Number of things messed up by my inability to temper my use of spices in the past week:

Two

1. Pear Sauce. I went a bit overboard on the cardamom in the last twenty minutes of cooking. Now I'm looking for things to cook it in that will temper it's overabundance of spices.

2. Baked apples. These are still in the oven, but I can tell by the caramel sauce I made that they will most likely be bad. I put too much stevia in the sauce and it has a weird herbally after taste. It might be good, because I did put lemon juice in the caramel sauce to make it less sweet and I didn't put any sweetener on the apples. Although I did put the aforementioned pear sauce on top of the apples before I put the bisquick made biscuits on top of them and then drowned them in the caramelish sauce. Who knows. It should be done in a bit and I'll see if I need to throw it away. I wish I lived with a whole bunch of idiot guys so they can just eat the stuff I mess up on like on a dare to one another.

Ben was nice though tonight and went to Baja Fresh and got me a bean and cheese burrito and quesodilla. Mmmm...Baja Fresh.

Ben would like to add that,

I have a black kitty cat. He has ears. They are black and furry. Go kitty cat, go! Yay team!

Also, I want to go to the zoo because it is lovely outside, but Ben is still sleeping and we didn't clean the apartment yesterday. Ben will probably be sleeping for ever since he didn't attempt to go to sleep until like three last night.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I haven't had a good dream in a very, very long time. Last night my dream included me being pregnant and in my second trimester and getting ready to go to a wedding and being in the wedding party of a girl I haven't seen or spoke to since my freshman year of high school. For some reason I was so out of the loop on this wedding that I didn't know if I had the right dress (really, it was reversible, the dress, and I wasn't sure which side to wear) and I was worried if it would fit me because I was pregnant and hadn't tried it on before then. I was also sleeping in my room at home and had clover planted in a pot in my room because I was supposed to wear clover in the wedding. I didn't know how I was supposed to get my hair done, or what shoes I needed to wear, or when I was supposed to be there for the wedding. Then, the next thing I know, I'm in the lobby of a hotel and talking to people from various, unrelated parts of my life. Another of the brides maids is someone I knew in fifth grade (when I didn't know the person who was supposed to be the bride). Then, I talk with another person I knew from college (who I had hoped I would never see/talk to again) and who I really wasn't friends with at all. Then, I woke up. It was a very weird dream. One, because I am not pregnant. Two, because really, there's no wedding action happening anytime in the near future. Three, because the like three different women in the dream were not at all related to one another except through me. It would make sense if all the women were from the same time period and happened to know each other, but they were kindof from three distinct periods of my life. The only weirder thing would have been if someone of them would have been friends from California. Not to mention, that these three different women would have never met each other before. Also, it was weird because I never saw the bride in my dream. I think I saw the guy she was marrying, but I think I put him in the dream because it was his ninth-grade self who happened to be dating the girl at the time I knew her. I don't know, maybe this was all triggered by the movie Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen which, when I watched it last night, reminded me of another friend whose name came up in the dream as the person to ask for the missing information on the wedding preparations because the character Lindsey Lohan plays in the movie reminds me a lot of this person.

Anyway, I just want dreams that don't freak me out and that have a pleasant situation portrayed in them.

Very Brief Update

I have been so stressed and busy that past two weeks that my hair is starting to fall out with a greater frequency and magnitude than before. Monday - at school until 5, then sat in traffic for forty-five minutes (I work nine miles from my home). Tuesday - extended day, didn't get home until 6. Wednesday - extended day (detention with some kids) and then MS reads class (I was there until 6:30) then came home and graded papers so I could give A day kids progress reports the next day. Thursday - Grading practice SOL test essays and then grading for three of my classes so I could get progress reports out to them on Friday. I left school at 5:45 and was the LAST car in the parking lot. Friday - went out to movie and Frosty with another teacher and her mentee (she's not comfortable being alone with mentee considering how she lies and makes things up) and then back to school to get my car, followed teacher home, she dropped her car off, and then we drove back to my house (she lives really close, but it took me over 35 minutes to get home from school) and picked up Ben and then went to dinner. Didn't get home until 8:00 pm. It's no wonder I pretty much did nothing but sit on the couch and go to the gym today. I felt lazy and bad, but then Ben pointed out that this was the first day in a long time where I didn't have anything pressing or anywhere to go. This is the first day I've had off for three or more weeks.

Updates, longer term:
1. Will be in Staunton on November 19th and 20th for a two day conference on teaching Shakespeare and the language of Jamestown. Ben is coming with me (he is so wonderful!) and we're going to go to Millstreet as many times as possible. Mmmm...Millstreet.

2. I thought there was something else that needed to be mentioned, but I totally blanked on what it was. Man, maybe I need more than just one day of doing nothing to make my brain work normally again.