This kind of turned into a review.

Two more days! Less than 48 hours, actually. It's bananas. Yesterday mom and I went and had our nails done, and today I got a pedicure, which was quite wonderful, except it was cold and I had to wear flip flops. We also picked up lunch from a relatively new restaurant in the area, and it was horrible. I am thinking of starting a (non-earning) career as a restaurant reviewer so I have an excuse to tell you how bad it was. Calistoga Artisan Sandwiches looked exciting. It sounded good. They are a deli-ish restaurant that apparently has fresh baked bread, much like other restaurants that I like, such as Panera. The menu featured exciting pictures of all sorts of sandwiches, salads, and even waffles. They even use aioli on their sandwiches! People who use aioli impress me. We got inside and there were hardly any customers sitting and eating. They didn't have one kind of soup that my dad wanted, even though it was on the menu- they don't serve it anymore. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich (with lettuce, tomato, and mayo on fresh made wheatberry bread) and a cup of chicken tortilla soup. I love chicken salad and have a goal of trying every chicken salad in the city. I also love the chicken tortilla soup at McAlister's, and was expecting something relatively similar. I was quite disappointed in my meal. The soup was very dark and looked greasy. It didn't taste like any tortilla soup I've ever had. It actually tasted like chili. The canned kind. It was warm and tomato-y, with a hint of beef? Very strange. It also came complete with soggy, mushy tortilla strips on top. It wasn't spicy- it had no kick to it at all. The sandwich was nothing special. The bread was good tasting, but come to think of it, it tasted just like the wheat bread you can get with the chicken salad at Arby's. Which is fast food. I think this takes away a few points from Calistoga. In addition, the chicken salad itself was dry and very processed tasting, consisting of little dressing and extremely finely shredded chicken. I have had comparable salad from grocery store salad bars. The salad was scooped onto the bread with one of those perfectly round scoops like lunch ladies use, and I'd say about 30% of the bread had nothing on it but the lettuce leaf. All in all it was extremely disappointing, but it was a learning experience. We now know that we never want to eat there again (mom didn't eat much of her sandwich, and dad hardly touched his, which may be because they put mustard on it even though mom told the guy three times not to.)

Looks like fake food, tastes like fake food

Anyway, since tomorrow will be extremely busy, and then tomorrow night is the rehearsal, and then the next day is the wedding, I don't think there's much of a chance of me getting back on here before the wedding. So I will now announce that I will cease to post on this blog, and when we get back, we will start a family blog (me, Brandon, and the guinea pig we don't have yet) at Me and Mr. Jones (haha, get it? Like the song, except not about what the song's about.)

See you there, and wish us luck for this weekend!

6!

Six more days! Well, it's closing in on five now, but whatever. It's surreal. But things are coming together, I guess. We still have to finish the favors, and apparently there's a lot to do regarding the centerpieces. I have to burn all the CDs for the ceremony, for before the ceremony, for the reception, etc. And of course I'm still taking stuff over to the apartment, but I don't think there's really that much left. I have the clothes I need this week here, and I have some random bags and boxes, a corner of my room with some junk in it, and whatever's under my bed. Then of course, things need to be put away, but that's another story. Brandon is already ready to take down the Christmas stuff at the apartment, which is kind of a bummer, but at the same time there's not much point in keeping it up. It's not as though we're there all the time to enjoy it. I doubt we have the time to do anything about it right now, anyway.

So tomorrow is errands day. I really need to get to the eye doctor because I don't have any more contacts. And we've got some other running around to do. Brandon's family's going to get their tuxes tomorrow, and I think we will pick up my brother's, too. We might bring my dress home, too! I am excited.

Odobenus Rosmarus.

Howdy, and Merry Christmas. May I just say that I am already hungry again. I am trying to resist eating my leftover creampuff from lunch, though, because we will be having chik-fil-a chicken nuggets at my aunt's house in about an hour.

Christmas has been interesting so far. I kind of assumed that I would be moody, since this is my last Christmas at home, but everything's been pretty fine. Dad has a stomach bug so for the first time in the history of forever, he did not go out to Mammaw and Pappaw's for lunch.

So last night, I got off work at 5 and we went to church, which was interesting. It wasn't as touching as the last two years' sermons, to be honest. It was pretty weird. But it was still ok. Then we went home, ate dinner, and Brandon came over and we opened presents as a family. After Brandon went home, I got ready for bed and straightened up my room a bit. Miraculously, I actually slept through most of the night. Granted, I didn't fall asleep until almost midnight, and I woke up around five the first time, but that is actually way better than I've been sleeping lately. This morning we discovered dad wasn't feeling well, and then Mimi and Pappaw (my mom's parents) came over and we opened gifts and ate breakfast. Breakfast was really good this year. Mom always make sausage balls, and dad always makes a pumpkin roll, but we also had mini Cinnabons this year, and they were fab. Mini cinnabons are about the size as regular cinnamon rolls. In case you aren't aware, a normal-sized Cinnabon has more than 900 calories. Disturbing, isn't it?
After messing with our presents for a while, Mimi and Pappaw went home, and the mom, Jonathan and I headed out to Mammaw's for lunch. It is a Meredith family tradition to have fried oysters for Christmas lunch. So I had about four of those, and lots of Mammaw's potato salad (which is AMAZING) and there was cole slaw and rolls and oyster crackers and homemade hush puppies. Oh, mylanta. I was so full I did not eat my creampuff for dessert. And that like, never happens. Then we had present time, which was fun. I am an opponent of people listing everything they got for Christmas on blogs and facebook, because I think it's really tacky. It implies that you want everyone to know what you got, and you want to compare with other people. That's not what Christmas is all about. I usually just say that my family got me some wonderful things and for that I'm very grateful, but I will say one thing I got for Christmas this year, because it was so different and awesome. As many people are aware, I love walruses. So does Kelli. We collect them. This is kind of hard to do, since there isn't a big market for walrus things out there. My aunt gave myself and Brandon a box of animal themed presents, and in there was a bag from the World Wildlife Fund, containing a stuffed walrus and a piece of paper saying that a "walrus" had been adopted in my name. The money from that goes specifically to the conservation of walruses (populations have shrunk quite a bit in the last few years), and I got a nice picture of a walrus, to boot. I made the comment that it would be fun to write letters to my walrus, much in the same way that one would write to a sponsor child, and of course, when I sent Kelli a text message telling her about this gift, she pretty much said the same thing. Great minds think alike!

After presents and everything, my aunt, cousin, and her husband followed me over to the apartment so they could see it, which was fun. And now we are waiting to go to her house (my aunt's, that is) for dinner over there. Chicken nuggets, chips and dip, rolls, her version of potato salad (very good) and lots of goodies for dessert. Brandon will pick me up from there and we'll go to his house to visit for a while, and then he'll bring me back home. And then tomorrow, it's back to cleaning and packing and planning and preparing and such. The wedding is one week and one day away! It's bananas. I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and continues to do so the rest of the day!

bother bother bother...

Yeah, it has been a while since I updated. We have moved a lot of stuff into the apartment, and it looks really nice. We're both excited to have it even though neither of us is technically staying there right now. My room looks weird without a lot of stuff in it- the desk is moved out, along with all three bookshelves, the rocking chair and my cedar chest. Basically all that's left is my dresser, tv, bed and nightstand, some random piles of stuff and a little card table with my computer. I think somehow the furniture made it warmer in here...it sure is cold. Maybe that's because my closet door is off its hinges, though.
We are now about two weeks away from the wedding, and it's a really weird sensation. I'm not really freaking out, but I do know deep down that I still have stuff to do. I really should make a list and work on knocking things out one at a time, but right now I am too tired. And cold. I work all day tomorrow for some reason (both weekend days! Weird, huh?) and then I should try to stop by the apartment and do some things there. Sunday my best pal Kelli is throwing me a bachelorette party. I don't know how often I will see her over the next two weeks. I mean, I doubt I'll see her before Christmas, and even though I'm off work the whole week after that, I have a feeling I'll be keeping myself busy. I also need to pack for the honeymoon sometime, call Disney with our flight information, finish packing up my stuff....and pause for a few moments to enjoy Christmas.
This is my last Christmas at home and its sad because it doesn't really feel like Christmas at my house. Everyone is too distracted by wedding stuff. And moving stuff. And just...stuff. We didn't get the tree up until a few days ago, and normally we have it up way early. I don't know that it's even decorated. We have done minimal Christmas baking. I'm surprised some of us even remembered to shop for presents. And we'll take next Friday off and spend all day with each other, visiting family and stuff, but the next day it will be back to freaking out about wedding stuff for the next eight days.
Part of me regrets choosing a date eight days after Christmas to get married. Oh well.

Accidental Omission

Oopsie.
Well, we found out about the apartment a week or so ago. I think. I forgot to post. It's all very exciting. Our move-in day is in about two weeks. I will be excited to get my stuff in that apartment- it's slightly less fun when it's just hanging out in my basement.

The wedding is five weeks from today, and that is just bananas. It's incredibly surreal. I've got more stuff done, but we are having some, shall we say, issues, with RSVPs. We sent out about 180 invitations. And we've got maybe 40 response cards. Some people have just let me know that they're coming or not coming, which is fine, because at least I know. And a few relatives (and bridesmaids...) haven't sent theirs but I know they're going to be there. But those groups only account for like, ten response cards. There's still over 300 people we have no idea if they're coming or not. Which is a little frustrating, because people keep asking me what the count is, and I simply don't know. I sent facebook messages to a few people, asking if they got their invitations and if they will be able to come, but I haven't heard from anyone....hopefully they were just busy with Thanksgiving and will get back to me soon. Because the "reply by" date is like, December 2nd. Which is what, three days away? Or something like that. Three days that the post office delivers mail.
And I feel bad that I'm frustrated, like I'm being, I don't know, demanding, wanting to know if people are coming. But I need to know. If I only hear back from a few more people and just assume like, 250 people aren't coming, and then half of them show up, that is a heck of a lot of food and drink that we do not have. Among other things.

In the meantime, I am boxing up some random stuff around my room. I'm pretty much clearing off my bookshelves (I have two tall ones and one short one) and boxing up the contents so we can go ahead and move them to the apartment. I'm keeping my DVDs out, and my Harry Potter books, because sometimes I just need to read them. They make me happy. And I boxed up a lot of my stuffed animals (I don't know what I'm going to do with them...) and some breakables and I'm starting a box of random stuff. Contents so far: two figurines from LOST, a doggie lobster costume, part of a doggie bumblebee costume, a planner that I barely used, and some walruses. Like I said. Random.

In terms of wedding accomplishments, I got the rest of my favor boxes put together, paid the balance on the flowers, and made appointments for my hair trial run, my nail appointment (two days before the wedding) and my hair and makeup appointment the day of the wedding. That part was pretty exciting. I am looking forward to it! And we took my dress back to Rebecca's to be pressed. I just need to remember to go back and get my veil for my hair trial. I thought about taking it home but I just knew it would get messed up.

So..that's all that's going on right now. Completely scintillating. I'm sure the world was dying to know.

Who knows where the time goes?

Wow. What a weekend.
Friday Jonathan came down with the flu, randomly and all of a sudden. Saturday morning at work there was an overly zealous man beating on the door, and he tried to bribe us to let him in and get on the computer. Um, no. Then that afternoon a patron had a seizure and we had to call an ambulance. And then the events of this morning were argumentative, to put it mildly. And now the day is over. The weekend is over. And I have no time.
The wedding is six weeks away, and that's exciting. We're supposed to pick up my dress tomorrow and take it back to the dress place to store it. And run a million other errands. I have a paper due Tuesday that I must tackle. And I have to work tomorrow, so...yeah. Tuesday is school. Wednesday is work again, but I'm off in the evening. And then Thursday is Thanksgiving and then the week is over again! We need to meet with our photographer about how much time she has, where she needs to be, what shots we want, etc. But we can't do that until we meet with the wedding coordinator and map out the ceremony. And then we need to get in touch with the minister and fill him in. And pay off the flowers. And who knows what else. Plus finish school work for the semester (in like, two weeks. *_*) Then finals. And...somehow squeeze two doctor's appointments and physical therapy in there. No time, no time, no time. There is not enough time.

Oh, and we haven't heard back about the apartment yet. I told Brandon that if he doesn't hear from them by noon tomorrow, he needs to call his employer and ask them about it. So hopefully then we will get some answers. Hopefully. I am getting tired of waiting. But I want a positive answer.

I'm getting tired of waiting.

Brandon got off work early so we met over at the rental office to drop off a copy of his other paycheck stub. The lady who was working took it to her office and crunched some numbers, and when she came back she didn't say "it's still not enough", which is promising. They have to send it to the company to confirm that he didn't like, quit last week or whatever. That he's still an employee. Here's the thing, though. He is, and he isn't. It was a temporary job, which he got through a placement company. The placement company still has his info, and I think that's who cut him the check, so if they get asked, he should be fine. But today was his last day on this particular job. If we get turned down, we're going to add me as a co-applicant and start the whole process over again, but they would then consider both our incomes instead of just Brandon's.

This is a very stressful time. I am trying to work to make sure I get all my schoolwork done for the semester, plus tie things up at school since I'm taking next semester off. I still have my job to focus on. And then there's making sure everything is finalized for the wedding, and trying to find a place to live, and I want to start packing and/or organizing because it's exciting and fun, but on the other hand, when do I have time to do that? "I don't", would be the responsible answer. I should be doing schoolwork, because that comes first. But it's hard to focus and hard to get motivated.

I would be extraordinarily happy if we find out early tomorrow that the apartment is a go. I don't think that will happen. I don't even know that the apartment people will hear back from Brandon's employer this week. I hope so. I seem to recall it was really difficult and time-consuming getting a hold of them to apply for the job, do the testing he needed to do, etc. Let's hope that those memories are just exaggerated in my mind and that everything was a lot smoother than I remember. Smoother and faster.

I think I need a nap. I don't think I'm going to get one. It's getting closer to 10 p.m. and I still have lots to do. And I have physical therapy super early tomorrow morning. I need to go, and in some ways I don't mind going, because it will make me feel better in the long run and I've had back problems for a while and this is a super way to get some stuff worked out and my insurance is paying for it. You know, because of getting rear ended by a bus. On the other hand, the only time I can go is the precious few hours I have before work days (exception: tomorrow), early in the morning. And it's 25 minutes away and a hastle. If it was just down the street, and I could show up whenever I wanted, I'd be happier. But whatevs. I'd rather not think about it right now.

Hopefully I will be back with good news tomorrow.

The flaw in the plan.

Well, hmm.
I called Brandon yesterday on my dinner break to ask if we had by chance heard anything from the apartment people, even though they weren't supposed to call until Thursday (today). He said we did, and that they said we didn't have enough money. They only asked for one of his paycheck stubs, and the most recent one wasn't as big as his others lately because he's been working that temp job for the past few weeks. He indicated on the application that he had two employers (which was true, when we filled out the app) and so they told him to bring his paycheck stub from his other employer by, because we only needed a "little more" money. Those are Brandon's words, not mine. This is better than just rejecting us outright, but because the temp job is only for three weeks, he gets two paychecks from them. And the one he already has is not very big. So...I'm stressed. He is going to take his stub over there after work and I will go meet him and take my paycheck stub, too, because in a few weeks we will be sharing a bank account and so my money is his money, and vice versa. The problem with that is I may have to be listed as co-applicant for them to consider it, which would mean another credit check, more waiting, and an extra $50 fee. So the best case scenario is, we go over there, they glance at his other paycheck stub and say "ok, we just needed to confirm that you have a little bit extra money. This is awesome, and the apartment is yours. You can get your keys on the 11th." The next best case scenario would be for them to accept my paycheck, too, without having to go on as a co-applicant. And it goes downhill from there.
Brandon seems pretty confident that his other check will do it, but I don't know. I let myself get so excited about this apartment that I think I had tricked myself into thinking that there was no way we wouldn't get it, and that was stupid of me. So now I'm terrified and extremely pessimistic about the whole thing. There aren't that may apartments out there that we can afford, let alone that are in safe neighborhoods. This one is perfect. I see it as many answered prayers wrapped into one. But now that we have hit this little snag, my confidence is waning. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as now that we have found a place to live, we are trying to get into that place without too much hassle! Maybe I will know something by tonight. I may be back to post again.

I wrote an obituary for my fish.

Today the world has lost a dear, sweet soul. Fernald the fish has gone on to the big fish bowl in the sky.

[Well, actually, now that I think of it, he's probably been dead for a few days. I just thought he was doing one of his "coma" things. It's happened before. But I digress. ]

This evening, while finally working on cleaning up my desk a bit, I noticed that there were some soggy food pellets floating at the top of Fernald's bowl. This isn't super unusual, so I decided to see if he would just like some fresh food. I wiggled his bowl a bit to wake him up, as he was...reclining on the bottom of his bowl. He does this sometimes. But he did not wiggle in reply. Remembering that he had been looking a bit peaky lately, I took an unsharpened Hello Kitty pencil from my pencil cup and gave him a poke. Still no response. I even pushed him about the bowl a bit, to no avail. There is still a chance he's snoozing, I told myself. I stared at him for a moment and noted that he was not blinking. After confirming with my father that this was not normal live fish behavior, Fernald was declared dead at 7:32 p.m. November 17, 2009. He is currently lying in state in his bowl under a pillowcase, until his interment (meaning, I don't want to flush him so I told mom to come do it.)

Fernald Jeff Goldblum Harold Ramis Meredith lived a long and exciting life. He has owned many homes in his long, three year life. He has occupied numerous bowls of various shapes and sizes, a vase or two, and two aquariums. He has had black and purple gravel and neon rainbow gravel. He raised a few plastic plants in his free time, as well. Fernald experienced a dark period of his life when I set his bowl on my bookshelf and basically forgot about him for a month or two. But he was a hearty fish, and he survived. After all, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. In Fernald's case, what didn't kill him made him a bit dull for a while. But then he got his color back.

Fernald was fond of pellets and enjoyed watching television. He enjoyed music and was an avid swimmer. He will dearly missed by his family, and his best friend, the walrus figurine which shared his tank. Fernald and his walrus spent many cold nights snuggled up together. And I am not even lying about that.

The family has chosen to have a private memorial. In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made to the World Wildlife Fund.

*cue bagpipes playing 'Amazing Grace'*

Buzz buzz. I am a buzy bee. Except I hate bees.

Before this post, I had 222 posts. That is bananas.

I am at home, taking a bit of a brake until noon, when I will start getting ready for work and such. I have actually accomplished some things today, like getting a paper notarized so I can get my check from the insurance company from when I got rear ended by that bus. I also took a shower. So that's two pretty big things off my to-do list. I have been getting really stressed out lately about the lack of time, and all the things I have to do in the coming weeks, so I've decided to make lists (including simple things like "take a shower) and take things one at a time. It helps. A little.

Today Brandon will take our deposit check to the rental office for the apartment. Then we have three business days for them to approve us. Please pray that we will be approved! Like I said before, there isn't any real reason we shouldn't be approved, but still. This apartment is a lot of answered prayers wrapped into one. It's perfect in so many ways- it's roomy, I get my second bathroom, it's in my "comfort zone" bubble (meaning it's near home), and we're getting it at a special price, and...I could go on and on but I don't want to bore you. Please pray that we will be getting some good news at the end of the week! And after that, I just need to pull off finishing up the semester, taking care of wedding things, Christmas shopping, packing, moving things in...ugh. Let's not think about it right now. Most of that is very exciting, but a bit stressful. Ok extremely stressful.

And now...I guess I will go sit and chill out for a little bit before I have to do things.

Update!

Brandon and I met at the rental office for the apartment, filled out all the paperwork, signed everything....and then she asked for a check. Well, we didn't know we needed a check. Guys don't normally carry checks with them. And they couldn't take one of mine, since the apartment is in his name. So he has to zoom back over there after work on Monday, tell them his paperwork is in the desk, and drop off the check and his pay stub. Then they can process the paperwork and we should know by the end of next week if we get the apartment. I don't think there will be a problem with it, but we'd still appreciate your prayers anyway. We have a move-in date of December 11th! Ahh!

My finals are December 10th and December 12th. I think I only have one on the 10th so maybe after that I can go start sorting through stuff to move it in. Or perhaps I should study. Anyway....yay! Exciting!

Sweet!

Perhaps I am posting this a bit prematurely, but...I love my apartment. And it isn't even mine yet.

Mom and I went and visited the apartment rental office today, and the lady told us that they have a special right now where we could get a better apartment (two bedrooms, two baths) for less than what we had actually come there for (two bedrooms, one bath.) So we went to look at it, and it's fabulous. Yes, it's in the older part of the complex. Yes, everything is painted tan and the microwave might be as old as I am. But I don't care. Other than that, it's perfect and I love it.

Shall I describe it for you? Ok, I will.

It has a balcony off the living room, and a dining nook (which will fit the dining room table and chairs and stuff my aunt gave us). It also has a nice sized closet and a walk-in(ish) pantry off the nook. The kitchen is a little small, but it's ok, because it has what we need. And then in the hall there's a coat closet and a linen closet. There are two full bathrooms- one across the hall from the spare bedroom, and one off the master bedroom. Both bedrooms are a really good size. And there's plenty of closet space and another linen closet in the master bedroom!

We couldn't go ahead and apply because Brandon has to be there (I need his ID and his deposit check. I have the money for the application.) And here is the issue. He is working for the temp agency this week, and next (grading standardized tests- which personally I think sounds pretty cool). Every day he gets off at 4:15. The office at the apartment place closes at 5 and they don't have weekend hours. So I called him and told him to call me immediately when he got out of work, and maybe he could run over there and meet me and we could start the application process. We still need to fax them a copy of his last pay stub, but we can do that within the three business days that it takes them to approve the application.

So...here's the dealio. I have new prayer requests. As it looks that this apartment is pretty much perfect, please pray that we will find the time (preferably today) to get over there and sign the paperwork. And that we get approved! I can't imagine why we wouldn't, but still. This is really important. And I'd appreciate your prayers. Hopefully sometime early next week I will have good news to report!

All I really want is a place to put my walruses.

The wedding is one day short of being eight weeks away (whoa) and we are trying to find a place to live. I really want to live in this one apartment complex extremely close to my work. It is in between where I live now and where Brandon lives, I could walk to work, it's affordable, it's near the grocery store and all this other stuff....it's perfect. When Brandon first called about the apartment we want (the largest size one bedroom they have) they said someone was looking at the one that's available, and they could put us on a list. A month later- this past week- we called back. They don't have any one bedroom apartments available, and don't think they will for a while. They are pretty popular these days, apparently. I have been bugging Brandon lately about getting a two bedroom, because it would be good to have the extra space, but we definitely wanted to get a one bedroom if at all possible because of the cost. Well, this apartment complex has a two bedroom available. And I want it badly. Mom and I are going to go look at it Friday (Brandon has to work all week) and we'll see where things go from there.
So we are asking for prayer about this situation. I should probably be praying about God's will, but I know what my will is. Hopefully we are on the same page. My will is that this apartment will be good, and we will get it, and we will be able to afford it. If we don't get it, the affordability doesn't really matter because the other complexes we are looking at are more expensive, so we would be living in a one bedroom apartment for the same price as a two bedroom at the place we really want. Please keep us in your prayers this week and in the coming weeks as we try to get a place to live, and hopefully soon start moving some of our stuff in.

So many channels, so little to see.

I'm sorry if I sounded whiny in my last post, I wasn't trying to. I was just...severely stressed. If i sit and think too long, I'll get that way again. So I'm not going to do that. I am going to take some pain meds and crawl into bed and have a little fun tomorrow- hopefully. We have a rather full schedule ahead of us: we're supposed to go look at tuxedos and take my dress to the alterations person, and we have a bunch of errands to run. The longer I stay upright, though, the worse my back hurts. Did I mention I'm having back issues? I am. I think that too much tension built up after my little fender bender with the school bus, and with my back being weird anyway (because of the rods), it just became too much. My doctor said that they're going to send me to physical therapy, which isn't so bad. Maybe I will feel even better than I have been in the past. Hopefully things improve soon, though. I missed school all last week because of it, which is bad, and it's hard sitting up to do my schoolwork (makeup work) which is also bad. Alas and alack. What does that even mean.
My shower is this weekend, so hopefully I will be back some other time to post about it. With pictures.

Wedding things.

Ok, I am going to do a brief wedding post. Because it is something I have been thinking about lately. I don't think I talk about it too much because...I don't know. I guess I have a couple of reasons. I've been engaged for a long time so in some ways, the excitement part (telling everyone, etc.) has sort of died down. Plus weddings are expensive and stressful, and I don't like to dwell on those parts, but somehow whenever I get to talking too much about them, that always pops up. And the important part of the whole ordeal isn't the "wedding", which is short and followed by a party, but the "marriage". Which, at this point, is what I am more excited about. But I digress.
I am getting married on January 2nd. I like winter. I do not like summer. I thought about getting married in the spring, but so many things are happening then- my brother's high school graduation, my college graduation (which isn't going to happen on time now, but whatever), AND a wedding? Too much. Fall would be nice, but that would mean even MORE waiting. So we went with January. Because like I said, I like winter. And Brandon doesn't mind.
Winters in my state are rather unpredictable. It's not often that we get tons of snow. It can get really cold, but it never seems to snow at the right time. We hardly ever have "white Christmases". Last year we had an ice storm for some reason. And whenever it DOES start to snow, or snow is forecasted, people freak out a little bit because with our unpredictable weather, promise of half an inch of snow can suddenly turn into six inches of snow topped with ice. It's pretty lame. My point of this whole story is, I didn't really think about the weather when we were picking this date for our wedding. I don't think we'll get a big time snow, because we hardly ever do. But now certain people are talking about how some meteorologist has said that the conditions are right for us to have a winter like we did one year in the seventies, and that was the worst winter ever. Or I hear jokes like "you could have a luau themed wedding! Because wouldn't that be hilarious." Some people have actually made faces after receiving my answer to their question about when the wedding is, and rather bluntly ask "why?" It's annoying and sometimes a little hurtful. I don't like being made to feel like I'm making the wrong decision with anything. So sometimes I get a little upset when someone makes a face like I just told them I'm wearing a brown dress covered with orange puffballs.
And, just to add an extra element of excitement to the whole affair, there is a basketball game on TV that day. Not just any basketball game, but the game between one of the biggest college rivals in the country. Trust me. It's a big deal here. It's pretty dumb. I have reason to be mildly concerned that this game will have a little too much importance in the minds of certain members of the wedding party (like...the groom) on that day. On top of thinking no one (or hardly anyone) is going to come to my wedding because of some freakish snowstorm, now I've almost got myself convinced that people are going to bring little radios to the reception or watch the game on their iPhones (can you do that?) and be shouting things like they do when they watch the game at home. Or in a restaurant. Or anywhere else.

I'm pretty sure that I might be blowing things out of proportion, but like I said, it doesn't help when people you don't even know are looking horrified and pretty much criticizing you over your choice of wedding date. Oh, and the reception is going to be pretty short. We wanted an afternoon wedding, and we wanted the reception at church, so for our time slot, there is not all that much time. Wedding's at one, will be over around 1:45 or 2, then we have pictures to take, and we have to be out of the fellowship hall by 4:30. We aren't having dancing or anything- it's just a food-filled get together to say thanks to everyone for coming to our wedding and wishing us well (similar to the birthday parties I throw for myself- everyone get together and eat!) and it's not even a meal, because it's the middle of the afternoon. I don't think it will take some crazy long time. But I have heard many a comment along the lines of "where are we going after that?" Um...nowhere. You are on your own, pal. It's a wedding reception, not a gala. Not a soiree. Not dinner theater. Sorry. I have been to many weddings in my life, and only the most recent two or three have had dancing. Almost all the wedding I have ever been to have had receptions like mine. It is not that incomprehensible to me. But sometimes it does hurt my feelings when people make remarks like that.
I guess I just need to get over it and learn to ignore them, huh? Well, let me tell you something. It's getting harder and harder. For every ten comments I get about the wedding, two are excitement and happiness, three or four are " I promise not to get drunk....wait, no alcohol?....no dancing either??........hmm." And the rest are "ew, winter." Yeah. I have heard an "ew". I've also heard "oh, I would never get married there. The chapel is so ugly." So....yeah.
I think I'm done ranting for the day.

{Insert "Wheels on the Bus" parody here}

I got hit by a school bus this morning! Or "bumped", as Brandon says. I was sitting at a light, minding my own business, and there was a *BOOM*! and my car lurched a bit and I was like, I think I just got hit. So when the light turned green I drove across the street to Putt-Putt and parked, and the school bus lady did, too, and got out and said she was really sorry, her foot slipped (because some bad kid was causing problems). So...her foot wasn't even on the gas, and it was loud and...lurch-y. I figure it would have been a lot worse if she was accelerating, and also if I hadn't had my foot on the break I definitely would have been pushed out into traffic. And it's a good thing that school buses have that metal bar in front of their bumper- that absorbs a lot of the impact. So I have some scratches on the back of my car and one side of my bumper is drooping slightly. After about fifteen minutes or so a very friendly police man showed up, and a few minutes after that two representatives of the school system came to make sure everything was being handled properly, and then they yelled at the kids on the bus for a while. That was nice. They totally deserved it. And then my pappaw and uncle showed up and stood around in the cold drizzle with me while everything was finished up. The whole affair took about an hour. It could have been a lot worse. I mean, a big yellow school bus versus my little escort....I think I know who would win that one. There wasn't a single nick on the bus (duh- the officer laughed and seemed a little surprised!)
Anyway. That certainly made an interesting start to my day. I left the house pretty early to go spend time with Brandon and I ended up getting there late. When I called him to ask him to call mom and tell her I got hit by a bus, for half a second it sounded like he didn't believe me. It was like, "Hey, do me a favor and call mom I got rear-ended by a school bus." "What?" "A school bus. I have to go- please call her. " "A schoolbus (with a note of disbelieving)." "Yes, ok, just call her." I think that's pretty funny.

Weekend Update (not the skit)

Time is flying by! We are already halfway through October. When I worked yesterday, all the books that were checked out had due dates in NOVEMBER. What is up with that.
And there is still so much to do. Ugh.
We still have to find someone to make the cake. I have some leads, but...yeah. Same with food. And we're on a waiting list for an apartment, which is good, but the bad thing is...we're on a waiting list. For the apartment. We kind of need a place to live. Please pray that the perfect place will open up for us at the perfect time- preferably not the week before the wedding, but not so early that we have to pay an extra month or whatever in rent even though Brandon's not planning on staying there that often. That would be lame.
I have my first bridal shower next weekend. It's a little early, but December is such a busy month, and November really didn't work out. Some people have baby showers two months before their kid is born, so it's ok to have a bridal shower two months early. I assume. Having never had one before, I'm kind of winging it here. Still, it's exciting. Yay.
And...Brandon's family came over for dinner the other day. That was pretty neat. They'd never met mom before because she never went to any of Brandon's basketball games. I think we had a nice time. I made pies. Dad made spaghetti. A fun time was had by all. I assume.
Let's see....what else....hmm. I can't think of anything right now, even though I know I totally had some other things I wanted to mention. Now I can't remember them. Oh well. I'm sure I'll be back to update in another few weeks or so.

Who knows where the time goes?

Time is flying by, and it's quite disturbing.
Right now my schedule is such that I only go to school two days a week (two excruciatingly long days) and I work three days a week (longer days, rather than short nights like I did during the summer.) These two things combined make my weeks FLY by. Really.
Like, today. Today I work at two, and I'll be there until nine. That's a substantial portion of my day. I force myself to get up early so I feel like I have more time at home. And yet, I always think it's not quite enough time to get much done. Then I go off to work, and boom. The day is over. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I will get up early and go to school. I will be there from about 830 in the morning, and I will get out of class at 830 at night. It takes me about half an hour to get to my car and get home. And boom. Tuesday is over. Lather, rinse, and repeat for Wednesday and Thursday, and before you know it, I finally have some free time and it's Friday! But I really have stuff I need to do. Then comes Saturday, when I'm back at work, from 9 to 5, and come home tired because it's the end of the week and I don't want to do anything because in my mind, there's not that much time before bed (even though it's like, five or six hours) and thus, I don't get much accomplished. And the next day is Sunday. And we start this whole process over again. It's scary how fast the last five weeks have gone by. I have lots of homework- one of the disadvantages of going to a liberal arts school is that while I don't have many quizzes and exams, I do have LOTS of papers to write. Just for fun, let's list them:
*1 paper left in IDC, plus a 3-page paper for any classes I miss, and I must prepare three articles per class meeting on the topic we will be discussing.
* At least 5 film reviews for my project in Christian Marriage
*A long, thorough paper for Liberalism and Conservatism, as for our class project (semester-long) we are writing a book. Really. A collection of essays. Good, long essays. And I have deadlines throughout the semester so I can't leave it for last minute.
*Two essays that are part book review, part...essay for Roaring Twenties/Great Depression (affectionately known as "Roaring Depression")
*Two collections of notes on two more books for same class, to prove that they have been read
*A biographical video project for same class, about a person from that time period.

Plus midterms and finals, etc. In some ways I'd rather have more quizzes and tests, because I am a procrastinator by nature and put off writing those papers until the last few days before they are due. On the other hand, I seldom study, and my grades would probably be worse.

Anyway, the point is, time is flying by, and my wedding is three months and change away now (insane!) and I've got stuff to take care of for that, plus school, plus we need to get an apartment and move stuff into it, plus making sure we are able to pay for things...ugh. It would be nice if I had more time, really.

Hurray for not being dead.

Hello, world.
So I had pretty much the scariest weekend of my life.
Saturday night, after Kelli had gone home, I was getting ready for bed and started to feel weird. Like, I had some pressure around my tummy, and throughout my ribs. I tried all sorts of positions to get comfortable, kind of thinking I just had an air bubble trapped in there, but it wouldn't work. I accidentally dozed off for half an hour (with my arms in funny positions and an irritated doggie half on my pillow, half on my head- I guess that's the only place he felt safe from my flailing) and woke up at around 1130 in tremendous pain. I decided to move to the living room to try to sleep in the chair, and the pain was getting exponentially worse by the second. Seriously. I called mom on her cell phone and said something was wrong, and within what felt like minutes, I was in the bathroom kneeling on the floor, my ribcage feeling like it was splitting apart, heart pounding, etc. It was not a panic attack- that is a beast I know all too well. I had trouble breathing- I had to pour like, all my concentration into forcing myself to inhale. Exhaling was fine, but inhaling took tremendous effort. I honestly thought I was dying. Not breathing well was making my vision go a little funny at moments, was making it hard to concentrate on what I was saying, and was just scary. I was able to take one of my anxiety pills (for emergencies only) because really, it couldn't harm anything at this point. It could really only help me remain calm during this scary time, and I was starting to feel like I was losing control. As a person who has a permanently broken rib (from my spinal surgery), I always expect some discomfort when I've been coughing a lot- and I have been over the past two weeks or so (I've had a cold). But this was way higher than that broken rib I have, and wrapped all around my chest, my back, and under my arms, and it was excruciating. Unlike anything I have ever experienced. I honestly thought I was getting ready to or already experiencing a heart attack or something like it. I thought I was going to die. After a little while it subsided for a few minutes (after we'd already decided I needed to go to the hospital) and then started up again. So we headed off to the emergency room, my heart beating super fast, and me still scared, but not in quite as much pain as before. We waited for what felt like a long time, and got called back. I had a heart monitor and everything, and then got left alone for a while. Then the nurse came back and tested me for H1N1, just in case, and left again, and then I had a chest x-ray, and another break, and then an EKG just in case. Mom thought it was more likely that I had pneumonia than a heart condition, which is a good thing, but then again, I've had pneumonia before and it has never hurt like that, or as suddenly as that. The heart monitor showed that my heart was beating a little fast (I had calmed down more at this point) but my blood oxygen levels were good, and I hadn't had a cardiac episode. The ER doctor said I probably have pleurisy, which I thought people had in the 1800's, but I must be confusing that with something else. Anyway, we got home a little before 5 a.m. Sunday morning, and I slept most of the day. I still get kind of scared sometimes, because like I said, that was the scariest thing I have ever experienced. I appreciate knowing that if my heart really was going to, I don't know, give out, there probably would have been a sign of it in those tests they ran. But after that terrifying nightmare, even the little heaviness I have in my chest right now makes me a little upset. I don't want anything bad to happen in the middle of the night. It was scary thinking I might die and knowing that Brandon's phone was turned off, and I couldn't talk to him (not that I could really talk to him anyway, but once I'd gotten to feeling a little better it would have been nice to know that he was aware of what was going on.
Anyway, that was my weekend. My chest hurts a little right now but I'll be ok. I'm tired of coughing and just want to feel better, really. Feeling bad makes me sad. Thinking about what happened this weekend makes me sad. So maybe I will stop talking about it now. I will save my stories of wedding planning for another time.

Just call me the bluebird of happiness.

It's a long weekend! And...it's been weird. Friday I was planning on spending the day with Brandon, since I hadn't seen him all week, and found out that I had to work that morning. But of course by the time Brandon was up, I was already at work and couldn't talk to him. I spent the majority of the workday very upset. Saturday I had the day off, but everyone else was feeling bad so I couldn't do anything fun. And Jonathan's friend Giselle came over, so that was pretty cool. Then today... I am coughing again (did I mention I've been sick?) and Brandon says in some ways he is feeling worse. Or different, I guess. We went to our class at church and our partner couple wasn't there. Then we went out to lunch (Taco Bell, woohoo) and it took FOREVER. They apparently forgot they were in the middle of making our order. It was annoying. And then we went to Feeder's Supply and looked at the animals, and then went to Target and worked on our wedding registry. That was sort of fun, except almost everything we scanned said "limited availability", I don't know what that means...then we went back to Brandon's house and watched a movie and then he brought me home. And when I got here, I had forgotten my keys so I hung out on the porch waiting for someone to answer the door, and when they did, Diego was trying to get out the door. I would normally put my leg up against the door frame to block him but there was a spider there that looked a heck of a lot like a black widow, so I decided not to risk getting bitten and dying, and tried to step briskly into the house. Except I was carrying a lot of stuff and my shoes are a little too big and I got my foot caught on the storm door, and it sort of got hooked for a millesecond until I could drag it out. Which hurt like crazy. So now I have this bloody stump of a foot.
And I had been looking forward to coming home all day and eating one of the last mini Oreo cheesecakes I made a few days ago. So I ate dinner, went to the fridge, and pulled out the Tupperware container they were in- and it was empty. There were three left this morning. And what kind of weirdo takes all the food and puts the empty container back in the refrigerator? I have my suspicions about who the cuprit is.
So I'm ready for today to be over. Tomorrow could go either way. Brandon works tomorrow night, but I'm supposed to go see him for a little while in the morning. But that means I have less time at home. And I have some homework to do. It's nice not to have to work tomorrow, but my hours will be weird the rest of the week because I have to make up three hours (I only get four hours holiday time for tomorrow) so I have to work on Friday, in the middle of the day for three hours, just at the right time to make me miss meeting Jonathan for lunch. Ugh. I'm tired of talking about how lame this week is. I'm going to finish this brownie sundae I made myself and watch the Golden Girls in peace. Maybe.

"Very safe, as they're both dentists." -Hermione Granger, on her parents

I fell asleep before 11 p.m. tonight, which was nice. You might have noticed that I am no longer asleep. This is because my teeth hurt. Sort of.
You see, I have this sore spot on my right cheek-ly area, and then I have the occasional toothache on the left side of my mouth. The right side was hurting me before bed, and I fell asleep. But the LEFT side woke me up! Half an hour into a nice sleepy time, and I was awake. I went and got the ice pack, because I guess it was really my jaw that hurt more than anything else, and got tired of that. So I decided to go brush my teeth. I figured they would enjoy a nice toothbrush massage. Especially since my gums were kind of itchy.

I might be insane.

So I just spent almost twenty minutes brushing my teeth. Seriously. But now I am a little too awake to go back to bed, so I decided to stop by here and announce that I just brushed my teeth for a very long time. They feel nice and clean now, but my jaw is still kind of ache-y. Not nearly as bad, though.

I lead a very exciting life.

Though I am not sleepy enough to fall back asleep just yet, I am too sleepy to write about school today, so I will just say that it was basically the same as Thursday, except I had my Roaring Twenties/Great Depression class instead of the Liberalism and Conservatism one. And I get to stay in my IDC course (I got the department head's approval) and am just waiting to hear about my financial aid. And that is the end of that. I am going to lie in bed and listen to the Golden Girls and try to sleep now. Wish me luck!

My school smells like sewage. No, really.

I am at school. It's lame.
I guess being here is better than being at home pondering what I would do about health insurance.

I have three classes today. The first was at 9:25 this morning. It's my senior seminar, which is going to consist of sitting around discussing controversial topics. We have to write two papers. And at the end of the semester, for our final, we write another paper. We will come in to the classroom, he will give us a topic, and we will write for a while. That's it. We have a schedule of the topics we will be discussing, and a student will have to lead the discussion for each topic. I got to choose second, out of 18. Guess which topic I chose? Bingo! Abortion. I'm looking forward to the debate, even though it's in November.

That class ended at 10:40. My next class isn't until 1:40- a three hour break! Ugh. I've already nearly run out of things to do and I have another hour and a half before I will even start walking to my class (which is just downstairs from where I am now. And where I am now is down the hall from my first class.) That class will be my theology elective, "Christian Marriage". It should be interesting, since I am a Christian and I will be getting married soon. There aren't a ton of married students here, and most of them aren't Christian. I mean, there are more Catholic students than one would probably expect, since this is a traditionally Catholic school, but for the most part, students I've overheard, or who have voiced their opinions in class, are pretty indifferent about the subject of religion. Many are downright hostile. This is one of the reasons I hate school. I wonder how many people will be in this class, since it's upper level and it's a theology course.

That class ends at 2:55. I hope we get out early. I am going to go home for a little bit, because it's another three hours until my last class of the day, which starts at 6 p.m. That's only on Thursday nights, and it's a 400-level political science course, "Liberalism vs. Conservatism". Except for the fact that it's school, and it's at night, I'm looking forward to it. It's taught by my advisor, who is really awesome and funny. He occasionally brings us candy, and the only exams we have are papers. Last semester our three exams were portions of our final paper, and for the final we put them all together and gave brief presentations to the class. We brought food- we set up a taco bar and some people (myself included) brought desserts. The professor's contribution was several bags of oddly-flavored Doritos (like "midnight snack taco something-or-other") and some candy. He sometimes splits the class up into groups and we have "discussions" which are often highly amusing. This helps, since the class is two and a half hours long.

My only other class is a Tuesday night course (6:00-8:30), "The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression", with another one of my favorite professors. While he doesn't bring us food, we do listen to music and watch movies and stuff. He also raps and makes up parody songs. My favorite is set to the tune of "Mellow Yellow", and is about the War Amendments. Last semester I took a class with him entitled "Race Relations and Civil Rights", and we listened to a few Public Enemy songs. And in a Latin American history course I took with him, we watched a few episodes of the Travel Channel's "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain" (who is awesome) that took place in Latin America. I like reading literature set in the Roaring Twenties (the Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books) AND the Great Depression, so I think that class will be interesting as well.

I guess coming back here isn't so bad after all. Sure, if I stay the whole semester it'll put me another $8000 in debt. Sure I'll have a lot of work to do, and sure the parking lot is too crowded. Sure there are way too many stupid freshmen wandering around, and yeah, the cafe area is insanely busy now they decided to have real food like Pizza Hut and Einstein Bros. Bagels. But it's better than going to a new school. I know all but one of my professors. The topics of my classes will be interesting, and I only have to go to school two days a week (all my classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.) So I guess I can cope. Probably. Eventually I need to buy my school books, though. Still don't have those yet...I'm trying to wait just a little bit to find out if my aid appeal gets approved. No point in having the books if I'm not going to be able to stay, right? Right.

There really was no point to this post. I just needed something to do. I've run out of things to do on facebook, I read all the interesting articles on the news website I frequently check, and...I'm bored. And it's another hour and twenty five minutes until my next class. I'm ready for a nap.

140 ish days until Disney!

We booked our honeymoon today!
We reserved our flight and paid a deposit on our Disney trip. We will be staying in the Pop Century resort, which is one of the newest ones. It just opened six years ago, so it's a little nicer than the other value resorts in that the furniture is newer and the TVs are bigger. I'm very excited about going! We will spend a day in each park, and we've opted for the quick-service dining plan. You do save money with the dining plans, but a.) the regular one just had too much food, and b.) all four times I've gone to Disney, I think we only ate at the table service restaurants twice. And both times were when I was seven. So it's a lot cheaper this day- we get two quick service (i.e. "fast food") meals, and two snacks per day. A snack can be an ice cream, a piece of fruit, popcorn, a bottled water, etc. All we'd have to pay for is breakfast (which some days the "snack" is just fine for me) and anything else we might want to eat.
It'll be weird flying down there because I have only flown once, and that was about ten years ago. I flew to Atlanta to visit my aunt and uncle and new baby cousin (who is now entering the fifth grade!) And then I wasn't responsible for my bags and getting myself places on time...we will see how that goes. Thankfully Brandon is very organized and generally punctual. I know on our way down to Florida we have like, 36 minutes to get to our connecting flight. But on the way back we have a few hours to kill in the Atlanta airport. Again, I haven't been there for about ten years, either. But from what I remember, it was very nice.

Blondies are called blondies because they aren't brownies.

I bet you've been wondering what I've been up to lately. Well, I'll tell you.

Work is supremely boring. There is not much to do except stare at the stuff we will have to deal with some time next week (hopefully) when our computer systems are back up.

Brandon and I went to meet with the associate minister at his church on Thursday about performing our wedding at my church. He's basically ok with it. There are a few things we need to do but he went ahead and put us on his calendar.

After this visit Brandon was in a good mood and was very nice to me. Which was cool.

We also had a long talk with his parents that night after dinner (tacos!) about wedding stuff. This was also cool.

Tomorrow we have our second "marriage class" which is fine, except I am sleepy and...yeah. It's a lame excuse for not wanting to go but I'm being honest. It'll all be fine, though.

Tomorrow we are probably going to go ahead and book our honeymoon. We definitely need to go ahead and book our flight, anyway, so we kind of figured, while we were at it, why not go ahead and book the trip? That way we can go ahead and set up our honeymoon registry, which is a cute idea even if no one shops off it (it would help, though!)

Also we are going to go do a tiny bit of shopping for the numerous baby showers we have been invited to at the end of the month. We will sadly be unable to attend, but will still send presents!

And I'm dealing with stupid stuff from school. All I'm going to say is I am starting to miss the simplicity of going to a small school like Bellarmine.

Also I made brown butter toffee blondies last night, because baking makes me feel less stressed. And I wanted something sweet...they were really good! And easy to make! I will put the recipe on here sometime soon.

I think that is everything. It's been a slow week in some ways, because every minute I have spent at work has felt like an hour. It's excruciating at times. But we occasionally find ways to have fun. But it also feels like this week has flown by, because...well, it just does. I can't explain it. Life has been moving pretty fast lately, it seems. Maybe part of it's because I work at a library- we're always thinking three weeks ahead (the books that were checked out today are due September 5th! SEPTEMBER!!! What is up with that? Didn't January just happen?!) Oh well.

I think I'm going to go back to sitting on my bed staring at my floor now. That's what I was doing before I came over to write this. Things are just kind of boring at the moment. A good tv show comes on in a little less than an hour, so I can listen to that and maybe I will do something productive like work on my room.

An update.

Howdy.
I hadn't posted in a while so I thought I would take the time to do so while I was waiting to stop feeling nasty (I always do in the morning. It's weird.)

I almost have all the save-the-date cards finished for our side of the family. Honestly I was hoping to have them done last week, but it just didn't work out that way. Then I am taking the leftovers (more than half) to Brandon's for his family to send off to whomever they wish.

We started our first week of marriage classes at church this past Sunday. It was very quiet. It looks like things will be ok. There are maybe eight or nine other couples in the class, and oddly enough, one couple is comprised of library employees (one of whom used to work at my branch- I got his job when he left!) We got a binder with worksheets to do for "homework" and a copy of a book called Marriage God's Way. The chapter titles of this book are the titles of each week's classes. I actually bought the book at Half Price Books a while back on a whim- it was on the clearance shelf for $1. Not bad. Anyway, we will see how next week goes, since the guy who normally teaches the class wasn't there this past week and someone filled in for him.

Brandon checked out the website for a company that offered him an internship thing during the school year, and applied for two of their open positions. Apparently they called him yesterday but he didn't answer because he was at work. When they offered him the internship last fall, I was under the impression that this was actuarial work, but apparently I was mistaken. It's just office work. But if it's full time, it's still better than what he has now, and it's still a start. He's going to call them back today. Hopefully he will get some good news. We need a little more money, since we need to start looking at apartments soon!

I didn't do a post about it, but my mom did. Our city was hit by flash floods last Tuesday and the downtown area got most of the damage- particularly the Main branch of the library. The damage estimate is now up to $5 million. We have lost an estimated 50,00 books (the processing center for new books was underwater, as was the sorting area- Main is the central hub for books passing between branches. Everything is sorted out there, then sent on to where it belongs, or wherever someone has something reserved. In addition, all the branches sent down all their graphic novels the week before in preparation for an Anime convention, and those were all lost.) All three Bookmobiles were destroyed, as was a brand new work truck, and more than 200 computers (many of which were brand new and awaiting delivery to the new branch we are opening, and extras for when ours break down.) The structural damage is pretty bad, too. The heating and air conditioning units were ruined, as was this chiller thing which prevents mold (which as I'm sure you can imagine, isn't very good for books.) The Main branch is one of the historic Carnegie libraries, and it's been around for more than a century. Now some of the walls are starting to buckle. But probably the biggest inconvenience is the loss of our computer systems. All the servers were housed at Main. They were under at least four feet of water when we heard from Computer Services early Tuesday morning. This means that our common hard drive is lost, we don't know the state of our entire card catalog (literally millions of items, housed in sixteen branches throughout the city) and none of the branches is able to log onto either the library program, or the patron program which allows people to come in and use our computers. What does this mean? Well, hardly anyone is coming into the library, for one thing, and for another, we are only able to check out by typing the patrons' library card numbers and the barcodes from the back of their items into Microsoft Word. We can't print their ticket with their due dates on it. We can't place anything on hold. We can't take money for late fees, and we can't check anything in. What are we doing with the items people are turning in, you ask? Putting them in boxes. Our workroom in the back of our library has two individual offices: one for the manager, one for the full-time reference librarian and the full-time clerk to share. Neither rooms are very big. My manager's office is full of about forty cardboard boxes from the stuff people returned on Tuesday. The other office is full of about thirty five boxes of items from Wednesday. After that, we moved on to filling up the meeting room. I didn't work on Thursday or Friday, and when I came in on Saturday, I discovered we were almost out of boxes- someone had gone down to the liquor store in the shopping center and got their extras. So we are storing books in boxes for rum and tequila and who knows what else. We don't know when the computers will be back up- when they are, it will be crazy. We will have to type into the system everything that people returned, and everything people checked out. We will have to find a place for all the items that belong to our branch, and we will have to send off the items that are going back to other branches. I don't know how long it will take for them to pick them up, though, because the sorting area at main is still heavily damaged, and we lost a work truck. Then when our stuff comes back, we will have to put it all away- after checking it in. When things are backed up at Main, we might get a big delivery of items- 8-12 bins of stuff coming back to us, plus items people have reserved (the Tuesday of the flood, we got 11 bins of those). I can only imagine what it will look like when we get a week's plus worth of delivery. Thankfully we will have two employees from Main helping us out through the rest of the month, as they can't go back to their library right now. Though at the moment, there isn't a whole lot for them to do.
In short, things are bad. Things MIGHT be back to normal by the end of 2009 or early 2010. And by normal, I include some people sifting through all the ruined books (many of which are unrecognizable), finding out to which branches they belonged, getting them out of the system, and ordering replacements. It's going to be horrible work. And that's all I have to say on the matter right now.

Lime Pie

Hey-o. I made pie yesterday. I was going to make two: make one, try it out, then make another today and take it to Brandon's. But I got frustrated a couple of times making yesterday's pie and decided not to make another one today. Anyway, I hear the pie is really good (it wasn't frozen enough last night and I didn't want to have any before work this morning.) So I decided to share the recipe with you, even though it isn't my recipe.

You will need:

• 1 pre-made graham cracker crust (I found one from Keebler, I think, that was extra big. "Two extra servings!" it said. Go with this if you can find it.)

For the filling:

• 6 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature (separate them while they're cold!)
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
  
• 2 tablespoons grated lime zest
• 3/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4 to 5 limes)

For the topping:

• 2 cups cold heavy cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• Thin lime wedges

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar on high speed for 5 minutes, until thick. With the mixer on medium speed, add the condensed milk, lime zest, and lime juice. Pour into the pie shell and freeze for a few hours, until firm.
To make the topping, beat the cream on high speed (or with a whisk, but this will take a loooong time) until soft peaks form when the beaters are pulled away. Add the sugar and the vanilla and beat until firm. Spoon or pipe onto the pie and top with very thin lime wedges (if you want.) Freeze overnight.

This recipe comes from Ina Garten, of Food Network. But I doubled the recipe for the whipped cream because it didn't make enough to cover the entire pie. If you use a smaller pie shell, you will have too much filling. So I improvised a little. Bigger pie crust, more whipped cream, and supposedly, two extra slices of pie. We'll see how that works out. Also she calls this "frozen key lime pie" but it's not made with key limes, which come from the Florida Keys. So...it's Mexican Lime Pie, technically, since the limes I got came from Mexico. If they were Kentucky limes I could call it Local Lime Pie. You get the idea.

And finally, yes, this pie contains raw eggs, but as long as you aren't pregnant, very young or very old, and don't have a compromised immune system, it's no big deal. Just don't make a habit of eating handfuls of raw eggs every day, I guess.

The weekend.

Yesterday we had a long talk with Brandon's parents about wedding stuff. We went over what we thought the cost of some things are going to be, when we need a final list of who all needs an invitation, who's going to be in the wedding party, etc. It was kind of fun, but I think I'm finally starting to feel a little wedding related stress. There's a lot to get done, and much of it has to be done pretty soon, like booking a photographer and ordering flowers. We need to pick out what food we want for the reception, and decide where we're having the rehearsal dinner, and mail the invitations, and a lot of other stuff. There's a lot to do, but it can be done, I'm sure. I still have, what, five months? Ugh.

On an unrelated note, my stomach has been very upset since late last night, and I'm having some issues. I'm not anxious, I just feel pretty nasty, and I'm not looking forward to working tonight. I need to print some stuff off for school, too. I am working with friendly people, however, so hopefully things won't be too bad. If you think of it, say a prayer for me. I'd really like to be able to eat a little something some time tonight without feeling terrible afterwards. I don't dare eat anything before work, though.

Speaking of prayer, Stellan could use some right about now. Stellan is a little boy in Minnesota with heart problems. He is a miracle baby. And his story is really cool (people all over the world have taken pictures of his name. Maybe it will be made into a book some day.) Stellan's story has gained some fame both at home and abroad. He has been doing well since July 4th but this weekend he was put in the hospital and things don't look good. I was really worried something terrible would happen in the night, and I know I wasn't the only one. Earlier today he was flown to a hospital in Boston, where he can get special treatment. This is good news and bad. It's good because earlier they were thinking he might not be well enough to make the trip, but it's bad because it means he's in really bad shape. Please pray for little Stellan, and for his family (he has three brothers and sisters all aged four and under, and two parents who love him very much and are really stressed out right now.)

Weren't we supposed to dye my hair today?

*I've decided to tweet the entire Harry Potter series. I am now on page two. And I have all the chapter art so I can change my userpic to match the chapter I am relaying.

*I get really bored sometimes.

*I forgot to take my reflux medicine this morning but thought I would be OK without it since I took a Zantac at midnight last night. You know, the Zantac I'm not supposed to have to take because I have prescription reflux medication. However...I feel awful. My esophagus is on fire and I'm a little nauseous. I took another Zantac. It's not helping.

*Feeling bad is making me fidgety and undecisive. I can't focus. I tried playing my game, watching TV, buzzing around online... and the nasty feeling I have is distracting me from all that.

*I'm kind of sleepy.

*I work three nights this week plus all day Saturday.

*Saturday is the summer reading finale. This is bittersweet. On one hand, we get sno-cones and it marks the end of the craziest time of the year. On the other, next are the first few weeks of school and those are busy as well. Also Saturday is going to be INSANE. But...we've had fewer kids participate than in years past. I find that odd because it gives parents a free way to distract their kids (important during these economic times, in addition to the fact that libraries around the country are seeing upswings in circulation because people can't afford to buy books...) and they get free stuff (a backpack with passes to the planetarium, some sports games, free ice cream, etc.)

*My esophagus really hurts.

*Brandon got a letter saying he probably didn't pass his actuarial exam. Apparently he was not super surprised by this, he just didn't relay that to me. I am rather depressed about it.



I think that's all I have to say for now.

Hyperbole is my middle name.

You know what, my life is just horribly unfair. That's it. And I'm tired of it.

The unfair part. Not, you know, life.

I wish that the things you type had some kind of accenting feature when you are practically stabbing the keys on the keyboard because you are so angry. Or, I am so angry. You know what I meant.

So remember how I said I called Brandon? And how I was worried and just wanted to talk to him? Well guess what. He apparently called like two minutes after I called him. Only AT&T is the dumbest company in the world and poisons customers' phones so as soon as the warranty is up they stop receiving calls and can't hardly ever get a signal if they need one and also their voice mails arrive A WEEK LATE. The phone didn't ring. I waited and waited and the phone didn't ring.
I get off the computer about 25 minutes after calling Brandon, and go to set the alarm on my phone- because I am expecting to be very tired in the morning and probably won't hear my alarm clock by itself. And I see it: ONE MISSED CALL.

My life is unfair.

I called back and he's already turned his phone off. So maybe I possibly started talking to my phone (and AT&T) in a loud and angry manner. And possibly also at this point I was crying. OK, sobbing. And I guess someone heard me because mom called me to ask what was wrong. OK, AT&T, put THAT call through but not the one I really wanted (no offense, mom.) I know she thinks I'm being stupid but I don't care. I freaking hate AT&T and apparently they work better than pretty much any other provider. Which is pretty sad, if you ask me, because THEY ARE HORRIBLE . And some day, when some other, better cell phone service company comes along, and I switch to them, I will sit down and write AT&T the angriest angry letter they have ever received, full of angry, multi-syllable words that they will have to have a dictionary to understand. A pox on their houses. I hate them all.

So now we have pretty much guaranteed that it will be HOURS until I can go to sleep, because now I am crying and very upset and not so tired anymore. Also my stomach hurts now. My life is very unfair.

I know I'm being dumb but I don't care. I have been this way for years, and while I haven't always had someone I wanted to call just in case I kicked the bucket in the middle of the night (I'm charmingly paranoid about these things) I do now and I'm mad because I can't get a hold of him. I'm mad because the phone didn't even beep to tell me I'd missed a call. It was like it was keeping that information from me on purpose, and just to spite me, when I opened the phone and went under the menu thing to set the alarm, it just happened to remember that someone had called for me a long time ago, and wouldn't I like to call them back now that they won't answer? Curse you, little pink phone. I hate you sometimes. Like now.

I don't even have a voicemail to listen to. Or maybe I do, I just won't get it until the middle of next week.

I'm mad. And I'm pouting and I'm starting to ramble.

Do me a favor. If I die in my sleep tonight, from a heart attack or a ruptured spleen or Ebola or whatever, somebody please, please find out where the CEO of AT&T lives and throw eggs at his house. And say something mean about them in my obituary, too.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And just so you know, I wrote six HUGE paragraphs about why going to the doctor is not only unnecessary but also has generally been a waste of my time during my entire life. But I cut them out. Maybe I'll post them another time. Anyway, I'm going to go get in bed and read since, as I said, it will be a long time before I will be able to sleep. At least I've stopped crying. Sort of.

I'm tired.

Wow, it has been...days since I posted.

Things have been OK. I am having a lot of trouble sleeping. It's making me tired during the day. Also my hips have been hurting a lot lately. But my tummy's been OK, and I haven't had any problems with my anxiety. That's nice. I still get a little nervous before work, but I think that's more because I'm afraid that I will have some mild issue and, I don't know, spend two minutes in the bathroom and get in trouble. It's frustrating. But things have been fine, honestly. I work a little longer day tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to that, but whatever.

Anyway, part of the reason I'm up now is because I'm having a fluttery feeling in my chest. I'm pretty sure it's blood sugar related (not being able to sleep lately has had me a bit off). And I've had it before, but it's kind of scary sometimes when I'm the only one up, and whatnot. It's stupid but whenever I feel weird in the middle of the night I always call Brandon. Ever since I was little and saw some commercials and TV shows about things like heart attacks and appendicitis I can sometimes go a little overboard caring about a funny feeling or a twinge of pain in my side. It's dumb, I know. I'll be the first to admit it. But I still feel funny, and it's still the middle of the night, and I'm still alone. I called Brandon and his phone rang, which means he's probably up, but he didn't answer. It could be that he forgot to turn his phone off. Or he could be taking a shower or doing chores or something, and not have his phone with him. Still...I wish he'd call back. I'd probably feel a little better.

Nothing really to report on the job front, speaking of Brandon. Well, he's pretty much got that temp job lined up but it's like 25 hours a week and it's just office work. Nothing in his field. Still, we will take what we can get.

I think I might try to sleep again. Hopefully I will feel better soon. I'm not optimistic, though. And I need a Kleenex. Just FYI.

Oops. Again.

Ugh, I feel awful.
For one, I could not sleep last night. I remember it turning 2:45. Maybe I fell asleep after that, maybe I just stopped looking at the clock. I have no idea why I couldn't sleep. I know some time after midnight my chest was feeling funny, and that probably kept me awake. I know some time after 1 I got up and got some ice chips because my reflux was bothering me so my stomach was a little upset. Well, then I had my alarm set for 8:30 so I could have time this morning to get up and do what I needed to do, and I jerked awake at a few minutes till 10. I guess I turned my alarm off? I didn't want to get up this late, because I have to wait a while after getting up to eat, and I had actually planned on eating "lunch" around 10 or 10:30. Now I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I will probably leave around noon or 1 p.m. to go run my very brief errands on the way to Brandon's house. I'm really rather nervous about this evening.
I think I will go lie back down and rest a little bit. Hopefully I won't fall asleep. But my stomach's being weird, and my head hurts. I don't really feel like being upright right now.

Everybody's working for the weekend...except me!

It was nice to have the day off today. I'm sure it will be nice to have the day off tomorrow. I have to admit, though, I am kind of worried about it. Tomorrow is Brandon's cousin's wedding. I'll be expected to, you know, eat. But I've had a good week, and I've felt fine most of the time, so I think that will help. Brandon expects me to come over to his house really early tomorrow- like, in the morning. Even though the wedding is at 5:30. I think I will probably stay home until early afternoon, though, because I have some things to do and I would like to spend some time at home before heading off for all that adventure. Plus I have to pick up my medicine in the morning since I neglected to do so today. Also I left all my ice at work. And I need to go get my ice containers so they don't freeze up too much before Monday.
We are still waiting to hear back about the two jobs Brandon has applied for. And that's all I'm going to say about that because I am antsy and frustrated (not with him, mind you.)
And...I think that's about it. This is supposedly my 200th post. That's a lot. I half-heartedly tried to find a nifty survey to post, but there weren't any good ones floating around facebook. So...yeah #200. Here is a commemorative quick and boring post. I think I'm ready for bed.

It was always burning since the world was turning...

I think I'm on track for having an ok week. Well, at least when it comes to my stomach, anxiety, etc.
Yesterday we went to Rebecca's to see my dress (since it came in like, a month ago) and shoes and veil. My dress is awesome! I want to wear it all the time. And the shoes look perfect with it (mom has some pictures on her blog.) They accidentally sent like a jeweled headband thing instead of my veil, though, so they're sending it back and they'll get the right one in soon, hopefully. Then after that we went to the fruit market and I got some really amazing gouda and pecan spread. It's yummy. I plan on eating more of it later. Work went fine last night, too. I felt fine, even though it was a slightly longer day than usual. After tonight I'm done for the week, which is cool. My boss mentioned earlier in the week that she was jealous that I had the weekend off (which pretty much never happens, as I always work Saturdays- I guess because no one else wants to. Even when I'm out of school, expect to see me working on Saturdays.) I told her that working four nights in a row (which NO ONE ever does) isn't really a picnic. She said she hadn't thought of that. Hopefully next time she schedules me to have a weekend off, she'll think of it. Because it's exhausting.
Today Brandon took his first actuarial exam. I'm sure he did well. He always does. Hopefully we will soon hear something about that open job position I wrote about a few weeks ago. He's working on getting another job lined up with a temp agency, too. This of course is our second choice, in the long run, but it is full-time (we need the money) and it has benefits (he needs the insurance.) I have never known a temp before. I told him I was going to start calling him "Temp", a la The Office, and then I started singing "Brandon started the fire!" (If you haven't seen The Office you won't understand any of that, but trust me, it's hilarious.)
And now I think I'm going to take myself a nap. Even though I didn't fall asleep until late last night, and I woke up briefly at 7 a.m., I still slept until almost 10. I don't know why I'm so tired. It might be the allergy medicine, but that doesn't explain why it's so hard for me to wake up in the morning. It might be because it's so hot and warmth makes me sleepy. I don't know. I did some shopping this morning and it's hot outside and I don't have air conditioning, so I'm pretty sure that's part of the reason why I'm tired right now. Oh well.

Briefly.

I thought for the most part today was great. I've felt fine all day, no tummy troubles, no anxiety. I even worked a really long shift at work without any problems. But some stuff happened at work that depressed me and I don't want to talk about it. So I will just say I am thankful that I felt good today, and hey, let's keep it up tomorrow, Jesus. Ok?

"It's...baconlettuceandpotato." -Rose Nylund

Yesterday ended kind of surprisingly. The day ended up getting worse. I of course started feeling sick around an hour before I went to work. Fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave I put down my book and started getting my stuff together to leave. I filled one pocket with mints, and went to get my little book of Bible verses. It wasn't on my nightstand where it normally is. I looked around on the desk, in my purse, and in the bag I had taken to Brandon's on Sunday. Still no notebook. I got down on the floor and looked under the bed (which, of course, made my black dress pants covered in dog hair...) No notebook. I called mom, starting to freak out a little, because I was starting to believe that this was a sign I would get sick at work that night. After a few minutes of running around I remembered a post I did in June with a bunch of my favorite verses from my little notebook. I could print it out! Problem solved, right? So I tell Jonathan to get off the computer in the kitchen because I had to print something very important. I now had ten minutes before I had to leave. Jonathan had been playing his game on the computer, and that made it run INCREDIBLY slow. Like, I was amazed. And yelling at the computer. And yeah, I cried a little. I was stressed and incredibly worried and by the time the printer finally spit out my piece of paper, I was two minutes later than I wanted to be leaving the house. Then on the way out the door I couldn't find my keys. They had fallen down behind the little table by the front door. More crawling on the floor, more dog hair. I get outside and it's incredibly hot. I still don't have air conditioning in my car. Within two minutes I'm feeling gross because it's so hot. And then it took more than fifteen minutes getting to work because traffic was bad and everyone was driving slow and we hit every red light. When I finally got to work, it wasn't early. What was the point of leaving the house half an hour early to read and take medicine and calm down if I wasn't going to get there until a few minutes before time to work?
Things went kind of ok at work. For almost an hour I was feeling gross. I stayed calm, but I had to take three doses of this anti-nausea medicine I had and I had to leave the desk a few times. Kelli even showed up at the library and I was still feeling bad when she was there. Eventually, though, around 6:30 I felt better. Kelli stayed for a really long time and I gave her a tour of the Dewey decimal system. The fact that she visited helped make up for the fact that my aunt and cousin didn't get to come up and visit me (they weren't able to get a flight until this morning). Which, when I found out, made me really upset because it was just one more thing that went wrong in a short span of time.
And so we arrive at this morning. I work from 1:30-9. Grosssss. I don't know why my schedule is this wacky this week: unbelievably pointless short evening, excruciatingly long day. Ew. I've gotten to the point where I hate long days. I used to try to have as many long days as possible during the summer, so I'd only work like, three days a week. But now I'd rather have short days, because I don't have to be there so long. I'm actually pretty nervous about this afternoon and evening. But I digress. I tried getting up before 8 a.m. so I could have more time before I went to work. I kept resetting the alarm though, and didn't get up until a quarter til 10. Wow. I don't know what gets into me sometimes, I just feel like I'm slipping in and out of a coma and I can't wake up. And of course now it's almost 11, which means there's only two hours until I have to leave for work, and I won't get back home again for a really long time. There goes my day...it's pretty sad.
I'd better get off here because I'm pretty sure there are some things I'm supposed to be doing. But I don't remember what they are so I should probably call mom and find out. If you think about it, say a prayer for me this afternoon, because like I said, I really am worried about working for so long tonight.

Don't you wonder sometimes 'bout sound and vision?

It's not even noon and I've kind of written off today. I set my alarm for 7:30, thinking if I wanted more sleep I could hit snooze until 8. I ended up sleeping fitfully through the night, and waking up before 7 feeling sick (surprise). I woke up, got a few ice chips, went to the bathroom, and then went back to lay down. I ended up getting up a little after 9, I think. It's hard to remember because mom came in to talk to me about the air conditioning thing being frozen, and I needed to get up and turn it back on and go outside and see if the thing was frozen. After I took care of all that it turned out that it was probably still frozen on the inside some, so I had to turn the air conditioning back off again. Which meant that my room got really hot (it's always like, 5-10 degrees hotter in my room than the rest of the house.) Then I decided to eat lunch for breakfast a little before 10. I had some chips and queso left over from Friday. They went ok Friday, but apparently not today, because I have a really bad stomach ache now. And I've been dealing with it for half an hour. It's making me very fidgety. Lie down, try to read, get up, get some ice, back to bed, sit up and read, get up, go to the bathroom, repeat. It's annoying. And...it hurts. And I'm not happy about it. I hope things go ok at work tonight. Maybe that's part of the reason I don't feel well. Maybe I've already started worrying about tonight. I'm not working very long, and I'm really looking forward to my aunt and cousin visiting me, but I'm also thinking about how I felt fine on Saturday up until late that afternoon and I got really sick. Even though I worked through it and stayed at work, it was pretty horrible and embarrassing and stressful. And I'm not happy about the fact that I was away from the desk for so long. I don't want to get in trouble. I'm so paranoid....
Anyway. The only reason I'm posting is because I wanted to try to keep calm since my stomach's upset. It's sort of working. But I still feel nasty. Ugh. I'm tired of it. It's not quite time to take another Benadryl but I might have to. I have no idea why my allergies are so bad- they're usually at their worst in the spring. I can't ever remember having this much trouble in the summer, or for so long. It's bizarre. And annoying. And it makes me sick to my stomach.

Last night I made myself a to-do list. I need to take a shower before work, take out my trash (the dogs keep getting into it), take back a bunch of library books, cut Polo's hair, and I needed to wash towels, because I found a bunch of them at the bottom of my hamper. I can't wash the towels because with the air conditioning being dumb, it would heat up the house too much. My library books are ready to go. Right now I'm too tired to take a shower, and I've kind of stopped caring about the rest. I think I will go ahead and take that other Benadryl and maybe take a nap. Isn't that dumb? Taking a nap not too long after one woke up in the first place?

I'm ready for dinner.

What an interesting weekend it's been. Things have been fine, for the most part, except for a span of about an hour Saturday afternoon. After I got off work I came home and waited for Brandon to come over. He was running late, and when I called him (three times) he didn't answer. Then I get a call from an unknown local number, and it's him. He locked his keys in his car at the gas station and walked all the way down to the AutoZone by my house to call me so I could drive him back up there to wait for his mom (whom he had also called), as she was bringing a spare key. Did I mention my car still doesn't have air conditioning? We waited for about twenty minutes or so in the gas station parking lot with the windows rolled down and the moon roof open and it was still icky. But it could have been worse. After all that we went back to my house, ate dinner and watched two movies. Then Brandon went home and I fell asleep.
I slept kind of late this morning (accidentally) and went over to Brandon's house a little later. As we didn't really have any movies to watch, we just watched about...six or seven episodes of Joan of Arcadia. We are almost finished with the first season. Sadly there is only one to go after that. We are at the point in the series where things stopped being quite so original and thought provoking, and the show begins to center around teenage drama. It was still a good show- much better than most of the shows on TV today geared toward the same audience. But still. It was sad to see it go.
This week I work four nights in a row (no comment) and have the weekend off for Brandon's cousin's wedding on Saturday. Hopefully things will go well at work. I work two short nights (short enough that it's kind of weird bothering to come in to work at all) and two very looooong days. Those I'm not too excited about. But this week will have its bright spots. My aunt and cousin are coming in from Georgia and I'm very excited to be seeing them. Brandon takes his first actuarial exam on Thursday (prayers are requested, please) and taking one of these exams will greatly improve his chances of getting a good job. It's a long process, though. The way I understand it, one doesn't generally finish ALL the exams until about ten years before one is ready to retire...but still. Your salary increases with each exam you pass, and a lot of companies will pay for study material and stuff. That's kind of neat.
And...that's about it. I need to go shopping sometime this week for some school supplies for the backpack drive at church. Last year Kelli and I bought a bunch of brand new backpacks at Target for around $3 a piece, because it was end-of-season clearance. Our church is collecting new backpacks, with some basic school supplies (like pencils and glue sticks and folders) this weekend and next. So I'd better get on the ball. These things have been in my closet for almost a year and I'll be glad to send them off on their way to some kids who need them. Also sometime this week I HAVE to find something for Brandon's cousin. There are still some reasonably priced muffin pans left on one of her registries. Maybe I'll find the time to go pick them up sometime this week. Otherwise we'll have to go the gift card route.

I might be dull.

After a not-so-happy night and not getting to sleep until almost 3 a.m. (not because I was feeling sick or anything) I had a really good day today. I slept kind of late, but then when I got up I actually got some stuff done, which included leaving the house (yay, me!) I went to Half Price Books to sell a set of books I bought at work, along with some other random things. This set of books sells for an average of $89.99 on eBay. For everything I sold today, I got $11.00. Wow. Depressing. I didn't think I'd get as much as the eBay asking price, but I figured at least $20 for the set of books alone. I was planning on buying dinner with it. I spent almost all the money I got on children's paperbacks for the library (I got 18 of them for about five dollars, and I got myself a two dollar Gryffindor notebook. Also, I'd like to point out that blogger recognizes "Gryffindor" as an actual word and doesn't do that little squiggly red underline thing.)
After that I went to LifeWay to visit mom for a moment and look for a wedding gift for Brandon's cousin. I was thinking a nice picture frame or something similar. No offense LifeWay, but all the wedding stuff you have right now is really ugly. And/or tacky. Anyway. I didn't get anything. I'm out of ideas so I guess we'll get her a gift card. Then after that disappointing shopping trip I went home and ate some chicken fingers for lunch. Then cleaned my room. And Kelli came over and we watched Muppet Treasure Island and some other random stuff and had Qdoba for dinner. I haven't had any anxiety issues today, really, but I have had some trouble swallowing. Like I stopped eating lunch and dinner earlier than I expected because of this. And then I had a brief time of tummy trouble after dinner but it wasn't a big deal.
And now...I am exhausted and I'm going to bed. I work a full day tomorrow, and hopefully that will go smoothly. Then Brandon's meeting me after work and we're running to Wal-Mart to find a cd case (I don't know why he wants one all of a sudden but whatever) and coming home to watch a movie. I'm looking forward to that.