My friend and co-counsel Charles and I were chatting briefly after hours and he asked me if I was already packed for my cruise. Well, his friendly question unintentionally sent me into an emotional tizzy, because not only am I not packed yet, I still haven't decided what knitting projects to take with me. Okay, I thought about packing early for the cruise - and then I laughed at the thought. My idea of packing early is doing it the night before I go on a trip, instead of waiting until that morning. My excuse is that if I pack too early, like a couple of days or even a week, it gives the cats too much time to freak out over our impending absence.

If you travel, and you have cats, then you know what happens when you set an open suitcase on your bed.

For the last few weeks I have been noodling around on what knitting projects to take on the cruise, and I'm still undecided. I really really really want to finish the baby hoodie and matching blanket, but I need to finish the Cat's Paw Scarf so I can move on to my favorite summer project, socks. I've already got four or five different sock projects on needles in varying stages of completion and I have to finish them before I can try some of the new patterns that have caught my eye. UPDATE: I'm going to take all of them. Well, not all of the socks, but at least one or two along with the baby stuff and the scarf. Heaven forbid I should run out of projects while I am in the one place I cannot run out and buy some yarn.

Getting there ...

I've also been seriously contemplating whether I need to bring my own supply of Hershey's kisses on the cruise. Don't laugh. Lack of chocolate caused a minor crisis in Korea, and since then I've always brought my own wherever we traveled. And while a cruise is not a place normally lacking in food, my eating habits are kind of odd. It is going to be tough enough not having ready access to Diet A&W Root Beer.

Speaking of emotional tizzies:

DCF Agency Cuts Nearly 500 Jobs

This can't be good. By the way, Governor Voldemort campaigned on a promise to CREATE jobs. Call me crazy, but I think by cutting 500 DCF jobs, he is breaking his promise.

Gov. Rick Scott and $69.7 billion budget tanking with Florida voters

Gov. Rick Scott is increasingly unpopular with Florida voters, and a majority don't like the $69.7 billion budget the governor will sign Thursday that cuts funding for schools, health care and the state's social safety net, a new poll has found.

A new Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday found 57 percent of voters disliked Scott's job performance compared with 29 percent who approved — worse than his 48 percent-to-35 percent disapproval rating in the school's April poll. The results are the worst rating for any governor in the 10 states that Quinnipiac surveys.

Let me ask this question one more time: who actually voted for this dude? What the heck were you thinking when you voted for him? Does Florida really need it's own Rod Blagojevich-like drama?

On to happier topics ... so Rob and I set sail in just 3 days, and if ever two people needed a vacation, it is us. I am so looking forward to this, I don't mind all the crazy last-minute catching up stuff I'm doing in the office to make my absence as smooth as possible. It helps that I work with an exceptional group of people.

So I headed to the Hurston Building to attend a training I can't attend tomorrow in my own office because I have a TPR trial scheduled. Which put me nicely nicely near Colonial Drive, and the new Hobby Lobby.

New -- Hobby -- Lobby -- in -- Orlando!!!

I wasn't sure exactly where it was, and thought it might have taken over the space vacated by the late, lamented A.C. Moore, a terrific crafts store with the best selection of Red Heart yarn ever. Plus a lot of other good stuff. But as I drove east on Colonial, I noticed a sign for Hobby Lobby at the open air mall whose name I can never remember. So I pull into the parking lot, and realize the juxtaposition of the Hobby Lobby with a Starbucks and Toojays. Right across the parking lot from each other. Whoa. This is too good to be true. For just a few moments, I was so suffused with joy that I forgot about Govenor Voldemort and my ever-decreasing paycheck.

So I bought myself a new row counter widget, and size 9 rosewood needles, some new kind of knit clip for holding seams in place while you sew them together, and a zipper for the hoodie. And a brand of chocolate I can only find in Hobby Lobby, which is why I usually stock up when I'm in Little Rock and Panama City Beach. Nothing feels as good to a knitter's hands than rosewood needles.

It's the little things that make my day.

By the way, while watching Nancy Grace (mea culpa) and "Criminal Minds" (unrelentingly violent) I finished the baby hoodie. For a while though, I have been suspecting that the arm length is not sufficient, and I was right. Fortunately, I did not seam the arms, so I can frog them back a bit and do-over ... sort of like that Harold Camping dude is trying to pull with Apocalypse Later Not Now routine.

Will somebody please slap Casey Anthony and tell her to drop the Angelina Jolie imitation? That pouty-lip look isn't helping your case, toots. But then neither is your defense attorney.