The good and the bad. I went out last night for the first time in ages and it made me see what I've been missing by staying home so much. I have got to change that. I went out with friends for dinner and then to a concert by Janis Ian, a folk singer whose song, At Seventeen, was a favorite of mine in the 70's. Janis sang like an angel and played acoustic guitar beautifully in a wonderful venue. A great time was had by all.

My big accomplishment today was cleaning out the cabinet that holds all my spices and baking supplies. It was not on my to do list. I never realized how many bags of chocolate chips I have. McCormick & Co. has a brilliant ad campaign going informing us consumers that any spices labeled 'bottled in Baltimore' are at least 15 years old and need to be tossed. I emptied so many containers of spices. My trash is very fragrant. I found a new organic market that sells bulk spices by the ounce. I'll be restocking in that fashion, as needed.

It was family time later in the day to celebrate my mother's 74th birthday. That's a lot of birthdays. We were 5 for dinner at Tony Roma's, then back to my parent's for cake and ice cream. I'll say it, cause I think we'd all agree. We're a dysfunctional family. I think most families are??

This is the bad. A client of mine, a warm and caring woman, died 10 days ago after a 7 year battle with cancer. I found out on Saturday when someone brought me her obituary. I will miss her a lot, and can't get her out of my thoughts. Another client, who's hair I did 2 weeks ago, just found out she has 12 tumors in her brain and stage 4 bone cancer throughout, and they still don't know the primary site. She's so wonderful and so optimistic. Another client is undergoing chemo and radiation. Two others are done with treatment but it will be quite some time before they have enough hair to see me. I am praying for all of them, and when I wish for anything, it's always for health.

Hate to end this on a bad note. Tomorrow's a new day. That is a great thing.