I actually had a long enough block of unscheduled time yesterday afternoon to try to write a little. And I actually got going. Not quite in the "zone," but plodding steadily onward.

So naturally, I got asked to put together a chart for a proposal that ate up the rest of my afternoon.

Oh, well. There's not much of anything on the schedule for this morning, and it's drizzly out, so Dad's not likely to want to walk. So maybe I'll try to do some writing after breakfast. It can't be in the afternoon; I have a conference call from 1-3, and the one hour I'll have on either side of it isn't really enough to settle in to write.

And my boss is out for the rest of this week and most of next, so whoo! I'll be able to get online again.

I poked around online yesterday and I think I've probably found the best tickets to Cancun that I'm going to find. If I want to fly for less than $500, I absolutely have to leave from Norfolk, and my choices seem to boil down to either having a 40-minute layover (which is obscenely short; if the first flight is delayed at all, I'll be in danger of missing the connection) or leaving at 6am and having a 3-hour layover.

I haven't bought the tickets yet. I'm waffling between "tired" and "rushed," trying to decide which would make for a better vacation.

And waffling, period. I mean, I'm about 90% certain I'm going to take this trip, but once I buy the tickets, I'm committed.

(Is it dumb and neurotic of me to hesitate to commit to a flipping vacation? Why, yes. Yes it is.)

Yesterday was a good day for Penny. She watched Sesame Street, ate all her dinner, had a few jelly beans for dessert, then went outside to play with Ray. She was even really good about coming back out of the street when a car was coming; she'd stand in the driveway and hold my hand or Matt's until we told her it was okay to go back out and play.

She fussed a bit when we took her inside, but it didn't escalate into full-blown Sadness, since we told her that Ray was going to take a bath, too. She trooped upstairs and had a really good bath -- she drew with the bath crayon and had me draw some animals and she (mostly) listened when I told her to keep the splashing inside the tub, and she giggled when I poured water on her tummy.

She got out of the bath when I told her it was time to brush her teeth, and let me do a preliminary brushing before she did her attempt, and she actually managed to spit toothpaste into the sink (she's still learning this -- often, she swallows and then tries to spit, which rather defeats the purpose). She let me put on her PJs without any hassle, and only whined a little while I combed her hair, and sat for her books, and when we took her upstairs for bed, she asked for extra kisses.

Which is all very mundane and ordinary and not really memorable, but those are the kinds of things I want to record, just because they're harder to remember.

--Liz