The grad school problem very well might be solved. I am exhausted by all this drama, but somehow feel invincible. In the immortal words of Cake: She uses a machete to cut through red tape. That's me, the girl in the Short Skirt, Long Jacket. Except that I usually wear jeans and ratty sweater. Other than that, though...


It's snowing lightly here in Charlottesville and that can only mean two things: crazy drivers and that it's time for a nice, hearty dinner. The driving I've complained about before, so let's skip right to the dinner part. What do you think? Stew? A roast with homemade mashed potatoes? Oohh...I know! Homemade mac and cheese - the kind with the nice, bubbly crust on top. Yep, that's it! A winner every time.


Since I'm just sitting here waiting for UPS to make it through the snow to deliver my (client's) laptop from it's short vacation back to HQ, I will tell you a story. So we've been talking with our three year old about babies and such, hoping to prepare him for our new family member. He usually asks a couple questions about how little she'll be or if she can play with his duplos and such before he wanders off in search of something more interesting to do. Last night, though, he became quite upset when the subject came up. He asked how the baby would be coming and I told him that I would go to the hospital and that Daddy and the doctor would help me have the baby and then we'd come home. WELL. He started to cry, saying that he didn't want the doctor to hurt me. "I don't want the doctor to cut your tummy and make you hurt!" he wailed over and over. In the investigation into this fear, we discovered that one of his classmates has a new baby brother who was delivered via C-section and he gleaned just enough information to be scared for me. It took us a while to calm him down and answer his questions, but he eventually seemed satisfied that Mama, Daddy and the doctor would all work together and Mama will be very happy to have the baby with such good people taking care of her. Poor sweetie - the world is so scary when you're three. Can you imagine? He carried around the thought of me being hurt all by himself.