The Good: I am pleased to report that my diet Coke inventory has not only been replenished– I was down to my last three cans and getting a little concerned about whether I’d have to break down and buy some at full price in order to get my fix– but has been enhanced with the addition of new Diet Coke with Lime. Lime! I didn’t even know there was such a thing until I saw it there in the store. For once, I’m not too far behind the curve, because it only came out last week. There was no way I was leaving the store without it, even though they only had it in 2-liter bottles and I prefer cans. Having to wait until the next morning to try it felt a little bit like Christmas Eve when I was a kid. When the time finally came to sample the carbonated goodness, I was not disappointed. Diet Coke with Lime is yummy. I think I’m predisposed to like lime because that’s a flavor I associate with vacation and celebration: key lime pie in Florida and margaritas when I’m out with friends. Now that I’ve got a new favorite flavor of Diet Coke, I’m not even concerned on reading that they’ve reformulated the lemon variety, my previous favorite. (All you people who compared the old version to drinking Lemon Pledge will have to let me know if the new one tastes better to you.)

The Bad: Fannie May is closing its stores, which means I’ll no longer be able to relive happy memories of childhood with my mom by stopping at Fanny May for a treat when I’m back in Chicagoland visiting her. Supposedly, the company that bought the brand is going to make the Fanny May line available online, but firing up a web browser and then waiting a week for the mint meltaways and peppermint bark to arrive is not a reasonable alternative to being able to smell and ogle all the chocolates while deciding which ones to take home in the little white bag.

The Potentially Ugly: My commute home in the Mustang. It could be fine or it could be treacherous, depending on how much snow we get this afternoon. Usually on a morning when the forecast says “one to three inches of accumulation”, I’d take the truck, but the truck is overdue for an oil change and Mr. Karen had agreed to get that done today (he’s got the day off). So when I heard the weather I had three options: 1) take the Mustang as planned and hope the roads didn’t get to slippery, 2) take the truck and make Mr. Karen get the oil changed tomorrow, wasting valuable weekend time we could spend together doing something more fun, or 3) take the truck and go out at lunch to get the oil changed, which would mean figuring out where there was a place to do that near my new office and running the risk that it would be populated by the kind of guys who think someone with ovaries can’t possibly know anything about cars which would make me crankier. It wasn’t until I was in the car driving to work that I realized the best choice would have been 4) take the truck and stop to get the oil changed on the way at the place where they don’t treat me like an idiot and just be late to work. That Diet Coke with Lime is good, but even it wasn’t enough to cut through all the morning fog in my brain.

Bonus – The Good That Turned Bad But Might End Up Okay: We went to order my new car last night, a 2004 Focus ZTS sedan in white. I came home all excited and wishing I could start zooming around in it right away rather than six to eight weeks from now. Today, we found out that they’re no longer accepting orders for the 2004 models. That’s just crazy. It’s not even the end of January and I can’t order a 2004. Since I wanted a 2004 because enough information is available on the 2005 models to make it clear that the choices are even more limited for someone with my admittedly non-mainstream tastes in vehicle options, I’m not consoled by the fact that I could order one of those very soon. Instead of having an extended pity party, I’ve decided to compromise and buy out of dealer stock. I’ll get the engine I want with the transmission I want, but neither the interior nor exterior colors will be my first choice. I’ll just have to deal. It’ll help to keep reminding myself how fortunate I am to be able to afford to buy a car, whatever the color.

A year ago, there was no entry, not even a disjointed and rambling one.