My wallet sighs in relief...

This afternoon, I bought gas. For under $3 a gallon.

No, I'm serious.

$2.93 for regular at any of the three gas stations at the intersection of Rt. 198 and Rt. 1 in Laurel. You too could be doing the happy dance of cheap(er) gas.

Shopaholic

I always laughed at magazines like Lucky and Domino. Magazines about shopping? What the hell? And then I had a layover in Miami. Pickings were slim at the airport newsstand, and J. was buying anyway, so I picked up a copy of Domino.

Big mistake.

So many pretty, pretty things...and so little money to buy them with. I can ignore magazines like Vogue because I think most of the clothes are ugly anyway. But when I see things like this:



or this:



I mean, do I really need a silk skirt imported from India? Probably not. And I can definitely live without a $90 exfoliant. But that doesn't change the fact that I waaaant.

Also? Metawishlist.com is the best thing ever.

Willpower, Lack of

I do not cook. I can--I'm no gourmet chef, but I can put together an edible meal--but mostly I don't. This is okay, because I am a very, very lucky woman. O. likes to cook, and he's pretty good at it. And given that most of my attempts to cook anything remotely interesting result in him coming in to rescue me (see also: Christmas dinner '07) we usually just cut out the middleman. He cooks, I do not. It works for us.

The fact that I don't cook goes hand in hand with the fact that I eat out. A lot. The day the lady at Checkers greeted me by my name--before I handed her my debit card--was a bit of a wake-up call. So I started going to McDonalds for lunch instead.

Between the fact that this is becoming quite a drain on the wallet and the fact that I'm on track to clog every artery I have before the age of 35, drastic measures seemed in order. I am twenty-two hours into a vow to avoid eating out for one week. This is proving more difficult than I'd anticipated, mostly because I am blessed with the lethal combination of very intense food cravings and little to no willpower. On my way home tonight I had to talk myself out of stopping by Jerry's for a sub. This would be immediately after O. told me dinner would be ready when I got home. Right now, I'm thinking about the fact that Taco Bell is right down the street. Luckily, the one thing more potent than my food cravings is my intense laziness, and I'm already in my pajamas.

Please don't invite me out for dinner this week. When it comes to food, no isn't usually in my vocabulary.

Random Thoughts

Procrastination
I am never quite as creative as I am when I'm avoiding doing something else. You wouldn't believe the things I've thought of doing instead of finishing up the work for my practicum. Guys--there was cleaning going on. Cleaning. Me. This is bad.

The Metro
I shared a Metro car today with a couple of students who looked to be about middle school age. They were very well behaved, if a bit loud, but one of the girls had a laugh that was literally painful to my ears. She laughed about every two minutes or so, and every time it felt like someone was driving a stake through my head. No idea why. And this was through earbuds.

I also shared a Metro car with a fairly obnoxious adult who was listening to music on his phone. No headphones. I hate jerks like that. Periodically I shot him a nasty look, but I figured anyone who is obnoxious enough to do that in the first place is obnoxious enough to be an ass if I call him on it, so I fumed silently.

And finally, I shared a Metro car with a former student of mine, who scared the crap out of me, because I had my nose in a book and earbuds in my ears, and generally on the Metro I don't expect anyone to talk to me. We had a nice conversation, she's enjoying middle school, and it was a pleasant little blast from the past.

All three of those were in the same car, at different times.

Comprehensive Exams
They're looming.

Saturday Night
Thanks for an awesome evening, those of you who contributed to it. I needed a chance to unwind. As, apparently did some of you...we must do it again, and soon. Maybe to celebrate after I stop procrastinating and actually finish my Masters.

I tried, I swear!

I was really going to cook last night. I had plans and everything.

See, several months ago, O.'s mother gave me a cookbook called Fat Free, Flavor Full, which led to the following exchange:

Me: Is your mother saying I'm fat?
O.: I told her I was going to get in trouble for this.

Anyway, I've made a few soups from it, but there was a recipe for an eggplant, bean and tomato casserole that looked like it could be really good, but also potentially disgusting. I bought a couple of eggplants at the food co-op over a week ago and had been putting off the actual cooking part ever since.

So, O., who had expressed a decided lack of enthusiasm for this particular recipe, had plans last night, so I thought it would be a great time to try it. I called Tracy and Jackie to invite them to dinner, figuring that if I had guests coming I'd have to actually cook something. They both accepted, though upon hearing the menu, Jackie said "...I'll stop at Chipotle on the way over."

So I was ready to go. I put my beans on the stove to cook and started cutting up my onion.

Hmm. Tracy's allergic to onion.

Well, she's ok as long as there's not much and it's cooked, so we should be all right. Next ingredient! Garlic.

Hmm. Tracy's allergic to garlic.

Ok. We'll leave the garlic out. Next ingredient! Green pepper.

Hmm. I know I had a green pepper around here somewhere...

I called O. He told me that he'd tossed the green pepper three days ago because it liquefied in the bag. Hmm. Perhaps I procrastinated too much?

...Sigh. Plan B.

So I intended to really cook, but instead made Chicken Tikka Masala from a jar. Is it any wonder I don't bother most days? Thank God O. does most of the cooking around here.

Back to school...

Frankly, I'm too exhausted to write anything of substance right now. So instead, I'm posting pictures.

In case you ever wondered where I work:


This is the reading circle, the picture book section and our brand new mural.


This is the other side of the library, and the other new mural. In the back we have the fiction section, and to the right part of the nonfiction section.

And to toot my own horn a bit, here are some of the displays I put together this year.


This is the bulletin board right outside the library, where my students can record the books they're reading.


And this one is also in the hall. The words read "Read a book...meet interesting people!" Can you name them all?

What I did on my summer vacation.

First, I went here:


Then I went here:


Now I have to go back here:


Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But I would also dearly love to have another week or so of summer.