My internet just went weird, and now I can't check email. My gmail was already frakked earlier. So now I will have to do more emailing in the morning. Weird ass internet.

primroseburrows and I are uniting old fandom wank and birth wank. Her vajayjay is pastede on yay!

I really, really, really should go to the API meeting tomorrow, but I am also really really tired and really really up late, and I have crap to do tomorrow afternoon (like, uh, buy BSG S3? and also milk), and tomorrow night. And isarma mentioned there is Atlanta Cloth on Thursday, and I really need diaper input more than I need a meeting about the Power of Play, to which I have to drive 45 minutes in order to get. Not that Tuesday and Thursday are the same thing, but I am trying to think in terms of Conserving Energy. I gotta get through Thursday night and then this weekend we are going back to Chattanowhere because the kids want to go to Lake Winnie on opening day. I approve because the funnel cakes are the best on opening day. I have the horrible suspicion that it's the only day everything, including the oil, is actually clean.

I just had this amazing idea. Oooh.

I am feeling deliciously foggy today. There was not much excitement; Gillian stayed home from ballet, though I still drove Stephanie there. I found out that there shouldn't be a conflict between Master's Academy next year and ballet next year, because likely there will be a Tuesday/Thursday section offered, not just the Monday/Wednesday.

I filled out my registration form for the 2008 LDS. That's a LLL thing, not a sign that I am converting to Mormonism, because I'm not.

I was - and still am - slightly annoyed with the last two issues of the API newsletter. Last time the focus was solely on "special-needs" and this time it's all about adoption. Both of which are important issues, to be sure, but I cannot be the only member who has found nothing that she or he can personally relate to in the last two issues. The newsletter is supposed to be informative and helpful. I realize I sound bitchy and privileged. Deal with it.

Tomorrow, I am going to finally mail my check and hence rsvp for my reunion. I have, like, four weeks from Saturday in which to find something to wear. Oh bliss. Friday, I need to do my online registration for the GA LLL conference. While I realize that all of life is one big to-do list, I hate it when that feeling is more prominent and easily pushed down below the surface.

I also hate that I have to pay money to go to my high school reunion, where no doubt there will be bad food and booze of which I won't partake. The more I think about this, the more ridiculous it seems. Nevertheless, there it is.

I need to figure out the rest of Gillian's summer camps. I found a golf one. w00t.

Jenna called about an hour ago and Gillian is now going to Stephanie's for a sleepover tonight. Cobb County Schools are out today and tomorrow, in case you were wondering how Gillian was going to attend a sleepover during the week.

Hopefully this means I can wait to get her after API tomorrow. I mean, I'd still have to take Jacob, but ooh, it'd be nice to just have one kid for the morning.

That's the downside to homeschooling. I truly don't want Gillian gone for six and a half to seven hours daily, five days of the week, but also like having some time where we aren't all together all the time. I even more am uncomfortable with the local preschool choices, so Jacob isn't in one and, at this point, won't be in the autumn either, but again, having one or two days a week where they were both occupied for a few hours would be nice. At this point, having a few hours just with Gillian would be nice, aside from the hours where we are doing school. Alas.

My cast iron dutch oven arrived today! Hooray for UPS for delivering on Presidents' Day. I also bought my new shake mix/protein powder via the internetz and so it arrived as well. I added stevia to it but other than that it was good. We are almost out of milk, which marks the first time we've used the entire gallon of milk in a week. If I can successfully transition the kids to drinking it (right now they say it tastes funny), then we'll need two gallons a week. The interesting thing, to me, is that sometimes I have symptoms of lactose intolerance, but I absolutely don't with the raw milk.

Now I am reading. Again. I finished Collapse this morning. It was very engagingly written, IMO.

The Mike and Juliet Show? Does anyone know anything about this?

I'm thinking they got my name from the API website, because of the nature of the email, but that's random, and part of me wants to respond, but another part of me is wary and then of course there's the part that wants to blow it off entirely. ;)


Completely Unrelated:
I don't understand NYC geography. Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Lower East Side, Lower West Side, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, five borough, what's a borough anyway, Long Island, all of it. It bugs the snot out of me. I can picture almost any other city vaguely in my head just from some basic research, and even better if I've been there. NYC? I can't even figure it out when looking at a map. HELP. I hate not knowing something. Hate hate hate. Pls help.

I woke up before Jacob this morning. I think this is, in all likelihood, a good thing. We had a decent turnout for API this morning - two of my 'regulars' plus two new attendees. I was hoping Kay would make it, but she didn't. My head still hurts where I ran into the mirror last night and as a consequence I didn't wash my hair this morning, which means it will really need it before Brownies this evening. This is especially true since I'm planning to head over to the Y to do some cardio as soon as the nursery re-opens at four. If I don't do that, I won't get any exercise today, but if I leave here by 3:45, I get there when the nursery opens, and I can easily get in 40-45 minutes of cardio, plus still get home and shower before Brownies.

I need two more small things for Kim's Game with them. I already have such exciting things as a wrist rattle, earring, chapstick, taillight bulb, and pen. I think I'll get one of Gillian's hair barrettes for one of them.

Now I find out my laptop battery may be part of a recall. Hoorah. At least I can now get Plan B over the counter, if I needed it.

Prepared for tomorrow night: check.
Laundry, including clean sheets on the bed: check
Gillian's swimming lesson: check
API website finished and uploaded: check
'About You' section of Personal History finished and emailed: check
Books set near door to return to LLL library tomorrow: check
Everything for school done today: check


It's always darkest before the dawn.

I finally picked a day and time for API meetings, but I can't find a meeting place that will accomodate. I considered an alternate day and time at the East Cobb Government Service Center, but they require a $40 non-refundable 'deposit,' but one only gets the deposit back when the group ceases meeting there. Since I'm hoping the group will be around for a long time, I figure that there are decent odds I won't be right there whenever the group changes meeting spaces (if it did), and I really don't feel like throwing another $40 in under 'start-up costs.' I already spent $60 getting accredited as a leader, and I really would like for the group to have some books in the library before too long passes. At the Merchants Walk library, the geriatrics are getting free income tax help from the AARP during tax season on my preferred day. I never did like the AARP. When I get old I want to be like my great-grandmother and my grandmother.

I really wanted the meeting location to be fairly central. I don't like the Mountain View library for a variety of reasons, the chief one being that it's not central and it takes me a good thirty minutes to get there. As leader, I feel like I need to get there early and stay late, so the extra commuting time, while it might only be thirty or forty-five minutes, will be significant. By the same token, I was going to avoid my library (East Marietta, for those of you familiar with the area), as it isn't centrally located to East Cobb either. I considered the East Cobb Y, but recent experiences there make me think that it would not be the best choice. I wish I knew of a church/other house of worship that did not have a preschool or Mom's Morning Out or daycare program that was relatively centrally located and was willing to let a nonprofit group use a room. I can't think of any, though, and I'm starting to feel a little nutty about the whole thing. Finding a location should not be the hardest part of all of this... should it?

Despite the fact that the term for a co-leader in Mothers & More is one year, and despite the fact that began my term on 1 July 2004, I'm still a co-leader of my chapter. For now. We (my co-leader & I) have one potential volunteer now that my term should already be over, and we're hoping to have our transition period complete by the time of our Town Hall meeting in August. That will, then, be my last meeting as a co-leader. We will now pause so you can all imagine the utter glee on my face and the dances that I will be doing.

Nevertheless, it'd be sad for me not to be doing anything, wouldn't it? So of course, I've already committed to heading up the Open House Committee as the Open House Coordinator. I've been to enough of them, after all. I'd also like to point out that aside from perhaps three or four other members, I've been a member of Mothers & More longer than anyone else in our chapter, despite the fact that I'm the youngest member of the chapter.

I've also acquired two new volunteer positions... or at least I'm working on acquiring them. The first is serving as a leader for a Daisy Girl Scout troop. What troop? Well, I don't properly know yet, but the plan is that it will be somewhere around here, and Gillian will be in it. Yes, that's right, she'll be old enough to be a Girl Scout this year! I've already gotten The Daisy Girl Scout Leader's Guide and Safety-Wise to read. This afternoon, I printed out the official Volunteer Application and filled it out. (primroseburrows, I listed you as a reference, so if you get a call from someone with the 'Girl Scout Council of Northwest Georgia,' that's why.)

I also finished editing my essays for my API Leader application and printed them out. I printed out a recommendation form to give to my mother (API lets you have one of your two recommendations from a family member; I could have picked Sam, but I thought that looked a little too cozy). I signed the affirmation or whatever on the application and folded everything up and placed it in the envelope. I just need to talk to Kay (my co-leader!) about how we're going to split the affliation fee and when she's sending in her application. She has a two week old little girl at the moment, so I'm guessing it'll be September when we have our first meeting. As for my other recommendation for the application... *looks very very innocent* Um, primroseburrows? Want to write a recommendation? :)

I feel like I've used up quite a bit of my afternoon on just filling out applications, though. That, and reading through Safety-Wise, which is alternately boring and fascinating in that 'I can't believe they have to spell THAT out!' kind of way.