Not an atypical week.

Gabe is putting weird, powdery, banana flavored stuff in milk. Nothing like a hit of banana Lactaid to get you back in homework-tackling form.

It’s one of those weeks or so that I teeter on the brink of wacko. Jeff is in Colorado for two definable purposes. 1)To help his brother Wade retrofit a latter-day hippie communal housing project, and 2)so Wade can take him on a round (several rounds, from what I’m hearing) of poking from the acupuncturist, pounding from the masseuse, and prodding from the homeopath. They have noticed something interesting which I had not picked up on. Jeff can have a conversation as long as his eyes are closed. The minute he opens them the confusion returns and the dazed look prevails. This will be important for me to remember. Close your eyes...I’d like your opinion on [whatever.] Today he wondered if I would mind him staying another week as Wade has a deadline. And I don’t really mind. Since I hadn’t learned the eye-closing trick I’ve spent the last several years making like an Amazon. (we keep men for breeding purposes, but do everything else ourselves.)

I’ve been working on budgeting. The truth has generally been that I stink at budgets, but am adequate at muddling through. Muddling though, as a manner of being, is starting to get to me, and I would really like to feel capable of budgeting. To this end, I located (online, where else?) a cute little Palm program called Quik Budget (note that it offers no assistance with spelling.) Happily, Palm software has made small enough strides in the past several years that the PDA I acquired when I needed a drug database is still completely up to the task of running Quik Budget. So, as long as I remember to input the occasional lattes, and the frequent grocery errands, Quik Budget is supposed to inform me when it’s time to eat just Cheerios, and maybe even the Cheerios box.

As for going wacko--well, I’m trying to quell that tendency by doing yoga by candlelight and hacking away, bit by bit, at my story.

All that’s left of the Easter jelly beans are a few pinks and oranges at the bottom of the bowl. Pink is supposed to be grapefruit, but Becca got a bubblegum this afternoon. A factory jokester maybe. I don’t think anyone will eat the few remainders as it appears that Gabe cut a goodly number of them in half with scissors. Hard to say why. Probably for the same reason that he has a bunch of thumbtacks stuck into a roll of duct tape on his desk.