In the bustling atmosphere of the sporting goods store, we hold one another's hand so as not to become separated. Nick finds golf balls on sale and we work our way to the cashier. I live with someone who cannot stand Christmas movies, Christmas carols, Christmas-anything until the week before the big day. I hum "Jingle Bells" beneath my breath and wait for the eye-twitch. Oh well, Sophie's feeling festive and has participated in the chewing of the Christmas cards and the stealing of the Christmas cards pen. She also rearranges the tree ornament during her free time and adjusts the placement of the gold beading. What a good little Christmas cat.

After the long line shuffle to the cashier, Nick finds fault with the scanner. He tells the employee that the scanner is wrong, that the item is on sale. In a line longer than Pinocchio's naughty nose, the employee calls up to the golf department while another employee tackles the escalator to head to the department himself. It turns out that the sign was poorly placed and the golf balls were full price. With gruff, he tells the team of sporting goods employees that he no longer wants the items. As we walk away, the smoke billows from his ears and he says, "THIS is why I hate Christmas!"

Once upon a time, I changed my site design monthly—the current is just about two years old. The thought of going through the creative process, spending hours in HTML, and finding that one style in my CSS that still looks wonky with the new color scheme seems daunting. Designing was my late night activity, and I loved the high that it gave me.

I used to be a quilter, and recently acquired one that I had a hand in making for my grandmother in 1999. I would gladly spend an entire day cutting squares and patching them together. I had my stint in baking—from scratch—but as Nick so woefully points out, those days are over too.

I used to be a true child of the Internet age and have all of the instant messaging programs and post regularly on forums. Now? I use a computer for work and school. I am computered out for play.

I found myself wondering at my current phase of interest. What do I do to unwind? Honestly, I slump on the couch to a CSI rerun and let my brain turn off. Wow. Go me.

I'm tired, folks. The last week of my first session with school begins tomorrow, and I have scheduled a day off from work to tackle my final projects. Next weekend, we are going to Minnesota with Nick's parents to catch the Badger game and the week after that is Thanksgiving already.

Sophie is a constant source of joy when she's not being a booger, and I am so happy that we wound up with a lap cat after all. I had my doubts. She seemed like the standoffish sort...but I suppose that if you were brought up with your mother teaching you that humans were scary-bad, and then you were discarded at some farmer's barn, and then taken to a foster home where you were quickly given away to people who took you home only to take you to the vet to be "altered"...well, I guess I would have been standoffish too.

We went to the Badger game yesterday, the last home game of the season. It was a chilly day, and my car said it was 28° as we pulled out of the driveway. I was dressed in two pairs of long underwear, a long sleeved tee shirt, and a sweatshirt beneath my winter jacket. We were back in the car eight hours later after one of the most satisfying games I have ever watched.

My father wants me to go over to Grandma's condo at 10:00 this morning. She has decided to stay in assisted living, so they are clearing out her condo and he wants me to walk through and take anything that I might want. I don't want to. It feels wrong. She's just down the street. I do not want to take her things as if she is no longer around. It has been a sad situation from the start—Grandma simply gave up. There was no reason that she couldn't regain her strength and live independently again except that she didn't want to. So, grudgingly, I will drive over in a few hours.

I was not in the mood to watch ESPN with Nick after an entire day engrossed in live football, so I traipsed upstairs to look at the movies that I had saved from the old collection. I couldn't. Sound of Music choked me up, The Love Letter had my lower lip quivering. I stroked The Magic of Ordinary Days and remembered watching it on television with Mom, and her immediate desire to own such a lovely movie. I have been thinking for awhile that I need to get my copies of the Anne movies back from my cousin, but who knows if I'll ever be able to watch them again. These movies that I loved, I loved them because I had someone to share them with.

Well, coffee is done and I have an assignment to complete before I head over to to condo. If this post reads anything as scattered as my own mind is these days, good luck making sense of it all.

For the first time since getting my new laptop in May, I tried to access my external hard drive, where I have stored all of my digital images since 2004. Brenda requested a picture of Buford that I had taken awhile back.

Compatibility issue between 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader and Windows Vista

This problem was caused by a compatibility issue between Windows Vista and 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader.

3M Company, the company that manufactured 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader, has informed Microsoft that they do not expect to offer updates to fix this problem.

Wow. Sucky. Looks like I will be bugging my aunts to burn a (few) CD(s) off of my picture files. This week has been mostly lousy anyhow, so why not this, too. I have been attending class at work, class at home, and all the while I have been thinking about what will happen tomorrow. My mind is tired, and I feel sluggish. I have a 750-word essay due Sunday that I haven't even started researching yet. Nick brushes off this concern, says I can crank out 750 words in a heartbeat. True.

I am taking Friskey to the vet tomorrow afternoon. Dad pulled a 180° on me early this week and told me that she seemed fine now. After a week of weeping and making myself okay with the decision, it was painful to hear his words...false hope is lethal. He stopped by the clinic earlier this week to describe the way that she acts, and they suspected that she has the equivalent of human Alzheimer's. They calculated her age in human years at nearly 90. I told him to make an appointment for Friday afternoon when I had my half-day of work. I knew that whatever the outcome of the visit, I had to be the one to take her. I had to enlist the help of my fellow kitty-lovers to go along with me.

On the flip side, I'm a published photographer now! On a whim, I submitted an oldish photograph to a local news station's weather calender contest. While in Florida, I was told that I was a finalist. Yesterday morning I noticed my photograph on a commercial for the calendar before I left. Last night, UPS delivered a package with 15 calendars, umbrellas, a jump drive and a thermal coffee mug. I am July! Since we have so many calendars, Nick thinks we ought to put on up by Sophie's litter box. He reasons that maybe she would like to have something to look at while she "poos".

I have two weddings to attend this month, the first happening next Saturday. Ever the procrastinator, I decided to go dress-shopping today.

By the title, you likely assume that I will prattle on about foot stomping, audible exhales, and scandalous eye-rolls. You have decided that I enjoy shopping and could waste hours browsing the racks and that I will have lengthened my boutique excursion past the point of sanity.

This was not it at all. Frustrated after finding nary a dress at all at the first store I tried, I left sullenly to find Nick where he was doing his two-weddings-coming-up shopping and shadow him with scuffing feet and Basset Hound eyes. He was frustrated that I should give up after so little effort. I asked him in the car why he had any reason to be upset and would he be happy if we headed to the mall? "I don't want you to do more shopping because it will make me happy. I want you to make yourself happy. You've been talking about buying a new dress for weeks!"

Yeah, but I am a tough body to fit. I prefer a fitted bodice but with a semi empire waist, a wrap dress that doesn't give away too many of my secrets in its deep "V", and A-line skirts. The hem cannot be too long, the sleeves cannot be too short, and I am very picky on how I spend my money.

Well I pouted some more, all the way through target where we picked up household odds and ends and Nick found a cheaper spider-web-getter-outer than he had just purchased, a price difference so inspiring that he justified returning the first and obtaining the second. Backtracking, we returned to the plethora of retail sirens of Greenway Station and Nick suggested that I peruse the store next door to Linens N' Things. Willing to give the exercise another go, I warned, "They close in an hour."

I crossed the threshold and I wanted to touch everything. I am a touch-shopper. Before I focus in my search, I walk the long aisles of clothing with my fingers extended. I have never been the type to wash my clothing before I wear it the first time [Brenda], but just now it occurs to me how much my new clothing has been fingered by other touch-shoppers. Disturbing.

All clothing this time of year is in the pallet that I love most of all: golds, rusts, olives, siennas, and deep orange. At the far back corner of the store, I found a dress to be considered. Faux wrap, 3/4 sleeves, and rouching. I chewed my lip and walked away. So indecisive.

Before long, Nick came in looking for me. I showed him the first dress and he thought I should try it on...maybe that would win me over. Obediently, and perhaps wanting to be convinced, I traipsed back to the dressing rooms. While there, my boyfriend brought additional dresses for me to try, asking that I model them all. I had to tell him to stop looking at one point because I was falling in love with every dress I tried.

For a day shaping to be yet another bad shopping experience in a long line of them, I left that last store buying three dresses that I absolutely could not be without in about twenty minutes. Giddy, Nick sang, "You cleaned up!" all the way to the car. "Let's go to DSW now! You're on a spending spree!"

Later, walking from our last stop of the night, the grocery store, he asked me how much his preferred members card saved me on groceries. To my answer of 39¢, he started his spiel, "WOW! You owe me! Look at how much money I saved y—"

"Don't EVEN!" I exclaimed, waving my dress and shoe receipts in hand.

I am a little under-slept, so forgive me if this is incoherent:

• Sarah, that's the basket.
• We went biking in Minocqua this weekend. I had a cold. We had a fireplace. Sophie lent us her favorite orange ball as a comfort object while we were away from home.
• I didn't win a rump roast. But that's okay.
• On our hike, we came across "Bridge Crossing Ahead" signs. Nick figured that they probably liked hanging out on the higher ground to our right, but scuttle at random across the trail.
• I fell asleep during the drive up to Minocqua, and also the drive back. There are pictures to prove it.
• Our cat missed us. Either that, or she was ready for her day's Fancy Feast.
• Classes are going well. Nick thinks I am overachieving.
• Did I mention that I tried sushi a few weeks ago? Our server gave me a set a chopsticks to practice with.
• Our luggage smells smoky.
• The end.

By that pouty little look she's giving me, been giving me since I started yesterday afternoon, you'd think my decision to complete my degree was a personal dig. Oh, the guilt! I find myself needing to close the door against her onslaught, the way she slams her body into mine, the almost electric purr that has her body trembling visibly, and the mournful meow that says all too clearly that she is always supposed to be number one.

So far, Nick is taking it much better, but then again, this is only the "official" first day. Needless to say, posts may become even fewer and farther in between while I figure out how to juggle my time. Meanwhile, be thinking of the fuzzy tailed mongrel who is, even now, pawing at my leg for me to throw her favorite orange jingly ball.

Bags packed, sheets cleaned and bed remade, towels washed and refolded, storm shutters in place...it is a little sad that our vacation is already over.

We keep looking at the pictures Nick's mom took of Sophie while we've been gone, lonesome for her. Strange that a little non communicative sprite who keeps us up at night can steal our hearts...time to go home.

I woke early my first morning in Marathon, Florida. They sky was still the black of night, and I padded softly to the bathroom so as not to wake Nick. I returned to the room to find the light on, and myself being serenaded with a very Hoops & Yoyo-esque version of "Happy Birthday." To say that I was amused would be an understatement.

We ran across a portion of the old 7-mile bridge and watched the sun rise from the mist, spent the day exploring Key West, and had dinner at a restaurant that gave me a free slice of Key Lime Pie when they found out it was my birthday. We said, over our mounded plates of fresh seafood, that we didn't know if we'd have room to finish our dinner, much less for dessert.

Plates emptied, we dug into that pie.

Thank you, Nick...for a birthday in paradise.

Quick update:

Head out to Flickr for uploads from our cameras. We're off for some liquid apps...