It is a beautful sunny day (are the weather people EVER right?) so Nathan got to go outside this morning. I slept in after Mark had to go to work, but when I got up and turned the front door knob, Nathan came running faster than I've ever seen him move. He was a hungry boy. He is back out again now lolling in the sun somewhere. I love the rain and being able to be inside, but for his sake I'm glad it is sunny.

I have a long list of things I would like to accomplish today. I don't know what will get done but I didn't want to hit that impasse of "what to do???" Last night I pulled out a lot of the stuff on the shelves of the pantry to begin getting it back in order. I already threw out a sack of pinto beans that said "Best if used by 9/98." I'm determined to throw out things that moved with us to Austin and especially things we've had since we married! It doesn't pay to be a packrat with spices and foodstuffs. One of my new year's resolutions (that I still haven't written down) is to use more fresh spices and "fancy" ingredients and improve my cooking just a little bit. I'm sure cinnamon rolls with fresher cinnamon and just-grated nutmeg would be much better. Yum. Cinnamon rolls... No, that doesn't fit in with my losing weight resolution (which I haven't definitely made, but know I probably should).

I have this long list and I get up late and start slow and then B! calls and we talk an hour and we make plans to go for a walk at the lake later today. I know I will enjoy that and "walk" is on my list, but I am feeling pressure that I need to DO stuff. Knowing I'm going to go walk puts a deadline on me, though, so I guess that is good. Maybe I can get the pantry done faster. And I don't have to clean up or shower if we're going to walk, so that helps.

B! and I sound like two old women on the phone. I guess we are two old women. We discussed our menstrual difficulties in great detail, something I would never have discussed ten or twenty years ago (maybe because I didn't have such things back then---difficulties, not menstual cycles). We talked about knitting! We talked about "back in my day..." We condemned electronics manufacturers that make the buttons too little on the VCRs, cameras, stereos, etc. We discussed Medicare (our parents') and figured we are in a pretty cushy spot in history. We're on the tail end of the babyboom so, if the world doesn't run out of money by the time we are really old, the "system" will have figured out how to take care of all of us oldsters by the time we follow all the real babyboomers as they age. I still like the thoughts of my friend Kitty on us getting old. She suggests we buy a block of small homes or maybe an old motel. We'll fix it up and pay for it while we're still prosperous and working. Then, when we are unable to take care of ourselves we'll all live there together and pool our money for a nurse and all the other caregivers we need. If you have to have some old person drooling on you and have to smell the urine of the elderly, better that it be someone you love than a bunch of strangers in a nursing home. All of us that don't have kids need to be making some sort of plan for ourselves, I suppose. Not that kids necessarily take care of you even if you have them.

I'm just rambling now and all the foodstuffs of the pantry are on the kitchen table so I am going to go concentrate for a little bit.