Note that Advil does promote bleeding (though not as bad as aspirin!) but on the other hand, it relaxes muscles so that may help with the cramps.

I was surprised when the doctor suggested staying away from Advil when I broke my toe, but evidently inflammation is actually kind of good for healing bones. I try to stick to mostly Tylenol because other NSAIDs make my ears ring more than normally.

I've been away from computers and internets for almost 48 hours. Shocking! Unfortunately missed Kat's birthday during that span, so happy belated birthday, Kat!

We went to visit DH's father in the country, and came home with a baby frog that we found by the pond. So today's main adventure will involve buying some supplies to take care of the frog -- crickets and I don't know what else -- and trying to ID the little guy. (I'm guessing a gray tree frog but I'd like to hear from someone who knows.) Not going to buy a big terrarium until he's bigger, for now we are housing the frog in our old fish bowl.

The other big excitement of the visit was going to a family friend's house for a poolside barbeque, which was interrupted by a summer thunderstorm. We were watching the horizon while swimming, so everyone cleared out of the pool before the deluge and lightning hit, and less than an hour later the storm had moved on.

Oh, from way back but I wanted to respond to this from Rick:

but for kids, no matter the degree to which they throw themselves into it at the time, it doesn't necessarily stay with them. They are highly responsive to the collaborative environment that was created, but it doesn't mean that they have the self-consistency and self-regulation to make it stick.

I see this with my son especially. He can sound so very rational and grown-up but he doesn't usually follow through on all the big boy things he says. I tend to see it as a persona he's trying on for size.

We don't handle a lot of our client hardware needs, but those that we upgraded from XP we moved right to 8.1. DH had suggested moving them to Windows 7, but I insisted that they go to 8.1 and just deal. No sense in having to live through two updates in a short time. Of course 8 will go away in no time at all and we'll have to deal again. Change is bad. Dislike Change.

They tried to update us to Windows 8 last month and everyone's computers crashed. Apparently the new strategy is to sneak up on it.

There are quail on my patio. Two of them. Never saw quail there before! Just bobbing around, eating bugs, giving the middle feather to my furious cat, six inches away and behind glass.

I'm trying to make my small patch of land bird- and bee- and small-animal-friendly.

Thanks, Burrell.

ita, hope the interview is going (went?) well! Will look for updates on the test.

Circle swim is the devil.

I concur.

Most people don't do flip turns. Even those swimming masters don't. I only do them for the first handful of laps then I go back to just turning at the wall.

I'm trying to make my small patch of land bird- and bee- and small-animal-friendly.

Yay! Me too. Unfortunately some of the things that make for good habitat (like leaving dead trees in place) are against neighborhood standards.

Also, yay taunty quail!

I'd love to plant something other than grass in my yard, but since my property connects to my neighbor's (as does my house) anything I plant in my yard will eventually be in their yard, and they may not care for that. The yard is not flat, either, which makes design-for-use difficult, at least for me.

I wish I could have bought an older ranch style house with a few acres around it, like what I had before in Nashville, but I couldn't afford that here.

I kind of want to arrange for landscapers for my tiny front yard, because my mother claims she's going to deal with it, but hasn't yet! Oy.

I'm so looking forward to moving someplace where I never have to think about a yard again.