I am 1/3 of the way there!!!!

That's right, I just turned in my final papers (I finished up three 5 page papers today...and worked 8 hours. How friggin cool am I?), which means that my second semester of grad school is complete! I have three more semesters of regular classes, and planned for Spring 09 is my thesis.

Yay for me!

And yes, I am way tired slap-happy right now. Give me a break!

Thanksgiving (and then some)

It's been awhile!

Still on antibiotics...boo.

Thanksgiving was fun...yay! A bunch of the girls (Mom, Connie, Monica, and our newby this year, Ashley) go shopping at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. We never get any great deals and we all refuse to wait in line (and I whine like a pain in the butt for the first three hours), but we do it anyway. Why? Couldn't even begin to tell you. But at least I got a start on the Christmas shopping.

I'm not allowed to decorate or do anything fun/Christmas-y until Saturday, since my semester ends Friday, but I'm looking forward to it! We're theming white, silver, and small red accents this year. Gonna look awesome!!!!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Sinuses and Nickel Creek

So, last night a slew of us ventured out to LA's house of Blues to see the very last touring performance of Nickel Creek. Granted, the venue was really bad, but Nickel Creek was awesome as usual.

First, the tickets said 8, but it turned out that the concert didn't actually start until 9. So we stood outside for an hour, got in to the venue, waited for another 45 minutes, listened to a two + hour concert... all standing. My back was KILLING me. The, all they provide is valet parking, so you know have 9/10 of the indoor audience standing outside at almost midnight waiting for their vehicle to show. Bad plan, people. Bad plan. Got home at 1 am. I am so old!

So, given that we didn't know about the real concert start time or the "standing only genuine admission" policy, it was a pretty hard night. But, again, the music was utterly fantastic; so sad they're taking a break!

So, anyway, last night I joked, "Hey, if I'm too tired or my back hurts too much, I can call in sick." Seriously, I was kidding.

Well, I've had a headache for the last week, off and on, which this morning turned into the RAGING MONSTER HEADACHE FROM HELL. No kidding. I'm staying close to my bottle of Motrin. Don't worry, I don't think it's anything too serious, just a sinus infection left to its own devices. I think I secretly hoped it would go away on its own. But this morning I also have chunky mucus that keeps appearing in my mouth.

Yes, I know that was an overshare.

So I'm waiting until Michael is up so I can start being annoying and call my doc. Hurts way too much to sleep right now. And yes, I called in sick.

I didn't mean it! I swear!!!

Geesh.

Angst

I've never been very good at forgetting. The only real plus about that is that I very rarely get into situations with people where I feel that forgiveness is actually something that is necessary. But that doesn't change the fact that, at the end of the day, I have this horrible, gut-wrenching, tearful anger towards someone that I used to hold in a rather dear position.

Granted, he's moving up north. We don't get out of Riverside for a couple of years, so this will help us avoid really, really awkward conversations at the local Trader Joe's. But I'm pretty sure this is the sort of thing that distance is not going to fix. And it will eventually get better. But until he admits that what he did was (insert wrong, stupid, extremely hurtful, selfish, similar adjective, here), I'm just not sure how to resolve this anger. Anger towards him, towards the church, towards others that have remained clustered about him...even towards God, for ever putting this person in such a position of power and influence. And the fact that I have to face is that I will never have that closure.

Damn it.

A Method to My Madness

Commercial Time:

I know you've all seen those cool cleaning bottles at Target with the "Method" brand on them, right? Well, what you need to do is march right over to your friendly neighborhood Target megamart and buy every possible Method cleaning product you can. Why?

Michael and I have been trying to become more and more "green" this past year. We already recycle aluminum, glass, and plastic, have been replacing all our bulbs with the energy efficient kind, and keep the place cool in the winter and a tad warm in the summer. Whenever possible we just use our fan and open windows. I know, baby steps.

So, the next two goals were to A) start recycling paper, and B) get rid of most of my chemical cleaning products. I'm trying to find a skinny garbage can to fit in the kitchen corner and collect paper (I haven't quite gotten to how I'm going to get rid of and recycle said paper, but I'm working on that). But, in working on goal #2, I heard about Method and thought, "Hey! Biodegradable, non-toxic...I'm there!"

Best part? Yummy smells. And no fumey weird chemicalness. My handsoap is now cucumber, my glass cleaner is mint, all-purpose is pink grapefruit, and tub-n-tile is ecualyptus. Not a fan of the smells at all? They make a "naked" one: no fragrance. And you don't have to cough up a lung or wear big plastic gloves or ruin perfectly good pants (I have a story...) cleaning the shower. Besides, for parents, peace of mind: the worst thing that could happen to a thirsty and curious kid is a stomachache.

So buy Method. Brag to your eco-friends about how you only clean "environmentally friendly." Save a whale. Or a carbon molecule. Or a lung.

And I'm spent...

Remember Sartre's "Look" argument for existence? Same thing, but with gnomes.

moar funny pictures

All digits accounted for...

So, I still have all my fingers. I have gotten two wicked paper cuts and a nice scrape from the laundry basket...but everything's functioning and uninfected thus far. Hmmmm...

We have been doing some very fun upgrading 'round the old apartment: new bookshelves!!! We spent most of last weekend putting them together, and they look fabulous. Go IKEA.

I'm sure there's a whole bunch more to catch everyone up on, but I'm way tired (kitties don't catch on that, on weekends, people sleep in past 6 am). So talk to you all soon...