Another week has melted away.  It was a good one overall, despite some challenges.  I have been totally impressed by Eric's ability to take things in stride, especially during a Mercury Retrograde.  What's interesting about each of the three Mercury Retrogrades for 2007 is that the three weeks of retrograde in each instance begins in a water sign (emotional reversal) and ends in an air sign (intellectual reversal).  It's an incredible opportunity to explore emotional obstacles in our lives and then ease over into the intellectual side of things.  What a wonderful balance! 

Yesterday, Nathan and I loaded up a big trashcan and the rake and went to our 3 main clusters of mailboxes to clean.  There were duplicate phone books that were thrown on the ground, trash in the unused mailboxes and lots and lots of pine needles, road trash and sticks and such around the boxes.  We cleaned and raked and got it all nice and pretty.  I also mapped out my mail route so that the postmaster can see where there are unused boxes so new people can take over those instead of just putting up more boxes at the end. 

Andrea has been on vacation, so I have been exercising on my own.  I only did 2 of the 4 days off because I felt like my body needed some recuperative time.  I'm reading Bob Greene's 12 week makeover book and I'm going to be following that starting tomorrow.  My results are still all in dress sizes instead of showing up on the scale, but I'm going to keep at it.  Bob only has 5 rules regarding food and diet (let's see if I can remember them:  Drink at least 6 8oz glasses of water a day (I haven't been doing that).  Eat a healthy breakfast (been doing that).  Eliminate alcohol (I don't drink).  Have a cut off time for eating (I usually do that, but not as much lately as I did before).  The last one... What was it?  Shit.  Oh yes!  Eat with intention.  (As in, don't eat out of emotion).  I'm good with that one too, so most of his rules, I'm already following.  I do need to up one of my days of aerobic exercise to 60 minutes instead of the usual 40.  I'm a little intimated by that idea, but I think that I will do it by walking the dogs.  I also have to read the section more carefully and see if I can break up the 60 minutes into two sessions or if I have to do it all at once.

K-Mart had a sale on their Bally Fitness stock and I got a door gym, a set of resistance tubes specifically set up for ankle work, an ab tightener (like the old bullworkers, only smaller) and a rowing thingie.  They will make a nice addition to my collection.

We are supposed to get snow this week, starting around Wednesday.  The forecast calls for snow on Wednesday and Thursday, then rain on Friday and Saturday, which likely means 4 days of snow.  The weather has been so beautiful and Spring-like that I really hate to give it up.  My poor little daffodils got lulled into a false sense of security and popped up early, so they're going to have a rude awakening in a few days.

I dread doing the mail route on the snow.  I just don't drive well on ice and snow.  Fortunately, I will only have to do the top of the route as Eric has volunteered to do the rest.  I have to do a lot of self-talking to keep from being tense the whole time I'm driving on slick roads.  I am going to just believe that all will be well and the 4-wheel drive combined with going really, really slow will save me.  Normally, there is a period of time for about 2 months where we rarely have mail delivered because the snow is so bad.  I am going to do my best to avoid that this year and get the mail out there on as many days as I can.  

I watched the movie "The Departed," which I eagerly awaited since so many people had said it was wonderful.  I think I'm just dumb or something because I watched it and, well, I just didn't get it.  I repeated the story back to Eric and he pretty much said, "Yep, that's it" and said I didn't miss anything contextual, but it just didn't grab me as being particularly Oscar worthy and remarkable.  I did, however, love the one that didn't make me think at all, which was 'John Tucker Must Die.'

I also have "Click" to watch and "The Devil Wears Prada" is on its way for a quick rewatch.  We saw it in the theater and loved it.  One time, then back to Netflix.

Delena asked to dye her hair red, so I helped her do that tonight.  It is normally a really dark blonde that is almost light brown.  The color she picked is Clairol Herbal Essence #44, which is a very striking red.  It's not a burgundy, but is actually red and it takes a bit of getting used to.  It looks good, but it looks really different.  I haven't dyed my hair in well over a year now and it's really salt and peppery.  Every time I think of dying it, it just doesn't feel right, so I'm going ala natural.  I do, however, need a good haircut at some point.  A pedicure would be nice too.  Someday.

Eric and I spent a couple of weeks contemplating our vehicles.  The Jeep is really too small for the kids when they are all in it together and it has some overheating problems that we can't seem to fix.  It's been through 2 transmissions in the past year.  We were all set to trade it in on some larger kind of 4 wheel drive vehicle, but then David, who was going to babysit for us while we car shopped, had HIS car stolen and couldn't come that weekend.  In the interim, we decided that we are just not prepared to get into debt even further and incur such a huge monthly payment.  It would cost around $600 a month to finance the type of vehicle we would need and I'd like to be more financially sound before that happens.  Plus, I really do like the way my jeep handles when driving on the mountain, so I went out and gave it a hug and we're going to keep it.  Eric's car is finally fixed (both vehicles need new tires), so we are going to sit tight and let that be our financially intelligent move for the year.

My next intelligent move is to go to sleep because my head is going to hit the keyboard at any minute.  Don't want to get "home-rowed."

Be particular,