Good morning!

I'm making a determined effort to be cheerful today. Yesterday got a bit aggravating but there's no reason to take it out on today.

First, I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I was receiving the (unearned*) honor of being named one of Mother's Little Helpers on the Webstrainer forum, right? The official announcement was made today and there's a thread of nice comments.

Mostly I'm now ashamed of myself that I still haven't gotten around to taking the stupid certification test. It's moved up on my priority list from the "just do it" category into the "by the end of the week or else" category.

And, speaking of things that haven't gotten done, I did send DiamondGirl a screen cap of one of the Gidget Co's website pages, explaining precisely what I didn't like. That was several days ago. I checked the site again this morning and it's still got the same unprofessional sloppiness. Sigh.

If I weren't such a procrastinator myself, I would so email her and abuse her.

Last night I was doing a final tidy-up in the kitchen before going to bed. I opened the dishwasher to put in a dirty dish and there was dirty water standing in the bottom. Another plumbing problem. Since it was after 11, I didn't call maintenance. It was on my list of things to do this morning but the idea occurred to me that the water might have been there since Sunday's adventure, so I ran the "drain" part of the dishwasher cycle this morning and it did seem to clean up the problem. I'll check again when I get home.

I answered an email from the L-i-K-S this morning. It seems that Our Brother has disappeared--phone disconnected and the place he and his wife have been living for the past twenty years empty. He's not one of life's overachievers, Our Brother, so this disappearance has me worried. He's either taken off cross-country on some weird and unlikely get-rich-quick excursion, or even that ratty trailer became more than he could pay the lot rent for and they've moved in with some other borderline indigent friends.

I'm fairly concerned. Our Brother and I were very close when we were young. Very close. That was a long time ago--our relationship never really recovered from his decade-long stay in the Bratty Boy stage, but the core of it remains.

When I think of him, I tend to remember the days when it was him and me against the world and the two younger girls had either not yet made an appearance or were both at the baby-lump-in-a-crib stage. Although the R.C. is only two or three years younger than I am, Our Brother and I lived through a lot in the years before she turned sentient.

I don't often think about them--it wasn't necessarily a pleasant time, but it did make a bond, you know?

I'm not going to think about that now. I should be working. Also, not a cheerful topic.

So far, this week is taking more effort than there's any actual reason for, okay?

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* Really. I mean, yes, I post a lot but that's not necessarily the same as being incredibly wise, you know?