Framing is expensive. It requires a lot of specialty tools. You probably aren't being robbed. I know an artist who went into framing and started a business because it was too damn expensive to keep paying to frame his own work.

I've six O Holy Nights. This one by Lou Christie with the Pittsburgh Choir is pretty. Also have Brave Combo's O Holy Night Cha Cha, and a soul version with Irma Thomas, Tracie Thomas and Marcia Ball.

I'm sure I'm being robbed simply because a) OMG expensive but also I'm going to the nearest place to my apartment and it's a chain store and I've never comparison shopped and I don't even choose very aggressively. It's all on me.

but then I had to stop to have a discussion with Dita about whether or not she could eat the tree.

Om nom nom bzzzzzzt

This has been driving me nuts the past couple of days - the snot color thing is a myth. Green snot is the result of your immune system fighting something, could be viral, could be bacterial, could be allergies. It's not a reliable method of diagnosing sinus infections.

Okay, I need to clear up my knowledge here --

What I think - It's a sign of your immune system fighting something so it is a sign of infection, just it could be bacterial (anti-b's for YOU, if that is your wont) or viral (no anti-b's for you because useless) and the color is no indication of which. Because I always was told that the green was infection, just it wasn't color coded to WHAT was infecting you and thus you couldn't diagnose treatment on color alone.

Am I completely wrong?

And go, Ron Wyden, for showing up to vote even though he's supposed to be prepping for cancer surgery.

Yes. And glad to see the results of the vote.

OMG I don't put heavy cream in my eggnog. It's about the only dairy thing I don't put heavy cream in. But I'm looking at other people's recipes, and they all have cream in.

Do you guys use cream?

According to this week's Economist, people are, on average, least happy at 46, and then they get happier over time.

I was happier at 46 than I've ever been in my life, and at 47 I am approaching actual happiness.

I went to World Market and BB&B this morning, spent $200, and bought more stuff for myself than Christmas presents. Granted, it was all stuff I needed or had meant to buy for a while (like a shredder). Thank goodness for Amazon Wishlists. I couldn't last-minute shop for, say, my BFF's daughters without help.

And, honestly, I can't believe I'm last-minute shopping. This wasn't the plan. After we got back from the last farm trip, my sister said, do you realize Christmas is just two weeks away? and I said, WHAT? Aigh! because I really hadn't.

Erin, your proposal story was cute! I love the fact that you were munching brocccoli and cheese at the time.

My niece used to work at a Michael's doing framing. We took horrible advantage of her. I can do it, I just don'wanna.

I cut my hair short in solidarity with a friend who was going through chemo and then discovered how much easier it made my grooming and can't bring myself to grow it back out.

Then I moved to CR where my only friends are my gay sister's circle of mostly gay women friends.

I'm sure that most people think I'm a lesbian and I don't really do anything to dispell the myth.

OK, cookies done [link] , on to housecleaning. (No pictures.)

DH is off being interviewed on some kind of car-related radio show. I was going to go to work, but had to walk the dogs first. It was raining so damn hard that I decided to wait until there was a break, which there was at 11 or so. After that, I thought the DH was going to be home by lunch so I waited to eat with him... til I got too hungry and made lunch. Now I've heard from him and he'll be back home in 90 minutes....have I gotten writing done? No. Have I measured the closets for reorganization? No. Have I done fuck-all except puttering around putting laundry away, doing dishes and playing games on FaceBook? No. Feh.

I will do what I can for the rest of the day.

According to this week's Economist, people are, on average, least happy at 46, and then they get happier over time.

I was looking forward to 45 a lot, but now I'm pretty sure 46 is going to be a hell of a lot happier.