Speaking as a former teacher, group projects are... but even that frustration can be educational.

Yes, but the lessons you learn doing a group project in school don't really apply in the workplace, because your goals are different. At least for me, my goal with group projects in school was to not have the other students hate me. In the workplace, I don't care if the other folks hate me. And I can use different tactics: the goal is the important thing in the workplace, not the process, so I can involve managers to prod people; I can turn into a manager myself and demand to see work at incremental stages; I can take tasks away from one person and assign them to another; I can patronize, chivvy, tickle, and harrass.

Not that my workplace experience has been anymore successful in achieving the goal by the date specified than school projects were...I've been pretty convinced that none of my cow-orkers learned anything from doing group projects in school anyway.

But if it's brown mold, it will feed off heat, and must be killed with cold!

I was thinking the same thing.

Go Allyson with the new look!

{{GC}} {{Sparky and family}}

And, well, I realize these are all first world problems.

They are not, though. They are the epitome of universal problems. It's only in the first world that some people DON'T have budget problems. And nothing sucks like budget concerns.

Lily is too cute for words. I love the way she's sleeping, and I love her little leopard-print outfit.

Go Gris!

Annabel is absolutely beautiful. She also looks very intelligent and thoughtful.

Demolished houses make me so sad, even if they needed it.

I went back and took more pictures: [link]

They didn't bother to take the renters' stuff out before they started demo'ing. They gave them the 90 required days... we think. If no, I guess a lawyer will be subpoenaing my external HD full of photos.

More Annabel pics. I've switched from JPEG to RAW since I finally have a hard drive that can hold the larger file size of RAW. Unfortunately, on my four-year-old computer it takes a minute per to convert RAW to JPEG.

Anyway.

My favorite: [link]

Two on the swings:
1. [link]

2. [link]

Not a baby photo: [link]

The insect-adverse should avoid this.

I love how she sleeps in Steve Holt! position.

I call that the Garth Brooks pose. It is the most blessed thing you can ask for with a very young baby--because it means they are ASLEEP and not half!asleepgoingtowakeupverysoon.

Photos chosen as part of masterplan to convince all the hot, smart, and funny people to jump on the bandwagon.

Through the years I have met a large number of brilliant people that found the idea of having children an outragious waste of their time and talents. Seriously. I had several people berate me for having such a silly notion when I was attempting pregnancy. It didn't work when I pointed out that leaving all of the childbearing to the poor and uneducated wasn't really the best overall plan.

Such shiny Annabel hair! I appreciate the shutter bug parents. I'm very bad about pictures. I forget all the time. Trying to fix that.

Raq killed me. I'm dead. I have forgotten everything else I was going to say. I may have to stay home from school today. Can't risk running into one of *those*!

Through the years I have met a large number of brilliant people that found the idea of having children an outragious waste of their time and talents.

Everyone used to assume the DH and I were in this category, because we so adamantly didn't want children. We knew it was that we didn't want children at that time, but everyone else seemed to feel that if we were married and out of high school, we should be reproducing. It made me cranky. There was nothing I could say in response to "You should have kids" that didn't make it worse. "We're not in a good financial place right now," "We aren't ready for kids," "We aren't ready to be parents," and "We aren't in a safe country for children" all got "Oh, you never will be" as a response (none of them true).

Finally we started telling people "Children don't fit our consumer profile." This had the effect of being odd enough to make them stop for a second, and was so clearly a deflection and not a real answer that most people didn't pursue it.

It's true, though, that I would've been a terrible mother at age 20. Or age 30. And my time and talents were better used elsewhere. Now, nsm, but then, oh yeah.

Even if the brown mold feeds off the heat, won't the fire have a drying quality that will kill it? What is brown mold? Do I want to know?

That's pretty much all I gots. Plei, I have so been there, and it is hard. The best thing I can say about it is that it is not permanent. Oh but once in a great-great while, even if it is not on budget, if it is at all possible, it is good to spend five dollars you don't have on yourself.

Annabel and Lily continue to be stunners. I am feeling the need to see late issue Owen and Mal pics, just so the boys get their two cents worth of Buffista adoration.

Oh, I think I could see more Mal pics from that link, but the giant bug will eat me.

I clearly waited until last minute before mommyhood. It was the best plan for me. It wasn't so much that I objected to people deciding that their talents were too important to spend on raising kids, it was that they were angry at me for wasting my time on such things.

Random nice stuff this weekend. I was out of milk and ran to the Walgreens. As I approached the section I noted that there were no gallons and sighed a sigh. The young delivery guy was punching stuff in his tablet and told me he was just making a delivery and there would be milk in about 10 minutes. I thanked him and indicated I would run some errands and come back. He then asked me what type I wanted and offered to run out to his truck and get it for me so I wouldn't have to come back. And he did. It cheered my entire day. What a sweety.

And I am off to the hospital. MIL is having her surgery today. Wish her quick recovery and let's hope we get it all ~ma.