I am about to spend BIG MONEY to have somebody else do gardening work that wouldn't need doing so badly if I weren't a big lazy slut. Or, if, y'know, I hadn't had pneumonia, bad migraines, and an injured shoulder.

I feel a mixture of guilt and relieved. Once the work is done, I hope, the relieved will predominate.

If we were in the same town, Betsy, Mom would probably pay you. She loves that stuff.

Among the stuff I'm paying to have done is having sprinklers moved and retaining boards re-set, so probably not.

Ok, maybe not. But she misses having dirt to dig in.

t always bugs me the way that every time something comes out with reduced or no sugar, it means they used artificial sweeteners instead, too.

TOTALLY. There are a lot of things out there with TONS of added artificial sweeteners, and I'm like "can't you just make something with slightly less sugar, instead?". Like drinks--if they could make one with some flavor, but not tons of nutrasweet or splenda. Or yogurt. Or hell, even some candy!

TV Land is running a Miami Vice marathon. Man, I miss the 80's. I can't get over the number of BIG stars that made appearances.

Michael Mann is an incredibly gifted visual director.

There are a lot of things out there with TONS of added artificial sweeteners, and I'm like "can't you just make something with slightly less sugar, instead?"

They have spent billions of dollars convincing americans we need everything sugar coated and sweetened to the point Diabetes is soaring. Do you think they are going to stop now?

Plus, corn subsidies are making the corn syrup sweetener business PROFITABLE.

Yeah, I've been noticing a ton of low-carb products lately where they replaced the sugar with artificial sweetener, and it's things that would taste perfectly fine if you just put in less sugar and didn't replace it with anything. (Although, I've seen Frosted Flakes and a few other sugary cereals with 1/3 less sugar -- is that replaced with anything, or just less? Although, considering the amount of sugar that's in Frosted Flakes to begin with, the 1/3 less would still have a ton.)

(When did the Frosted Flakes box switch from "Sugar Frosted Flakes" to "Frosted Flakes of Corn." I've seen the "Sugar Frosted Flakes" box in old ads, but it's been "Frosted Flakes of Corn" for as long as I can remember. I wonder when that switched, and why.)

I have been painting all day in the new apartment, and it looks soooo pretty! We're undecided about repainting over the parts we want to leave white. On the one hand, it probably needs it. On the other hand, it would be so much less work to just leave them alone. And we're going to be putting bookshelves and posters and stuff in front of most of the walls anyway.

We're also realizing that adding a room and a hallway has actually decreased our total usable wallspace (because the hallway's too narrow to put anything against the walls), making bookshelf placement kind of problematic. We have three bookshelves I wouldn't mind getting rid of, but we're still going to have to put all of our books somewhere. And we're hurting for shelf space as it is.