I am getting so tired of watching the Dow drop lower and lower and our stock options going from $15K to $5K to nothing to less than nothing. It's depressing as hell. That's the money we were planning to use to finance an adoption. I know we don't need the money right away but it just kills me that the stupid stock market has such a hold on me. I just can't stand it.

And for some reason I seem to have developed some kind of computer phobia. I think about writing emails or diary entries and then I can't do it. I can't even walk in here. It's very strange, especially given the amount of time I used to spend in here. I guess I'm finally taking my New Year's Resolution to heart--to stop wasting so much time on my computer. A little belated.

A few gems from the past week--I've lost 15 lbs. since June 12. This is very good news. Many of my pants are very loose and a shirt that I couldn't wear last summer because it was too tight when I buttoned it is not wearable and in fact, I wore it on Friday.

Friday was our International Dinner Group dinner and the country was Jamaica. I made jerk pork (very good) and barbecued pineapple (also very good). We also had chayote salad that I loved, and a curried shrimp dish that was yummy. The rice and peas was just ok and the rummed bananas were ok but could have been better. The greens were just ok, too. All in all, though, it was a delicious dinner. And I learned a lot about Jamaica in the process.

We started painting the interior of the house--so far we have 2 yellow walls, one orange wall and the backsplash in the kitchen is lime green. It totally rocks. There's a lot more to do but I'm enjoying even the little we have done.

Joey and I spent a day doing scrapbooking at a local scrapbook store with Stacey and Baylee. I really enjoyed it and bought some very kewl stuff while I was there. They were having a 20% off sale so I just had to take advantage of that, didn't I?

I took my camera in for an overhaul today because the mirror sticks intermittently and they don't know why so they have to take it apart and clean it and tune everything, check my light meter and shutter speeds and everything. Hopefully that will solve the problem.

Ed and I have been playing a lot of cribbage lately. Most evenings we play a game or two. It's been really enjoyable. We usually don't play games together unless there are other people around.

Ed's picture was in the paper for climbing the South Sister. That was lots of fun. My sister has copies of it for me and it was on the web, too. Grandma's picture and an article about her jewelry Christmas trees was in the local paper this week, too. There is a showing of her trees at the senior center this week. It's been so exciting for her--she has really enjoyed all the attention. I'm going to take her there tomorrow to take pictures of her with her trees.

And now it's time for me to go. I'm tired and I have a sinus headache that I've had intermittently all day long. Ciao!

--L