Belated birthday wishes for Epic. May this be your best year to date.

Wow Barb! Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Gorgeous dress, Epic! And thanks for the invite, I wish I could!

I am feeling meh and overwhelmed this morning, which actually carried over from last night. Time to follow the advice I got in my last fortune cookie; "Dispel negativity with creative activities."

Epic, that dress is sooooo purdy!

And thank you, my darlings, for all the lovely compliments on my dancing adventures. I swear, it almost took more nerve to post that than it did to actually perform. And lemme tell you, performing took some gumption. But now I've got the first one out of the way and yes, I said first, because I'm going to start competing later this year. That's what I've really discovered I love about ballroom-- like figure skating it appeals to both my creative and competitive sides. It also gets me out of the house and out of my own head, which is a very good thing and ultimately, can only help the writing.

Win/Win!

I'm thinking of getting a massage, then biking over to a nearby coffee house for a day of books and fic.

Sounds like an excellent vacation day to me!

My friend got that dress and promptly wore it to work (at a bookstore). Her husband was like "It looks like a prom dress" but everyone else thought she looked smashing! It's a gorgeous dress!

My workplace is a very much male-dominated, business-very-casual sort of place. Even with my solid rep for individuality and over-the-top-ness, that dress would be too much. A (male) friend happened to return a call from me while I was in the dressing room and I asked him to take me out somewhere nice so I'd have an excuse to buy the dress and he said yes. Now we just need him to have slightly better follow-through than usual.

Belated birthday wishes for Epic. May this be your best year to date.

Thanks, Laura!

Oh, and WindSparrow, you should definitely try to find yourself some dance classes! There are so many out there, and so fun! (In addition to local dance studios, I've also done classes through the YMCA and City Parks - there's tons of stuff out there! Lots of different times & costs - and fun!)

smonster, insent.

Bleargh, my allergies are kicking my ass this week. I went to bed early with a massive allergy migraine, and I sneezed and dripped all the way through the farmer's market.

I did get a fabulous planter with black petunias, heliotrope, and allysium -- a HUGE planter, for $10!

Now I have to write, and I really just want to lay down with an ice pack on my nose and eyes.

Barb you looked fantastic!!

I miss ballroom dancing, at some point I'm hoping Will and I will be able to take swing dance lessons, he's expressed an interest in it.

I miss ballroom dancing, at some point I'm hoping Will and I will be able to take swing dance lessons, he's expressed an interest in it.

Oh, that would be awesome-- one of the next Latin dances I'm tackling is East Coast Swing. I have to master six dances for the scholarship type of competition my teacher wants to enter me in: three Latin, three ballroom, so I'm doing rumba, cha-cha, and EC Swing for the Latin and waltz, tango, and foxtrot for the ballroom.

Oy. No, I'm not just a little crazy.

Of course you aren't crazy! East Coast Swing was kinda hard for me, I had problems with the timing. But I loved the hustle. And the cha cha and tango and rumba.

I always thought my dad should do some competitions because he's good and dances all the time, but I think that kinda thing takes the fun out of it for him.

On Sunday he went to Argentine Tango lessons and I think he's teaching a bit at the college ballroom dance club. I know he's not a faculty adviser anymore, but he's there every Sunday evening.

one of the next Latin dances I'm tackling is East Coast Swing

Superfun! Swing is my most favorite of all the dances I do. I started on East Coast, then progressed to Lindy Hop. Warning - once you've mastered Lindy it's hard to hold yourself back to East Coast. Hope you love it as much as I do.

Andi, try cold steeped tea bags on your eyes. Helps my allergy eye to feel less flamey.

Yesterday, I was alternating between chamomile and black tea bags. It only seemed to help while they were actually on my eyelids. I woke up this morning and it was even worse than yesterday, to the point where I was wondering if I should call the clinic. I thought there was a possibility I was either working on a major sleep deficit, or a bit dehydrated, or both. So I managed to guzzle around 30 oz of liquid before going back to bed, with a cool, damp washcloth over my eyes. Lo, and behold, I woke up at noon with my eyes feeling noticeably better. So here I sit with another 32 oz bottle of water (refillable, have had it since living in AZ), pondering potassium-rich foods for lunch. Also pondering whether to say, screw doing laundry, go back to bed for more sleep.

Oddly with all this fun stuff happening to my eyes, I've managed to write three Mentalist fics in the last week.