I ate ice cream for dinner.

Since last time I posted, Aaron went to Virginia and Chicago to visit schools. Then, he came back.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on taxes. For awhile I was going to try to cheat the system, but then I decided not to and ended up owing Oregon $110. Americorps doesn’t do state witholding, so I got screwed. Come on people – I made less than $4,000 in Oregon and I owe $110? Granted, my parents are still taking me as a dependent (last time, wooo!) so I missed some exemptions, but sheesh, sucks to be a poor person here. Too bad I'm paying taxes to a state with the death penalty and underfunded schools. Next year is going to be even worse. I can’t wait to just have one state to deal with. 2008 tax season yeah!

What else…work is dragging lately. I have stuff to do, but it’s hard to just do it. I need to get on it tomorrow and come up with some documents for some meetings coming up. Otherwise, I’m going to get a ton of questions that could have been pre-emptively answered. Wasting time is not what I want to do in these meetings. I want to control the flow.

I also haven’t been feeling all that great. I did something to my back while “getting my fris on” (yay The Office – fris as in frisbee, not like frizz) in preparation for spring league ultimate frisbee that starts next week. We are supposedly signed up but haven’t heard when the games are. Anyhow, I hurt my back (surprise, surprise). But I have gotten a lot better at throwing and catching. My throws are level and accurate if not so fast, and I can do a one handed grab. And I can almost throw forehand! But the main source of my misery is pollen. My allergies are in full force like I haven’t seen since I was eleven. My eyes are dry, itchy, and scratchy. The air smells of pollen. And, it’s especially bad because I’ve never been in Oregon during pollen time and so I haven’t built up thingies to fight off the allergies. That’s the medical process. Thingies fighting. But sleeping on the floor is good for my back, and Benadryl just knocks me out. So, nights are good.

I just reread Pride and Prejudice. Damn, that’s a good book. Next, I’m going to read the Rule of Four, as suggested to me by Gerg. The thinking person’s DaVinci Code. Maybe I wouldn’t be embarrassed to put this on my Facebook profile. (Note: no offense to anyone who has Dan Brown or the DaVinci Code listed as a favorite book, as I enjoyed it very much in the two hours it took me to read it; but if you are trying to sound well read, maybe you should switch to something more impressive like “books? I only read magazines.)

I shouldn’t pretend like I’m a snob. I haven’t read that much. And I only have the gift of reading fast when it’s a novel.

I should go work on my painting. The apples are done, and I must say, they turned out quite well. I won’t be using such harsh light for my second work, though. The shadows make it seem like Death is coming for the apples in the dish. Which it did, because we ate them shortly after the painting was completed. But there’s one apple in my painting that looks totally like an apple. Like, it’s really good. One of the others is more ball looking, and one looks sort of applish. But the left-most apple is stellar, if I do say so myself.

My next project? An umbrella. Working on getting the fabric folds right. Wish me luck.