No shadow seen

Well, here at least, I didn't see my shadow at all today. (I don't know any groundhogs in the area; we seem to have far fewer of those types of critters and I wonder if coyotes and feral dogs - both of which are more common here than in my parents' area - are the reason)

I'm hoping this means I don't have six more weeks of hard work.

And anyway, things are better now than they were at the start of yesterday: the scholarship stuff is well-sorted for now AND my awesome colleague Tim volunteered to write the ecology exam for this science day thing. He can't administer it - will have family in town that day - but it was the writing of the exam that was making me run around and hyperventilate. We can find someone to administer it and if I have to grade it, so be it. (Though maybe someone else can). I can totally handle the invasive species section but doing both seemed a bit much.

So I am a bit freed up. So much so I have decided to say, "You know? I'm going to go to Sherman on Saturday for better grocery shopping."

ESPECIALLY if I can type my manuscript tomorrow - therefore, giving the slightly-less-crummy second draft the weekend to sit, and I can attack it again Monday. And then tomorrow afternoon I need to get my car in for an oil and filter change, and I can read the student papers I will be collecting in my 11 am class during that, and get grades and stuff on them later in the afternoon.

And that leaves Saturday. It will be nice to have access to fancier groceries. I have plans to go to the natural-foods store; I have been using a liquid coconut-oil based mint soap from them, which is ruinously expensive as compared to Dial or some such, but which seems to give me a bit of relief from my hives (And also: Ice Bear likes mint soap. Heh. I kind of love Ice Bear)

And I think I am going to go to the Ulta for the first time ever. Because I found out some of them apparently carry some of the Couvent des Minimes products I used to enjoy when Bath and Body Works carried them. And because nail polish, even though I really don't NEED any more. And now that I've started wearing lipstick more regularly it might be fun to look at some of the different options.

When you haven't been able to get out for more than the basics, it's kind of a luxury to just be able to go places and browse.


I think I need to try hard to build in a little time off once a week - being too tied to work gets me too much in my head and then I flip out when my plans get changed or some other work gets added on.

And, confession time: I have two more ponies on their way to me from Ogreberry Cottage (one of my regular Etsy "dealers"). Partly because I got paid this week and when I checked my pay stub I see that some of the deductions I have got "fulfilled" for the fiscal year, so my take-home pay was a bit higher this month, and also, when I checked the Visa I use linked to Pay Pal, its bill was lower than I thought it would be....so I said okay.

One is a Christmas baby pony: white, red hair, green stocking cutie mark. Surprisingly, she was apparently never officially named. She was a mail order thing with Rice Krispies boxtops. Some collectors have named her Baby Stockings (there is an adult pony with a stocking cutie mark). **I** think I'm going to call her Krispies, in honor of her origin. And yes, come next Christmas, she will join the other toys I set under my tree as decorations.

The other one is Stripes. I do already have a rainbow pony (Parasol), but not a "Rainbow Curl." And she may get renamed Mabel Pines because her cutie mark resembles the shooting-star design on Mabel's shirt. (Mabel was, famously ponified in a dream sequence in one of the MLP comics)

I need more G1 unicorns, though. The Equestrian version of the EEOC might criticize me because I have fewer unicorns than pegasususes and far fewer than Earth ponies (but I think there were more Earth Ponies than anything in G1).  And yes, I do plan to occasionally buy more of these: as my mom has said about my yarn and fabric habits - "you don't smoke, you don't go out to bars, you don't buy expensive shoes...."