Good: Things are afoot with my work stuff. I can’t say anything right now because I’m not sure what’s really going to happen, but hopefully things will be improving soon.

Bad: The truck is sick and needs a bunch of work done.

Undecided: Should we dump our cable tv?

Good: We’ll be getting a large tax return soon.

Bad: We’ll be spending a large portion of it to fix the truck.

Undecided: Have we adjusted our withholdings properly, so we don’t loan the government so much money this year?

Good: There is cookie dough in the fridge at home.

Bad: All the cookie sheets are dirty.

Undecided: If I make cookies on the cookie sheet that garlic bread was made on last night, will the cookies be garlicky?

There’s a lady in my Master Gardener (MG) class who reminds me far too much of Evil Coworker (EC) from my last job. EC pretty much made my last job a living Hell, so you can probably imagine that seeing her twin (ECT) show up at MG training was unsettling. ECT has the same build, facial features, haircut, glasses, little string that holds the glasses on, and way of moving as EC. That would be bad enough, but ECT also has the exact same air of superiority that made me want to strangle EC.

I’m trying to tell myself, whenever the urge to strangle ECT arises, that I don’t know this new lady. She’s quite possibly very nice. It’s not her fault she so closely resembles EC that I am tempted to approach her and ask her if she has any relatives in Michigan. This internal conversation isn’t working too well so far. No, I haven’t tried to wrap my hands around her throat, but I cringe each and every time I see her or hear her speak. Maybe I can convince her to dye her hair hot pink or to slouch a little bit in her chair instead of perching on the edge of it as though each and every vertebrae in her body was fused together?

One of the first times I met Andy’s family, we played Scrabble. I used the word “orbicular.” One of my not-yet-as-of-then-in-laws challenged this word, looked it up in the dictionary, and made me take back my wonderful word when it wasn’t in the book. For ten years now I have kept that word as my own. Every now and then I would say it just to hear its wonderful sound: orbicular! But I still carried the shame of trying to scrabble a word that did not exist.

Today I am vindicated. In Chapter 1 of my Master Gardener text, I came across that word again. Orbicular, my friends, is one of many leaf blade shapes. When I read that word, I let out a yelp of joy and rolled my chair over to my keyboard to do a dictionary search. Sure enough, orbicular is all over the online dictionaries. What sort of dictionary were Andy’s parents using, anyhow?

I want a recount on that Scrabble match.

We were at the mall today trying to find some new sheets to buy with a gift card we got at Christmas. (Apparently the store only carries lame sheets; you have to order the cool sheets from the catalog.) Right inside the door I saw a fabulous shimmer. It drew me to it. It was purple. And glittery.

Normally I would never buy such wonderfulness, but they were 70% off. I got these bits of baby bling for only $4.79. I hope Kim is proud.