I think I may have found an alternative to soda [in addition to regular water, of course]

Someone at work introduced me to Sparkling Ice, a sparkling water flavoured with natural flavours and Splenda (which, although an artificial sweetener, is probably better than aspartame). They also have vitamins and antioxidants in them. I tried some Coconut Pineapple and it was very good. They have other flavours like orange-mango, black raspberry, kiwi-strawberry, lemonade, lemon-lime, and pomegranate-berry. Apparently Kroger has a special on them so they're $1 a bottle, which is cheaper than a single soda. They still taste good if they go flat, too, according to her. And there's no caffeine.

Just for those out there going, 'but plain water is fine', yes, it is, and I'm drinking the equivalent of ten cups of water a day, but I also have about three sodas. And on game day, when I normally drink a two-litre of Diet Sunkist, I could bring a couple of these and drink regular water the rest of the night. It's an idea, anyway...I'll check at the store when I go tomorrow to pick up pie ingredients. They're having a pie contest at work and I'm going to try to make a bourbon custard pie. We'll see how it goes. But the list of ingredients I need isn't long (I just had the salt, none of the other staples like flour, but I should have that on hand, anyway.)

Just now I had some very tasty basmati rice with rajma masala (a red kidney bean curry), the latter from Kitchens of India. I discovered that Amazon sells a variety or two I never see in the store, plus multi-packs at a nice price. Sadly, I did not have fresh naan for my dinner, or naan at all. But the curry was good. And I made enough rice for tomorrow's dinner (I would take it for lunch, but then one of my co-workers would go on about how it stinks--she does every time.) Personally I think Indian food smells wonderful. The same goes for Thai food. A former co-worker of mine who was from Thailand had to endure an officemate who insisted that her food smelled like feet. Really.

I got the report I needed to do finished and turned it in, and they were happy with it, even though it's a bit late. Now for that book review....