I did the dishes yesterday - and all but three loads of laundry, scrubbed the bathrooms, kitchen, vacuumed, and a billion other things. Also hurt my back and scrubbed the skin off my knuckles. Today the plan is to clean out the refridgerator, get the hard water stains off the tub, and clean the table. Also took care of an annoying bill I keep getting that they never submitted to my insurance. BAH on them!

I've updated the pictures of my niece Amanda. I'm also linking to a friend's site here. His name is Andy and he has a nice weblog and some links to gorgeous photos he recently took on his mom's farm.

My friend John emailed me from Iraq again... "I think our strategy here should change a bit, to win the hearts and minds more by going into more of the small towns and villages, helping to get them on their feet in order to deny the former legime loyalists from recruiting supporters. That, along with finding key terrorists, will be what determines our success. As long as there's a question about our motives, we will have issues.

Now that we are here, I think that whatever administration comes in next, be it Bush II, Dean, Clark, or Kerry, they will be stuck with this mess to clean up. It will take years.

This is a risky business out here, no doubt. Whether anybody acknowledges it out loud or not. The best we can do is to stay alert and know what to do in case something happens. And we are doing our best. Probably the worst part is being the guy who sees all the reports from all over as the intelligence officer, cause you see the casualties and the attacks. I do the analysis and determine the best way we can prevent the same tactics from being used on us. Talk about job satisfaction: when things go right, nothing happens!"

I still worry about him.. when I was in college, he and I were very close for the first 2 1/2-3 years. We would go out and have fun all the time, because he had a girlfriend away in Connecticut and I had a boyfriend away in New York. But then he met this psycho girl and she took him for a ride and he ditched all his friends. They recently divorced.

There are certain people i think about often but don't reach out to them in my life. It's made quite a few friends angry with me. I think about them, even miss them, but I can't find the strength(?) to break out of my shell and talk to them. I don't know.