I had quite a shock this morning when I logged into my delphi forum page, and then clicked onto Reality Bites (a site about television.) The first thread that popped up was entitled "Donations for Lolly." I was wondering why they were taking donations for Lolly, this particular forums hostess. As I looked further, I was even more shocked to find out that she (Lolly) had *died* Saturday night from an asthma attack at the age of 34! !!

I'm mainly a lurker (don't post much) at most of the forums I go to, but she (Lolly) was one of the people whom I had had some interaction with, and I always looked forward to reading her takes on various tv shows. The whole forum is just shell shocked right now.

What really got to me the most though is that one of my best friends is 31 years old, and has had terrible problems with asthma her whole life. About four years ago she was hospitalized with pneumonia/asthma for nearly two weeks and came very close to dying. Since having her son two years ago, her health has greatly improved, and she is now expecting a little girl in March. It's just so scary to me to have it really hit home that people *really* *do* *die* from asthma.

Something else that really caught me off gaurd today. I got an email from Eric, a guy I had initially met through one of the christian dating sites, and we became good email friends. The last note I'd gotten from him was shortly after Halloween. He basicaly was forwarding the weather warning (freeze warning). Well, on the list of the Carbon Copy, was a very familiar name - Heather R. Heather was an associate pastor with my dad a little over 6 years ago. She and I became fairly good friends, had fun together, etc, but lost touch when she went away to seminary. So anyway, I wrote him back a short note, and asked him how he knew Heather. He replied that Heather was the girl he'd mentioned to me awhile back - and that she is his girlfriend!!! I'll have to fill you in on part of what really surprised me - Eric is *just* 5'10 standing tall. Heather is at least 6'1, maybe 6'2 standing relaxed. The other part that got me was that it was just another indication of just how small the Adventist world is.

Dad and I went to Kroger's tonight because I wanted to stock up on cat litter and cat food (on sale + had coupons). He threw one of his royal conniptions at the cashier because she didn't heed his call fast enough about not wanting coinage back, but wanting to get rid of his own coinage. He was upset with me too, because I guess he caught me rolling my eyes at him. Ooops.

Then we went to the Chinese resturant where they have the most scrumptious Egg Foo Young. He was already in a foul mood, and then while we were standing at the ordering place, he was taking his sweet time figuring out what we were getting -- the cashier/order taker took her attention off of him for one minute to let a lady behind us know that her food would be ready in five minutes. I agree, it probably wasn't the *best* customer treatment, but he totally went off and took it as a complete affront to him - total rudeness. It's evenings like this that almost make me think maybe being single isn't such a bad life outcome after all. There are ways of dealing with things like this constructively, and then there are ways of blowing things out of proportion and making a spectacle of yourself. I prefer to deal constructively.

We hired three new surveyor's today. I will be training them on Thursday. I am crossing my fingers that between the new surveyor's and the MEga batteries being mailed, that we will be at 100% completion on Dec 17.

Well, I started reading this book called "Angel's and Demon's" by Dan Brown. It's a work of fiction talking about the Catholic Church, the Illuminati, and anti-matter. It's pretty good so far.

It's supposed to snow or sleet tomorrow. I hope it does snow - I'll go out and make snow angels. I know this is probably not a healthy thing to admidt, but on my iwon.com homepage I have a weather icon for my town ... and also for Lincoln, NE. They are having temps of around 3 degrees and lower. I wonder how Scott is faring in all that.

Dad picked up the tab for everything at Kroger's tonight, even though I had planned on paying for the cat stuff.
So he bought $42.xx worth of groceries, and paid $19.XX after store coupons and other coupons.

I got my latest water bill today. It went down another $6 -- down from ~$59 to ~ $53. I sure wish I knew what was making it go down, cuz then I'd keep on doing it, but more fanatically.

No spending on my part today.
Did 15 minutes on my Gazelle, and 25 minutes of weight lifting.

Keeping It Frugal in Texas,
Laura