Beach: About a month after I moved here, driving back from Frederick after picking up Dakota and all my stuff to really move here, I had an interesting daydream driving across the Monitor-Merrimac (this happens more than you'd expect, because something about large bodies of water and bridges makes me daydream). I pictured taking Dakota to the beach, walking right on the edge of the water. A year later, and I have yet to actually try it. Starting Memorial Day, there are all kinds of pet restrictions on the beach, so I figured, this is what I want to do for my birthday, and I've been planning to do it for two weeks. Seriously.

The odd part is that Dakota probably won't even like it, if her aversion to baths and water is any indication. Really, I'd love to take both dogs, but I can't handle them both by myself. So, Dakota it is. Except, the forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms throughout the day tomorrow. So much for that idea.

Blog roll: It occurs to me that you could probably learn a lot about a person by looking at the blogs they follow, if they're the type to follow them at all. Particularly, if they use any time of feed reader (I used to use Bloglines, but converted to Google Reader for convenience's sake with the Google personalized home page, now called iGoogle).

So, anyway, if you were to look at mine, you'd see a bunch of feeds from friends' blogs, even those that don't really update them any more (ahem? Brandon?), a ton of decorating ones (what can I say? I like looking at other people's houses), and a small handful of personal finance feeds, too (they keep me in check). Come to think of it, I should probably throw in some weight loss ones, too. But, one of the more unexpected feeds is Trent Stamp's, the president of Charity Navigator. I rarely agree with his political opinions, the few times that he has voiced them, and there are a small handful of times that I think he overreacts. But for the most part, I find his take on charity news, particularly in regards to the need for stricter oversight of organizations that call themselves charities, spot on, and fascinating, too.