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Well, I made it to Indiana. I caught the red-eye from LA to Chicago at 11pm Friday night, and I landed in South Bend six hours later. As expected, I’m pretty wiped out. Today we had a big cookout at my Mom’s house and I got to meet my new nephew Isaiah. He’s a cutie! I’ll have pictures. Tomorrow we’re doing the same thing over at my Dad’s. I also got to go for a run tonight with my Mom, who was calibrating her new Nike+ system. We’ve already got a distance challenge set up!

David Attenborough is alarmed because half of British kids can’t identify some common plants and animals. I took the quiz myself (there’s a link to the popup on that article) and – sorry, David – I SUCKED. I’ll hide the rest of my comments in case you want to try it yourself.Okay, first off, the British obviously use “Daddy Long Legs” for a completely different thing that the Americans do. Since when do they have WINGS? Yeah, that’s a totally different thing so I don’t feel bad for not knowing it.

Some of them I overthought a bit, like “elk” instead of just “deer.”

I’m terrible with plants. Really, just terrible. Couldn’t get any of them.

And ewwww, was that otter just about to eat a rat? Nasty.

And now a shout-out for me… My sock monkey tutorial got featured on The Crafty Crow, a “children’s craft collective.” If you have kids or work with them, that site has some great ideas for crafts you can do together.

The SMH stages a race to prove what a lot of us already know: traffic in Sydney SUCKS. It also makes me want to buy a scooter.

My wonderful husband sent me a link to this article about the results of a women’s body survey. (Warning: The image at the top might not be safe for work.) The results? While women chose a skinny model as their ideal, men chose a much curvier shape. And the majority of guys also said that they were perfectly happy with their partner’s body, and they only thing they wish is that we would be happier and more confident. Isn’t that great? He’s the best. 🙂

Happy birthday to Snookums, my best friend in the world. I’m sorry I had to miss it. This is the longest time we’ve ever been apart. (I did manage to video chat to him over Skype on the weekend, which was great.) I was secretly a little worried before I left that maybe we were “sublunary” (as per Max’s awesome comment), but I’m happy to report that we can, in fact, function independently of one another. I haven’t been sad or consumed by loneliness. In fact, I’m proud of how well I’m doing on my own. It’s just that, well, things aren’t as much fun without him around. He’s my favorite person and I miss hanging out with him. Fortunately his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew were able to take him out to dinner to celebrate, so at least he got to mark the occasion properly. I only wish I’d been there to help celebrate! We’re past the halfway mark though… Only 8 days til I get on the plane to fly home. (Photo courtesy of The Other Andrew, who – when I am rich and famous – will be my official photographer since he always makes me look good.)

HOLY CRAP. We just had an earthquake here! It was my first one ever. I was actually sitting in the company founder’s corner office having a big important meeting. I suddenly felt the room bouncing a bit. It was like being on the end of a diving board. I actually looked up at the ceiling at first, convinced that someone on the floor above us was jumping up and down or moving furniture or something. That’s when I remembered that I was on the fourth floor of a brick building, and brick buildings don’t BOUNCE. The three of us just looked at each other for a second, and I went, “What’s going…?” And Shaun went, “Earthquake! Actually, this one’s going on for a bit. We should probably get in a doorway or something.” My legs felt like jelly. We opened the door to see the rest of the office on their feet, wondering what to do. Somebody suggested we should evacuate. That was all this Hoosier girl needed to hear! I hit the stairs and didn’t stop moving until I was on the street. Lots of people from the building were milling around out there. Most of them were laughing, trading stories of other quakes they’d been in. People were trying to call friends and noticing that they couldn’t get connections. A few minutes later someone said that the building manager told us we didn’t have to leave, so we all headed back up into the office. My legs still feel a bit wobbly. I haven’t felt any aftershocks yet.

But DUDE, what’re the odds? I’m here for one friggin’ week and we have an EARTHQUAKE? I should buy a lottery ticket.

Update: Wow! It made the SMH website. I didn’t feel any of the aftershocks… but then again, I was frantically running down four flights of stairs and worrying about getting squished by a falling bit of masonry.