I finally have nothing but good news to report! Almost all good anyway. This will be a long entry, just so you know. I have much to say and hopefully, I’ll remember every little thing I wanted to mention. If not I’ll take notes and include them in my next entry.

Last night I had a dream Tom came into the room and said, “You can use the $500 you won for anything you want.”

“I thought we agreed to fill the propane tank with most of it?” I said.

But he insisted we didn’t have to use any of it for necessities and that it could all be for fun stuff.

I didn’t bother mentioning the dream to Tom because I didn’t think it meant anything.

Then the phone rang at 2:30 and off he went on a job interview. He was gone for almost two hours. At just before 5:00 he got the phone call he was hoping for. Now here’s a serious case of good news/bad news. The good news is: The job pays better than great at $14 hr. The bad news is: It’s only a 1-2 week assignment. It’s in Loomis which is 20 minutes away and he’ll be a QC inspector.

The funny thing is that he didn’t apply for this job. They found his résumé online AFTER he dumbed down his managerial experience figuring that was hindering him (along with his age). But this was an older résumé listing his experience as a Q&A manager up in Oregon.

The only sucky thing is that it will affect Unemployment and food stamps a bit. He said that being a small company he doesn’t have much hope of getting hired on, but hopes that there will be other similar assignments, which the temp agency said there should be.

He starts next Monday and it will be on days, though I’m on nights now. Figures, huh? LOL, so now any “alone time” I get will be mostly while I’m sleeping. Hopefully, Jesse will be off fishing like he seems to like to do a lot. I was joking with a friend about dumping her boyfriend if he got full custody of his kids. Of course she wouldn’t do that but she has about as much patience for little kids as I do. In other words that’s close to zero even if they’re sweet, adorable and well-behaved like she says they are. Well, this is how I feel about Tom; I could never imagine living without him, but I just want some goddamn space!

bursts out laughing A fellow sweeper is thrilled to have finally won something this month, so I just read – a book! hahahahahaha!!! I’m excited now that the first is approaching. Am I gonna win big? Well, of course! I just may not know about it on the first.

The $500 I won hasn’t arrived yet but the flip-flops have. They’re very comfortable even though they’re not bright, shiny and colorful. They have brown velvety soles and tan straps. I can feel why they’re $45.

The biggest surprise was the card Andy sent which he made, thanking us for the flip cam I won and sent him, and the $20 Walmart card inside of it! That was so nice of him! I assured him we’d both get a nice selection of junk food with it since tomorrow’s my day off from diet and fitness training, though all I’ll be getting is a tiny container of coffee ice cream. The best part of this diet is that I simply don’t crave things anymore and what little I do crave is usually real food, like chicken. I did beef this week for my meat, so next week will be chicken.

My first thought was that having 1500 calories a day was too much for me but when I woke up down another half a pound and saw the scale now says 136.6, I thought otherwise. :) I thought I was going to have a setback because I forgot to do the squats right after the last large amount of food I consumed. Tomorrow, however, I’m going to enjoy eating what I want when I want.

I was surprised to learn that Teri said it only took her 4 months from start to competition to build all that muscle! I thought it took years, but I guess it all depends on where you start. Although I’ve had a few fat spells I can’t say I’ve ever been much of a “wimp” throughout most of my adult life.

I’m also amazed that she was lifting hundreds of pounds at one point and had to wrap her wrists and knees for protection! I miss having a home gym. Maybe someday I’ll get ripped again but I’m pumping enough iron for now with what I’ve got to pump it with, and running at a steady 4-MPH pace for half an hour is quite a workout as far as the cardio part goes. My flexibility’s getting damn good now, too. I can’t side split, but can almost scissor split. :)

Exchanged hearts, hugs, messages and comments with Nane, Irene and a few others. I’m surprised Munich doesn’t have mosquitoes. When I saw Nane’s cozy lanterns set up on her terrace I asked her how many mosquito bites she was wearing at the moment, but there aren’t any around there. I thought they’d have a lot like New England because she gets a lot of rain and humidity in the summer. Hell, we have them here and it’s desert-dry during the summer. The browning effect has completed its cycle so now all the grasses and underbrush on the hillsides have lost the green in them from the winter/spring rains.

Another great thing is that our connection hasn’t dropped off once since they were out here yesterday fixing things! It turns out that the real problem was crossed wires. Some dumb shit came out to work on someone else’s line between the last time we had them out here, they crossed the wires, and that’s what caused us to keep cutting in and out.

We were going to list some Beanie Babies on Wednesday, but something came up and we were unable to do so. Then we were going to yesterday, but they were working on the lines. Then today he had the interview and other errands to run.

“We’re never going to sell these Beanie Babies,” he said, and then we both cracked up laughing.

We were laughing even harder when we remembered a certain incident that happened shortly after we arrived in Oregon in mid-2004. We stopped off at the storage place one day to get some stuff out of our storage vault to haul up to the mountain. Tom was wearing a bright yellowish shirt when suddenly a yellow jacket became obsessed with him and he kept trying to swat it away. But no matter how hard he’d hit the damn thing its strange fixation just wouldn’t let up. About 50’ away, just outside the security gate, an elderly couple walked by. Anyone who knows me knows I have the most psychotic laughter ever. Also, it’s not easy to see a bee at that distance. So it was pretty hilarious seeing their confusion over seeing this guy flailing his arms at seemingly nothing while his wife was peeling this insane laughter! Yeah, we had some interesting times up in timber country.

The troll only visited once today and only viewed 3 pages. Wow, mommy must be occupying more of its time.