It's official!

The closing went smoothly this morning and we are really excited to move in! The movers arrive June 14th.

A few (dark) photos here - more later.

Sorry, this is all rather vague

I tend to keep things fairly light and fluffy around here, but I've been dealing with some bad anxiety over the past few days, brought on by:

financial stress accompanying our home purchase
an energy-sucking "friendship" that I need to distance myself from
some health issues (nothing terrible, but even routine check-ups stress me out)
Worry over a situation that people close to us are dealing with
A reminder that I can be waaay too accommodating, at the expense of not standing up for myself etc.

Most of these are small things that I let build up, culminating in a really bad day at work on Friday. Thank god for my husband, pizza and a Spirited Away re-watch.
My attempts to alleviate all this included:

cardio-kickboxing at the gym yesterday morning. It's ridiculous but I actually imagined punching anxiety in the face. It helped.

A few hours spent at the bookstore perusing Quick and Easy Upholstery and the 2008 Antiques Guide and realizing how much I like both Finn Juhl chairs and Windsor settees.

A great multi-family yard sale in my neighborhood. Old birdcages, dusty books, wooden boxes, containers of sewing thread, rusty medical equipment and tools...

The People of the Book - halfway through and enjoying it.

black bean pumpkin soup (Note: I only used ~2 Tbs of butter and cut out the sherry and this was still really good).

I tackled 1/3 of Mt. Washmore, which is so large it seems to exist in a fourth dimension:

Here's to a better week, starting tomorrow.

On the menu

Israeli couscous with roasted tomatoes and olives
Baked cod in yogurt sauce
salted butter caramel ice cream (oh yeahhhhh.) via smitten kitchen.



The ice cream photos will have to be continued - the custard is in the fridge overnight.

New Love

Radio Lab from NY Public Radio. Sort of like This American Life for science nerds. So so good.

I can't remember where I first heard about it, but a post on kottke.org reminded me to check it out.