I'm finally to the extremely tedious part of working on a book--the final checking of the proof sheets. Making sure that the words are hyphenated nicely, that there aren't any stray lines that should be moved to the previous or next page, and making sure that the people at the press made the changes we wanted them to. Two articles down, 13 more to go.

It doesn't help matters any that I have completely cut myself off from all sources of caffeine. I had a kidney stone on Saturday, my second in five years. The last time I had one, the doctor told me that I should not eat nuts or chocolate, nor should I drink "brown" soda (read cola types). Well, I don't like nuts to begin with, so that was no problem. Chocolate was more difficult, but I definitely cut it back a lot. But soda was something that I couldn't do without. I was halfway through my master's at that point, and working like a mad woman on my thesis. Yeah, caffeine GOOD!

Well, I think now that it's a good idea to cut out the soda, except in very moderate amounts. So the last time I had a Coke was Sunday morning, and that was only because I honestly thought my head would explode if I didn't. I've been drinking tea about every other day, but it's not the same. And somehow water just doesn't have the taste or the "oomph" that soda does... :(

Needless to say, I've been grumpy lately... I'm hoping that I will get over that pretty soon, and be able to be normal again. Cuz trust me, I don't want to have another kidney stone! EVER!