Alarra's Gate

Portrait of Insanity

2010-11-26T18:04:00.002-05:00

Black Friday shopping is a tradition in my family, and one of the ones I like most about Thanksgiving weekend, though I often wonder why when I pass out after.

The stores are continuing to be evil, pushing their sale starts back earlier and earlier. Pretty soon we'll be shopping on Halloween. It doesn't really bother me that much, I tend to stay up all night before I go out anyway, so sales starting at 3am, or even, as they were this year, midnight or even 10pm the night before. However, there are many other shoppers, like my grandmother, who simply cannot stay up all night shopping, and are quite sad about this development.

So, with this happening....we of course, stayed up all night, starting at 10. Toys R Us opened at 10pm. We went to Toys R Us last year when they started at midnight, and stood in line for 2.5 hours. I'm not sure why we were expecting something different this year. But when we arrived, only about 15 minutes early (our fault, I know) the line stretched all the way across the front of the building, the front of the building next door, and around the back of the building further than we took the effort to look. You have to wait so long because Toys R Us has this crazy notion that they can only let so many people in at a time because of fire codes or some nonsense. Now, I'm not saying that fire codes are nonsense, just that no other store I have ever been in follows any such rule on Black Friday. Anyway, we quickly decided that Toys R Us was a lost cause. This was a bit sad because we were intending to get my uncle the android ipad (which I'm sure has a technical name, but that's basically what it is) and that was of course gone in the first probably 50-100 people. They apparently also had $80 netbooks, which was part of why the line was so long.

With Toys R Us out of the picture, we then decided to just get a head start on our Wal Mart shopping, since they were starting their good deals at midnight. Of course, none of the midnight items were available yet, so we bought a few random things and then hung out in the car planning our 'route', because yes...you need to have a plan in Wal-Mart, and they gave us a map and stuff. Wal-Mart took longer than intended, mainly because the fleece jackets were not easy to find (and I needed 16 of the damn things). It went moderately well though, we got everything that we wanted, which was: 4 little vaccuums, a tool chest, a bunch of toys for the prize booth, the jackets, an art kit, tupperware, and blocks. Huh... is that really all we got there? We weren't interested in any big-ticket items or electronics this year, which was good, since there were people standing in line inside the store for the tv and computer when we got there at 10 (and they didn't go on sale until 5)

After Wal-Mart, we tried Toys R Us again. No more line outside, but there was an hour+ line to check out. We found the few things we wanted (none of which were big ticket items anyway, since the android thing was way gone) and hid them to come back later. We then cleaned out the car some by stopping at the restaurant, woke the rest of our crew up, and headed to Herberger's. We were supposed to meet my aunt, cousin and grandma there at 3. They were all very late, leading to us checking out by the time they arrived. This, unfortunately, was a trend that then continued for the rest of the day, leading us to not spend much time with them for the rest of the day. I didn't get anything for myself at Herberger's, but we got a lot for everyone else, I think 6 down comforters and two pillows.

We then hurried to Target (which was to open at 4), to stand in line for 30 minutes, because my mom was getting a tv. She was very excited about it. We hurried to the place where the tvs were supposed to be and there were three people holding onto the last two tvs. Mom asked where they got them and was told, "This is it." She went "Aww, damn it!" and turned to walk away. Then, not 20 seconds later, a woman walks up to the SAME WOMAN WE JUST TALKED TO, and says "Are you getting both of these?" And she says, "No, you can take this one." My mom practically flew into orbit. But yeah, we did not end up with a tv. They did, however, have lots of the digital camera that my cousin wanted, so we picked that up for her and then headed off to Shopko.

At Shopko I once again waited in line for a half hour, for it to open at 5. We were a bit less hurried on this trip, but managed to get everything that we wanted, mostly gifts for a lot of other people (that may or may not read this blog, hence the lack of specificity) and a bunch of prize booth prizes. Mom got a suitcase and gloves, but nothing exceptionally exciting. They were very efficient with their line that wound through the entire store, but moved very quickly.

We then went from there to Menards, which opened at 6, to meet up with the rest of our crew. They beat us there, and the store had been open a bit when we arrived. Holy mad house! I always thought Wal-Mart was bad...it had nothing on Menards. I guess I should have expected that though, since after going through all the ads, Menards was both my aunt's and our longest list of 'things to buy'. They had some crazy good deals. A lot of them on toys, which we grabbed a lot of. But yeah, at Menards, they had hardly any carts and everyone was just lugging around giant boxes and piles of things. My aunt had managed to corner two carts. She took one, and promptly filled it to 3x it's recommended capacity. My grandma had the other and we went immediately to meet with her so we could use that cart for our list of stuff. She was already in the very long check out line. So, I left her, my mother and my littler cousin to push the cart, a shop vac, and the cousin's two bean bag chairs through the line and I ran all over the store, grabbing whatever I could find off of our list and bringing it back to them. It worked pretty well and I got most of the things we wanted. We got waaaay too many things for me to list them all, but just as an example...they had boxes of christmas cards (cute ones too) for $.77....$.77! But yeah, many good deals there. My cousin got completely fed up with my aunt by the end of that trip, because she was doing the same thing as I was, only it took them twice as long to get out of the store.

After we left, and while they were still trying to check out there, my mom and I managed to run all the prizes back to Peppy's, show my dad everything we got, and go back to Wal-Mart. I had somehow forgotten 2 jackets, and we apparently needed more remote control trucks. We then sent the walmart associates on a wild goosechase for a dump truck that was supposed to be a 5am doorbuster.... so we thought. Well, no, it was, just it was a doorbuster at Toys R Us, not Walmart. Oops!

Then we all stopped for breakfast. Usually we don't do that until 10:30 or 11, but this year, since we started so much earlier, we ran out of steam around 8am. We went to Perkins, had a lovely half hour of sitting and relaxing, then had to run home and take care of the baby. My brother was willing to watch him, but refused to change diapers, and then run a quick errand for my dad. We then met everyone back at Herbergers to do some more leisurely clothes shopping. At least, that was the plan, except that we had Pickle with us, and shopping with Pickle is everything but leisurely. He was very cranky and we'd forgotten his stroller and he kept running off and getting into everything and would cry if we held him too long, and guh. Anyway, it became a very short trip, but we finished up our present buying. Then we made a short stop at Toys R Us. Our hidden toys were still there! Looked for the dump truck, which we couldn't find, and then headed home.

I think we made it home around 11:30, where we promptly passed out for three hours.

I'm hoping to do a little more shopping over the course of the weekend. Mom still needs a tv, maybe cyber Monday? And I have a coupon for Kohl's, which I didn't manage to make it to today. I need a couple more pairs of jeans, so I'll probably do that tomorrow.

But yeah, Black Friday is exhausting, but we had fun. =)

King's Dominion

2010-10-25T12:03:00.003-04:00

First off, let me say that I am planning to start using this again. Yes, I know it is nearly November and any 'writing' I do should be on my novel, but meh. I miss my blog and want to use it again. So...

Yesterday we went to King's Dominion. Neither Jerry or I had been there before, so needless to say, we were very excited. We stayed up far too late Saturday night and 6am came very very early. But rollercoasters were involved, so we dragged ourselves out of bed by 6:30ish to get ready to head out to Mt. Airy and drop off the baby. Our plan at this point was to be there by 8, to ideally get us to the park by 9:30, about an hour before opening, just in case there were a lot of people, so we could get good parking. We did pretty well, made it to Myranda's by 8ish, then got gas, filled the car with gas and spent way too long deciding on breakfast at starbucks and probably left around 8:30. The problem with our plan was in the fact that it isn't 1.5 hours to King's Dominion, it's a little over 2. So, we made it there right at opening, which turned out to be just fine, since there was hardly anyone there and we could park right up front anyway.

It was a perfect day for coastering. It was warm enough that I didn't need a jacket until probably 9pm, but cool enough that at no time was I wanting ice cream or to go into air conditioning. There were hardly any people there until about 3pm, and even then, the longest line we had to wait in was maybe 15 minutes.

We quickly realized in the early morning, that lines actually serve a very useful purpose. Because, after 6 coasters in less than an hour, we found ourselves having to stop and ride the ferris wheel for 10 minutes to not feel queasy and off balance. But yes, we were able to walk on to each ride with maybe only having to wait for the train that was currently loading to head away before we got on the next to pull in.

So....our first coaster was the Dominator... sounds all impressive and scary. But it was really kinda meh. It was a very nice introduction to coastering again though. I haven't been to an amusement park at all this year, and last year I was pregnant, so it's been at least 2 years since I've been on a roller coaster. It wasn't a terrible coaster, had a few loops and twists, the ride was sufficiently long in length, just nothing to write home about. We, naturally, didn't ride it again. Overall I'd give 3/5 stars, entertaining, but not a real rush.

Next, we hit the Volcano... This coaster was one of the ones that we were most looking forward to, as the website promised us a high speed launch, straight up, out of a burning volcano. It also, sadly, did not quite live up to the hype. It was fun, we did ride it twice, but the first time I thought we'd missed the launching because it was really no different from any other aspect of the ride. It did launch you out of the loading area very fast, but the entire ride was very very short and had I waited in a line, I would have been disappointed. 3.5/5 stars. Would have been a 4 star if it had been just a little bit longer.

Then we went to Flight of Fear, which was a space themed indoor roller coaster. We also chose to ride this coaster twice. We probably would have ridden it one or two more times, but they turned it into a really lame haunted house at 6 and closed the rollercoaster part. This ride also uses induction magnets to propel you out of the loading zone at very high speed. And it was very high speed, we'd watched the car ahead of us launch and it still caught us off guard. And then it kept launching. This made it the best induction magnet coaster I've been on, and I've done a few. Usually, one expects about a 1second launch, just to propel you into a turn or drop that will then increase your speed further, this one, on the other hand, lasted at least 2, maybe 3 seconds. It just kept accelerating you. Then, the ride itself, was pitch black (the first time at least) and employed a great variety of drops, twists and loops. It was this ride that made us realize another use of lines....adjusting your eyes. The second time that we rode we waited about 15-20 minutes before getting on the ride. Thus, when I rode not only had my eyes adjusted to waiting in semi-darkness, but my transition glasses had had a chance to become not dark. Hence I could see at least some of the track and turns in the ride. This was not the case with the first ride. I give this coaster a 4.5/5 stars as it was really really awesome, but not quite the Intimidator305.

We then went on the Intimidator305. This is now the bar to which I hold all other coasters against. It starts with a very fast 305' climb, which leads to an 300 foot, 85 degree drop that peaks at 90 miles per hour. It's emphasis is high speed turns and air time and I never actually noticed that it doesn't have any loops. The air time was quite impressive and every time I got off the ride, I wanted to get right back in line. Jerry only let us do this once. This coaster is awesome. I loved it the first time we rode and it only got better the next 4 times. This is because the first time we were in the middle of a train that was not full. Then we rode near the front (2nd car) of a full train, which was much faster. This ride is crazy because there is a whole separate line to queue for the first car, which was often longer than the queue for the rest of the train. We did not choose to stand in it. The last two times that we rode were after dark, which made the twists and turns even better. 5/5 stars.

The next coaster around the loop was the Anaconda. We were looking forward to this coaster, as the website boasted: "Get wrapped in coils of this awesome coaster and prepare for the 144 foot drop into the depths of the Anaconda. The Anaconda was the first looping coaster in the world that showcased an underwater tunnel." Sounds awesome, right? IT WAS LAAAAAAAAAAAME. Very very. This is one coaster that I will never ride again. The 'underwater tunnel' was more like a half second dip into a pit that may have been somewhere near the water. I don't remember any big or cool drop, and even several loops couldn't save it. Add to this the fact that it's an older coaster and thus very rattly and gave me a huge headache from bashing my head into the restraints. 1/5 stars.

We then went to the Backlot Stunt Coaster. We were not expecting a whole lot out of this coaster, it looked small and not that fast and there were more kids than we'd seen on the previous coasters. We were pleasantly surprised. There were a lot of fun drops and spins. It didn't go upside down, but it was very entertaining. We would have ridden this one twice, but when we got back to it later in the afternoon there was a long line and we don't like lines. The one disappointment of the ride was that we were promised explosions and there were none. We stopped at one point, near a bunch of flammable barrels and boxes and there was a helicopter shooting at us, and I was completely braced for an explosion that would propel us down into the rest of the ride and it never happened. There was no fire or anything. The website even says 'Barely escape massive explosions!' ... maybe it was turned off. Anyway, this coaster was really fun anyway. 3.5/5 stars. It was very entertaining, but not particularly scary, would have been a 4 if there'd been an explosion.

At this point, we had to stop for a bit. Went and had a bite of lunch (expensive, but tasted decent for park fare) and then rode the ferris wheel before working out way over to the wooden coasters.

The first of those we hit was Rebel Yell. I actually really enjoyed this coaster. It was rattly, oh boy was it rattly, but it had good speed, didn't knock your head around very much and the air time was impressive. And the rattliness was a fun rattling, in that you could open your mouth and go 'ahh' and it would make you go ah,ah,ah,ah,ah,ah,ah, but didn't make your bones hurt. Normally it has two trains riding simultaneously next to each other, which I think would have made the ride even more fun, but due to the low turnout at the park they only had one running. 4/5 stars

We then moved onto the Ricochet. This was another coaster that we weren't expecting too much of. It was small, there were 4 people to a car and you traveled the track alone as compared to as part of a train, there were no loops or and the drops were small comparitively, but it contained a lot of switchbacks and as we watched from the ferris wheel, it looked like they got the speed up pretty good around the turns though, so we figured, why not? I was quite glad that we gave it a chance, because it was a lot of fun. The switch backs and hairpin turns did get you going pretty fast, and also made the car swing out slightly, so there was always this niggling feeling that you were going to go flying off the track. And the ride was a good length....3 whole minutes. I was pleasantly surprised. 3.5/5 stars.

Next we hit up the last two wooden coasters in quick succession. The first was the Hurler, which was not very hurl inducing. It was also rattly in a not fun way, more in a knock you into the sides until you're black and blue kind of way. And while it was a long track, it wasn't all that exciting. 2/5 stars.

The Grizzly was next. This one was pretty fun, mainly because it was surrounded by trees and took you up to just above them. So for a large part of the ride, you were riding around with treetops spreading out below you. I felt very high off the ground, even though we really weren't, comparatively. This was smoother and a little less rattly, and had a pretty good drop and some airtime, all in all, a solid coaster. 3.5 stars, a 3 star coaster, with an extra .5 for really near scenery.

We then went on the Shockwave, which also had a lot of hype. The website promised: "the ride of your life as the Shockwave takes you through a 360-degree horizontal loop, where you're essentially parallel to the ground. Did we mention you're standing up the whole time?" which wasn't really a lie...we were standing up, we were parallel to the ground at one point, we did go upside down, but the ride as a whole was a pretty big let down. It was really really short and not especially fast. I also discovered the downside of having long legs and a short body, since the ride adjusted itself to your leg length. I had a good 5 inches between my shoulders and the shoulder straps. Jerry, on the other hand, had the shoulders cutting into him. This made for a bit of a disconcerting ride as I kept floating up in the restraints. It was mildly fun though...but way too short. 2.5/3, might have been more if I hadn't been expecting so much.

We then wandered a bit, watched people do the skyflying, which we both really really want to do....when we have an extra $50 to burn and eventually found ourselves on the Flying Eagles. This is a more kid friendly ride, they'd probably let us take Jared on it, but it was fun enough that we did it twice throughout the day. What makes this fun, as well as kid friendly, is that it can be as tame or wild as you want. It's a swing ride, in airplanes made for 2 people (well, an adult and a kid, really....Jerry and I were very squished...I think I was half in his lap) with a metal 'sail' that lets you spin the car in and out. You can hold it still and just have a nice swing ride. Or you can launch it back and forth to each other like we did and feel like you're going to fly off the ride or slam into the ground depending on which way you're spinning. The second time we actually got it spinning enough that it kinda popped and jerked and scared us enough to make us slow down. 3.5/5 stars.

At this point there was only one thrill ride we hadn't taken in....the Drop Tower. I've never been on a drop tower. Well, no. I've been on Tower of Terror, which is technically a drop tower, but is enclosed so doesn't seem quite so scary. This Drop Tower is 305 ft. tower with a 272 ft drop that drops you straight down at 72mph. It's apparently the largest drop ride in North America. So, I guess it's a good choice for my first time, eh? I was very very nervous waiting in line, heading up...I almost talked myself out of it. And when it dropped I actually went "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god"...then the first second was over, my heart was in my chest and I was still falling and it became....fun. REALLY FUN. The last 3 seconds of the drop were really really thrilling. I loved it. 4/5 stars. Only because I can't in good conscience give a ride that only lasts 4 seconds and has no spins or turns 5 stars.

So, that's all the rides we hit... we then had dinner and got ready to enjoy some Halloween Haunt festivities. We first did the Alien Outpost haunted house, which was lame. Although there was a point where a guy swung out on a harness at the woman behind me and she flipped out screaming. That was funny. Because it was so dumb, and because we're not big on haunted houses anyway, we didn't hit any others.

There were, however, two more noteworthy scares of the evening. There was fog and red lights everywhere and it was hard to see where you were going. I will point out that the people just wandering the 'scare areas' of the park, were much scarier than the intentional attractions. One such scare was my own. We had passed through a dark archway and there were ghastly creatures following people as they crossed the bridge to the other side. It was a pretty long bridge. Immediately upon entering, an undead peasant woman began to follow me, hovering right near my right shoulder, and no matter where I moved or how often I put Jerry next to her, she was always right there, whispering things and being generally creepy and scary, she was good. We got most of the way across the bridge and I thought she had moved onto someone else, so I say to Jerry 'She seriously wouldn't stop following me', at which point a voice in my ear goes "I'm still here" I screamed and jumped probably a foot. Jerry thought this was hilarious.

The other noteworthy scare....which was just awesome, occurred as we were waiting near the front of the line for the Intimidator305. The guy that was running our side of the train walked along the car, checked all of the restraints and then started walking back to come up to the podium where he starts the ride. As he passed by the queue for the second car, he jumped at the woman standing there and went 'Rawrr!' I think she jumped 2 feet in the air and screamed. It was fantastic.

We did take in two shows, one of them twice (sort of 3 times) so that we could catch the entire thing and video it. The first was Fangs, which was a pretty decent vampire based show, involving singing and sexy dancing. Two of the dancers and the lead male were awesome. The lead female had some damn good pipes, but couldn't dance to save her soul, and the other 3 dancers and other guy were pretty meh. I liked the music though and it was a fun show.

The second show, Disturbia was awesome. This was a zombie group of 3 girls and 3 guys that danced and 'sang' a lot of metal songs. They were having so much fun and their choreography was fantastic. We saw most of their show the first time we saw it, but didn't know how much of the beginning we missed and wanted to come back and see the rest. The next time they were showing, we made it for the last song, so the third time, we got there really early and were able to see the entire thing. Zeb video'd it on his phone, so I'm sure he'll post that around here sometime.

Then we made the long, long, long drive back to pick up Pickle, who had a good day with Myranda, but got some kind of heat rash and cut his forehead. Then the long (okay, only 45 minutes, but it seemed interminable) drive back home...made it back around 1am, at which point Pickle and I promptly passed out. Jerry stayed up for another hour, though I've no idea how.

So, wow...that was a long, long entry. Hope you all have enjoyed this analysis of King's Dominion. I'll try to post again later this week about my lack of time management and the fact that I never get anything done. =P

Finishing

2010-06-10T21:37:00.002-04:00

Writing is hard. I didn't realize this for a very long time. I thought that writing was easy. I thought that I was one of those people who could just dump her thoughts out on a page and after a minimal amount of editing, wahlah! I have something fantastic. Gitp has done nothing to disabuse me of this notion, as everyone there seems to have nothing but positive things to say about everything that I do. I often wonder if this is because I'm a mod and a omg! girl on the internet. I think maybe. I think that this 'writing is easy' mentality has a lot to do with why I haven't finished anything. Things get hard, they get to the point where I don't know what's going to happen next or where I might need to do little bit f research or completely rewrite something to make it make sense to someone other than me and I give up. This is why I have piles of unfinished novels, barely started comic strips, neglected blogs, and no website.

I love my writing group. Even if they weren't awesome people, which they are. I would love them because they make me feel guilty about all of the things I am not doing. And I have things I really really really want to finish. So, with that in mind, I have decided that I am going to turn over a new leaf and am going to get my major projects done.

I am going to finish my website. I am going to put up a gallery and be able to show it to people for potential illustration work. I'm good, I think, I really think I'm a good artist and that I could make money at it. So..... I'm going to. I also plan to have artwork to show/sell at Balticon next year. *reminds self* sketches due for Felix.

I'm also going to finish the Mafia story. You're good with coninuing to work on this, right Helgraf? Cause it's good and it should be told. It needs way more work than I imagined. It's hard to make me redo everything I've already put so much work into though. I'm going to though, really really am.

And I'm going to work out and make meal plans every week and lose weight and declutter my house and read to Jared every day and get him in swimming lessons.

And the webcomic! I'm going to make one. I really really am! Llama said he'd write it and we have the beginnings of a plan/plot sort of thingy and a couple cast members! Okay, we've really barely started, but we're going to!

Well, that was a nice pep talk. Let's see how long this works for me. You should all keep me motivated.

Motivation...

2010-01-20T00:13:00.002-05:00

I lack it. Well, actually, I've been more motivated the last couple weeks that I previously had been. I've created an office in the basement (which I haven't actually used) and we reorganized Jared's room, so I suppose that's productive. And I have been working a fair bit. But I have all these projects and ideas and things that I want to work on, but I don't have the energy or willpower to make myself do them. And time...I'm not sure how, but somehow it can get to Sunday afternoon and all we've managed to do is donate blood, sleep and watch tv. I'm sad too, because I had a lot I wanted to get done this weekend. I guess I'll make another to-do list and maybe I'll manage to get more done later this week. I'm a pro at to-do lists, making them that is, not necessarily doing them. And I do have to be a little more motivated because at least some of the things that I want to do have deadlines. I have a large presentation to prepare, and a story about magic to write. Bleh, okay, enough of me whining.

Sorry I haven't written lately. I mean to... just another one of those things that I wish I were more motivated to do. But we're done with that topic. =)

So, have I mentioned lately that I have the cutest kid in the world? Cause I do, and I don't write about him much. But he's really really adorable. He's going through a growth spurt right now, apparently. Insane really, as he's already a monster, but he's been eating 10oz at a time today, which is a full 4 more than he wanted yesterday. *shakes head* We took him to a 5 month study at the University of Maryland the other day, at which he had great fun. Being a psychology person, I fully support doing research into things like children's social development. And this was a pretty fun study, he got to play with bubbles and puppets and do peek-a-boo, nothing remotely stressful.

He can't crawl yet, but he's taken to flipping himself back and forth and is no longer safe alone on a bed, even with walls of pillows around him, and he does scoot himself backwards, which is very funny. He can sit up on his own and can swing himself and spin his bouncy chair around so he's in front of the toy he wants. And, luckily for us, he loves the car and traveling and other people. Perfect meetup companion. We took him to Tennessee over New Years and are planning a trip to Florida next month, so yay.

This post is rather rambly and babbly, I'm sorry. I have a headache and am feeling a bit out of sorts. Perhaps I'll post something more coherent later this week? For now, have a lovely evening!

Childish

2009-09-22T00:49:00.003-04:00

Kim is a bitch. Now, I don't normally rant about people on here, and frankly, I rarely get mad at people at all. However, this really really pissed me off. Now, I can see people reading this saying, 'it's just a game...' but it isn't. What it is, is a glimpse into the kind of person that Kim is, and that glimpse shows me that I have no desire to associate with her again. A shame too, since I love her kids and her husband is fun. (For clarification, Kim is Jerry's brother's wife.) I suppose it would be best to explain the story now.

For the past year or so Jerry and I have been very involved in the game, Warhammer Online. When it was released, Jerry, myself, Ken (Jerry's brother) and Kim formed a guild together. Ken was then sent overseas for 9 months, and Kim, being now alone and they having 7 kids, naturally had little gaming time. Jerry and I took over running the guild. Things went as well as any new guild can expect, players came and went, we went through phases of dying and rebuilding, we were shuffled to different servers and joined several different alliances. When Ken returns to the states, the guild is entering a phase of 'dying'. This is due to several factors: 1. the new server we had been shuffled onto was order heavy and rvr had become beyond frustrating (ie. high level players were getting sick of never winning anything and were quitting or moving servers/guilds) and 2. new games (Champions Online and Aion) were being released and players were leaving to go to them.

At this point, Ken and Kim start moving some of their characters out of our guild and into a guild that we are allied with (Unrepentant). They don't mention this to us and we find out from the leader of Unrepentant. When we ask them about it, they say that they are planning to leave WAR for Aion and plan to join Unrepentant when they do. They say they are moving their characters to get to know the people in that guild better. We're fine with this, think it's a good idea actually, although it would have been nice if they'd let us know. We learn later that they told Unrepentant that they were leaving because they were having problems with us.

They never once mention these problems. We go to their house for labor day, and they still don't mention anything. They're playing Aion (beta) while we're there and we look at it. I fall in love with the pretty setting and the tons of character customization you can have and decide that I want to get the game. I even mention that I will join Unrepentant when I do. They don't seem to have any problem with this.

We come home and I do just that. I join Unrepentant, I order the game. I'm really excited about this. I post a bunch on their forums, get to know some new people that I didn't already know from WAR. I make plans to be really active and be in vent all the time and really become an involved, contributing member of the guild. I even skip my writing group to go to the first guild meeting. Kim knows I'm there, knows I'm a member, we attended meetings together and everything.

Two weeks later, my brother (who has decided to play Aion with me) submits an application for Unrepentant. Kim posts: "Due to issues with this person and family members in past games i would like to voice my disaproval of this app. if you need any more info than what i have already given in vent please pm me thanks" WHAT?! Now....Aaron was in our guild in WAR...marginally. He quit the game months ago, spent most of his time when he was playing on the Order side in his own guild, and I would say never once interacted with Kim, apart from possibly the occasional 'hello' in guild chat on the rare occasion that they were playing at the same time. He's also one of the most laid back people I know, never fights with anyone, and is practically allergic to drama. There is no possible reason that she would have to post that.

Then, my brother, and myself both get messages from the guild leader that based on what Kim has had to say they have decided to reject us from the guild. Yes, they retroactively reject me from a guild I've already been in for two weeks. I send Kim a message trying to find out what the hell is going on, which she, naturally, never responds to. And I know she got the message, and read it, because apparently she was talking in Vent about the fact that I was messaging her. We talk with the guild leadership for awhile, never getting any answer regarding what she's saying we did. And apparently when they confront her with the fact that we're saying we have no idea what she's talking about and have no problems with her, she starts backpedaling and can't seem to explain what the problem is. But she's more than capable of bad-mouthing us on Vent.

We still have no idea what she thinks we did wrong, why she's upset, or why she brought whatever misconceived problem she had from WAR over into this new guild and game. We all decided 'screw her' and went to another server and another guild, but it really sucks. I had a lot of friends in that guild and was really looking forward to playing with them. And what hurts even more is that I have no idea what lies she's told to them all and I'm sure they all think horribly of me and I did nothing wrong. Jerry thinks it's because she's pissed at him for some reason. *shrugs* I imagine we'll never know.

And it's too bad too, because I know Jerry really likes to hang out with his brother. So do I, for that matter. But now, we won't be heading to Norfolk to visit them again because neither of us want to associate with someone so childish, mean and spiteful.

Easy

2009-08-21T14:56:00.003-04:00

Man...I fail at this whole 'keeping my blog up to date' thing. I won't promise to be better this time, since it seems that I can't keep those promises. Anyway....life has been veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery exciting of late.

Everyone that reads my blog should already know that little Jared has been born. I'm guessing that most of you probably got a text message from us that night. Suffice it to say, we are incredibly happy. I don't think I could have asked for a sweeter, better behaved baby. And really, everything is not nearly as difficult as I imagined. Yeah, it's hard to get up and feed and change him in the middle of the night, but not so bad. And I feel great, so that's a plus.

Dusty is hilarious. He has really taken to his role of 'big brother'. We read articles and the like about the best way to introduce a new baby to your pets and one of the things that they suggested was to have someone bring a blanket that the baby had been wrapped in home while you were still in the hospital to acquaint the pets with his scent. We thought this was a good idea, so mom brought a blanket home the day before we got home. Both dogs sniffed it, Athena was of course very meh. Dusty, however, started carrying the blanket around with him everywhere. I wish I'd been around to see it because apparently he kept tripping over it. Then, once we got home, they were both suitably excited and sniffy for a time, and then Athena became her indifferent self. Dusty, on the other hand, sits next to Jared all the time. If Jared makes the slightest little noise, Dusty runs from wherever he is to make sure he's okay, and should he start to cry, Dusty gets veeeeeeeeeery upset and will come and headbutt us until we get up and see what's the matter. It's the cutest thing. Skylar, I don't think has even noticed that there's a new baby, in spite of our attempts to introduce them. But he's not being mean or anything, so I guess it's good enough.

What has been a bit tiring about the whole thing is the constant stream of people visiting. Not that I mind visitors that is, there just hasn't been a whole lot of 'alone time' for Jerry, Jared and I. We had most of yesterday and today though, and tomorrow. Then friends are coming up on Sunday and it sounds like my family will be here next week, which will be great, if more tiring, especially with Jerry having to go back to work. It's been really nice to have him home at night.

You know, you'd think I would have more to talk about. Ooh...here's pictures of him: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v334/Alarra/Jared/
Well, I guess that's enough for today and I'll try write again after not toooooo long. =P

Sleep

2009-07-01T11:24:00.005-04:00

I was concerned about how the SE Gitp Meetup would go. Not that I thought it wouldn't be as fantastic and fun and well-run as every other year, but rather, the concerns were over how I would handle it. Now, I love meetups, and I'm one of those people that hates to miss out on ANYTHING. Most of the time, this results in my staying up nearly all night, getting less than 6 hours of sleep for the entire weekend combined, and basically subsisting on caffeine. Now, this is a fine way to spend an occasional weekend.....when you aren't 8 months pregnant. Before we left, I actually instructed Zeb to make me take a break once in awhile, go to bed by 2, take an occasional nap... he failed at this miserably, and actually, ended up falling asleep before me practically every night. In actuality, it went much the same way as every other meetup... I stayed up stupid late and got little sleep over the course of the weekend. (And mom, if you're reading this...don't lecture and don't worry. I'm just fine and a little missed sleep didn't hurt me one bit...) I did end up going back to the hotel on Sunday and napping for a bit more than an hour, causing me to miss out on Reinholdt's birthday party (le sad), but even that I probably wouldn't have done had I just been tired and not feeling ill as well.

It was a fantastically fun weekend though. Most people showed up Friday afternoon. We missed out on the pre-festivities at the Hippie Hut, because Zeb hadn't slept yet when we got there and I decided to be responsible and make him take a nap first. But then we went to the Thunderdome, which was a rather fun, gaming hang out. There was much Rockband, and a very fun game of Paranoia....in which I DID NOT DIE! See, this is significant, because it's very very hard to not die in this game, everyone else died at least twice, some as many as 4 times. It was a lot of fun though. I was the 'hygiene officer' and got to make everyone wash their hands a lot. We played a lot of other games there too, and they had amazing cheesecake. I can't recall how late we stayed there, probably 3-ish, it was late anyway. We hung out in the room after that for awhile, but probably went to sleep around 4:30, I would guess. Zeb fell asleep far earlier, a combination of little sleep the past couple days and too much beer, I think.

Saturday was the outdoor portion of the weekend. We woke up late and went to get breakfast, which was mildly disappointing. Then we headed over to the ropes course place, arriving fashionably late, as we did to everything, all weekend. There was kubb and grilling and fun conversations, and a few people climbed some. It was also hot and there were a lot of bugs. It was great fun though. We went swimming after that, which was exactly what was needed. Zeb luckily wears swimming trunks as his regular shorts and as such had 3 pairs and could lend some to the llama and nudist. Of course, I'm sure Indy would have prefered to swim without them, but there were kids in the pool. =P

We then went to Mid-City Grill. I don't know that I did too much while we were there. Played a couple rousing games of 'pass the pig', (such a fun, quick, time-waster..I should probably pick it up sometime), Ticket to Ride cards, and one of the 'skippy' b-movie games. Dinner was disappointing, which was sad because I remember it being really good last year. I was rather out of it while we were there though, and if I wasn't actively involved in a game or conversation, found I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. A bunch of people came back to our room after we left there, and somehow I was now wide-awake and happy to play games until 6am. I was rather concerned that the people in the room next to us were going to complain about the noise though, since we did have both Rockband and a poker game going on at the same time. I spent most of the time playing poker, which shouldn't surprise anyone that knows me, poker's kinda my game. We made up a new variant called 'reverse poker' in which you can see everyone's hand but your own...that was actually really fun and called for a complete change in the way that you think. Goof then introduced us to Whiskey poker, which was a ton of fun too, although it involved a bit less strategy and more luck.

Sunday was spent at Jared and Sherri's, which was fun, for the most part. Goof was in pretty bad shape though. Apparently sometime in the early hours of the morning, probably while he was playing poker and drinking very sugary cocktails, his insulin pump stopped working. By the time we got there, he looked pretty much like death, and spent a good chunk of the day sleeping. He did wake up to play Werewolf with us though (Even all ill and exhausted, he managed to play a fantastic game and ended up being the last villager alive), but he then ended up going to the hospital shortly after that game. Which really sucked, although I suppose if it had to happen somewhere, I'm glad it's in JC where there are tons of really wonderful people around to keep him company and take care of him. He's doing muuuuuuuuuuuuuch better now and it looks like he'll be able to head home soon. We went and visited him that evening as well as before we left the next morning and he seemed in good spirits, if rather tired. I'd gone back to the hotel to sleep when they found out that Goof needed to be sent to the hospital (He'd left to go to the pharmacy, not nearly as concerning) so I was a bit late in finding that out. Once Zeb, llama, Thes and Indy came back to get me, they filled me in and we went to visit him.

We made Sunday a bit earlier of a night, although Zeb, Indy and I still stayed up chatting far later than we intended too. Indy finally got to feel Jared kick, shortly before bed, which he had been whining about wanting to do since the weekend started. Apparently it's the 'coolest feeling ever'..he was rather awed. And I have to admit it is pretty darn cool. Except when you're trying to sleep anyway. =P Monday I proceeded to sleep a good chunk of the drive home and passed out not too long after we got back here.

All in all the weekend was a roaring success and a ton of fun. I can't wait to do it again next year. We met a fair number of new people, (Mangosta, Phillistine, Reinholdt, rtg, tyckspoon *thinks* Is that really all? I knew everyone else?...wow..) and they were all tons of fun. And it was great to get to see all the Johnsoncity-ites again, since they're some of my favorite people ever and we don't get down there enough. And also, Indy, cause I've missed him terribly. Anyway, it was great to see everyone else that I already knew again too (Thes, Goof, Krade, Zaragon, the Meyers *knows she's forgetting people*) In any case, we're trying to plan a meetup of our own in October, which seems to be getting a great response, so hopefully it won't be another year before I get to see all these people again. =D

Reading

2009-06-15T23:48:00.003-04:00

I have been reading quite a bit lately and figured it might be a good idea to write about some of what I've read over the past month or so.

I am currently reading Watership Down. This is one of Jerry's favorite books and he has been trying to get me to read it for ages. Of course, his convincing was hindered by the fact that he didn't own a copy and I never remembered to pick it up at the bookstore. This has been remedied. Actually, while my mother was visiting, we bought a ton of books. I've read three or so of them since she left. I'm currently a little more than halfway through this book and it's really really good. Far different from what I was expecting, and actually, anything I've ever read. I kind of like reading about books from the point of view of animals, it gives everything a much more novel perspective, and makes you think. Anyway, I realize this is an older book, but if you haven't read it, you should consider it.

The book that I finished last week was Castles by Julie Garwood. This is also an older book, actually, from back in 1993. I really like Garwood and thought I had read everything she'd put out, but somehow I missed this one. Mom and I picked it up while she was here. This is typical Garwood fare. There's a guy and a girl, thrown together through some (usually dangerous) circumstances, they fight falling in love, but eventually succumb, there's some plot going on to kill one or both of the main characters....or, in the case of this book, a couple different dangery type people or groups skulking about. Of course, the hero and heroine save the day and wind up married and happy. I realize that this doesn't make it sound like a good book, rather makes it sound like everything that she writes is the same, but that doesn't mean they aren't still good. Her historical books, of which this is one, all take place in the early 19th century England, and unlike a lot of authors, she doesn't get bogged down in the minutia of making sure that everything is accurate 'societally'. Where she shines is in her characterization, and if her plots are a bit repetitive, the unique and exciting people that she introduces make them seem fresh. Anyway, she's a good author, you should check her out.

The book I finished before that was Dogs and Goddesses by Jennifer Crusie and a couple other women authors who I can't recall and am being too lazy to look at the page I just linked. I find Crusie an interesting author, because unlike a lot of romance writers, she's genuinely funny. I haven't read a book of hers that hasn't at several points throughout caused me to laugh out loud. She's also very good at bringing her characters thoughts and voice to the forefront. This book was a bit absurd and kooky, with a fair bit of mysticism thrown in. I laughed a lot while reading it.

Before that, I read, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I don't think I can say that enough. This is Rothfuss's debut novel and I had heard and read a whole lot of fantastic reviews of it. All I can say is every one of them is correct and when people compare him to George RR Martin, Tolkein and Robert Jordan, they're absolutely right. It's a fantastic book and I was soooo sad to finish it and realize that the next one isn't out yet. And don't be concerned with the Martin and Jordan references, while he is writing a series, it is already planned out as a trilogy, and, if I'm not mistaken, all three books are already written. This isn't the type of author where we'll run into the problem of his series never ending or falling off after book 9, or making us wait years and years for the next installment. In any case, it's been a long while since I had read a book that I literally couldn't put down (Since the last Kushiel book, actually). So anyway, if you are a fantasy fan at all....GET THIS BOOK!

And just before that, I finished, Vision in White by Nora Roberts. This was a fun, light diversion for a couple of days. I'm actually a rather big fan of Roberts. I do have every book she's written, well, or I did at one time anyway. They're good, a nice break between deeper fantasy novels. She's excellent at characterization and her books are always full of fascinating details about different careers or lifestyles. This book is the first in a series based around four women that run a wedding planning company. This one focuses on the photographer, and while she's done dozens of books about mildly crazy commitment-phobic women, this one manages to be interesting and amusing. I think it will be a good series.

Anyway, there you go, that's what I have read this month. Enjoy!

Oversight

2009-06-02T11:53:00.003-04:00

Wow, so...after reading Zeb's blog entry, I realized that my last entry was before I knew I was pregnant and in yesterday's I didn't bother to mention it, or for that matter, anything else that has happened since November.

So...yes...I'm pregnant, about 29 weeks along now. Which is exciting and fun and I can't wait to have little Jared. That's actually why all the people will be here on Saturday, Myranda's throwing us a baby shower. Not that there's anything else we need, we already had a huge shower in South Dakota, and then there's my aunt Peggy, who has been collecting baby stuff for me pretty much since I was born. Seriously. She sent me home with 4 bins of clothes, 2 boxes of books, and a bin of toys and other stuff. But yes, little Jared will have more outfits than he can ever wear. It seems like it's pregnancy season right now actually, as I have two friends that are also pregnant and due in the few months after me. This will be nice, I think, as then our kids will have other kids their age to hang out with, of course, Alison's moving way down to Florida with her's, but hey..we'll visit. =) Anyway, the pregnancy has been pretty much picture perfect. I had very minimal morning sickness and every appointment they say that he looks prefect. There was a little hiccup this month because I screwed up the amount of iron I was getting, which made my heart have some problems and made me very tired, but that's all fixed now...I think. So, anyway, that's the big thing that's going on.

I also have a new job....which I hate. Well, not hate, really. I mean, it's convenient in that I never have to go there or do anything, but I really wish I were actually making money. The problem with this place is that it's contractual, so I only get paid when I actually see clients. So if I sit at the office for half an hour, hoping they show up and they don't...I get nothing, and am just out all that time, plus the half hour it took me to drive there. People also have a tendency to never answer their phones or return my phone calls. This is making it hard to actually see anyone. I do have a few more appointments this week, but last paycheck I only worked like 10 hours and 6 of those were the 'paperwork' hours I get paid for...so yes, 3 appointments in two weeks.... Not exactly going to break the bank with this one. The plan right now is to keep it up at least until August and then look for something new while I'm on 'maternity leave'. I may keep it for a little while after, just because it's convenient to not have to go there that often, but I really need something full time, or at least moderately structured. They also don't take out taxes, apparently, which will be a huge pain come when I have to actually figure that out.

I'm less worried about the party now, while the house is still small, we're doing a good job of getting it clean and I think it'll work out even if people are a bit crowded. I don't really have all that much else to talk about right now, although I'll probably think of something later, and maybe make another post tomorrow. See how on top of this I'm being now? *grins*

Apologies

2009-06-01T00:45:00.002-04:00

I have not blogged in way way too long. No one will probably even come and see this, because it has been so long since I have made an entry that none of you will think to come back and look here. I'm not going to write much tonight, either....sorry to get your hopes up, you nonexistent reader, you. It's late...well, late for current me anyway, I have been sleeping earlier and earlier lately, which I suppose is a good thing. In any case, I will attempt to write more tomorrow.

I'm also frazzled and crabby and in a 'mood' tonight, so going to bed is probably the best plan. I'm worried though. There are going to be a lot of people coming over on Saturday and our house is small....really really tiny small and I'm afraid that it will be far too crowded and no one will have any fun. I'm also worried about mom, but she yells at me when I say anything, so that's where I'll leave that.

This weekend was fun though, in spite of the feeling stressed and worried. Stacey came up and we played D&D yesterday and today we took Tommy to a birthday party for my friend, Becky's, son. He had a fantastic time and I'm really glad we took him, because he never gets to play with other kids. We had fun too of course. Anyway, off to bed with me, and I'll post more tomorrow and more frequently in the future too. I promise! =D

Shopping

2008-11-28T22:05:00.003-05:00

So...as most of you know, today was Black Friday....a fun, insane day of shopping for those of us crazy enough to do it. I usually rather enjoy the day and have a lot of fun...this year, however, things were incredibly annoying.

I stayed up all night, because that's what I do, so we left around 3:45am to go to Herberger's. Herbergers went very well, we got there around 4, had gotten all of our things and were out the door by 4:20.

Then....Walmart. *headdesk* So...one of the major things I was wanting to get at Walmart was the vsmile pocket for our grandson. If you're familiar with Black Friday at Walmart, you will know that all of the 'doorbuster' items are out on the floor early, but the pallets are wrapped in black plastic and guarded by employees. They give you a map of where in the store the item you want is.

My mother went to electronics and the gps's....I'm glad I wasn't over there, apparently one girl got stuck and knocked into and split her head open on a shelving unit, and this other guy had his wrist broken by another customer. Yes...electronics was not a fun area. The really annoying aspect of electronics, is that, since it is in the back of the store, everyone that has gotten a cart at the front of the store realizes that there is no way that they will be able to get through at the back with it. Then, they abandon their carts, leading to the middle of the store being completely blocked with carts, like....every aisle.

Anyway...I went to where the v-smile pocket was supposed to be being unveiled in 20 minutes. It was not there. They had put out the wrong product and were supposedly finding them and going to get them out. There were quite a few of us looking for them. We waited, and waited, talked to something like 10 different associates over the course of the morning. I wandered a bit, getting other things, checking back every 5 mins or so to see if we'd found out anything. Finally....at 5:40, we learn that they had put them out at a different area of the store and they were all gone. AND that they had only found about 20 of them, when they were supposed to have a couple hundred. Suffice it to say...I was pissed. I actually went and found a manager and bitched about it, which is something I never do. She's supposedly going to get back to me and hopefully find it, but grrr.. Then, when we were checking out, they wouldn't match competitors prices. Now, they've been advertising this for ages, saying that they even match other black friday deals, etc. But apparently...not movies. An exemption that is mentioned nowhere in their ad, their radio announcements, or their website. So my plan of not having to get any movies at Target or Best Buy fell through, and annoyed me further. I did still get a lot of things I needed there though.

Next was JC Penney, which was rather fun. I got some cute clothes, some things for Zeb, a new pair of shoes, presents for some people...it was much more nicelier and relaxed.

It is now...8am, a time when most normal people might be considering getting up. And we are on our way to Shopko. Which wasn't bad, although my mom was starting to get very tired and grumpy. Most of the stuff we wanted there was sold out, but ah well, we got fluffy blankets, and who isn't cheered by fluffy blankets.

From Shopko, we head to Target, which wasn't too busy at all anymore, and was out of a lot of stuff. They had cheap movies though.

Then...yay...breakfast break =D Then we head to Herbergers again. We aren't there very long, just had to pick up a couple things we missed in our whirlwind 20 mins there at 4am, but I got a fantastic jacket.

Now it is a little after 11, the time when I normally bow out, along with my mom, grandma and cousin, leaving my aunt to shop by herself for the rest of the day. We're crazy, she's insane. Anyway, mom and grandma leave, cousin had left at 8...but, I, being nice because my aunt had hurt her foot and isn't supposed to be driving with it, say that I will help her finish her shopping.

We're getting to the end of the 'doorbuster' hours, so each time we go in a new store, we have to start with her begging them to still give her the prices, even though it's noon. This makes the next several stores very hectic with lots of rushing to meet deadlines. We go to Menards, Toys R' Us, K-Mart, Runnings and Ace Hardware. Each store is fraught with tons of problems, running around and whining to sales people. Which takes me to now, 3:30, where I have spent almost 11 hours shopping on no sleep.

But hey, at least I didn't die. In New York, a salesperson at WalMart was trampled TO DEATH when customers broke through the locked store doors and swarmed the place, and no one stopped to help him at all. And in California, a fight for a toy at toys r us ended up in a gunfight with 2 people dead. *shakes head* Really makes one question humanity.

Intentions

2008-11-03T14:01:00.002-05:00

So...some of you may know that I'm participating in NaNoWriMo. For those of you not in the know, that stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal of this month is to write 50,000 words. Now, I don't expect that what comes out of this month will be my best writing, or that I would end up with something that might be considered publishable. But it's getting me writing again, which I needed. While I have a lot of ideas for things to write, I really fail when it comes to motivation. So, Nano really helps for that.

My intention for this book is to finally get the mafia III story written up. Helgraf and I are both trying to write 50,000 words on it and are then going to attempt to mesh our points of view together. I think this will actually really help my writing because then once he writes sections, I can play off of what he's having happen. It made for very good interactions when we were writing these together before. Of course, the problem with doing this is that then I feel like my writing has to be on par with Helgraf's and it usually isn't. But hey, he gives me something to strive for.

I have joined a writing competition on gitp as well this month. It hasn't started yet, but I'm concerned at how that will effect my Nano wordcounts. I'm doing alright so far, I didn't write anything over the weekend, but that's to be expected. Unlike most people doing this, weekends are the times when I have less time for writing. I'm at 5,710 words from this morning though, so, if I can write that much every time I sit down, and I make a point of sitting down 4 mornings a week....I should be well ahead of schedule. Especially if I go to some evening write-ins as well.

Relax

2008-08-27T15:33:00.002-04:00

I've not been very good at keeping this up, I'm sad to say. I will endeavor to improve. It's been awhile since I've written, so I suppose I ought catch things up.

This has been a fun month. Gencon and all that. I had a really good time this year. Probably the best I've ever had there....and I always have fun. We had less people in our room than we would have liked, which I suppose was alright, since space-wise, it wasn't all that large. However, as far as the pocketbook goes...it would have been nice if we'd had a few more people to share it with. We have a lot of people interested in rooming with us next year though, so things shouldn't be so bad.

The highlight of gencon for me, probably, was the Nascrag tournament. Now, this is a fun little event where you put together a team and play through a D&Dish adventure. It's not remotely combat based, but is entirely focused on how well you can roleplay and puzzle solve. Our team was myself, Zeb, Ceika, Tantolain, Indurain, and Felixaar. So, naturally, we had a blast. Indy and I especially, since our roles were a pair of twin sister dancing girls. We played off each other really well and it was hilarious.

I got to meet quite a few people that I didn't know previously, Felixaar (although by this point, he'd been hanging with us for a week, so I didn't exactly meet him at the con), Smee, Kyrian, Lykan, Lex-kat...probably a few others. Although really, I knew practically everyone there already. Zeb, me, Ceika, Tantolain and Indurain spent pretty much the entire time together. It was nice to see Phoe and Reina again. And this year, I actually got to spend some time talking to Thes and El J, so huzzah to that.

This year, it felt like there was a lot less time. I think it's because we spent the majority of the dealer hall hours frantically trying to complete quests. Which, of course, we never got anything out of. Well, no...not exactly, because Krade won a bunch of stuff and gave us everything he didn't want.

It was a really good time though. And I behaved and hardly bought a thing. I got a new set of dice, a watercolor book, and two smaller games. One of which was a new hex hex, for which I'm very excited, because hex hex is the most fun game ever.

I realize I could probably continue on awhile, I didn't talk much about the cuddlefests or random moments of silliness, but I think I'll move onto other aspects of life.

I'm still unemployed. Yeah, it sucks. I'm really really pissed at my school about this. They moved some of our classes until after graduation....shouldn't have been a big deal, right? Except that in Maryland...and apparently Texas, and probably other places...in order to be hired for any therapist position, I need my provisional license. In order to get this license, I need to have taken these courses and sit for the exam. The courses have been over since the beginning of the month now, but of course, the grades are just getting put on my transcript now and so then I have to order the transcript and send in my application and get approved for the exam.....ideally in time to take it in early September. I don't even know if that's going to happen. Not to mention that moving these classes made it so that they can't be paid for with financial aid and apparently they're supposed to hold my transcripts until I've finished paying for them. Which, of course, I can't do until I get a job, which I can't get without my transcript. Grrrr...vicious circle.

In gaming news, there was a beta preview weekend of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning over the weekend. Holy wow is that a great game. It pretty much combines the aspects of Camelot and WoW that we liked while adding a bunch of new, neat things. I'm sad that we only got to play it for so short a time. We're planning on getting all of our friends together in a guild though.

Jerry's taking a class this week, so is gone during the days rather than at night. It's been....different. Although, I kinda like being home alone all day. It's relaxing. I've gotten so much reading done.

Aaron was supposed to come out and visit, but the stupid flights decreed that it oughtn't be so. He has two weeks off right now and I think he's planning on coming out at some point during this time. I'm not sure when though. Mom's talking about flying us all down to Florida, which I think would be a lot of fun. I haven't seen her in awhile and I need to buy a dress for Alison's wedding and it's always more fun to shop with her and grandma.

I think Athena may be finally turning into a good dog. She's really sweet and is really starting to grow on me. I can't even remember the last time she did something that required me to yell at her. Speaking of dogs, my mom apparently rescued a stray. He was walking down the street and was skinny and starving and had been beaten. But supposedly he's just the sweetest thing and now that he's determined that she's nice and not going to hit him whenever she tries to pet him, he won't leave her side. I'm guessing my dad probably isn't the happiest to have 3 dogs in the house, but eh, it's not like she could just leave him to get hit by a car.

Well, I've rambled on enough I think, maybe if I write more often, I won't have to make such long posts filling you all in about weeks of my life. We'll shoot for that. =D

Restless

2008-07-18T02:56:00.003-04:00

You know...I thought I would enjoy having a little break this summer. I was looking forward to the idea that we could live on Zeb's salary alone and that I wouldn't have to scramble to find a job. I could maybe be picky, find one I really want, rather than having to take just any old thing that'll hire me. I was looking forward to calming down, stopping stressing, taking some time to relax, read, watch tv.... Only to find that I can't do that.

Apparently, I am incapable of just 'relaxing'. I always have to have a list of things that have to be done and when I sit down for even an hour or two to play a game, I feel like I'm slacking. Hell, I can't even make it through an entire tv show without having to pause it and get up and do something.

I swear this is a new development. I know that once upon a time, I was able to just hang out and watch tv. I remember hours of just sitting in front of my laptop browsing the forums. Of course, the fact that I can't do that has more to do with the fact that they've been down for a week than anything else. *shakes fist at server* But even when they were up, I didn't just hang out there. I didn't browse and chat in RB like I used to. I check my subscribed threads, I send actions into my games, and then I wander off to 'be productive'. *sigh*

And the job thing...the break idea...even if I could handle it, apparently our finances can't. It seems we're barely scraping by on what we have...(damn this house is expensive) So now I'm fretting the fact that I'm still unemployed. Never mind that I've been running around like crazy since graduation and spent a month in SD and had nowhere near any time for job hunting...but there's this crazy voice inside my head telling me that I'm slacking and taking advantage of Zeb and need to be doing more and need to be employed already.

And then there's the fact that I'm worried about the 'finding a job' thing anyway. When I initially started looking at jobs, there was basically nothing available that didn't require you already be licensed. What I would like to know is how the hell people are supposed to get licensed if no one will hire them to allow them to accrue hours.... But now I've been looking more, and there is stuff out there.....a lot of stuff. So, of course, I went crazy. And over the past 2 days have applied for something on the order of 40 jobs. Some probably aren't even jobs I want, they're just things I'm qualified for....some even way overqualified for....because that scared little voice is telling me that no one is going to want to hire me and that even if I make it to an interview, I'll screw it up because I'm quiet and nervous and can't translate thoughts into coherent sentences.

I know it's nuts. I know that I'm capable and competent and good at what I do. I know that I have excellent credentials. I know that I just graduated from the best and hardest art therapy program in the country. I know that I am smart and responsible and compassionate and would be a great therapist. I'm just really really worried that I'm incapable of conveying that to someone else.

And so here we have me...still stressed. I'm done with grad school, done with the damn wedding....and still every little thing is turning me inside out. I know I'm driving Zeb up the wall. Every day I add like 10 things to the list of stuff we need to get done to finish the house. And we just got a wii and fun new games for it, and of course, he wants to play them, but then I'm making him feel guilty about it, because I can't seem to make myself sit down and play with them and ugh..I'm a mess.

It doesn't help that every day my mom calls and not 5 minutes into the conversation she asking about this thing or that thing that I mentioned I might get done soon. And the fact that she always sounds so disapproving of what I'm doing and how I'm doing things, makes me snap at her. I don't think we've had a conversation since I got back from SD that hasn't ended with one or both of us pissed off over something. And I know, I'm probably overreacting...but does she really have to know everything that's happening at all times? Which of course, she'll have an opinion on. I'm sorry, but I'm sick of her always having to be involved in every aspect of my life. I think I'm, at least mildly, independent....capable of making my own choices and decisions. And, while she says we're just 'having a conversation' to me we're 'discussing what Amanda's doing wrong now' and I can't handle that every day, I just can't anymore.

And now, I have a killer headache and have clearly ranted enough at you all. I guess I should probably go to sleep here. I hardly slept at all last night, or today, rather since it was 6:30 when I laid down. I couldn't sleep, and then I tried to sleep when Zeb did later in the day, and that didn't work either. I'm chalking it up to this restlessness, but I seriously hope it cuts it out. Cause I am not a happy person to be around when I haven't slept. *sigh* I really didn't mean this to turn into a rant. I really am happy, even if it's hard to hear that through all the stress and worry and bitching. but....*sigh* When does life get easy?

Bliss

2008-07-11T04:52:00.002-04:00

Well huh...I'm married. After all the planning and the stressing and the worrying and the details...it's just...over and done. I mean, I'm happy and all. Deliriously happy. I love Zeb so damn much and I suppose it's nice to be done with it all, but...I dunno...it kinda feels sudden and like something's missing now without the wedding to worry about. *shrugs* Of course, I'm still crazy busy, but I shouldn't be. I dunno, it's like I can't let myself just relax and have fun and not be stressing out over -something-. *sigh*

Anyway...the wedding was beautiful and perfect, well...nearly perfect. Let's list the things that weren't.... It's a short list, really, which I hear is unusual for weddings:

1. I didn't actually lose any weight before the wedding. As such, I feel like I looked crappy in all my photos, at least those I've seen. I haven't seen the professional ones yet.
2. It was windy during the ceremony which made the microphones screwy.
3. It was really freaking hot at the reception initially which I think made a fair number of people take off early.
4. The best man left at 5. WTF? I'm sorry, but I felt that was incredibly rude and selfish. And a lot of other people did too. 'Waaaa, there's kids and it's hot and we're not having that much fun.' Suck it up. You're here for someone else and frankly, there's a time when you should think of them and not just you. Although, truthfully, we probably had more fun without them.
5. Sue and Kay got in a fight. Well, admittedly, I didn't learn of this until the next day, but I hate that people were fighting at the reception and hope mom smoothed things over so that Kay doesn't think I had anything to do with anything.

And...that's about it. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

The wedding and reception were really perfect though. Like most girls, I've planned aspects of my wedding for as long as I can remember. My dress was exactly the dress I'd always pictured in my mind. There were daisies everywhere, which gave everything a cheerful, casual feel. We were able to pull off a whole fantasy theme without going to crazy or being cheesy. And it was geeky. There was kubb played and gazebo attacking and we renamed the bar Trog's Tavern. All in all it was very us and very special. Zeb was incredibly handsome and every time he looked at me he just looked so happy and so sure that this was right and perfect. I couldn't stop smiling.

The candle holders went over well and looked really nice with the table cloths we made. There was tons of food and it was all delicious. Of course, I hardly ate anything, sadly. The cake was beautiful. Kay did just a superb job. And all in all, we really didn't spend that much. The DJ and photographer were worth every penny, and we didn't spend that much on them. Although I was actually a little disappointed in some songs that the DJ was missing, although he was apparently robbed the day before. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it. I was sad to not be able to hear dani california though, or any of the 'good' barenaked ladies songs.

All in all, a good time was had by all. The playgrounders stayed and hung out til the end with us, as did most of my dad's family, which was good and fun. I must say I've never before seen, or expected to see my cousin Chad dancing on a table. I danced a lot too, I must admit. I didn't expect to. I'm not that much of a dancer and neither is Zeb, but we danced and danced and had such a great time.

Have I mentioned that I'm happy? I'm really happy. And tomorrow morning, we leave on our little honeymoon to Pennsylvania. I'm excited about that too. It will be hard for me, but I'm going to not do anything and not think about anything remotely requiring any thought or productivity for the next three days. It'll be nice.

Anticipation

2008-07-03T01:09:00.002-04:00

I need to be asleep because I have been up since 2am this time and today has been long and hectic and tomorrow sounds to only be more so. However, I felt it would be a good idea to get a blog entry in now, mentioning all the meetupy goodness, before that event gets eclipsed by the wedding and I never end up writing about it. But speaking of the wedding...I just have to mention again how very excited I am. Am I nervous? Not a bit. Well, no, that's not really true. But I'm not at all nervous about getting married. Nervous about standing in front of 150 people, yes. Nervous about giving a speech...yes. Nervous about starting a new life with Jerry? Not a bit. And I'm happy. I'm so deliriously happy. Although, I'm tired and wish people would stop trying to schedule every hour of my time and it's making me snappish at times, but I'm still happy.

Okay...meetup....

Last weekend was the event of all playground events...the SE Meetup. It was a blast. There were so many people there that it was just crazy, I think we topped 40. Zeb and I had the good fortune of having two of our favorite board members (Shadow and Midnight Son) fly into Baltimore to drive down with us. Which was great. I loved the chance to get to know them and they were both a ton of fun. Shadow has managed to vault himself up into my top tier of playgrounders that I know in person. I mean, I love all the playgrounders I've met, but there are a few that you just kinda click with. And I'm fairly certain he must have clicked with Zeb too. After all, he doesn't just kiss anyone. =P

Zeb and I stayed with Hippie and Mountain Faerie, which was just great. I'm so glad we got to spend more time with them this year, cause they're just wonderful people. I was actually really impressed by the level of organization that the locals put into this and all the effort they put into making it what it was. There's rumor that next year we're going to try to rent a camp, which would be awesome.

Of course, my diet flew out the window while I was there, especially Saturday, when there was drinking. Not that I regret that, cause we all had a great time and I knew I wasn't going to stick to it on the trip...I tried though, kinda.

There was much fun gaming to be had. I had a whopping 11 curses going on me at one time, pure insanity. And everyone LOVED hex hex. It's become one of the 'games to get' for meetup goers.

I felt much better about myself and my ability to interact with people this year. Last year, I was still kinda shy around everybody and held back a lot. This year, however, I noticed that I was talking a lot more and taking charge and explaining games and rules and making plans....so that's a big step.

Stacy and Tracey brought their puppy along to the meet. I wanted to take him home soooooooooo much, unfortunately they didn't want to trade for Athena. (Not that I blame them).

But yes, there were far too many people there to list and talk about them all. There were a lot I got to see again and that was nice and there were a few new people that I hadn't met before, all of whom turned out to be fantastically fun. I was actually impressed at how few people I had to meet. I had met something like 32 of the 40 before. But yes..in conclusion...much awesomeness was had by all.

And now I must head to sleep and recuperate before I am awakened early to attend to all things weddingy and also to nurse my poor sick troll in hopes that he will be able to fight off the disease that is currently trying to claim him before the wedding. Poor darling.

Stupidity

2008-06-25T23:03:00.002-04:00

I did something very stupid today. I went and got all of my hair chopped off. Now, normally I love me with short hair, but I really hate how it looks right now, and right before the wedding and everything. I have never cried over a haircut before, I mean, come on, it's just hair, it grows back. But I came home this afternoon and just cried and cried. I woke Zeb up and then he couldn't get back to sleep for a long time and only ended up getting 4 hours of sleep today. I felt bad. I hope that in a couple days I will decide that I like it. We'll see. I don't know why I do silly things like that. I mean, I should have known that it wouldn't look good. But then, I hated my hair the way it was too, so I guess it doesn't really matter. I think maybe I'm not to get my hair cut in Glen Burnie, cause I've yet to get a good haircut here.

I've started glancing through jobs again, although I really need to devote more time and effort to that again. All the ones I found today (only 3, I didn't really spend long looking) are on the opposite side of DC and I really don't want to have to make that commute every day. I may have to though. I should be able to find one in Baltimore though. We'll see.

I'm really excited about the wedding....bad haircut aside. I can't believe in barely over a week I'll be married. It's happened so fast. But it's right. Nothing has ever felt this right. Zeb is the most wonderful guy I've ever known and I can't believe he's with me.

This weekend is going to be a blast too. We're headed down to JC for the annual SE meetup. While all meetups are great, this one has special meaning. This is the meetup at which Zeb and I met last year. It's also huge. I think there's something like 40 people coming...way crazy. For us the festivities basically start tomorrow, as we have a couple playgrounders flying in to drive down with us. Both of them (Shadow and Midnight Son) are playgrounders that I've not met yet, so I'm really excited to. Especially since they would both be rather high on my list of 'Playgrounders I would like to meet.' Speaking of...I suppose I should go straighten up...put sheets on the other guest bed, and all that jazz.

*wanders away*

Details

2008-06-01T14:11:00.002-04:00

It has been very busy lately. Hmm...this sounds familiar. You'd think with school done, I'd be a bit less busy, but I don't think I am. Granted, school isn't exactly over. I still haven't turned in my final versions of my thesis and I have to revise my presentation for publication and my summer classes start...hmm...today apparently.

I feel calm though. For the most part. I've been doing a lot of wedding prep. Have a list the length of my arm of things still to get done, but it's all coming together well. I do have to wonder though...what were Alison and I thinking? We have this plan to mosaic vases for candle holders for the centerpieces for the tables for both of our weddings. I've started. I've made 9. Of 60. These 9 have been of the smallest size too. They are time consuming and tedious, but beautiful. My flowers are all done. They're beautiful. Really, I think this wedding is going to be just perfect. Have I mentioned what dorks Jerry and I are? We're going to attack the gazebo and play kubb at the wedding. *laughs*

In other news...it has rained every day since I have been in South Dakota. May broke the record for the wettest month in Rapid City in history. It was previously set in 1905. And the poor dogs. There is thunder all the time and they get so scared and so nervous.

I've gotten back into WoW with a vengeance. Man have I missed that game. It's fun and addicting and I have no time to play except from like midnight to 2 am, but am expected to be places with grandma at 8 because she's one of those insane morning people and it's wearying.

Mom and I are getting along well this trip, for the most part. We have our fights, as usual, but there seem to be less of them than usual. It's been nice. And it's nice having Aaron here. It was really cool that his break fell at the same time as I would be here. We're having fun together, but he's been sick.

Closing

2008-05-13T02:17:00.002-04:00

Finally, at long last, I feel the stress of the year abating. I still have a to-do list as long as my arm. I still have several things to finish before graduation. I still have a wedding to finish planning. But at long last, I really feel like I can handle it all.

Our house has finally worked itself into becoming a home. Everything is looking nice and beautiful and in its place. And if we still have boxes to unpack and need another bookshelf or two, for the moment, everything not unpacked is stored away in closets awaiting a time later in the summer when I can get to them.

I bought a new printer today. It's very pretty and scans and was cheaper than I expected. I'm a bit sad that I had to buy a new printer though. I managed to drop mine while I was finishing moving and it pretty well shattered. On the bright side, this one doesn't make strange noises and the ink cartridge doesn't stall whenever I try to print, so I suppose its worthwhile that I got a new one anyway.

We had a meetup this weekend, which was quite fun. There wasn't quite the turn-out we'd hoped, especially from the locals, but those that were here had a fantastic time. Llama took quite a few pictures and a great video of us chasing Athena, trying to a kubb stick away from her. There were games and fun activities. We bought a couple new games for the occasion, Bang! and Hex Hex, both of which are exceedingly fun.

Athena's still getting into everything. We really want her to be a good dog, but I think we're going to have to admit that there's not much we can do other than locking her behind a gate in the basement while we're not home. It's not an ideal solution, but I think it'll have to do.

Flailing

2008-05-01T19:19:00.002-04:00

Things are coming to an end. Classes are done. I'm finished with internship. I've still my thesis defense, but since I've turned it over to my committee members, there's nothing else to be done until after Tuesday. I've a couple presentation's to plan, some artwork to finish up, and a whole list of wedding things to complete, but as a whole the stress is abating. I feel like I can sit down and watch a movie once in awhile and not feel incredibly guilty about it. Now, on the other hand, I feel a very intense restlessness. I know there are things that I could be doing...should be doing, yet because there isn't that sense of immediacy to it, I don't feel like I have to be doing anything. So, I don't. Cause really, I don't want to be doing anything. On the other hand, I feel like I want to be doing something. I think it may be annoying Zeb cause I keep getting whiny that he's spending too much time on the boards when we could be doing something together. Heh...Imagine that....ME saying someone spends too much time on the boards. *laughs* These are the times when I would be playing the cool flower collecting game I started playing. Only I finished it and don't have another fun, distracting pastime. Maybe I ought pick up WoW again. Although, really, I know that I shouldn't.

What I should do is clean or work on a presentation or send my engagement announcement to the journal or start sending out invitations. I really do still have a lot to do. *sigh* I did clean a bit though. I'm getting the kitchen more into shape, and I folded all of the laundry. But there's still a lot to do. Especially with the meetup coming up. I can't wait for that. It's going to be so much fun. Even if Indy can't make it. *big sad face*

I just wish it were like....July and all of this were behind me.

88

2008-04-15T22:12:00.002-04:00

.... is the number of items on my to-do list.

I don't know that I can do this. I don't know that I can exist for 3 more full weeks in the state of extreme stress that I am in. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's dim.

I've started delegating items. I'll put little j's next to things on the list that I think I can push off on Jerry. It's not many, but it's a little help. Although, then I just go and do those things anyway. *sigh*

Of course, I haven't the time to be writing this either. *heads back to revising her thesis*

Insanity

2008-04-14T02:36:00.003-04:00

Well...in an attempt to meet all of our obligations, we spent -a lot- of time driving this weekend. I drove up here on Thursday night because Jerry needed help unpacking things and getting things ready for when my parents come with all of the furniture, and also so that we wouldn't have to drive two cars back up on Saturday. Granted, we didn't put anything away Thursday night. I got here earlier than I intended and since I was sick and Jerry was sleeping, so I slept too, and then slept all night, which really, I needed.

Friday, we slept again and then went shopping and drove to Norfolk. The dress I got was very cute, kinda 1920's flapper feel, but long, if that makes sense at all. It had two layers, a black satin underneath and a woven, sorta crochet design over top, the top layer was longer than the bottom, which is what gave it the interesting look. We were almost late for the dance though because it took foooooooooooorever to make it down to Norfolk. Have I mentioned how much I deeeeeeeespise traffic?

The dance was actually fun! They did a terrible job on estimating alcohol and ran out of wine less than halfway through the dance. Now, I shouldn't be drinking wine, so I guess that was okay. But we all chatted and critiqued people's dance moves.

Saturday we went out to brunch with Jeremy and Alison and then went over to Ken's to give Nate and Mike birthday presents. The party was moved to Sunday, so we weren't able to go to that. Funny story with the presents though... Okay.... when we were moving me from Norfolk, we asked Mike to be the ring bearer for our wedding. Kim took it upon herself to confuse the issue and make him think he was going to be the flower girl and wear a frilly dress. He freaked out and was very upset and didn't want to be in the wedding. So, of course, we bought him a pink frilly dress for his birthday. The expression on his face was classic. I've never seen him look so angry. Of course we got him a real present too, but that was hiding out in the car.

Then we drove back up here, worked on figuring out the taxes, I wrote a paper, it was very bleh. But I found a lot of fun places we might go on our honeymoon. Thena actually wasn't that bad while we were gone. Of course, Sunday when we were gone, she chewed off the corner and half of the binding of a very expensive book that I even had really out of the way so she wouldn't get it. A school book...and out of print school book. Why does she like to eat books?! Grrrr!

Sunday we had D&D, which while fun, was exhausting cause I felt like crap. We're not going to be able to have it any more for the rest of the summer because everyone's (well...mine mostly) schedules are far too full, so we're just going to do the periodic boat day. That should be fun, I like being out on the boat.

We then came home and worked in the office for awhile. It looks really good. I'm glad, cause I was worried that the house would be a complete disaster when my parents got here. It's still bad, but we'll get it done. Not that I really have time to work on this, but eh..

I was supposed to come home tonight, but felt like complete crap, so called in sick to work. I feel a bit guilty because I've not a lot of time to make up the hours, but I'll figure it out.

This weekend was good though. I feel actually less stressed for once. I'm sure tomorrow it'll sink back in that I've two weeks to finish -everything-. Or maybe not tomorrow, maybe it'll sink in now. *worries again*

Sigh. I need sleep.

Fuzzy

2008-04-10T23:51:00.002-04:00

Bleh. I feel like complete and utter crap today. I stayed home from class yesterday because I was sick. I realize today that yesterday I was just 'starting' to get sick....today, I am fully and completely sick. I wanted to be productive tonight too. I have a paper to write...two of them actually, and the house is such a mess.

I feel bad because I was completely crabby and bitchy to Jerry tonight, but I walked into the house and there was chewed up paper everywhere (yes...Athena does this daily...) And so much stuff on the couches you couldn't even sit there and it just made me want to cry. And I know it won't be nearly so bad once we get everything set up and have a place for things and don't just have boxes -everywhere-, but dang it...I don't want to have to clean and unpack anymore. I'm tired and sick and crabby and stressed and its making me miserable.

On the bright side, I'm going to go out and bye a new dress tomorrow. Because when I went to find one in my closet, I realized I have none. Now, that's not right, cause I know I have plenty of dresses. However, they've apparently never gotten unpacked. Which means...a. I've no idea where they are (here in the house, somewhere...) and b. If I did find them in the morning, they'll be a horrible wrinkled mess cause they've been in a box or suitcase since the beginning of March. So...yay...new dress. heh.

The reason that I even need a new dress is because we are going to a semi-formal dance in Norfolk tomorrow night. It's also Mikey and Nate's birthday, so we're going to be at a party there Saturday. But we have to be in Maryland Sunday, so that means lots of driving. Since I'm here now. So...I drove up today. We're driving down tomorrow, back Saturday and then I'll drive back again Sunday. Blech. Have I mentioned I hate driving?

Okay...apparently I need more sleep. My head is fuzzy and feels full of rocks. I hate being sick. And yes, mom....I did take my shake. Have been every day. So you just hush! =P

Sleep

2008-04-03T20:15:00.002-04:00

I'm tired. I know, I say that a lot, but I really am. Every day I sit at my computer and will myself to keep my eyes open and get things done. I have to take a nap nearly every day. I didn't even get to sleep -that- late last night. *sigh*

I've gotten to the point where I'm dividing my to-do list into sections of 'school', 'wedding', and 'other'. The sheer number of things I have to remember to get done over the next month is staggering.

On the bright side, this weekend will be calmer than planned. We've arranged to board Athena for the weekend while Jerry is down here. I'm not allowed to have dogs in my apartment and we're more than capable of bringing her over to Ken's, but it's really so much easier not to have her here. When we bring her over to Ken's, it feels like we're spending the entire time keeping her off the couch or out of things, and feel guilty leaving her there for even a few hours while we go out with my friends. Not to mention that we'd have to stay at Ken's every night. Not that I mind Ken's. It's just....loud. And messy. And there's little kids that wake you up at 8am when you were up until 5, and if Athena's there with us, we can't just pack up and head back to my place to sleep more in the morning. It is fun at Ken's however. Plus I simply have way too much to get done to spend the weekend dealing with kids and dogs.

Oh, and have I mentioned how wonderful my parents are? My mom and grandma came out a couple weekends ago and we bought tons of things for the wedding, and picked out my dress, and grandma bought us the shiny dishwasher I mentioned earlier. It was really nice of her, although I feel terribly guilty about the amount of money she spent on me. I shouldn't, because I didn't ask her to, and I haven't any of my own, so it's kinda necessary, but I feel bad all the same. And a couple weeks before that my dad came out to help me pack. He packed my entire apartment in a day. A DAY. Yes. That man is really darned impressive.

Can I go take a nap now? *sigh* No, I know...I already took mine for today...but I wanna. *whines*

Growth

2008-04-02T01:39:00.003-04:00

It's nearly 2am. Time that I ought be in bed, not posting over here....but here I am. *waves*

Today is a good day. Class was interesting and informative. I didn't do a whole lot this evening, and that was nice too....maybe I needed a break. I keep saying that, because I feel stressed...but wind up with far more break than 'work'. I really am going to kick in gear and tackle my 50 item to-do list later this week though, I swear.

The main reason that today was good, however, was because I have a presentation tomorrow. I can see you saying..."Wait....presentation....good?" But follow...there's logic here. I am a very timid and shy person. Many of you that know me only from online might be surprised to learn this, but it is true. I do not do well at speaking in front of people as a general rule. My voice is consistently 2 notches below an appropriate volume and I tend to get reeeeeeeally nervous when I give presentations. Tomorrow, Alison and I, have to lead class. This means talking for oh...at least an hour, and running an art experiential. I have no problems with this. Let me repeat. I have NO problems with this. I feel perfectly calm, perfectly ready and perfectly capable of doing this. I haven't written out a script. I don't have an extensive outline. Yet I have complete faith in my ability to lead the discussion, incite intelligent conversation, and ask appropriate questions. This my friends, is what we call PROGRESS.

In other news, I'm happy. Really happy. Haven't been this happy in well...a really long time. I feel like I am good at what I do and capable of being happy in this career for the rest of my life (once I find a job, that is....I hate looking for jobs...). I feel that I love this area (not this area exactly, Norfolk is meh, but Glen Burnie...and Maryland in general.) It's nice, pretty, our neighbors are friendly and I've met them. This may not seem like much, but since I left South Dakota I have never once known a single one of my neighbors. I have a dog, a pain in the ass demon spawn of a dog, but still a sweet loving dear of a thing. And most importantly, I have Jerry. I was struck over the weekend that for the first time in any of the relationships I've ever had (and there have been quite a few) I finally have someone that I view as a partner, that any problems, worries, successes we have are really going to be ours. Not mine....not his....but ours. It may sound like a little thing, or that there's not that much of a line between this and what I normally have in a relationship, but it's huge, and when I realized this on Saturday, it kind of floored me for a moment. *jots it down on the increasingly long list of reasons that I'm sure this is forever*

Hm...I should give this link to my mom sometime. She does whine about the fact that she can't use my blog to keep up on my life anymore. *adds to to-do list*

Surrender

2008-03-31T21:31:00.003-04:00

I have had a hard time posting this entry. I keep opening a new post and then sitting here with nothing to say. I'm tired. Very tired. Monday's do this to me. I just can't function on the amount of sleep that I get Sunday nights. Now, I realize that this is an indication that I should leave Maryland earlier and not get home at 3am on Sundays, and I've tried, I really have....but I can't seem to do it. I like being up there too much and want to get as much time there as possible.

Today was good....great even. A kid came into my office crying and unhappy and unwilling to do anything and by the end of a 20 minute session, he was smiling and laughing and much happier, not to mention willing to make art and discuss his snake creatures. I felt effective. It was nice.

I have a hard time thinking of titles for these. Much of the time they've nothing to do with what I'm talking about, so don't mind that.

I'm finally up to a whole 10 participants in my study, which is where I think I'm going to stop, because I don't have time to run any more sessions. We have internet and cable and phones at the house now and it makes us happy. Granted, that's 2 more services than I have at my current place, but man, not having internet is brutal. I have been realizing more and more lately how much I've missed having tv though.

I watched 6 episodes of make me a super model on Friday night. You know, for as dumb as I thought that show would be, it's actually pretty darn fantastic. Although, by the last episode I found myself fast-forwarding through the petty crap going on in the houses to get to the photoshoots and challenges, cause those are the interesting parts. It's actually down to 4 people that I feel deserve to be there. I mean, Shannon should be there too, because she is amazing and very good. But Ben has done a 180 and become fantastic in the last two episodes and Holly....oh Holly, I so hope she wins. That girl is something else. Perry of course is there, Mr. bigshot himself. And you have to admit he has a good look. And Ronnie, shock of shocks is still around. Which is nice, cause I like him....even if he is a bit to clean cut all american for high fashion and editorial work.

Okay...I'm going to sleep. Yep. 9;30 pm. Yep. That's really early. I might read a bit from my new book before I sleep though. Oh....speaking of that new book....guess what the lovely miss Athena did Saturday? She ate the first 70 pages of it. Now, admittedly...I was on page 221, so I'd already read them, but that's not the point. The point is that she ATE 70 PAGES OF A BOOK, plus a pen, and a catalog, and a piece of Styrofoam packing stuff, and part of my computer mouse. Yeah....we were annoyed. She didn't manage to cause herself any harm in the process though, so I guess that's good.

Avast

2008-03-28T00:48:00.003-04:00

My back hurts. Yeah....I know.... I whine a lot. Oh, that reminds me...if I'm going to send out an email about another thesis session, I should do that now. *wanders off to do that*

Anyway... We have a dishwasher. It's new and shiny and portable (cause that was cheaper and easier than redoing all the cabinetry). But it's made the kitchen crappy, so we have to work on trying out different arrangements, cause right now it is just obnoxious to try to get into the fridge. Although maybe that would be a good thing, cause then we wouldn't get in it so much and we're sposed to be dieting. Meh, who am I kidding....all the snack foods are in the cupboards, so all this would really do is keep us from being able to access the milk and fruit.

I've come to the conclusion that cleaning a place that you aren't fully moved into is just a pain. I keep trying to pick up and put things away, but most of the stuff I pick up doesn't really have an 'away' yet, cause we haven't figured out where to put everything yet. We need to work on that. Maybe once we have more storage space. Although, it's not like we're hurting for storage space...we're just lazy and slow at unpacking. Although really, I guess that's not true either, because we've both been very busy and we have gotten quite a lot unpacked and put away.

We should really have a new house party...but meh...I would want pictures on the wall first, and that's a lot of work. Wow...I have really become lazy in my old age.

I swear that the purpose of this thing is not entirely to whine. I do have intentions of doing nice happy productive things with it too. We'll see.

Meh

2008-03-26T21:54:00.002-04:00

Today sucks. Now...there's no real reason for today to suck. Nothing particularly horrible has occurred. I got my interview comments back, I did well, got a 96. In symbolism we watched a very amusing art history movie of which I've seen all of the pieces discussed. Lunch was tasty and inexpensive. Sarah brought cookies for Maggie's birthday and they were yummy. I made intelligent comments in Ethics class. It was beautiful outside. I'm not feeling exceptionally stressed and I have nothing exactly 'due' tomorrow, so it was really okay that I did nothing. However....today sucks anyway. And I can't explain why. I'm just.....annoyed. At Everything.

Let's make a list, shall we?

Things that are annoying me today...

1. Not having a chair. - Okay, this is actually a kind of big one, because yesterday I spent hours sitting at the computer working on that silly paper and now today my back is killing me whenever I sit at it. Suffice it to say, an air mattress is not a good computer chair.

2. Applying for jobs. - It is stupid and redundant for companies to make me fill out every piece of information that is on my resume, and then have me attach my resume as well. Also...none of them will call me back because I don't have my license yet, and I can't get my license until I have work experience. It's a vicious cycle.

3. Not having my engagement ring. - The stupid resizer person screwed it up and we had to send it back....again.

4. Having to drive up to Maryland this weekend. - I want to be in Maryland, I like being in Maryland. I just hate to drive there.

5. I ate pizza for dinner. - This is annoying me because I am on a diet. Clearly I completely sucked at that today, what with the cookies.....AND pizza.

6. I have no motivation or willpower and am exhausted.

7. My apartment doesn't clean itself.

8. Mordokai and Curly posted scary crap and now I'm freaked out.

9. Jerry wasn't able to sleep today.

10. I can't find anything...ever.

11. I have a research participant who was supposed to have a follow up session Monday. He didn't show up. We were supposed to meet yesterday. He never got back to me. We were supposed to meet today. He never got back to me. I swear if he doesn't show up tomorrow I'm taking him off the study. That'd be great, a study based on med students without a single medical student participant. *sigh*

12. Nearly half the class didn't show up for ethics this afternoon. It pissed Kay off.

Sigh, okay, I guess that's enough.

Maybe if I sleep I'll feel better in the morning. I just want to be done and settled and through with all this limbo crap.

Spiraling

2008-03-26T01:28:00.001-04:00

Do you ever get to that point where you have so many things on your mind and so much to do and so much to think about that you just shut down? That you find yourself not caring if you have finished any of the reading for the next day or spending close to 12 hours on a 3-5 page paper because you can't bring yourself to do it? That's me today, this week, this month. It's not like this time last year, where I didn't do anything because I was completely depressed and unhappy. No, this is just good old-fashioned being overwhelmed.

I'm getting married. Did you know that? Probably, because I can't imagine you reading this if you didn't. But suffice it to say that that is where a good chunk of this stress is emanating from. The average couple is engaged for 16-20 months before they actually tie the knot. Jerry and I have been engaged for about a month, our wedding is just more than 3 months away. Now, it really isn't -that- difficult to plan a wedding.....except that ours is taking place across the country, so arranging things there has been a bit of a chore. And it's my last semester in grad school, so I'm crazy stressed already. Of course, I have no desire to work on papers when I could be picking out napkins or goblets, but...there you go.

It's actually all coming together pretty well. My family has taken on a good chunk of the responsibility, so that's been nice. I'm tired though, and not 'it's quarter of 2, I should be in bed' tired....just wishing my life were started tired.

We've gotten a house and a dog. The house is great, although it has its quirks. The pipes are obnoxious and there's no outlets anywhere, but we're working on that. The dog is a total sweetheart, but the biggest pain in the ass I've ever known. I'm glad I'm not there every day, because from the stories I hear, I don't know that I'd refrain from strangling her as well as Jerry is. She's a cutie though. A basset hound...who loves us...far too much. She cries and howls and whines and bays and makes a mess of things whenever we leave her even for a few minutes. It's very sad....and annoying the neighbors.

My regular blog has been gone for some time, so I'll repopulate it here. I miss blogging actually. I saw an article the other day...let me see if I can find it. Bleh. No idea. I've no idea how I can never find anything when there's not even that much stuff left in my apartment. Anyway, it was a neat little article talking about how blogging and posting on the internet improves mood, self esteem and socialization. And really, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I've done all this research on how journaling decreases stress and anxiety and can improve mood and what is blogging, but just online journaling.

I'm going to make an effort to add things of interest in here that I'm learning as well. Today has been focused on the symbolic meaning of the door and I've learned a lot of rather interesting things. Like did you know that it's said that if you are an author and you dream about someone else going through a door, it means that you're worried about people continuing to read your works? The ancient idea that the threshold of a home is sacred is actually pretty interesting as well. Men used to sacrifice animals on the threshold of their home before they took possession of it. This was seen as entering a blood covenant with the god of that threshold, who would now be responsible for protecting the people living within it. If someone was invited across the threshold, it became the man's duty to protect that person. It was also found that thieves feared the wrath of the threshold god and would seek ways to enter that didn't involve passing through the doorway. And the romans felt the threshold was so sacred that when they marked the areas where walls would be built with the furrow from a plow, they carried the plow over the area where they planned to put the gate so that they wouldn't disturb the sacred ground. I've been looking at a lot of religious and mythological iconography related to this area as well over the past few days and must say that Janus is a fascinating god and it makes me sad to think that his name has come to be synonymous with deceitful or hypocritical when he was a benevolent and protecting deity. You're bored already aren't you?

Anyway, it's 2am, so I'm going to head to sleep. I didn't keep up that regularly with my previous blog....let's see if I do a bit better with this one.