I hate when I do that, meara. [ETA leaving my phone at home, that is. I usually am pretty stoked to sleep 12 hours. Lately I have been getting around six hours a night and I don't know why or what to do about it. I drop right off when I go to bed, which I do atmy usual early time, but I wake up in the middle of the night and am just awake for 1-4 hours, sometimes not getting back to sleep at all before it is time to get up. Sunday is the only day I can completely just forget about the alarm and sleeping for 10-12 hours then (by going back to sleep multiple times and resolutely not checking the time) seems to do me a lot of good]

Winning, msbelle! For real.

Ok, yard work time. Here I go. This is me going outside to rake mulch. On my way.

I'm officiating at our BFFs' wedding Saturday (a week from yesterday), and the groom just emailed me the ceremony -- except it was a recipe for black bean chili. I cannot overstate how totally typical that is for us.

(I eventually got the ceremony, and now I have to practice so that I don't weep through the whole thing, because they wrote a really beautiful ceremony. [I have no shame in some tears while I officiate; I just don't want to cry so hard I can't speak, because that would make it hard to actually do my job.])

t edit And the recipe sounds really good, too!

I was looking at some pew polls on the election

[link]

and it looks like the group that pulls Trump over Hillary is older white religious married men, the less educated they are the bigger the gap. Not sure that is a group that is gonna be swayed much.

Trump doesn't lead in an age group until over 50. The ONLY category of women that he leads in is the total pool non-college grads.

Across white/hispanic/black distinguished demographics, Clinton polls 10 points higher with women vs. men. If I get called about doing voter registration, I am totally focussing on getting as many women registered as possible.

except it was a recipe for black bean chili

I would pay actual dollars to see the video of you officiating using the black bean chili ceremony as written.

Well, the mulch is raked even, and the lawn is about half mowed. I thought I'd clip som blackberry vines out of the rose bush on the side of the house, and after 45 minutes of that it is not very close to being done. I think I'm gonna have to abandon that for today and finish the lawn.

Is the mulch over the cardboard? How's that going?

I would pay actual dollars to see the video of you officiating using the black bean chili ceremony as written.

Totally!

"I now pronounce you simmered until tender. You may now be served with lime wedges and sour cream."

"You may nom the bride."

For real, though, in the ceremony they wrote, instead of "You may kiss the bride," they wrote "TIME FOR MAKEOUTS!" They are 100% serious. This is why they're our besties.

The rest of the ceremony makes me cry, though.

The wedding is in the groom's mom's backyard, SUPER casual (the groom is wearing shorts and a teal button-down shirt). He has 2 daughters who are 13-ish and 10, I think. One of the girls is the ring bearer, and she said she wants to wear a bear costume so she can be the ring BEAR. But they decided that might be too hot in a backyard in Ohio in August, so she's compromising by wearing her footie pajamas that's a unicorn complete with horn, and she's carrying the rings on the horn.

I cannot WAIT for this wedding. There will also be a pinata.

The devastation to Ellicott City is sinking in. I mean, I have faith my salon will prevail in new digs.They already have spaces in other nearby salons arranged so no appointments to be missed, should be able to secure most of their stuff once the building is stabilized (the first floor didn't flood, just had the foundation knocked from it...) but Main Street is a disaster. It's a lovely little town and I've patronized so many businesses down there on my every two-month trips. To think of so many gone, Uhg. Caplans, though it no longer held my favorite antique store, one of my favorite spaces, gutted. The newly opened vintage shop in the old bank, 6' of water in the first floor vault.

And I was just there last week, but because it was so miserably hot, didn't venture in to my usual haunts. Bah.