I am eating chocolate on VD that my boyfriend gave me. Last week, when we went grocery shopping, he made sure to pick up some that he knows I like, when I would have walked right on past. I'm not sure if that is love or enabling.

But it sure tastes good.

when come bring spork

This has to be a thread title in the near future. Maybe for F2F.

They are having a bakesale at school today, so I had a red velvet cupcake for b'fast. Nom nom nom.

We should insist on sporks being supplied for the F2F hotel food.

Oh, man, poor vw.

And, Susan, grrr on your car. They're hateful, hateful creatures, and horrible money pits. If it weren't for the need to cross the Bay Bridge and go to places not easily public-transit-accessible, I think we'd be much better off financially rolling ours off a cliff and just taking cabs everywhere.

We're making and decorating sugar cookies tonight for VD, because it's cheap and easy and fun and we already have most of the ingredients at home. Also, we are too tired for anything more elaborate.

Last night Matilda was a sleep-sucking demon baby; she fell asleep in my arms on the couch after the 9th or 10th rewind-and-rewatch of the Flight of the Conchords hobbit video, then woke at 11 screaming and sobbing. I tried to shush her and rock her back into a coma, and at some point Hec took over and talked and back-rubbed her into tremendous drowsiness -- from which she yanked herself screaming and sobbing a good half-dozen times, until his knees couldn't take it any more and we brought her into the bed. Where she wriggled, hairpulled, pinched, punched and chattered until 2 a.m. At one point the exhaustion and her happy babbling violence were so awful that I had a horrid fit of giggles, which at least kept me from crying or defenestrating myself.

Hec may actually be worse off than me today. We may have to say to hell with the cookies tonight, even, and just give each other baby-free catnaps as our gift of love. Much needed, but far less awesome than a bowling-pin-embroidered retro cardigan.

Raise your hand if you have no childcare tomorrow, as well as Monday.

[Sorry. Bad joke deleted.]

warmly sympathetic arm rubs to all in Chez Zmayhem. poor boos.

My effervescent neighbor left me a hilariously apt vday card. It features a jack russell leaping in the air, gleefully extolling the joys of valentine's day...and a cat bearing a snarky expression, drolling muttering 'yeah, happy v-day...whatev.' That would be the friend and her son (my faux-son) to a T.

In return, I've used the patterns for pop-up cards linked to here. I combined the vday heart and the mom day lotus flower. With stickers and stuff, it came of quite nicely.

go me with the craft madness.

They're hateful, hateful creatures, and horrible money pits. If it weren't for the need to cross the Bay Bridge and go to places not easily public-transit-accessible, I think we'd be much better off financially rolling ours off a cliff and just taking cabs everywhere.

We're probably lucky this car performs as well as it does. It's a '96 Ford Contour, so it wasn't wonderful to begin with and is getting old. What saves us is that both our cars (the other is a '99 Mazda 626) are low mileage for their age. We have short commutes. Right now mine is driving AB to daycare, then going to the park & ride to catch the bus. I haven't actually checked the odometer, but I think I'm driving somewhere between 2-3 miles/day. DH drives to work, but we're maybe 5 or 6 miles from campus, so that's still pretty short. And since all the travel we've done in the past 5 years is go home to see our families, we don't do road trips.

But I just hope we can get another year or two out of the Ford, and maybe 5 more out of the Mazda. There's actually a chance we might get bailed out of our financial woes by, of all things, inheritance from a long-lost relative. Only it's not so much "long-lost" as "complex family situation," and it's on DH's side and not mine, so I haven't and won't be going into the details here. Not my story to tell, you know? BUT--assuming the somewhat estranged relative who was in charge of the recently deceased relative's finances acted responsibly, we're due to inherit enough shares in stock of a major oil company (this being money that's been in one of the OK sides of the family since, well, oil was discovered in OK) to, at current prices, completely clear our debts with ample room to spare. But we just don't know whether the stock is still there yet, and due to various legal issues, probably won't know until some indeterminate point later in the year.

It's Schrodinger's oil stock, and it's kind of maddening. We're trying to live as if all the money is gone and we have to keep slowly whittling at the debt while we live paycheck to paycheck and angst every time something like this car repair happens. But there's that tantalizing possibility that maybe, just maybe we're going to be bailed out within the year, and I can't help thinking about it.

Sox, I'm finished work early in the afternoon. Would it help if I came to play with sidewalk chalk? It's not a full day, and Monday's no good, but if it helps you are welcome to my time.