Recap: And merrily met again

So here's a recap, something I haven't done, it seems, for a while.

Moving continues. Except now it's much less of "got to get this from here to there" and more of "how to assemble this in a semi-decent home-like manner once it's there." There is now a new floor on the first floor (no pun intended) and it's gratifying to go for DAYS without stepping on a nail that's poking through the worn through carpet. I tried avoiding the nails, but when you spend as much of your time running around the house barefoot as I tend to do, trying to avoid the nails, no matter how herculean the effort, is not good enough.

Digging around in the garden also continues. It takes approximately one month post tarp-removal for weeds to start showing up in all available and watered areas. (And by available I mean any place that's marginally less cement like than cement and the hard baked clay region.) The cucumbers have gone in and I've actually managed to start the tomatoes from seed. That's where they are still. Starting. Tomatoes from seed takes a great deal longer than tomatoes from seedling as my mother later found out. There are flowers too, and there will be more food followed by still more flowers. Currently it's all very confusing where anything will eventually end up due to the fact that my parents disagree with me in where things should go. I tend to, for instance, want to plant the things that like the sun in very sunny spots. My parents are more practical in that they hope to plant things in the area where the soil is actually workable (i.e. not cement like). There is, until either the arrival of more potting soil or a change in the rotation of earth, no right or wrong answer about this, so we'll see what happens.

Class goes on. I have just completed a program that calculates loan information and prints amortization tables. Which I don't entirely understand yet. Which the computer seems to be just fine with, once I give it the equations and format. It's boggling, but at least the computer has no trouble with negative signs-- something I think we should all be glad about.

Went to Kate's yesterday. It was her mother's birthday and I arrived just as her mother was about to leave. There was a certain amount of ranting involved, as it usually happens. And as it usually happens Kate showed me downloaded things on her laptop. I think I'm going to call these episodes of downloaded-things-viewing "cultural lessons," which is what it ideally is, except I don't have to worry about tests (there are occasional "pop quizzes" though, I think). Which is nice. We had cake and cider later, which is also nice. It never fails to amuse my parents when my friends "try to feed me", but I think there's another issue here that needs investigation.

On a random note: "mind your Ps and Qs" is cited, by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1779 as a childish abbreviation to the phrase "mind your pleases and thank yous". However, there have been various other explanations for it, which include but are probably not limited to these.

Your source of information is brought to you by:
-Google- now finally a dictionary word in the Merriam Webster Diction which the meaning is something along the lines of "to search, to find."

[edit 17:54]
Taken directly from email from Kate:

Apparently there is some debate about the origins of the phrase. It can be traced as far back as the 17th century, but no one knows what it's *actually* referring to. There are some theories, however.

The version I've heard is the one where people confused the p's and the q's in printing shop.

I also remember the thing about "pleases" and "thank you's", which makes sense, considering the phrase itself refers to proper behaviour.

http://www.idiomsite.com/psandqs.htm

http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifmindyourpsandqs.shtml

http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/archive/2004/04/03/3642.aspx

Talk about timing.