Jacob slept a lot this afternoon. A lot more than usual. I was starting to wonder, when he began to feel hot. He's already back asleep.

There are a lot of things I want to say. This is, after all, how he deals with colds - he gets a fever, and he sleeps more. I have a strong suspicion, though, that he got it while at the Y for the Parents' Morning Out, and while I sort of got used to them having colds all winter from that place, the fact that it's already started, and it's September has me angry and wondering if they ever clean, at all.

I have camp training this weekend - 10 am tomorrow until 11 am Sunday. I have to have it before we go camping next month, and this is the only weekend between now and then that I can go. Judi already cannot go because of Yom Kippur (insert her rant about being forced to celebrate Jewish holidays when she's not Jewish and cook lots of chicken and matzo ball, here), and Lara may not be able to go when we camp, so I really have to go to this training.

Of course, when Jacob is sick, all he really wants is his mom. So I feel like the world's biggest heel.

Jacob is at Parent's Morning Out! I still dislike the woman that runs the nursery area. We got there right around nine. My watch already said 9:01, which means it was probably really 8:56 or 8:57. She made a big-ass deal about us being "early" and how I'd have to then retrieve him an equivalent amount of time early: "five, ten minutes." I really want to know where she got ten minutes. Oh well. He was fine and walked right into the room. Gillian is so excited that she gets me "all to herself" for four hours. Even if we are doing schoolwork.

While she's been reading about the Celts, I managed to finish a book. What I really need to be doing is planning out menus for at least the next week, if not the next two weeks. I have decided to buy myself a new crockpot. Not that there is anything wrong with my old one, but I want a smaller one, in which to cook oatmeal overnight. I generally avoid making oatmeal most mornings because of the time involved, which is pretty dumb. So if I use a crockpot, it'll be all ready for me. In theory. I am usually better about having time to spend in the kitchen in the evenings.

I am out of whey, which makes me reluctant to make beans. This is very sad.

"sum, esse, fui. I am, to be, I was." Yay for Latin.

So one of the suspects on CSI:NY tonight is named "Justin McKinney." This is entirely too close to Justin Kinney for me to not dissolve into laughter everytime they say his full name.

Dove, apparently, is about to show that beauty has no age. You have to love marketing that makes it seem like it's not marketing but instead a public service.

Now they are changing the weight equipment at the Y. Honestly, people! Can't you leave anything alone for a little while? I have been using the new ellipticals albeit reluctantly. I just can't get the same intensity on any other machine. As I result, my right knee has been hurting off and on. My right knee is the one that does not usually hurt.

I am the proud recipient of... stuff, from the CSA. I positively identified the cilantro, the cabbage, the eggs, and the grits. I am not sure which is lettuce, which is spinach, and which is collard greens. This tells you a lot about how often we have leafy green vegetables at my house. Oh, and we got recipes with it, too!

I want a night where I feel like I can safely stay up late reading. That's one of my true guilty pleasures. I just don't most of the time... because I can predict how early Jacob will wake based on how late I stay awake. All right, it's not a completely linear association, but it feels that way, most of the time.

ETA: We used to buy Peter Pan peanut butter. We switched to organic in August, after Sam got the new job. Apparently this was smarter than we ever would have thought.

I feel like I'm swimming in molasses. Not that I am currently swimming. I just feel rather sluggish. Almost as if I have been drugged. I suppose I could just be tired.

I need to figure out spring and summer clothes for the kids. A few years ago I bought G a bunch of shorts on sale ($3 each) but she's going to have outgrown them finally. So almost all of her spring and summer clothes need replacing. Jacob's still growing fast enough that there's no conceivable way anything from last summer could fit him. Yar.

I am hungry. I was planning to have a single brownie as a snack after going to the Y. Unfortunately, I did not realise the need to communicate this plan to Sam. Hence, when I got home, all of the brownies had been consumed.

Why do I get. Crap. I can't even remember what I was going to write.

Tomorrow we're Cleaning, since I have yet to find a replacement for the cleaning service that doesn't vacuum.

This was funny. I'm getting something out of one of our containers in the kitchen, and Jacob starts going nuts. "Cookie! Cookie!" Gillian and I kept looking at each other, confused. It finally dawned on me - we had used the same container to hold our Christmas cookies.

Even if you know you never want to be friends with the woman next to you on the elliptical (although, really, 'never' is a long time), if you live in the same area, and you both have kids, you might have to work together someday. You might not realize she's the LLL Leader you'll call a year from now, or the future room mother in your son's classroom. You might encounter each other in sports or scouts or any number of venues. She's going to remember you, though, because in the space of two minutes, you cruelly made fun of and stereotyped two groups of which she is a part. Nothing she can change, either, just group x is this way, group y is this way, and she's part of both of them. Many people are. About half of my flist falls into group x; another portion falls into group y, and some are both. Nothing we can change, either, so no, it's not about when you have babies or anything so prone to a choice as that.

But ladies, that's how I'll remember you - telling each other that someone like me, in both groups, is automatically neurotic, uneducated, uninformed, naive, and socially maladjusted. Thank you, though, for reminding me why we shouldn't judge, and we should always, always be careful of what we say.


Yeah. I just had to get that out. On the plus side, I got about five minutes of real intense exercise because of them.

On a completely different note, here are five simple pleasures for today:
1. The UPS trucks. This is utterly geeky, but I find it fascinating to watch all the UPS trucks go down 120 around 9 am. It's even more fun if you're going all the way into Roswell.
2. Sushi. Sushi's very simple - just rice and fish!
3. Gillian singing "One Tin Soldier."
4. Friday at 9 am!
5. My weekly milkshake this afternoon.

So it didn't appreciably do anything here, winter-weather-wise. However, I'd decided last night, when looking at the forecast, that the world didn't need yet another driver trying to make her way somewhere near downtown when it would be cold, raining, and possibly freezing rain. So we're at home still, and Gillian's Latin class will start without her. We're going to go over her vocabulary later today and I don't think we're going to do the class again after this session is over, so I'm not too fussed. It's my money; if I want to "waste" $10, then that's my prerogative.

Since it doesn't seem to have done anything, however, we are going to go to the Y this morning, and then that will give me the afternoon to clearn up before Brownies. Today's meeting should be seriously easy and fun. Static electricity, magnets, "invisible ink," and sugar crystals. Also more about goal setting for cookies. How fun is that? Yay.

This morning we had frozen waffles (from Whole Foods, so they were half-whole wheat flour and half-white flour, which was different - usually I have one or the other), scrambled eggs, and, in a nod to primroseburrows, Grade B maple syrup. Yay for a nice warm breakfast. Jacob was very pleased and proceeded to pitch a fit when his waffles were eaten.

I think it's really strange that I can't find CFLs at Publix anymore. I have one CFL right now that I found at Walgreen's, but it was the last one on their shelf! Totally weird. I need more.

Despite the fact that she won't see this, I feel compelled to say that I have the bestest co-leader for Girl Scouts. Absolutely.

I went to the Y and stayed far longer than usual. I also found out that despite merging with the Metro Atlanta Y, and despite the dues increase, I still can't go to the Northeast Cobb Y. However, I am skeptical about this information and will follow it up. I mean, are they telling Metro Atlanta Y members that they have to cough up more money each month for one of the Cobb County Ys but not the other two? Somehow, I doubt it. The girl at the front desk is nice enough but I don't think she's the brightest bulb nor do I think the Y is anything other than a parttime job while she lives the rest of her life, so, yes. I'll ask again.

I still felt all strung out so I went to Borders and engaged in retail therapy. Seventeen dollars later, I had a magazine and a book and felt better about myself since my first impulse had been to go get something sweet, chocolatey, and fattening. That would have, of course, only made me feel worse after the fact, so go me.

Tonight's not a full moon. I just felt compelled to point this out, denizens of the email.

"Denizen" is really a pretty neat word.

Things That Make Me Happy Today:
- Sushi for lunch. If I could afford it, I would eat sushi every day for lunch. That would be somewhere between $40 and $45 a week, though, even if I bought it all at Publix and didn't go to an actual sushi place. So I'll settle for once or twice a week.

- Running into an old friend at the Y.

- Getting Gillian's schoolwork, excepting history, done before we even went to the Y.

- Monday is Kids Eat Free night at Moe's, plus we have gift cards. Yummy, filling, relatively nutritious (if you don't eat the chips) food for free that I don't have to cook.

- Afternoon rest time. J nurses, G does math and then reads or plays her Kids Sudoku, and I rest or read.

- Managing to type this out one-handed!

... and he's out. Jacob, that is!

I need to send some emails. And attempt to get into one of my email accounts. I haven't been able to get into it since we switched the computers over last week. :/

So I have a meeting to go to this afternoon at two. Now, I knew when I agreed to the meeting time that it meant I probably wouldn't be able to make it the Y to work out because the Y is only open from one until five on Sundays. That is, in and of itself, an annoyance, but I digress. At any rate, I didn't worry about this because I thought that Jacob and I could go for a nice walk around the neighborhood this morning.

Of course, I wake up this morning and it's pouring down rain. Alas. So now I'm resigned to trying to work out today via video. I'm not exactly the exercise video kind of girl: I have exactly two. One of them is a thirty-five minute routine and the other is a yoga video. Not really wanting to do the aerobics one twice, I decided that thirty-five minutes of yoga early in the day combined with thirty-five minutes of aerobics later in the day will count for at least forty-five minutes of cardiovascular exercise for today. Boo for weird math.

Yesterday I went to The Dinner A'Fare which was interesting. I tried to do as much as I could with seafood because it just felt SO WEIRD not to have organic meat. I know that sounds like snobbery but we've bought organic meat since Gillian was little, and the last time we had non-organic meat (long story), Sam stopped at the first bite and asked what was wrong with the meat, because it didn't taste very good. (There's my plug for organic: It just tastes better). I went because it was a fundraiser for Mothers & More. I really want this place to hurry up and open, although it looks slightly different in that you don't have to do anything but pick it up. Supposedly it will be where the big ol' Target is being built, across from TJ's. We shall see.

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.