My mother and I had a fight yesterday. I set my alarm for five o'clock this morning. A lot happened between those two sentences, but I'm just here to tell you that the house is really nice and quiet at 5 a.m. I'm still not a morning person, but dang was it nice to be able to move about without tripping over family members and accidentally interrupting someone's TV show or saying something embarrassing while my mom is on the phone with my grandma. When I'm not employed at a nine-to-five gig, I tend to get up at 3 p.m. and stay up until dawn. I hadn't realized how much I missed having the house to myself and how quiet the whole world seems.

Now, I really woke up this early to get some projects done before work today (projects that sadly do not involve writing love letters to Elijah Wood), but it would have been a crime to waste another pretty sunrise. So voila!

No lines this time, either. (Sorry, I don't secretly live next to the world's largest LCD screen.)

Someone at my church told me I played piano like Dave Brubeck. I almost fainted. He didn't think I was familiar with the jazz legend. I corrected the man. I told him I had just seen Mr. Brubeck play live at Ravinia. The man was floored. He used to listen to those records when he graduated college in the '60s. We chatted excitedly. He told me about his favorite songs, and I told him mine. His daughter rushed up to his side and pulled frantically on his pant leg. We started moving away, but our conversation continued. He hooked up a subwoofer to his computer speakers, which made the old CDs sound really great. I nodded and tried not to fall on my face as I rushed back up toward the stage.

I never got the man's name, but he made me the happiest girl alive that day. Thanks, stranger! (Although, you probably shouldn't lie in a church, even if it was a sweet thing to say.)

Thanks to the always fabulous Rachel Elizabeth, I learned of a site called SparkPeople.com. I've only been using it for three days, but I've already cut my calorie intake in half and have put my lazy butt on an elliptical machine for the first time in probably a year. That could all end by tomorrow, but I thought I'd pass along the link to anyone looking for a helping hand in losing weight or maintaining a healthy lifestyle.