But I love that hugging is still okay!

My kid, he is full of contradictions.

Your kid is so awesome.

Ooh, thanks dcp.

Well, this evening was my first back at private music lessons. I got sick of doing it last year mostly because of no shows and whatnot, but if I'm serious about Dave Ramsey, and I have a chance to increase my income, I gotta do it. And it looks like the store owner is being much more hardcore about making them follow the payment rules.

So tonight, first night, I have a noshow. {facepalm} But it was on a gift certificate, and we set up the whole schedule around her, so he charged her. So I got paid for three lessons, even though I only taught two. But it evens out to $36 and I was there for 3 hours, so not such a great rate. But if I get the schedule full, it'd be $72, and that would be worth it.

But I'm back in the game! I anxietied about it all day but I used my moodgym tools and talked myself back up. And it was fun and I made money and I got to see the SO. I'll need to get serious about my schedule to make sure I'm getting everything else done, but yay extra cash.

That's awesome, Liese! Good for you. What's moodgym?

Moodgym is Australian, that's what it is, and I've already inappropriately been doing really bad Angry Boys accents all day, so I have to stay away from their web site for now.

Moodgym. It's a simple online cognitive behavior therapy program. You test for your depression and anxiety levels and then learn tools in each module. It's a little simplistic, so it's best for low level issues, but it has been very helpful to me. Especially as rural as I am, I've been unable to find good mental health care. Even at the suicide clinic, the other professionals were asked what the local resources were and they said, oh, there are none. So anyway, it's been good. Some of it is funny because it's aimed younger than me, but it still works.

Today was a good day at work. I met my first release deadline to a client with hours to spare, met my goal on how many pages to lay out, and was able to tell Top Boss that I'd already finished a surprise request from a firm we're partnering with when she asked if we would need to pull in an outside designer for the task. Also got in my now-daily 1.25 mile walk, made friends with a couple of beagles on same, and finished work in time to visit my folks for a bit (though sadly not in time to rescue the steak I'd intended to cook tonight before it went bad).

Nice, Matt.

I finally met up with my father via Skype. My family who didn't tell me beforehand he was going in for surgery sent me the same picture of him post-surgery three times. In case I didn't notice.

Apparently he wasn't legally allowed to drive without the surgery. I mean, they were going to give him the license anyway, but they shouldn't have, so he had the surgery. Jesus.

Matt,

damn. your accomplishments make me want to cheer and weep. I feel like a slacker.

In the exciting realm of Worlds Collide, Emmett was in his bedroom playing music for Matilda on his iPad and explaining, "This is 'Ziggy Stardust' by David Bowie."

And I popped my head in and told her, "That's the same guy who played the Goblin King in Labyrinth."

Her mind was blown. Her jaw dropped and everything.