<p>I just finished my taxes - woo hoo!</p>
<p>Finishing taxes so early or doing 3 laps of fly - wow, you guys are impressive! I have to do something positive today besides sleeping (staying home with a terrible cold).</p>
<p>My little thing - my warm, sleepy “teenage” kitten keeping me company today, trying to push the computer off my lap. And D’s call from college!</p>
<p>As part of my ice storm experience in Kentucky, the insurance adjustor came back with a number that was higher than I was expecting for damages at my home.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you all! What a fascinating group. </p>
<p>Marite, congratulations on the grad school acceptance.</p>
<p>The washing machine DOES count as a good thing. I’m impressed.</p>
<p>Momof2inca, go you!!! You should be so proud of yourself and how nice to have a supportive group around you.</p>
<p>Sweetbaboo, that takes some strength of character. I have decided to pretend that I have a special dispensation to never think about taxes again. (Picture fingers in the ear and eyes closed.)</p>
<p>BOTH of our Ds called on the same day this week, 30 minutes apart! That seems to happen often - some sort of sisterly telepathy! </p>
<p>Older D graduated in May and has been working since. She applied to graduate schools for the fall (which was her plan all along) and has heard from 2 schools with BIG $$$ offers. She visited one last weekend and will visit another at the end of the month. Still waiting to hear from 2 others. My H commented on how she is handling all of this (applying, trips, negotiating, deciding, etc.) by herself. We are SO VERY PROUD of her, but it is still weird that we are not involved in a major decision in her life.</p>
<p>Younger D is a soph working extremely hard to excel at her very challenging school. She said that along with her double major she is now thinking of another science minor?!? She is thinking medical school and doing everything in her power to achieve that goal. She had a test in one of the very difficult science weed out courses this week and said it was the first time she finished a test at this school and felt she knew the answer to every question on the test!! We hope her grade reflects it! Got a letter from the school yesterday that she made the Dean’s List (all 3 semesters she’s been there) for the fall semester. We are SO VERY PROUD of her too!</p>
<p>Somemom’s H’s comments reflect my husband’s sentiments exactly -
.</p>
<p>In the dark of the evening as we lay in bed before falling asleep, DH often says, “Remember when we had girls?” Enough to break your heart! Thursday night after they called he said, “Our girls called!” We are just sort of sad and pitiful, aren’t we!!</p>
<p>I was in a chili cook off last night, I didn’t win but it was such a fun experience and it was free. I wasn’t expecting to compete with such high level chili makers and their science! Some people even took the time to tell me they liked mine best. And I saved some of mine to eat today.</p>
<p>I visited my best friend, her husband, and their 8 month old baby last weekend… and I was still wearing my winter hat when I got there… I picked up the baby and he started screaming and screaming (he usually only does that if some strange person picked him up)… but I’m not a strange lady to him… we see each other all the time. I took off my hat, he looked up at me, instantly stopped crying and his face lit up. It was adorable.</p>
<p>My friend and the baby are coming to see my new house today and they are staying till Monday, so I am looking forward to having guests!!!</p>
<p>I usually keep the office candy jar stocked for my student workers, but this week I got so busy that I never had a chance to buy more candy. So yesterday one of the students came in with a big bag of candy to refill it! So sweet of him.</p>
<p>Such a little thing…but it just doesn’t take much to put a smile on somebody’s face.</p>
<p>Wonderful thread!!</p>
<p>Congrats to Marite–It seems like only yesterday…</p>
<p>I love Les Mis–and Eponine has such lovely songs.
Momof2–I’m impressed by your exercise routine,
I like the male co-worker who baked a cake himself,
and nice insurance companies,
and chili (making some now),
and romantic husbands,
and boys who occasionally call home without being asked, and listen to suggestions from moms about showing gratitude towards girlfriends,
and calls from sons who are happily working and caring for the new cat.</p>
<p>oh yes–my bookclub had its first anniversary party!! At least 30 active members…</p>
<p>Wow, that is a big book club, bookworm! Congrats on that!</p>
<p>Thanks.
We meet at public library, often have guest speakers, always food (thanks to me). Attendance varies on the book being discussed.</p>
<p>I’m ready for other people to chime in with good news. Idler posted on another thread, with all great stuff about his son.</p>
<p>I bought a pair of non-stop tickets to a conference in May with a collegue I really enjoy travelling with & we are getting complimentary registration.</p>
<p>My parents let us take them out to dinner and drive them to the opera last night–usually they insist on treating us. It feels good to be able to give back! :)</p>
<p>My kids are happy and thriving at their U together and really enjoy one another!</p>
<p>The staff for my project have mutual respect and congeniality toward one another.</p>
<p>Hubby’s test yesterday revealed a benign condition rather than something scary.</p>
<p>I have light & medium thermals to keep me warm even if it gets cold in my trip to DC in March (hey, in HI, it’s cold when it drops to 70s). :)</p>
<p>DH and I made an upholstered headboard for our room…without arguing 
All those hours of watching the home channel is finally paying off!</p>
<p>My dd got an internship today-Yippee! She is so excited and so are we. And not as exciting, but it did make me happy, Moen faucets have given me wonderful service. They replaced a faucet part for free and sent it by express. Great customer service is becoming more and more important to me.</p>
<p>Did we run out of good news??</p>
<p>I enjoyed the sun as I was walking to work. My crocuses survived the frozen soil and the bunny infestation!</p>
<p>My H ‘fixed’ my oven. I wanted to run the self clean cycle, but the hook wouldn’t latch so the cycle wouldn’t start. I poked around and started to disassemble it, but got stuck so asked H for help. He looked for a manual on-line for disassembly instructions… didn’t find them, but did come across something that said the latch might just need a reset via a power cycle. Flip of the breaker and we are back in business! YAY and free! And clean oven!</p>
<p>Got home last night from a 3 hour drive home from work in a blizzard, and found that a neighbor had plowed my driveway for me. Then went out this morning to dig out the end of the driveway after the snowplow went by in the wee hours, and found that my neighbor had already been over and moved that pile as well!</p>
<p>I was called today to do a 3 hour market research study. May not sound too exciting, except it paid $150 cash, and since I’m still on the unemployment line, it makes a world of difference!</p>
<p>My daughter was selected for the district science fair for the third time.
My cymbidium orchid that I bought last year was left outside for dead has one stem of orchid buds.
My garden is filled with lots of freesia/irises/daffodils. Spring is here!</p>