Stream of Consciousness...

It is 5 degrees here... That is freakin' cold! Good thing I haven't had to leave the house yet... But, I will have to soon. I have to hit nine different stores today in order to complete my final pre-Sweden shopping circuit. Highlights to look forward to: World Market (for glögg), Joanne (to pick up some thinner string for Christmas present jewelry making), and Barnes & Noble (I could spend a whole day there...).

I fell asleep at 2 AM this morning. Sophie started barking ferociously around 4 AM (probably at those pesky bunnies in the back yard). I'm glad she attempts to protect us. The point is, I got two solid hours of sleep. Awesome. Today is going to be fun.

I learned how to clean UGGs today. (Yep, earlier this fall, I broke down and got my child ridiculously expensive sheepskin boots.) What I learned: Buying UGG cleaning stuff is expensive, but works well (I'm not really into the whole do-it-yourself concoction thing...), a little cleaning solution goes a looooong way, and the process requires a butt load of paper towels (sorry trees!). What I don't know yet is how long it will take for them to dry and is it going to be in time for our trip tomorrow (if not, I will be in serious trouble)?

I am a laundry machine! Well, not literally. What I mean is, I can do an awful lot of laundry in one day. It's 8:23 AM right now, and I'm already on the second load. Laundry is one of my more favorite household chores. It's way better than dusting and vacuuming (that's a really hard word to spell...). However, not as fun as washing the dishes. I haven't used our dishwasher here in months. It left these suspect white traces of something on everything. Not cool. Dish washing is pretty therapeutic, if you ask me.

Speaking of therapeutic, deep breathing totally works. I felt some severe nausea attacking me a few minutes ago and I started breathing deeply and deliberately and soon I was back to normal. It also works when you feel like yelling at your tween or when things get stressful at work.

Btw, the whole eating less sugar thing combined with regular exercise is working out. Today, I hit my "what I need to weigh before I go to Sweden" weight. Pretty exciting. This is preemptive weight loss to offset the very probably weight gain caused by my mom's fantastic cooking. We'll see how it goes.

Seems the weather in Sweden will be mild enough for running outside. It's 37 degrees there today. Nice. This will be the first time I go to Sweden for warmer weather. Weird.

Well, my guess is Target is open by now, so I should probably start my shopping round, since Sophie needs to be at her grooming appointment at noon and I need to be at mine shortly thereafter.

Later...