Magpie: Just keep taking small steps over the line of what you're comfortable with, until one day you realize that you've covered the entire world. (Me, I still have Africa and most of Asia as being too far out of my comfort zone. Hope to do Nepal and Cambodia next year, though, as the less scary stepping stones to India and Vietnam - and I can only contemplate Cambodia because I did Thailand previously.)

My legs are so sore from the hike yesterday! And it was hot again. But I still made myself go to the botanical garden and spent several lovely hours sitting by the pond there, writing.

Yay, I'm going to visit Libra in two weeks!

*excited bouncing and bouncing*

I's got me visitors!!!! So looking forward to both of them!!!!!!!!!!!!

*tries to bounce and falls over*
*settles for bouncing in work chair*

So fiancee traded in his big truck this weekend. He was really getting tired of it being so expensive and so big, which I understand. He traded it in for a Jeep Wrangler, which is really fun! It came with the hard top, which is awesome. We drove around a bunch Saturday when he got it and the tops of my thighs got sunburnt :x
Then he went and bought an iPod nano... lol Ok so maybe I have shopping-envy right now...

Gotta get a new pair of sneakers pretty soon, the ones I've been wearing to the gym are a few years old now and are pretty much on the "worn out" phase. I mean, I'll still wear them to the store, but I don't want to do anything high stress in them. I'm thinking about another pair of New Balance's, as it's what I currently own and have been very pleased with them. Of course I might also just go with a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor's, as they have the hard, flat sole that is good for lifting. Hmmm, decisions...

Pleasantly cool day... and we're finally throwing out all the plants we can no longer sell. Such a relief not to have to look at them any longer!

Sahi, Libra said she doesn't have much room, so she can't really invite more than one person at a time - but we'll all be together soon enough.

I nearly overslept today, because the battery in my alarm clock died. Luckily, traffic always wakes me up, and I started to wonder why it was still the same time every time I looked at the clock while trying to get back to sleep.

I was pretty sore the last two days from the hike on Saturday - today, it finally stopped.

I had a great day today. It was sunny, but windy and not too hot, I had some pleasant tasks (and actually got something finished, despite being interrupted by customers all the time), and then there was this woman who, after paying, pushed a € 1 coin across the counter and said, "that's for you, for always being so nice." (I told her it was easy with nice customers, and she actually was nice, too.)
Then after work, I forced myself to go to the shopping centre... years ago, I got a coupon for a travelling agency for winning first place in the apprentice competition... and never used it, because, well, when I travel, I do it by train, and I don't need a travelling agency for that. So I got the expiration date extended, and then extended again... but now that I'm planning to visit Libra in London, I decided, the time had finally come to use it. Nice coincidence when I walked in, one of the travelling agency employees was a woman I know, and she was free. Made everything much easier for me - this was my first time at a travelling agency, my first time booking a flight, and being able to talk to someone I know made it so much less awkward! And the coupon was just the right amount for the tickets, too!
Then, since I was already in the area, I bought my youngest brother's birthday present, and decided to pop into the garden centre too. And who do I meet there? Another employee I know (she was a Town Gardens apprentice as well, just in another department.). So we chatted, mainly about stupid customers, until it was nearly closing time, and I had to snatch up the passion flower I'd fallen in love with (yes, because four aren't enough), spent five minutes zipping from table to table and exclaiming over interesting plants, but then had to go and pay without deciding whether I should buy anything else. I guess I'll have to go back there again this week and pick up a couple more plants... (yes, I'm insane.)

Wow. 350 g of snow peas from the balcony today! I can't even eat that much in one meal. But it'll probably be the last harvest of the year.

And I'm totally planning to take my temper out on my plants, and throw out the ones that annoy me.

YAY! Oh, I love working in a tiny village! Guess what happened - my boss just called me, someone found my rucksack, recognized it as mine and brought it to him!

Back from the dentist.  I'll tell you, having to hold your mouth wide open for two hours is distinctly unpleasant.  And during the last half hour, the anesthetic started to wear off so I got a couple of painful jolts.  But it's done now.  And I'm not even doing that much numb-faced drooling.  I'll have to go back in a couple of weeks to have a crown put on it.

Magpie: So glad your rucksack was recovered!  I've been fortunate to not have lost a bag, but some a$$hole snatched my purse many years ago.  There wasn't much cash in it but it was all the cash I had at the time.  The real pain was having to get my driver's license replaced, cancelling checks and credit & debit cards and getting them re-issued.  And the fact that I couldn't get more cash because my debit & credit cards were gone, couldn't write a check because I had no I.D. because my driver's license was gone.  I had to take time off work (unpaid) to go into the bank with my passport to withdraw money to pay the fee to replace my driver's license.

Magpie wrote:

Oh dear, cyan, that must have been a dreadful lot of bother!

Yeah, it was pretty dreadful.  The thing that really pissed me off about that whole incident was the fact that there was only about $15 in my wallet at the time.  This happened about 20 years ago so the technology wasn't there for your typical purse-snatcher to really take advantage of having someone's credit or debit cards, or checks.  (I got everything cancelled immediately.)  So that a$$hole was simply going for the cash.  It cost me way more than $15 to deal with the consequences; I'd have been happy to just give him the money!