In the Sheepfold

1. So a few weeks back when I thought I had Pink Eye, I totally did not have Pink Eye. How do I know this? I know this because I now have for real Pink Eye, and there's no mistaking the real deal for the itchy, watery variety. Ainsley came home from school with it and decided to share the wealth.

On the upside, I called the pediatrician and left a message explaining her symptoms. The nurse phoned back and -- get this! -- offered to call in a prescription! This, friends, never happens. Neva!  My lucky day. And then I checked my email, and Amazon informed me that I have won a .72 cent credit in an e-book anti-trust suit.  Double prizes! I should have played the lottery right then and there.

2. Is there a cent symbol on a standard keyboard? I can't say that I can find one. And did you know that certain fonts don't include all symbols found on the keyboard? True story.

In the final hours of Science Fair prep, the boys had one last page to print. I proofed it, corrected one error, and added a percentage sign. Daelyn, Kolbe's partner, marched off to print it out. That faithful -- and much maligned -- printer began spewing out page after page after page.

See, kids are not so very different from me it would seem. If they hit print once and nothing happens, surely the solution is to hit print again and again and again. And when the jam is finally fixed or the cable is finally reattached or the slightly-addled mother finally figures out that Cyan means Blue and adds the correct ink cartridge, Printer purrs to life and begins printing out every last one of those jobs ordered when you hit print again and again and again.

And so it came to pass. Printer produced seventeen pieces of paper, but, alas, not the one we needed. I managed to set Printer straight and instructed it to produce that elusive final page. And so it did. And do you know what? It was perfect except that the percentage sign had vanished. I checked the document. There sat the percentage sign, just as I had typed it. I hit print preview. No percentage sign. Architect's Daughter, a font I really like, does not do the percentage sign.

Who knew?

3. I signed up for a 5K, The Glory Run, a fund raiser for The Alleluia Community School. I have been running for a few weeks now. It has not been nearly as awful as I thought it would be. The doing of it, that is. I nearly always feel amazing after  running. Getting back in the running groove after a l-o-n-g hiatus is typically grueling. This has been just moderately grueling. But, oh, those endorphins are nice. Yes, they are.

4. So John's basketball team lost the first round of the play offs. The final score was 1-0. It's hard to explain the excitement in a game involving kindergartners and first graders in a basketball game that goes into double overtime with a final score of 1-0. But, trust me, this was more entertaining than watching Michigan beat Tennessee by two points in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. (We won't mention the results of Sunday night's game).

5. The Pinewood Derby has come and gone. I meant to get the word out beforehand so that my Internet friends could light a candle for us, start a Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, or simply fast and pray.

Not so that we'd win, though that would have been nice, but that all would go well because, in a strange and ironic twist, Dave and I ended up running the show. Exactly how that all came to pass, I can't fully explain, but there we were thinking about decorations and snacks and photos and sound and the ice machine's broken and blah, blah,blah.

It all went well. My parents were able to come! And John loves his car. He carries it all over the house.

6. One of my least successful Lenten disciplines was to waste less time surfing the old 'net. I just clicked on the news headlines and read "George Zimmerman's Parents Sue Roseanne Barr over Tweets." Does it get more ridiculous than this? Oh, yes, it does. "Ten Reasons Gwyneth Paltrow's Divorce Is Better Than Yours." At least that one made me laugh.

7. Head over to Jen's to add your Quick Takes and have a great weekend!