Why I love my tablet.

In short, it's because I'm currently in a budget meeting, listening to a rather encouraging and so far civil discussion about an actual planning process for ensuring that budget cuts make sense and at the same time correcting a series of tables in Excel. Both tasks, on their own, are mind-numbingly tedious; but done at the same time, they're both much more tolerable. Unfortunately, the meeting is unlikely to last as long as it will take me to finish the tables, so I'm going to have to do some mind-numbing tedium later from my office.

I'm also trying not to be too annoyed at being more or less blamed for the reason our financial people aren't able to tell people whether we made our budget targets this term. I *sent* them the data they need yesterday, they have not asked for anything additional, or in a different format, so it annoys me that they're sitting there telling this committee that they're waiting on FTE data to complete the calculations when I know for a fact that they're not. *grumble*

My knitting task today is moderately amusing. I'm making 302 Calories for a friend's bachelorette party tonight. I was going to do it over lunch, but was concerned that the licorice whips would get too brittle before the party, so I'm going to do it after work instead. It will be a nice little diversion before I dive into the absolutely *gorgeous* Kid Silk Haze mamacatesent me with which I intend to make Birch. I've never, ever worked with such a fine yarn - at least not knitting; lace is another story - and while it's a little scary, it's also quite exciting. And when I get frustrated with it, I can always go look at her beautiful finished Birch for additional inspiration!

In other crafting news, I got an email from Lisa, who is the woman I have been "renting" pottery studio space from in Sparta the past several months. She was emailing to let me know that her pottery teacher, who lives in La Crescent and is therefore about 25 miles closer to me, would love to rent me studio time at her studio. She figured with gas prices the way they were, I'd appreciate going to a closer studio. And, as much as I'll miss hanging out with Lisa, she's dead right - I'm much more likely to go to the studio regularly if it's closer. So after this week is over, I intend to check that out in more detail.