boom de yada!

• Well halo thar. How are you today?


• I bought one of them there fancy Sonicare plug-in toothbrushes. My dentist Dr. B says they're a waste of money, but I was tired of my $10 Crest Spinbrush running out of batteries. And Amazon had a sale, plus I had a $25 gift certificates, so I got it for a lot less. This Sonicare thing is a srs brush! It feels like you have a lit hummingbird in your mouth! It has a timer, it has three different sensitivity settings, two special "brushing programs," a timer to let you know when to move on to a different section of your mouth. And even a UV filter to specially clean them! (Although I'm not convinced it's not just a tiny blue lightbulb.) At any rate it's fun, and anything that will renew my pursuit of perfect dental hygiene is a Good Thing.


• But man, my teeth are not white. Shocking in someone who drinks at least two big cups of coffee a day. I would do those white strip things, but we had a friend who used those, and her teeth turned blue after drinking red wine! If my choices are off-white or blue, I'll stick with the one closest to Nature.


• We've hit another lull -- not LOL -- in remodeling. Nothing more can happen until the countertops are installed. And they're not coming to do that until this Monday, the 7th. So all has been quiet in the construction zone. I wish they could have at least hooked up the fridge and dishwasher. It would be nice to get rid of the old white fridge in our entryway, and I cherish the thought of machine washing dishes again.


• Georgie, the interior decorator, wasn't able to come over last night after all. Sick child, or sick sitter. Someone was sick. Anyway, we're meeting tomorrow night now.


• She's on the prowl now looking for a TV for us. We've told her that we don't want to decide on chairs until we get the TV hooked up, so we know how far Hubby will need to sit. I figure if it's another month until we can have people over -- with places for them to sit and to eat, you know, the little things -- then it's another month. Which would actually give me a chance to play with all the new appliances, learn their little quirks, and produce earthquakingly good eats.


• I ran a meeting yesterday and was a total bitch about keeping to the agenda, but it worked. We got sooooooo much done in an hour. And we even resolved an issue that'd been floating around since February! Yay for being a complete bitch!


• Hubby and I have decided we will attend my 15th (!!!!!) college reunion in early October. Unfortunately it's the first weekend of October, and past experience tells me there is no decent foliage in the Hudson Valley that early. I'm not much of a one for the rah-rah stuff. I just want to see folks from my class. So we're just going to drive Saturday morning, go to the party that night, then go home the next day.


• Hee, it's amazing to think that Hubby came with me to my 10th reunion too. I remember getting the invitation in March. Hubby & I had only been dating for a few weeks, and this was going to be in October. I decided I would make reservations at a nice B&B anyway. If we were still going out then, fantastic. If not, I would just go myself and enjoy it. I worried about inviting him for something so far in the future. I didn't want him to feel pressured or anything. Well, I had nothing to worry about. And we were living together by the time October rolled around anyway!


• This year, the reunion is 2 days after our 3rd wedding anniversary.


• So anyway, we still need a fall foliage weekend trip. I suggested yesterday to Hubby that perhaps we could go in September up to Maine or something. He likes that idea. Now I just have to find a place! Any suggestions will be cheerfully accepted.


• Speaking of days off, I just reserved my time off days before and after Thanksgiving this year. I'm cooking Thanksgiving, in the new kitchen! First Thanksgiving cooking evar. I've never done the whole thing before. But I feel with help from the Good Book -- Cook's Illustrated -- I can do it.


• Gotta get back to work!

• I am at work.


• And hardly working.


• The odds of us getting out early aren't great.


• I finally bought a cool new camera bag the other day, and naturally I found it online this morning for cheaper. Arrrrgh! Oh well, way to support a local merchant? Sheesh, between this and the engine flush crap, I spent way too much money that we don't really have. Must do more research in future.


• Speaking of the camera, I am trying to buy a replacement lens cap for my telephoto lens. It is 62mm wide, not 67 like my other lens cap. Or 52 like the 50mm prime lens. ARGH. If I buy it online, even via Amazon, I will pay a redonkulous amount of money for shipping. I tried calling the local camera store, but no one was picking up. I just want to know if they will be open today, so I can swing by and grab the right size lens cap.


• Just reinstalled Greasemonkey on my PC, and added a ton of Flickr and LJ scripts. Shiny!


• So I really did go to the gym this morning around 5:50 a.m. to do a Turbulence Training strength workout... aaaaand the gym was closed. They must be opening later due to the NYE holiday. So of course I turned around, went home, read LJ, and didn't work out at all. My plan now is to get on the treadmill this evening, before the NYE party. Not only will I get a workout in, I will earn useful activity points for party noshing. Plus working out after dinner seems to keep me up late, so I should make it to midnight!


• I need to make backup plans for when I can't work out. I still tend to be a little all-or-nothing when it comes to exercise.


• redstapler's gym is not only offering a free weight loss plan to its members, but you can win valuable prizes! Weight loss + prizes = \o/


• Hubby thinks we can move the fridge downstairs to the rec room, if we get rid of the sofa down there, and then I can still park my car in the garage while the remodeling is going on! Hmmmmm. I don't know if that will work. But I appreciate him trying to devise a way for me to not have to park in the driveway this winter.


• PS, we will have a lot of furniture to donate: two sofas, a dining room set, coffee & end tables. Everything is in pretty good shape, except the small two-seater sofa which has been used as a kitty scratch pad. But if you're handy, you can re-cover it and it will be fine. If you are interested in any of this stuff, please let me know. Otherwise it's all going to Homefront.


• I have a funny concept for today's and tomorrow's Photo of the Day. I hope I can make it work.

We had a "benefits refresher" session from HR this morning. It's open enrollment time again, time to pick your bennies for 2008. A lot of changes were made to the various insurance options available to us: life, long term disability, long term care.

So now I'm thinking about cheerful things like, I really need to sign up for long term care insurance, so if I become disabled, we can pay to take care of me. And does Hubby have enough life insurance so if something happens to him, I can afford to make the mortgage?

Not cheerful stuff to consider on a cloudy day, when your husband is out of town.