My sister called this morning to tell me that her father-in-law died last night. He's actually a stepfather-in-law but more like the real thing than the real thing. He'd had cardiomyopathy for about 10 years and had outlived his prognosis by 5+ years so they knew his time was short, but this was more sudden than they expected. In a way, though, it was welcome as he was deteriorating and looking at having to be in a hospice or care facility within a few months. It was very sad for them, anyway. Unfortunately, the news came just an hour after they told her stepson that she was pregnant and were having a family celebration. Talk about bittersweet.

Big thanks to the wonderful Lucretia who fixed my archives page. She totally rawks. Woohoo! Now you can see my last 10 or so entries that were hidden before. I'm so HTML-lame. Ack!

I've done something to my neck and it's giving me fits. It's not like regular muscular pain--I can't describe it really. It's like the pain you get when you've been leaning your head over studying for finals for hours and hours and it gives you a headache. It's like I've bruised one of my neck vertebrae or something. Dang. I just can't seem to get my head into a comfortable position. Ed massaged my neck last night which helped get rid of my headache but by midafternoon today, it was back and it's been there off and on all afternoon and evening. Right now I have an ice pack on it and I'm going to take some more ibuprofen right quick. Can you get arthritis in your neck?

Ed likes the orange fabric I bought. We're going to reupholster the ottoman with one of the fabrics. I'm going to go back to the store and get more of it so I can do some valence thingy, too. It's really kewl--all orangey and yellowy and reddish with yellow kanji on it. It was in the batik section of the fabric store and I just love it. Goes wonderfully with my orange and yellow walls.

I'm glad it's the weekend. It kind of snuck up on me, though. I wasn't keeping very good track of the days and then suddenly it was Friday. That's only a good surprise if you aren't under the gun on some kind of project or something, though.

I think I really need to go get that ibuprofen now. Ta!

--L