The Almost

I've nearly finished compiling a rough draft to send off to my editor. Once I manage that I just need to get my post for today's review written and then I can get some sleep. I'd prefer to skip straight to getting some sleep because all of a sudden it is becoming hard to stay awake.

This week is the final week of classes which is extremely exciting. I'm looking forward to getting to go home for Christmas break. It's going to be awesome!

I'm hoping that I can take the opportunity to see my nieces on a regular basis and maybe offer a little bit of guidance. Sometimes I feel like I haven't always been there for them the way that I should have been or could have been, and I regret that. At this point though I feel like I am in a much better place to serve them in that capacity. That is a relationship that I definitely want to work on over this break.

I'm also really excited about getting my new driver's license because it is one more step towards going to Mexico for spring break since I'm going to get an enhanced drivers license rather than a passport. It's cheaper and quicker, and just generally makes more sense since I don't plan on doing any study abroad programs.

I also need to get on the ball about checking to see about internships that I can do this summer. There are a few that I'm interested in looking into, and I need to do that soon. Ultimately this is the problem of course, I know what I need to do, I just haven't done anything about it yet. Procrastination is not a good thing.

Life is Good

I hate that it gets dark so early in the evening now. It's strange that it's dark at five now. Super strange.

Today was my cousins husbands fathers funeral, and I spent the majority of the day helping my mom set up the dinner that they were going to have following the ceremony. The dinner itself occupied the majority of the day.

Following that we traveled back to the house where we've proceeded to sit in the living room and watch movies. For the most part it's been a productive day, at least to some extent. Tomorrow we plan on going to visit Riley, something that I definitely have to do before going back to school tomorrow evening.

Hopefully that situation can work itself out.

To some extent though going back to school is exciting. I am really excited for the month ahead. In the next two weeks the semester will wrap up and in the week that follows I will nail down my final GPA. I think I'm going to finish this semester strong, and as a transfer student that is a major accomplishment.

I'm also super excited to get to go back to work over break. I've missed it more than I ever really could have imagined I would. I miss the people that I worked with, and to some extent I miss the work that I did. I was on top of things when I worked there, I had two years of experience and therefore felt competent at my job.

It's exciting to get to return to that. Over this break I'll get my new drivers license and I'll have the opportunity to hang out with some of my best friends. Life right now, despite any stress or pressures I may be feeling, is good.

High Drama

The drama is continuing to unfold at home. Sometimes I really don't understand my sister. I can't understand the way that she thinks, and I definitely don't understand where she got this example from. Why?

I'm not going to be specific here, but I will say that sometimes it is possible to still love someone but be incredibly frustrated. Sometimes it is easier to love someone than it is to like them. As usual everyone at home will be in my prayers tonight, they'll just be a little more specific.

I worry though. It's difficult to be so far away at times, especially right now. I worry about my oldest niece. She's nearly at an age where she will be thinking about graduation and entering a new stage in her life, and where is that going to lead? What tools has she really had?

Something needs to give, she needs some kind of guidance and with things as they stand right now I don't see that happening. Maybe I'm being too candid here, but then again you can't say that I'm not being honest. Sometimes the truth hurts, but that doesn't make it any less true. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to be home for Thanksgiving. I just pray that I can do something to help the situation, that I can understand the role that I need to play here because something needs to give. A resolution is needed here.

Connections

I enjoy my JRN 200 class, it's the paranoia that it leaves me with that I could do without. I am taking a break from the assignment that it due no later than eleven, to blog, because if I stare at the mock obituary I've managed to write, I may go insane. Omar was talking in class today, about how he wants us all to be able to write something and by the time we are finished with it be certain that what we've turned in is the best that we could have done.

This is something that I find myself struggling with. I think the interesting thing about writing, is that no matter what you're writing it's never really finished. Given an infinite amount of time, a writer continually alter, and polish any given piece of writing. This process is only interrupted because of deadlines which are often both necessary and daunting.

Hopefully I will be able to focus on polishing up my 'story', once I've written this up. Breaks are good things.

On a completely different note... Over the last couple days my oldest niece has really been on my mind. Specifically, I keep going back and mentally picturing the day that she was born. I was five at the time, and my brother was four. I remember that she was so tiny, and when I was asked if I wanted to hold her I was so scared that I would drop her. She looked so fragile.

Eventually it was worked out that Shawn and I would share one of the hospital chairs, and hold her together. The memory is vague in detail, but it's so strong in my mind. Anyway, it's been on my mind a lot lately, and today I learned that she's going through a bit of a struggle.

I just thought it was interesting that she's been on my mind so much lately, and it happened to correspond with this event back at home. It's amazing how connected we can be with people that we love, even when we are separated by substantial distances.

No Pants Required

I stayed up until two o'clock this morning, and honestly it was by accident. I was finishing the forth book in Patricia Briggs "Mercy Thompson Series". Really that series is utterly fantastic. At any rate, I was so caught up in reading, that I didn't pay any attention to the clock. I was shocked to see that it was two o'clock, because I was quite literally lost in a book.

Of course, I didn't see it as being a problem since I didn't have to be to work until two in the afternoon. I assumed that I would be able to sleep in, but then I shouldn't have made such an assumption. I woke up at nine all on my own.

It was however a productive morning. I finally stopped debating about it and committed to buying a Acer netbook. I wanted to go ahead and get a Mac, but of course I couldn't afford it outright and they wouldn't accept my application for financing on it. Oh well, if I get a refund through school or whatever maybe I'll go ahead and get one anyway. At any rate, in just a couple days I will once more have a computer all my own. God, I miss having my own computer.

Once I got to work today, Joan and I spent about two hours moving most the furniture around the department in order to make room for merchandise to come up from one of our "sister departments" in the store. It was a rather large move but the end results weren't too bad. In fact it really opened up the space and gave it a fresh look.

The rest of the evening was devoted to giving breaks and lunches and general clean-up in the department on my part. While I wouldn't say that the store was necessarily busy tonight, I kept busy and so it was a productive day.

Once I got home mom announced that she needed to go to the store and pick up a gallon of milk, so the the two of us plus my two nieces headed to Meijer. The whole of that excursion was unremarkable, until we were on the way home. We stopped at Speedway to pick up a pop, and my two nieces headed in while mom and I stayed in the car. This guy walked in just after they did, and in typical young guy fashion his pant were practically falling off. My response to this, was to turn to my mom and ask, "Why exactly did he bother with pants if he doesn't plan on wearing them."

Shortly thereafter my nieces returned to the car giggling, and the younger one says, "You know that sign on the door... it says you have to have a shirt and shoes, but it doesn't say anything about pants!" We all burst out laughing at that point.

Once we had marginally calmed down the oldest of the two explained that Kristi made this observation to her while they were inside, and her first response was to ask where she had gotten that idea from because it "sounded like something Sandy would say".

See, my nieces know me. ;)

A Day of Leisure

My day hasn't actually been much to blog about. I am nearly finished reading the book that I began this morning. It goes without saying that I'm loving it. It will be finished before I go to sleep tonight.

The bulk of my day has been devoted to this book, and surfing my usual haunts on the Internet. For a while earlier my niece wandered in and commandeered my computer. We blasted Fall Out Boy as I sat here reading and she surfed around her myspace.

Surprisingly Darcy has been my near constant companion. I think she hung around me largely for my air conditioning and the can of food that I had dished out for her. She briefly abandoned me when she deemed hunting down an errant fly to be more interesting. Alas, such is life it seems.

There was also the moment in which I finally recalled the answer to a question that had been posed to me two days ago. I went and got ice cream with my friend and at some point in the conversation used the work, uncouth. First she asked me what that meant and then scolded me for using words that she wasn't sure what the meaning was. Now of course, in that moment while I could visualize what I was saying I could not actually think of any word that would convey that meaning aside from the one that I had used. Randomly today I thought up a few and promptly texted my friend. That is just the way my brain tends to work.

Perhaps the highlight of my day was the trip to walmart about a half an hour ago. Darcy was out of dry food, and she's been sending scathing looks my way all day. I imagine she will be much appeased now that she is in possession of food.

Jane Austen

I ordered the latest movie version of "Sense and Sensibility", and it came in the mail the other day. At the moment I am entertaining the idea of watching it. On the one hand, it sounds like an excellent idea, and on the other I have to be in to work early tommorow morning. It's a tough call, and at the moment I am leaning towards watching the movie. What is sleep when compared to a movie adaption of one of Jane Austen's books? The choice is very clear, OBVIOUSLY.

I did manage to go to my local used bookstore, also known as The Book Abbey. Though they didn't have any of the books that I was looking for, I was able to find a few books that a soon determined I could not live without. I have a problem, but I at least I admit it right?

My youngest niece expressed an interest the other day in reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", so today I went out and bought her a copy which I'll hopefully be able to pass along in the next couple days along with one of my copies of "Pride and Prejudice". Yes, I have more than one copy. I like to promote reading whenever I can, and if it's Jane Austen or at least relative to that then all the better.

Declawed Darcy

Darcy got her bandages off yesterday. Well I guess I should say bandage, because she took the other one off the day before. We got her fixed and declawed last week. She was mad as hell the other day after Scott finally managed to get the bandage off. She spent a good deal of the day hiding in the corner and hissing at those of us who were trying to make friends with her.

She was better by last night, and today she’s doing well. As long as she doesn’t see Scott she’s fine, then she kind of wigs out. We haven’t managed to coax her into coming out of my room though. The few times we’ve gotten her out to the living room, she’s darted back again.

She probably feels more secure in there, but hopefully she’ll be ready to venture out into the rest of the house in the next few days.

We’ve got my nieces cat over at the moment. Last night, or I guess technically this morning, I woke up to Darcy hissing. She was lying next to me, and Popcorn had gotten up onto the end of my bed and was staring at her. She isn't always a sociable cat, especially when it comes to other cats.