These days, most of my free time is spent on the couch yelling at Aud ("Are you a Guitar Hero or a Guitar Zero?!?!”) while we're playing video games. The rest of it is spent in the kitchen cooking, thanks to the copy of Veganomicon that arrived in the mail last week. Yesterday I made tempeh bacon sandwiches and caramel apple spice cupcakes. Tonight I expect to be torn between chickpea cutlets with mashed potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts *or* a sun-dried tomato and asparagus frittata with red pepper sauce and spicy hash browns. My only complaint is that I don’t have more people to cook for. Aud simply grabs his belly and glares at me every time I make something sweet. I’ve learned to ignore him.

After much deliberation and heated negotiation, we (the guy and I) have decided to keep our apartment for another year. I was happy with this decision until we saw some amazing places this weekend that were initially in our price range but then got more and more expensive when the beagles were factored into the equation. After tearfully returning to my apartment and saying some *nasty* things to it, we’ve made up and it has forgiven me for abusing its lack of counter space and temperature issues (why, oh why does the bedroom have to be 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house?).

Finally, I had coffee this morning with Aud’s father and, despite my unbelievable nervousness, I think it went well. I don’t think he likes me any less than he did before (this is, of course, supposing that he ever liked me to begin with, which is dubious at best). That said, the fact that I’ve never had coffee with my own father in all of my 29 years should really say something (though I’m not sure exactly what it should say).