Hopefully Meg is still grandmothering all day and all night to give her daughter some rest. Yay for spoiling a child with excess love and attention.

Facing a busy week at work, so I'm up early with a purpose. Was graced with a bountiful crop of tomatoes yesterday; garden is struggling to ripen all its green tomatoes before the frosts come and before the sun wears down.

I am off to Chicago in one hour.

Have a great week everyone and see you next Monday!

Dagmar

Megan, I am laughing about your tennis racket. I think when you first mentioned it we all misinterpreted it to mean that since you missed having your BF in bed, you snuggled up on a tennis racket to replace him! Makes more sense as a weapon.

Dagmar, have fun in Chicago!

Bill, if you end up with a lot of green tomatoes at the end of the season, cooking light has a good recipe for "unfried" green tomatoes (they're baked). I think I might have posted it in the recipes sticky -- if not you can find it on myrecipes.com.

Weather has been great lately -- cool enough to leave the windows open and turn off the A/C. We had to shut the windows today though because even though it's cool out right now it's forecast to get up to 86 this afternoon and I didn't want our poor doggy to overheat! We really need some rain though. Only got 1/2 inch of rain in August and the plants are all dying.

Here are a couple of photos from my trip to Yosemite. Still need to get some good ones of my sister's wedding. The official photos aren't back yet, so the only ones we have are ones their friends took, so there aren't many of me!

Me & Mom at the tunnel view scenic viewpoint:


Me on the hike down from Glacier Point -- the hike ended in the valley behind me:


Me & DH at the beginning of the hike down from Glacier Point:


In case you're interested, all the photos are here.

Good Monday morning!

I saw that Meg had been posting in some other forums so she is around. Meg-- come back and visit us! We want to hear all about your grandbaby!

Dagmar-- can't wait to hear about your trip! I've only been to Chicago once and loved it. I went in the summer which is a good thing because I HATE cold weather. My parents lived there before I was born and my mom hated it intensely!

Jessica-- great photos! I still haven't been to Yosemite and it isn't that far from me. Have to go soon!

Hi Bill! Our tomatoes are starting to look poorly but they're still producing at this point. I was up early as well to get to work.

Dh came back Saturday night from Europe. He leaves again this Saturday.He came home saying maybe we can move to London in a year. I'm like-- no thank you! Last time he said something like this we ended up living in Africa!

Dd went to visit other dd at her college for the weekend. It sounds like they got along more or less for a day or so and then got on each other's nerves. Sigh.

My weight is better so I'm hoping with dh around it won't shoot back up. We'll see......

Good morning!

I'm having kind of an off day today. I got my workout done and did all my morning chores (or so I thought). But when I got to work I found that I had 1) left my iPod at home (no music at work!) and 2) forgot a bottle of water (which I usually re-use all week long). I did have iced tea bottles in the fridge, so I had a tea and now I'll rinse it out and put water in it, but it's just so darn quiet without music. I tried Pandora for a little bit, but I can't get the sound just right on this darn computer so I gave up. I suppose I could go get the nano out of my car and use that but it doesn't have as much selection...

I sure had a strange dream last night...I was in charge of entertaining some Russian diplomat for a few days and I had so many other appointments that I didn't know how I'd juggle it all. I had to have a mammo, so I dropped the diplomat off at daycare where he met my friend and decided he liked her and wanted to date her. It was all very strange. At least I slept well!

DD is back home at college. It was a nice weekend visit but we won't see her again for at least a month.

Dagmar~have a fun time in Chicago! That's where my mom is from, although she's lived in Utah for the past 50 years or more. Egads--they're celebrating their 65th anniversary next August. Meanwhile my mom is having surgery tomorrow to repair (clean out??) some arteries in her leg that she broke several years ago. They're hoping with this that they'll be able to do another surgery in a few months that will straighten out her ankle so she can walk better. Whoever was her ortho doc when she broke her leg (right below her knee--both bones) didn't do a very good job with it. All he did was splint it and put her to bed where she got a pressure sore which took 6 months to heal (thus why she was in the nursing home for so long). If she had had surgery (which probably would have been a knee replacement) she'd probably have healed much faster and she wouldn't have gotten the foot drop and crooked ankle from that. Now she has an orthotic to try and keep her ankle straight, but is mostly using a wheelchair which she hates. She'd much rather be walking.

Oh, oops. No, I snuggle with my teddy. Tennis racket for protection.

Except forget the tennis racket! I found out today that in the last week, 2 women have been assaulted at gunpoint two towns over, 15 min. from me. In a county of less than 10,000 people that is way too close for comfort. And BF is out of town for at least 2 more nights. I'm upping the arsenal tonight!

Jessica, great pictures! You have such a nice smile. It looks like you're having a wonderful time!

Dagmar, I hope you're already off to a great vacation! Can't wait to hear about it next week.

Allison, what an odd dream. It's amazing the seemingly wacky stuff our unconscious mind can come up with. I hope you find your work rhythm even without your ipod.

Bill, mmm, I hope all your tomatoes ripen before frost gets them. And I hope you get through your busy week alright.

Have a great week everyone!

Here is a tip on security. Keep your car keys on your bedside table, and if it sounds like someone is trying to break in, press the Panic button. The noise and flashing lights of the car helps get attention and may frighten the intruder, giving you time to dial 911.

We have two cars and can set off quite a ruckus.

Jay

Allison-- that is one weird dream!
I dreamed last night about one of the teachers at my school. She is the sweetest quietest person and is currently almost 9 months pregnant and huge. In my dream she confronted me to tell me all of these horrible things she thought about me-- that I didn't do my job well, I was a horrible person, etc. And she didn't look pregnant in the dream! Our dreams can be so weird.

Megan-- You'll be fine but make sure you keep your doors locked and windows closed. We keep our windows cracked but I have two ferocious dogs that (I think) would make such a ruckus if anyone ever tried to break in that they'd run the other way!

Jay - I've done the same thing with my car keys, it does create quite a racket.

Megan - you be careful!

Allison - really weird dream! I had one last week where I was in a high school assembly with Buffy Summers and a woman who went to high school with DH that I had met at his reunion and we were trying to save the school from some unspecified evil.

Michele - glad DH is home for a little while. I have some friends who live in London, they love it...

Jessica - love your pictures!

Dagmar - enjoy Chicago!

Bill - mmmm, tomatoes.

I had a decent weekend - didn't exercise, was working on that whole 'don't overexercise' concept. After my five day break I was getting back into a normal routine. It was hard not to fall into too many days in a row and risk putting myself right where I started, but I did it. Food wasn't great, but wasn't too bad.

Bad weekend for sports in our house - GA Tech, the Braves & the Falcons all lost... Sadness...

Good day everyone!

Megan, be careful! I like Jay's tip about the car alarms.

Michele, I am laughing about your DD visiting your other DD because my sister and I also absolutely cannot be in the same house for more than one day at a time without driving each other nuts. I think the time we got along the best was during one summer when I was living about 40 minutes away from her. We went to see each other for lunch on the weekend a few times and it worked very well. We get along great for a few hours but living together is just a no go.

Sounds like everyone is having weird dreams! I had some weird ones too but now I don't remember them anymore.

Okay, now I have to rant about traffic! They installed two new traffic lights along our route to work during the day yesterday and they were both up and running this morning. Well, they really screwed up the timing on one of them (either that or they just really should not have put it there in the first place) because due to one of the new lights, traffic was backed up about two miles! The light is too close to the other lights, and it is so short that people couldn't get through during the morning rush (without totally blocking all the intersections). Normally it takes me about 20 minutes to get to work -- today it took 45! So I was crawling along in stop and go traffic up to that light, then after the light it was back to 45mph. How did they not realize they were going to cause a huge traffic jam with this light? I submitted a complaint to the street department.

Jessica~there used to be a light that was all messed up like that in one town on my commute years ago. I submitted a complaint and got a phone call back from the city. The guy said that I wasn't the only one to complain and that he'd sent all complaints to the correct department (it was a highway and therefore not city jurisdiction). Anyway, it was fixed shortly after I sent in my complaint. I often wonder if because I sent it from my old job (hospital) and discussed how dangerous it was (people running the red light because the light would stay red for up to 10 minutes at a time) that there was a sure opportunity for someone to get hit.

I'm glad I get along with my sister! I'm also glad that my kids get along. In fact, DD is trying to convince DS to go to the same university as her so they can be roommates. She is now considering going for her masters in conducting. As far as I'm concerned, it's not a bad move. It won't help her get a job, but right now jobs are so hard to come by she might as well stay in school. They had a job fair here yesterday to hire workers for a new restaurant. 100 openings and over 1000 applicants. Another fair for a golf club today and they're expecting an even bigger turnout for a smaller number of openings.

Jessica - we have lights like that all over my home town, and they just put one up near my house, too. It totally wrecks traffic...

I get along ok with my brother, though we don't talk much. We are politically opposite to one another, and he has gotten more rigid with age where I have gotten more liberal. So, we don't talk much anymore...

Wow, my quads are screaming today. I did a dumbbell workout from stumptuous.com and I can feel it every time I get up out of my chair. Wowza. Planning a run this afternoon, but it could be pretty lackluster...

Bill, we are drowning in tomatoes here! I've been making tomato sauce and freezing it, and everyone is required to eat tomatoes at every meal! Really I'm thrilled - it's the best year we've had for them.

We are finally having summer weather. No matter that it's mid-September, and we expect frost any day now. I've been riding my bike, and doing anything I can outdoors.

Urg - this morning I ate a handful of tortilla chips, two pieces of candy corn and a few honey nut cheerios for breakfast because my head hurt and I didn't feel like doing anything else. Now my head hurts worse, which I totally deserve after junk for breakfast.

Hope everyone else is having a good day.