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starting tonight and well into tomorrow) but that's OK because it's been a busy two days. On Wednesday, I met bff and our good mutual friend for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. I tried a couple new things--fried avocado tacos in jicama shells and a Mexican "vegetable" soup that had chunks of chicken in it--that were absolutely outstanding and one new thing--the very cherry Ghirardelli chocolate cheesecake--that was very good but not something I'd get again. The cherry cheesecake was supposed to be "loaded with cherries" but I didn't see a single piece of fruit, and I didn't love all the mini chocolate chips sprinkled all over it. Good Mutual Friend was kind enough to pay for all our meals, which was really, really sweet of him...and not unexpected. As gruff as he likes to pretend he is, and as much as he grumbles about hating "people", he's a bit of a softie deep down <g>. Bff had made homemade chicken soup and brought Good Mutual Friend and me bowls for us and our respective parents, plus she brought her leftover Christmas candy for us to take home, as she's diabetic AND trying to lose weight and didn't need all that chocolate (her words, not mine). When she told me she had "bags" of leftover chocolate, I thought she meant small bags that were opened and almost gone. Nope...I came home with a 36 oz. bag of Hershey's miniatures and a 12 oz. bag of Malley's (a local chocolatier) milk chocolate balls, both unopened, and Good Mutual Friend took home similar sized bags of Reese's peanut butter cups and Hershey's nuggets. After our lunch, which, being us, ran into dinner, I went just down the street to The Container Store to get a replacement spice bottle for one from my spice rack. I somehow managed to splinter the glass rim when trying to pry off the plastic top of one bottle. Because I had a little left on a gift card for the store, and because The Container Store is seriously one of my happy places, I also got a ring holder and a plastic envelope big enough to protect a magazine I'm trying to preserve for future generations <g>.

Today I was supposed to go with my good friend from the bindery to visit a former co-worker who was recently in the hospital and had just gotten transferred to a rehab facility, but we had to postpone because the former has a touch of respiratory issues right now and doesn't want to pass it on to the latter, or to me. Instead, I went mall walking with my aunt and told her since I'd not had to pay for lunch the day before, we could go out to lunch today. We walked, hit a brand new (and very nice) Dollar Tree in a neighboring town, then dined at Red Robin (yummmmm!). I haven't had a good burger in forever, and RR remedied that today.

One other thing bff brought with her yesterday: she'd swung by Cleveland Rocks and Beads and picked up the glass beads we'd made last Friday. We each made 8 beads, in either the "donut" style or round, with varying degrees of success <g>. One of mine came out pretty lopsided, and the yellow "string" of glass added to it towards the end kind of melded with the regular green and turned a sort of slightly lighter green, but I'm happy with three of the others and REALLY happy with the remaining four. Again, I don't think I'm going to have a career making glass beads any time soon but I'm considering signing bff and I up for another class as a birthday gift to her. Like me, she had one bead come out a bit wonky but the rest were either good or great. One really nice touch: our instructor, Holly (a retired school teacher) was kind enough to include a handwritten note with our bag of beads, giving detailed, specific praise for the ones she really liked (my opaque green one--not the one with the yellow string--came out "perfectly round and professional looking", and she "loves the pretty swirls of darker blue in my light blue bead") and gently suggesting ways to minimize the wonkiness of the ones that were wonky (her word, actually). It was a lovely and unexpected gesture, and greatly appreciated.