I think I need to do some babysitting, to remind me how much work kids actually are. It seems, lately, that I'm surrounded by babies. I finally got to spend some quality time with four-month-old neighbor Jamie while his dad, my dad, and my brother fixed my fence. What is it about men that they tend to take over projects you intended to do yourself?

At any rate, Jamie is adorable with his red hair and big eyes, and an infectious laugh when you make duck noises at him. Well, Mom made duck noises, Jamie and I laughed. All these babies make me want one of my own. But there's no way I'm trying it by myself, so I have to make myself content with borrowing.

I sent my check off for my 10 year reunion yesterday. It'll be in three weeks - bonfire and music and food at a classmate's farm. My life is a lot different than I expected it to be 10 years ago. I thought I'd be married with at least two kids by now. I'm not even sure if that's what I still want anymore. The longer I'm on my own, the more I value my independence. Husband, kids...sounds good in theory, but is it what I want in reality? This will take some more thought.

I was late to work today because of a ribbon cutting, and I walked in on a pow wow in the reception area. The whole staff was there with a police officer, because we had been broken into the night before. I don't keep anything worth stealing in my office, and our laptops are locked to the desks, so I don't think anything major was stolen, just the pop money and some spare change. But a couple of desk drawers that had been locked had been pried open.

We've been stolen from several times before - they only thing we can think of is that it's the cleaning people, because there was no forced entry on any of the doors, so they must have had a key. But it's just a hunch, so we change the locks and hope for the best. The police have worse things to think about. The officer was telling us about some of them, the things we never hear about. And probably don't want to know about. Sometimes a false sense of security is better than worrying about something you can't do anything about.

I'm so hungry. My snack drawer is disappointingly empty. I'm hitting that stride, exercise-wise, and I can't seem to get enough food. I feel like I'm eating up all the extra calories I'm burning. It would be nice to be able to figure out what a good balance is between actually needing the extra calories, but still running at a deficit to be able to lose weight. I need a personal chef - calorie-counting is such a hassle. No wonder everyone is fat.

I feel like I've been busy, but I haven't been. When I look back at what I've accomplished over the past two weeks, I see a lot of money hemmoraging out, but not a lot of accomplishment. Maybe I'm lethargic. Or maybe I've been frittering away too many hours watching Brisco County, Jr. and crocheting. Bruce Campbell is so hot.

I actually slept quite well on the road in Peoria, after that first night when I accidentally locked my roommate out. She didn't show up until one in the morning (they got lost and ended up in Chicago on their way from Madison), so I naturally assumed by 10 p.m., I wasn't going to have a roommate. Silly me! She had to go back downstairs to have the front desk call me, I was so out.

Sidewalk is all replaced. Neighbor Jason got it all done over the weekend, in plenty of time for the September 1st deadline (first football game is the 2nd...wheeee!). It's so shiny! Almost literally! It's whiter than anything else in the near vicinity. But, after thinking I was going to have to pay $1200 to get it done, Jason did it for $750. I got to use the saved $500 on a new refrigerator for the tenant. The cooling system went out in the old one, and it was going to cost just as much to fix it as to buy a new one. The old one really was old...it was that olive green so popular in the '70s, so I'm thinking 30 years is pretty good for a fridge, even if it had to go bad on my watch.

Speaking of, the new tenant is working out alright. She's got the heaviest footfalls of anyone who's ever lived up there, but she doesn't make any other noise, so I can live with it. Plus, she cooked me food after I complimented the smells coming through the ventilation. I can forgive a lot for free Indian food.

I've updated my Friends/Stalkees section. I've deleted some that I've pretty much given up on :(, and added several that I tend to click on when I see their link on other people's blogs. If I add them to my sidebar, I'll be much more likely to stalk faithfully and maybe! start leaving comments.

I have to go to Peoria for three days this week, so I'm trying to get all my laundry and other chores done today so I can actually pack before I have to leave tomorrow. I've checked out Clive Cussler books on tape for the trip. I'm already halfway through the second tape. (I got impatient.) Clive Cussler was the first thing Mom picked out for me from the adult section of the library when I'd read everything in the young adult section. I'd wanted to re-read the books for quite a while now, and this is a novel way to do it. Novel! Get it? Hee!

I'm also backdating a couple posts, so be sure not to miss those!

Ding dong, the tenant's gone! And left a mess behind her! Someone's getting a big chunk taken out of her security deposit. Thank God Josh and Chelsea felt obligated to pitch in and help, since I let them stay with me over homeless night. I never would have gotten it all done. I've made a list of all the crap we had to clean up, so there's no doubt why it's going to be a small check. She shouldn't have doubt, though. If you don't bother to clean when you move out, don't bother to think you'll get your deposit back. Plus, there's now a hole in the screen door. My boss, who is also a landlord, tells me there's this place in town that will re-screen the door for a decent price.

He's had much worse problems than me, though. One of his tenants died a couple weeks back, and no one knew it until the neighbors started to smell something. Yuck! They had to call the biohazard team in to clean. That's so sad that he had no one to check on him, though. All us at work promised each other we would check on each other if we didn't show up for work.

The new tenant hasn't been so bad so far. She's a heavy stepper, but that's it. We'll see when it starts driving me nuts.