Journal Dilemma - When I get behind, my dilemma is to sum up as quickly and yet as throughly as possible. However, some of my adventures warrant more detailed stories than others. And sometimes I put together well-written drafts of my stories, and they sit around waiting to be posted. So today's dilemma: How long do I really want this post to be? I think I need to chop the draft in half, and give you part now, part later. I hope this works out!

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Ridiculously Happy - I find I can become ridiculously happy from the smallest things. I imagine this must be why I can handle life the way I do. I'm not sure why I can embrace things this way, but I'm definitely thankful this is my nature. So Thursday's ridiculously happy things included relief that I wasn't nearly as self-destructive as I thought... I thought I'd been procrastinating so badly about paying bills that I was really doing damage this month. Turns out I paid so many bills early and pre-scheduled so many payments before I went to Estrella that I only missed one due date this month (and only by 2 days). *whew!* So now my receipts are balanced again, my bills are paid, the register is balanced on every worksheet in my funny little color-coded Excel file, and I have money. I have bills paid. I'm ridiculously happy. Yippee.

And right after I finished snacking on a little half-veggie-wrap (freebies leftover from some work meeting or something), I sat down to my computer and found an invitation in my inbox. I have a passing acquaintance with (and by internet-only up until now) a friend-of-a-friend who works overseas. He's in town just for the weekend, and he invited me to meet him at another friend-of-a-friend's house on Saturday. We've never met in person, and such a nice afternoon invitation just made me ridiculously happy. So simple! So much joy! Life is so bizarre and so cool!

I got an email from one of my recruiters at my contracting company, who says I'm apparently "kicking butt" over at my job, because they just extended my contract officially (again) through the end of May. This time, instead of just more User Guide documentation, I'm helping them actually develop Training Materials -- which is what all my technical writing background is in. I've been doing Training Development for years, and now I'm helping them launch the training materials for this product, too. Yippee skippee!

And I finally worked on a MAJOR photo project that had been sitting for a year. Sometimes, I open a photos folder and I find just a couple dozen files. Easy-peasy, I edit them, upload them, and voila there's another photo album done. I even changed my desktop at work so now there are seven different picture frames that randomly show me a new image from cayswann.com every several minutes. All day long I get to see seven random images from my entire, live, public photo album sets. This week, I finally tackled my trip to Mississippi last year. When I opened the folder, there were 373 original photos in there! Yoikes! It's edited down a bit now, but erm, um, there's still 345 good images (and 3 videos) from the trip. *blush* But it makes me ridiculously happy! *giggle*

More Fun Things - Besides getting the Black Oak Lodge photos done, I also managed to spend some time on the Darachshire website (finally!), updating the random photos that pop-up on different pages. I cannot believe how long it took me to get around to this, my procrastination astounds me. And besides loading the photos on cayswann.com, I also loaded them up on darachshire.org (which is an entirely different kettle of fish).

My Craft Exchange with the gal in Massachusetts is going marvelously. I spun up several skeins of yarn, she knit them up, and I got them back in the mail this week. The fabric is just dreamy, and I cannot believe how marvelous this yarn is.

And then I got caught up on listening to my favorite podcasts, so I had extra time to work on my ChinesePod.com lessons again. These are little 8-10 minute audio language lessons, teaching Mandarin Chinese to English speakers. I mentioned to my roomie that I had extra time for my Chinese lessons, and she answered with an incredulous, "WHEN?!?" Um, er, on my drive to and from work? *laughs*

The Calendar Adventures - So, since I last posted, these are some of the things I've enjoyed: Wed Mar 19: Picked up Renee at the airport. This is Adrienne's Mom, and of course she flew in right away to see her new grandbaby, Benjamin. Thu Mar 20: I attended Purim services with Meala at a synagogue near my work. It was really fun to see how little kids (and the grown-ups) dress up and celebrate this minor holiday. We had some time for coffee afterwards, and then I stopped by late to visit with Jeff, Adrienne, and Renee. I got to hold Benjamin for the first time ever.

Fri Mar 21, my roomie held her "Mel's Everything party," which coincided with Spring Equinox, Purim, and just "celebrating" that she's staying in town this Fall (as she didn't get into any veterinary schools yet). It could have been a pity party, but she decided to make it a celebration party: Celebrate that Cat (me) doesn't have to find a new roomie yet.

Sat Mar 22: I went to have brunch with Leah (at a delicious deli, just blocks from my sister's house!) and we chatted for hours. Then I dropped by my sister's for a while, then we went to a BBQ potluck at our step-sister's house, to have "Easter" for the nieces (a day early). The afternoon schedule slipped by several hours, so we didn't get to stay nearly as long as we would have liked, but I got some cute photos of a hummingbird nest on their backporch, built right on the string of lights on the patio. Then the evening was spent at Ben and Erika's, where they were hosting a "Beer Tasting" for Erika's brother. I have never really liked beer much, and so Ben included me in the invitation so he could give us little samples of different beer types. I finally understand the difference between the sweeter or bitter beers, beers with a heavy hops taste (which I don't like). Conclusion: I still really prefer a hard cider over a beer, but a Guiness isn't that bad.

Sun Mar 23: I specifically planned sleeping over after the beer tasting, and spent a very lazy morning with Ben & Erika. I started re-reading a sci-fi book I'd read years ago, and then went to the book store shopping, to pick up copies of the series for myself. With such a relaxing morning, we decided the whole experience was a holiday, and named "Easter Eve = Beer Holiday" ... or "Erev Easter" which is just wrong on so many levels. *laughs* Finally, no one came to Project Day at my place, but I read three books in a day. What a wonderfully relaxing holiday!

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I'll pick up the stories again starting with last Monday, when I attended my first Bris (the Jewish ceremony for circumcision, when a baby boy is 8 days old). Now, I'll leave you with your Photo Portion for the day: And there's LOTS to see here! Should keep you quite busy until my next post.

Today's Photo Portion - First I got all the photos done for (1) Black Oak Lodge (Mar 2008), which includes two links to videos of the crazy weather (rain and hail); (2) I did add some Gulf Wars 08 pictures, from Shava's sets, just because I sent copies to friends who would enjoy them, but who might not have access to the Northshield Unofficial Photo Gallery; (3) Of course, I'm extraordinarily pleased to complete my (over 300 pictures) Gulf Wars album from the trip I took last year in March to Mississippi (with 3 videos);

(4) Meala and I each took photos at the "More String, Better!" part one Arts and Sciences on March 17; (5) Mom's birthday was just in Dec 2007; (6) Amya (Kim) decorated her apartment for her first Christmas on her own in Dec 2007 (with 1 video);

and (7) Lyondemere hosted a small demo at an Archery range in Dec 2007; (8) Nate and Nathan like to hold dinner parties, so here's a typical one from Dec 2007; and (9) On Saturday I met Jason, someone with whom I've only been an email correspondent.

  
  
   
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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Jason and all his wonderful friends