Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

- I did take the plunge and buy the Nexus! I'll worry about selling my Amazon gift cards to someone and getting the birthday money I never got from Dad later. I deserve to have a decent phone. Especially as I'm going to move in with Mom in a couple of weeks.

- Tried to order the sim card from T-Mobile so it could get here around the same time, but I had a ton of problems and had to go to the help chat; couldn't type in the box on the help chat, had to phone; the downstairs land line's battery was empty so I used my phone and reception was so bad I had to apologize and hang up. I will go to the mall the night I get the phone to buy a sim card in person.

- I'm stupidly tense about it all coming together before I have to give my badge back in so I can get that discount. But TBH 100 minutes for $30 is probably a decent deal for me, even though unlimited for $35 would obviously be better. Why do I impose these restrictions on myself?

- Called the Dept. of Civil Service, left a voicemail about my faxed transcript. It's probably going to take them a few days, hopefully it will be all straightened out by then.

- I think the place Melissa took my car for an estimate way padded it out. I finally looked at it closely, and there's a LOT that isn't directly related to taking a dent out of the panel - glass, lights, etc. WTF? It looked like they added about ten hours of work onto it. I still may take it to small claims court (there's got to be a chance that a judge would rule that they need to pay at least 75%, it's not a straightforward "two people backing into each other" case), but I want to get another estimate when Dad takes it to deal with the check engine light FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS WINTER and see how much it is.

- This bodice is going to be finished in Lake George because I spent all evening screwing around with T-Mobile.

And everything is so green. Took pictures, will upload later. Yesterday I went out with Dad to help appraise some farm/woodland properties, and while we were driving I thought about the feeling I'd had when we were driving out of Manhattan - that I'm dooming myself to creative stagnation because omg so much ~inspiration~ there that I never took advantage of! But then I realized that for all that people talk about how inspiring and magical the city is, the books I like best are ones that draw from forests and villages and oldness (eg Austen, Diana Wynne Jones, Susanna Clarke) - and there's plenty of that around here. So then I felt better.

I found a 2001 Honda Civic on Craigslist that I'm going to call about today. \o/ Wonderful fuel efficiency and it's located in Greenwich.

Need to send transcript request form so the Dept. of Labor will give me my money!!

J and I are going to have a tea party tomorrow. Right now I've got cream in the oven, hopefully turning into clotted cream, and I'm also going to make banana bread, iced strawberry tea punch, Devonshire splits (hence the cream), and little strawberry tarts. Although something might get cut out.

This book sounds adorable and I fully plan to read it at some point.