Hard to believe that I'm leaving for vacation in eleven days. I guess I should get busy, no? I told Andy that I'm sure he wishes that he could send a snapshot of me now back to the person I was a year ago. I was so miserable at the time that when he said, "I promise that things will get better," I made him write it out on a post-it note and sign it for proof.

I kept that post-it note in my wallet for a while. By November or so I knew that I'd have to bail out of my job sometime in the very near future or risk an emotional breakdown of some kind; unfortunately I lost the piece of paper before I had a chance to scan it and do something goofy with it.

He was right. Things got better. Jeff's having a better semester, so I actually get to see him and talk to him. I changed jobs, which eliminated about 90% of the stress in my life. Through changing jobs I met several new friends, which have had an enormous effect on my personal life.

I don't feel quite so guilty about working on personal stuff tonight. I got the kitchen and living room reasonably tidied. Jeff cleaned the guest bathroom, and I tidied up the guest bedroom. Laundry's going now. This house is in much better shape than it was 48 hours ago.

I even got a bit of work done on the site for Andrew and Joy. After much tweaking I finally got around to sending them a proposal for the front page of their site.

All this…after getting my spouse to the mall this morning. Dillard's had some pretty sweet end-of-season sales going on today, and Jeff finally has some new pants and shirts. We got a few pair of pants, about four dress shirts, and a pair of shorts—for $70. Once I get the pants hemmed, he's set.

I just booked my tickets for my October trip out to D.C.

This is going to be a most excellent trip. As I just said to Andy: "Sunburns, exhaustion, blistered feet, getting lost, airports, airplanes, renting cars…I do this why?"