Hi, all. I’ve had a blood pressure spike, and am supposed to move slowly or lie down. May not be around a whole lot. Prayers and good thoughts to bring it down so I can resume a normal life much appreciated.
I was unable to get a prescription to eat more chocolate. Sad.
{{{LiLi}}}
swampy, does the pile of ashes come with some sackcloth, or do you have to wear that to the church yourself?
TGIW - only one day left to the weekend!!!
My prayers are on the way, li-li. Sorry you are having such a rough time.
Thanks, gt! That’s going to come in really handy!
Strong dissolution thoughts headed your way, kai. You can borrow my mantra: “It can only get better!”
My last call with my career counselor is today. We’re to discuss the interview process. It will be helpful if I ever get one.
Happy hump day to all.
Tupug
Instead of Thank God It’s Friday, you do So Happy It’s Thursday?
morning all; good to see you kai and sending quick dissolution thoughts your way too. {{{{{{kaiwik}}}}}}
Been busy this morning; our office space will be re-configured this weekend so all in cubes are having to pack everything up. Wah!
Happy hump day, and the beginning of Lent, for those who observe.
My midwife says that I am attention-seeking, and she’d like me to have a normal pregnancy next time instead of developing all kinds of weird symptoms. I love my midwife. 
I particularly love that she came here this morning at eight to run tests on me, and hang out with Gnat and drew him some pictures.
I also love the Ontario health system, that provides midwifery care for free (well, covered under our socialist medical stuff).
{{{Li-Li}}}
Not much going on here just snow, snow, snow.
It (the internet) allows me to follow the daily events at St Olaf College. No – I didn’t go there but I have done guest lectures there and it is now my most favorite small liberal arts college in the world. The place is just frikkin cool.
Also I am into the “props” side of horror - film and amusement park rides. Without the internet the choices of zombies, corpses and rubber baseball bats is fairly limited. With computers the possible products available is almost endless.
No ----------- the joy comes from recycling the pancakes they burn Tuesday as the ashes for Wednesday!!!
I skipped the pancake thing because of the weather (our congregation is about 20 miles from our door) and did the buffet down the casino. It was fantastic but had Pastor run short on ashes this AM I would have felt very guilty.
{{LiLi}} Yay for the midwife, though!
{{kai}} Quick dissolution thoughts headed your way. Give the grandbabies extra hugs.
I’m trying to figure out what to do about my Eeyore coworker. He’s the one who’s been working lots of extra hours and making me feel bad (not by saying anything, though, just by being here) for leaving at 5 or 6. He does occasionally complain about the late nights, but a big part of it is his own fault for not leaving stuff until tomorrow. There’s only one thing we do that has to be done by EOD Tuesday (i.e. before you go home Tuesday so two of us were here until after 6 last night and he was here until 10:30); everything else that we do can be pushed out a day if necessary. I’m not his manager, but our manager has asked me to mentor him. I’m trying to figure out how to say “It’s your own damn fault that you’re here late all the frickin’ time. If there isn’t going to be an impact to the company or our customers if a project doesn’t get done today, then frickin’ go home at 5 and finish it tomorrow. There’s no award for being here the most hours.” I need to say that in a nicer way when I’m not frustrated with him for complaining about something (in a very Eeyore, woe-is-me, kind of way) that’s his own fault. He’s also much slooooooooooower at everything than I am so I would have been done with the project he was working on yesterday at 6-ish where he was here for another 4+ hours. I don’t know how to deal with that either. He really does remind me of Eeyore. I like him well enough on a person-to-person basis, but working together is driving me crazy.
{{LiLi}} and {{kai}} Sending lots of blood pressure lowering and strong dissolution thoughts as appropriate.
I’m not sure where the first half of today went, but I’m sure it was put to good use. Or maybe not. I need to stop watching replays of the men’s figure skating events from last night. 
BTW, another awesome (and potty-mouthed) cross-stitching site for y’all: Subversive Cross Stitch. I’m a big fan of the “Don’t Make Me Cut You” panel.
Li-Li how far along are you now?
35 weeks. So only two more weeks until I’m full-term, and start getting everyone’s wacko sure-fire labour inducing tips.
We did pancakes last night. We also had our reading group over talking about natural law and virtue ethics, which was fine as long as Argumentative Friend wasn’t super-irritating, and I stayed mostly lying down and watched the five guys tidying up after Gnat went to bed.
I’ve got a bunch of Diana Kennedy cookbooks out, and it always astonishes me how many Mexican recipes seem to amount to- roll in tortillas, cover with sauce or salsa, and eat. I’m not complaining, it just makes my pathetic attempts at Mexican food seem almost kind of authentic.
ruble - is that true or a whoosh?
Having grown up in a primarily Jewish neighborhood, it took a lot of will power to resist going up to my Christian co workers with a tissue saying “there’s some schmootz on your foreheaad”
Did people in your neighborhood - not you, naturally - perhaps find this a small way of getting back at the Catholics who had, historically, been their persecutors?
I have no dog in this fight…just curious.
When I was a Catholic schoolkid we used to compare our forehead ash blobs, while everyone else had nice dainty ash smears I always seemed to get a big ash blob smeared across my forehead and halfway down my nose and I’d get teased about it all day. Just one of the many things that drove me away from the church.
No, I just wasn’t used to seeing it and had to consciously remind myself that they do it on purpose
IANA Catholic but if I remember right it’s the ashes from the palm fronds from the last Palm Sunday.
I just told Sock Lady (who is Catholic) the pancake story and she laughed.
When I was a kid it seems our priest just pressed his ashy thumb into our foreheads. Now, they seem to put a big ole cross on there, which is pretty dramatic looking.