It's hardly like springtime in Cleveland,

but it has been colder than usual around here, and it finally warmed up a bit today, so I decided to treat myself to a jog outside. It's been months since I last ventured off a treadmill, and my joints are pretty intolerant of concrete, so I gave myself permission to only make it about halfway through my usual route in Lullwater. Well, miraculously I not only made it to the end of my route, but significantly farther than ever before! I'm not sure I can describe how great it felt - blue sky, grassy smells...maybe I have been a bit S.A.D. lately...

Also, I finally sucked it up and asked Mom and Dad for some money. I'm going to come up a bit short (again) this month, and if I keep bleeding off my savings I'm going to seriously freak out. Fortunately, my more frugal ways of late have paid off, so I only had to hit them up for a small amount...of course, this is all emotionally wrapped up in the fact that Brad borrowed a non-trivial amount of cash around Thanksgiving, and provided somewhat vague reasons for the shortfall, so the parents are still moderately freaking out about that...I tried to provide as many details as possible about where my money went, in hopes that transparency would both calm them down and head off a financial advice lecture...hopefully my advisor can put me on her grant next month and then ends will meet once again, without parental assistance.