Strong storms rolled through our area last night, and, though I lost power temporarily a few times, I had no long-term effects. I did have a neighbor knock on the door and suggest I come out into the hall, but I felt I was just as safe in my bathroom, which is interior, with no windows.

This morning I went to work and found that there is no power on my side of the building. I stayed until 10 -- had a meeting with my boss, read a "best practices" report from another college, and started writing a "best practice" for our department -- longhand. But at 10 my boss said go home. She did suggest strongly that I work on the project at home. I will, but not yet. Coming home gave me the opportunity to do laundry and dishes, and to work on that tasteless soup. I am now happy to say that I have transformed the soup into "chicken tortilla" soup -- found a dwindling bottle of salsa to add to it. Put in quite a bit of chicken soup base and now it tastes pretty good. I'm warming it to let the flavors mix and to reduce it a bit, and then I'll put it in the freezer.

So inspired, I decided also to work on the chicken salad I made recently. It was awfully stiff, because I didn't want to add too much mayonnaise. Today I decided to take the risk of adding vanilla Greek yogurt. I thought the vanilla flavoring wouldn't be too bad, because it's already a bit of a sweet salad, with dried cranberries. I was right -- it tastes pretty good, and I didn't add a lot of calories! That I will eat for lunch today.

I'm really trying to clear out my fridge. I'll be away from Friday through Monday, and then again the following Saturday for a week. I don't want stuff going sour in there. Which reminds me, I need to pour the milk down the drain! Sigh. I'm just going to have to break down and buy only those tiny bottles of milk. I'm lactose-intolerant and shouldn't be drinking it at all, but I love it with cookies and cereal (and I take Lactaid, when I indulge). And don't tell me to buy the special milk, I hate it!

Don't really have any financial news -- I'm still waiting for documentation to arrive before I file my appeal to the insurance company. So I'm on hold right now.