Several Items Need Attention Immediately.

1. Jim Lehrer is an amazing speaker.  I want to hear him speak all the time. 

2. It is the official start of the Hoosier Holidays, aka March Madness.  I know many people that take these couple days off to truly celebrate fully.  I am not, but I sure am following closely.  Go Butler!!

3. Went out again with the Handy Guy.  I'm thinking that may be his blog name.  We had fun, not sure if there is romance there, but there is genuine "like" there, which is never to be discounted.  Worst case scenario, we are friends.  Not bad.

4. I started a "door war" at work with my Butler poster.  I was showing a bit of Butler pride at work with my poster for the tournament when another coworker started floating me a raft of shit.  Now we are all posting our bracket picks prominently on our doors to show who rocks the most -- damn, I love basketball.

GRE -- Done. Mind -- Exhausted.

Just when you think you'll never need that 10th grade geometry again, you have to take the GRE.

It's not like I didn't take it when I first got into grad school -- 14 (gulp) years ago.  So the scores were a little outdated ...

Took the test.  Got reasonable scores -- need to check in with the FIU folks to make sure they are acceptable.  If not, I'll have to retake.  I'm not thinking I will have to, but I don't want to ditch the prep materials before I know either way.

Spent today in my house in my robe.  Not sure I plan to leave.  Pretty happy to just be right here. 

Total Brain Dump

Some stuff has been stewing in my brain this week, so this won't be a logical progression ... just a moment where I empty out what has been cluttering the dark recesses of my brain.
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Today is Hex's birthday.  He's 46 today.  I've been thinking about this all week, as six years ago today I threw a hell of a party for him (and his identical twin brother) with friends and family surrounding us.  So much time has passed, so much water under that bridge.  I wish him well ... and hope he finds what he is looking for AND is willing to make the changes necessary to bring about happiness in his life.

Today is also my friend Steve's birthday.  He would have been 63 today.  I'll be calling Luana today to tell her I am thinking of her and that I miss Steve too.

I am apparently super duper hot to men in their 50s.  Last night was a guy who is 51, a couple of kids ten years younger than I am.  Great guy, rather cute but too old for me.  I did wrangle him into a donation for my employer, so not all was lost. 

I head off to Tallahassee next week for four days.  I travel on Monday, super-shmoozing on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday in a conference, then return Thursday night.  I've never been to Tallahassee, not sure what to expect, but can mark off another state capitol off my list.

I need to up my 401k contribution.  Maybe writing this down will finally trigger me to get that done.

I am shocked and amazed that a man was pulled out of the rubble in Haiti on Tuesday.  Two Freaking Weeks in the rubble.  WTF are the odds? 

I heard someone use Whiskey Tango Foxtrot for WTF the other day and laughed.  Hard.

Lots of outside-the-immediate-family drama going on right now.  Nothing really to say about that except: 1) not unexpected and 2) not surprising.

Ate some crazy good food yesterday at lunch in LaBelle, FL.  Flora and Ella's restaurant.  Down home cooking and pie, OMG, the pie.  I had peanut butter pie yesterday and nearly had to excuse myself to lie down.  It was that good.

Work continues to go well.  I still love my job, still love what I do.  I'm super blessed.

Received the blessing of my boss to go ahead and apply to grad school for my Ph.D.  She said we'd work out my work schedule so that I can go.   I have been turning mental cartwheels ever since.

#235 -- Wow, I'm a wordy mf

Yes, it seems like days ago I was blogging in the under 100 posts mark but today I note that I'm on #235. I don't know if that means anything, per se, other than I apparently brain dump a great deal.

The birthday weekend was lovely. Dinner with the Sharkfamily, Sister and Boy Wonder was delicious. We went to Loon Lake Lodge, which is neither on a lake nor a lodge, and I had pecan encrusted grouper. Which is to say I am still basking in the glow of happy times and smiley faces from the experience. Damn I love that dish.

Saturday was pleasant enough with some wandering about with D9. We had lunch at an Indian food buffet, then wandered Target and Goodwill. Following that, we returned to my house to watch a show on the History Channel about mysterious lights/explosion up in Kokomo that has been attributed to 'sonic booms' but the UFO people were having none of that nonsense.

Speaking of UFOs -- do you believe? No, no, I speak not of little green men with anal probes, but actually UFOs. Unidentified Flying Objects. In case you were wondering, I believe in UFOs and I also believe in IFOs. As for little green men with anal probes, I'm not so sure about that, but what I am sure about is that there is no way in this whole enormous universe that we are the only planet with life. When I say 'life' -- I can mean bacteria, vermin, viruses ... anything really -- on another planet somewhere in the universe. And Yes, I believe there is life on other planets.

Had a date Saturday night that was meh to the millionth power. I will not be speaking of it again.

Sunday was spent at a Starbucks, wandering an international grocery, doing laundry and then watching football at Jason's house with a fire and homemade pizza as my accompaniment. Lovely evening, nice time.

Today I've managed to plan most of December as vacation days, drank some water and ate some crackers w/cheese and roast beef.

Sending out good wishes to FitnessNerd -- I'm keeping fingers crossed for you.
Hugs to the Sharkfamily for a lovely dinner Friday night.