Yesterday I talked with a couple people online for a few minutes, added a couple stocks to my stalking sheet, and took an hour-long lunch at my house.

I did my arms workout while my soup heated up, mixed together a spinach salad, and then sat on my couch with Hambone nearby as I ate half of my soup with some crushed crackers. Unfortunately my lunch wasn�t enough of a break to make the day go by faster.

Argh. At least I got half a workout in and didn�t spend another $6 on a crummy burrito.

Today�s really been no different, expect I didn�t go home for lunch. I stalked some stocks, made some good calls on Benito�s portfolio that weren�t followed, and wrote a couple overdue emails.

I�m taking off tomorrow for Benito�s Birthday Extravaganza, and I still want to be paid for that day, so I�m trying to work as many hours as possible to make up for that. So far I�m pretty behind since I took the lunch yesterday and then took off early for a class to teach me how to do some marketing activities.

If you ever find yourself in a group that is raising funds, let me know. I have a great way to make some money for your group. This goes for you runners, bikers, walkers, church-goers, PTO members, Girl Scout leaders, and everyone else in a group that wants an easy but fruitful way to make some quick cash. I�m your hook-up -- WHOOT!

Today I got on Friendster for the first time in a while (I usually go to see what pictures certain friends have up), and it�s officially dead. People aren�t posting to the message boards anymore, you can contact people who aren�t actually friends of your friends (wasn�t that the original point?!), and it�s just boring.

D-E-A-D, dead.

Speaking of such, I�m having bad dreams lately. I don�t know what�s up. Last night I had a dream where I couldn�t save a bird being attacked, and I�ve had various driving scenarios in the week before.

I just googled the reasons for having bad dreams, and nothing�s fitting quite right. I�m not anxious, don�t take any drugs or medications, am not sick, haven�t suffered a traumatic event, or am going through any stress in my waking life. Maybe since things are running pretty smoothly in real life, I�m getting a few snags from the Sand Man.

Damn you, Sand Man! Knock it off!

All right. Enough on that. It�s 5 o�clock, so I�ll leave you with ten things I�ve liked about today:

(1) My clean house. It�s wooooonderful to come home to a place there I have a place to sit, dishes to cook with, and stuff to entertain me. No clutter, no piles, no layer of dust that�ll make me slip. Oh yeah. No confetti either.

(2) Confetti. Yes, I�m still on this one. I have a small amount of stuff to take to Benito�s on Thursday, and I added the birthday confetti to it. It�ll once again be all over his house, but now I know just how fun it is. (He also knows how easy it is to clean up, so all is fine with that.)

(3) The plant on my desk. Although it annoys me that I�ve had this plant for many months and that it�s yet to flower as it was when I got it, I�m quite pleased that it�s still alive. I water it every couple days, and there�s plenty of new leaf growth. I would get plants for home, but I know better.

(4) My dland stats counter. I love the option that tells me domain names of who all read me that day. I like that each morning, my recent stats show my overseas readers. I enjoy recognizing someone off of the company�s domain name or the city and state abbreviations listed with cable and DSL modems.

(5) My coming-soon at-home Internet connection. My building has been approved for super Internet access. Instead of $60 a month for cable modem or DSL, I get a faster connection (8 mbps) and onsite tech support. As soon as the building is wired, I�ll have a time-sucker at home that will allow me to eBay at all hours, check my email and online calendar on the weekends, and snuggle a warm computer at night.

(6) This upcoming Thursday. As I mentioned, I�m taking that day off. Since I have no vacation hours and love money, I have a hard time taking any days off. When we�re forced to take a day off, I�m still in the office or working remotely to maintain my weekly hours. Yes, I spent last 4th of July in the office. I�ve already worked a good number of extra hours, so this will be a fun freebie day. Getting to spend it with Benito makes it even better.

(7) MSO. I�ve added Martha Stewart�s stock to my ticker watch list. It�s a $10-15 stock (affordable without typing up too many funds), has a good 20-30 cent weekly swing (because it�s cheap enough to buy a bunch of it, you actually make decent money with this sort of swing), and will be pretty stable for now.

(8) My brother�s web site. It�s coming along pretty well. It�s all about what a badass baseball player he is and how he wants to eventually play pro ball. I just got his stats for his past three games, and it�s insane. He�s got a ten game hit streak, and he�s gone 10/14 in the past three games with three stolen bases. He�s not playing in a namby-pamby league either. This is 90 mph pitching, minor league players keeping sharp during the off season, and my 16-year-old brother still kicking ass. ROCK ON!

(9) Being close enough to walk home for lunch. Yesterday I made a can of tomato soup with added celery seed, basil, oregano, and garlic. I also had a big ol� spinach salad with corn and tomatoes tossed in some low-fat, low-cal Italian dressing. And since I was home and had the time anyway, I did my arms weight-lifting sequence. So I ate a healthy and cheap meal, I relaxed a little, and I did a partial workout. Go me!

(10) Ice pellets. Instead of bulky cubes of ice, the ice machine at work gives off the little pellets they used to have a Taco Bell all those years ago. So few places have my preferred ice, and it makes me really happy that this is what I get at work. It really helps with drinking 8 cups of water a day when you have your preferred ice.

All right, everyone. Happy Tuesday! �