I have escaped. I had one cat on my lap and one between me and the back of the chair, so I couldn't even lean back and nap. Tapping at the phone was disturbing enough to Rosie that she eventually let me up so she could take my place on the chair.

I should think about dinner, get the recycling out to the bin, and see if the laundry room is available.

I wanted to be productive this weekend, but the ground is frozen solid, so the only yard work I was able to do was raking the remaining leaves out of the corner of the yard where all the leaves live. The compost is a solid block of decomposing ice inside the barrel, and I can't even open the door where you put more raw materials in. The weeds will just have to wait until the ground has thawed enough to use my soil knife.

Yesterday we went to a maple sugaring demonstration at a local nature preserve, and all the buckets were empty because it was below freezing and no sap was flowing. The guide finally found one bucket with a block of frozen sap in the bottom, and let everyone swipe it with a finger for a taste. The demonstration in the sugar house was her explaining that she'd had to let the fire go out because the pans were in danger of boiling dry. (We did get to sample some syrup that had been made a few weeks ago, when we had that freak warm spell. It was AWESOME.)

I lost yesterday to flat-out depression (semi tied to my 50th birthday coming up, I think), and seriously slept most of the day aside from finishing a book.

Today was work, which was grueling, but I'm still on "go" from it, so I've been productive since I got home. Yay.

Also, I now want maple syrup and a cat in my lap.

Also, I now want maple syrup and a cat in my lap.

Me too.

I'm now paying for letting my current class get away from me. I was on a roll earlier but I've been stuck for the last while. That happened once I realized I'd misread part of the assignment and I had to rework a chunk of what I'd already written. Thankfully I could keep most of it, just tweak it here or there. But now I'm stuck.

I'm so glad I have a week off before my next class. Happy Spring Break to me (after midnight that is).

Just make sure you don't end up with maple syrup in your lap!

I'm sorry, Amy.

I found out today that some paperwork I'd been stressed out about losing since Wednesday, stressed to the point of having physical stress symptoms show up - was right there all along. I had a couple staff members looking to help me find it. They tried to telk me it was right there, but I had convinced myself that the ones they found were previous month's copies. Then one of them said, "look, you signed off on it on Feb. 8, that's the most recent one. You didn't lose your mind or your paperwork, you just got ahead of yourself." I've been losing sleep, worrying about this stuff. When she told me that, I did that laugh/cry thing. Then I went and took a nap to make up for the lost sleep.

And now I have lasagna that just came out of the oven. It's got spinach in it, so it's totally healthy.

Phew, Andi!

I have to get this out, and can't do it on FB: my former employer has a fairly high-profile corporate partnership thing right now... that is going to get them $75K. I am SURE that is more work for the money than almost any other method, and now they are publicly in bed with the Koch brothers. I do not approve!!

My sister and I are kind of snowed in, and it's lovely. I have a fire and a beer and red curry for dinner. Also we skied four free today because only lunatics and season pass holders would be out on this weather...

Oooh nice, Consuela.

Jesse, sounds like you got out just in time.

It's got spinach in it, so it's totally healthy.

Totally.

Amy, I'd loan you my cats but they're skittish around other people.

Suzi, I'm going to imaging you having a wild spring break.

Suzi, I'm going to imaging you having a wild spring break.

If only.

I just hate that I've become THAT student. Calculating the bare minimum needed to get the bare minimum grade to stay in the program. It isn't even that I have an issue with the course material. I just haven't been able to brane the last three weeks and have let things slide.

The good news is that I'm down to the introduction and conclusion, but I need to walk away from it for a bit. I need to be able to read through it with a clear mind to catch any gaps before I do the summarizations.