no real reason why… ive been pretty busy. we went for a two week vacation. we went back to pa, but decided to drive across country instead of fly. we took the long way home and spent a little bit of time in wilmington, nc (one of my new favorite towns) and myrtle beach, sc. right after that i started a make-up class. i had to drop out of it when i got sick last year. it was a semester length class in a month. it was hard, but i survived it with my 4.0 intact.

i have two weeks off before classes start back up. i’m missing my cohort friends and it will be good to see them again.

i’m currently reading “the hour i first believed” by wally lamb. he truly is one of the greatest authors ever. he is absolutely tied with flannery o’connor as my favorite writer. i’m down 600 pages in 4days. its a long book, but he is such a talented writer that it is hard to put the book down and the reading just flies by. i read a wonderful line today that said “embrace the suck.” somedays, you just gotta wake up and embrace the suck.

im tired and depressed and slightly irked about a situation that i’m powerless to do anything about. its starting to give me headaches and turn my stomach just thinking about it.

healthwise, everything is the same. i guestimate that i’ve lost about 40-50% of my vision in my right eye. i have good days and bad days with it. some days i can see a little more and some are dark and blurry days. it hit me today how this is most likely permanent damage that will have changed my life forever. if i ever have children, i can never hold him/her on my right hip and walk about; i might walk them into something. i still have a pretty bad blind-spot and still walk into things and get spooked when people just appear out of nowhere next to me. luckily, my headaches have virtually gone away. i am very thankful for that. i can live with the blindness (be it grudgingly), but the headaches, at times, could be debilitating.

i broke my diet on vacation and forgot about it after we came back. this week i’ve started it up again. it took a bit of whining and prodding, but jim got me back into going to the gym. i forgot how much i like it. of course i lifted too much on my second day and pulled/strained a muscle in my shoulder. i was a little grumpy about that. i shouldve known better. i still remember my weightlifting classes in high school; i knew i shouldve gone slower / did less.

i kinda made up with an old friends. it was very good to hear from her and talk to her. however, i’ve started to take on jim’s sleep-schedule, making me sleep days since he works nights, and i havent been able to talk to her since that initial conversation. i feel a bit bad about that.

the other day, i noticed that there was something stuck under my space bar, so i popped it off and cleaned it out… of course now my space bar isnt working right. i have to beat the living crap out of it just to get a space. *grrr*

my favorite part of the days: jim saying “they’ll be shitting in style!” (in reference to my mom buying a new kitty litter box). this is closely followed by jim saying “i feel so bad, i tried to kill your mom!” (in reference to him starting to drive off while she was halfway out of the door when he was dropping her off in front of a store. “no, that wasn’t the door closing. that was the door opening!”)

i’m really happy. its spring (which is summer-ish back home), the sun is shining, the pool is crystal clear, and life is good. our neighbor has planted some wildflowers/poppies in their yard and some have migrated into our yard.  they’re so pretty looking. its really a… (and i almost hate to say it).. a great time to be in arizona.

sunday me and jimmy took the boys to the dog park. it wasnt a great trip by my standards (had a few run-ins with some mexicans; a woman who was at a dog park and didnt like dogs. a group of older teens/young 20somethings who brought their 2-3m/o puppies and were letting their young kids awkwardly hold and hurt the puppies.), but the dogs still seemed to like it.  sunday was also the first day in the pool, albeit a quick trip in. woo was hot from the park and i was upset. he got in to cool off and i tossed on my ‘kini and jumped in after him.  yeah.. it still gets down to the high 30s / low 40s here at night. it was pretty damn cold and we both jumped out pretty quickly. it was really like ice water. we misplaced the thermometer for the pool, so i’m not exactly sure how cold it is.

yesterday, monday, me and jim kinda slept in and got a late start.  we stayed in until my mom came home from work and then the three of us went out and did some shopping at sams club and target. the dogs are really starting to love our costo / sam’s trips. it means they get brought home a bag of pigs ears and turkery/chicken jerky. you know, we spent a ton of money there, but i can barely remember what all we got now. we got some fucking *fantastic* shrimp. i was playfully asking jim last night if he could run back up there before work and grab me some more. next week we’re so going back and i’m going to stock up. mmmmshimp. yum. :D  i had to pick up a lot of little things from target that costco didnt have, like my shampoo and a body wash that had a smell i liked. we picked up the new juno soundtrack. we saw it a few weeks ago and both commented after the movie that we really liked their soundtrack. its really kickass.
oooh. and we also picked up season 1 of dexter. we didn’t get a chance to watch it last night, and probably wont get to tonight either; so hopefully tomorrow night we can start watching some of it. i really like the tv on dvd option. its great getting to just cuddle up on the couch together and watch a few episodes of a show.

still, me and jim are planning on going to walmart tonight after work. there were some things i couldnt get at either place yesterday. the walmart trip is always unavoidable *sighs*

since i started my ‘diet,’ i’ve lost like 10-15lbs. yaay!

we finished gears of war this past week. he has some wwii fighter game for the ps3 that he wants us to start playing next, but we only have one controller for it; we need to pick up another one, but it sucks to have to spend like $50 for it.  instead i talked him into starting super mario galaxy.  it took a while to get use to. you’re pretty much flying through space, landing on shit, and walking on it. at time you’re actually walking upside down on a ball-like shape and cant see whats coming at you or where you’re going. its tricky.

tonight/tomorrow is going to be busy, busy, busy! i have discussion board work to do for my classes tonight. one is kinda crappy. i need to interview a female family member about their pregnancy and labor. yeah. for me that pretty much leaves my mom. i dont wanna hear the gross stuff that i have to ask. bleck! tomorrow morning (at 9am! eeeep!) i have an appointment to meet with the adviser from NAU.  i received my letter (yesterday! YAAAAY!) that i’ve been accepted to NAU, but i need to go and apply to their school of education (their education department) now. so i wanna take with me a filled out application and the essay that they request for admission. i think i also need a letter of recommendation from a teacher. luckily i already have it.  so tonight i have a lot of work to do.  tomorrow, i’m going to go in like an hour early and do some of the things that i need to do at the college. i need to change my name, pick up a refund check, and i just wanna check in with the lady that processes the graduation stuff and be 110% sure that i will be graduating this may.  that means that ill need to be up at  6tomorrow to be there by 8.  double-bleck!  there are nights this past week that i didnt even go to bed until 4 or 5am.

for some reason, i’ve been loving and craving unsweetened ice tea. all i want is a nice cold unsweetened ice tea.

for some other reason, jim has been spoiling me rotten lately; not that i’m complaining.  :lol:  two weeks ago i was having trouble finding some jeans that i like in my size.  i found out that they’re pretty much discontinued.  luckily i found them online (and on sale!) and he bought me a few pairs of them. then last week he bought me a new pair of croc sandals. (i wore them out yesterday for the first time. i *love* them. they’re the best. croc shoes are amazingly comfortable).  two nights ago, we went out for a drive around town. when we came home, i noticed that someone had left an avon magazine by the door. i flipped through it and found a buncha things i liked. i went online and found a bunch more things i liked. well, jimny let me get them too. mostly some light, natural make-up and a few make-up brushes. we started talking last night about getting a magazines subscription. i’ve been looking today and am down to three choices: cosmo, readers digest, and fido friendly (a doggy travel magazine).

well, the day isnt getting any earlier and i have a shitload to do, so..

life is pretty darn good. i’ve been pretty happy lately.

me and jim started our yearly diet. it seems to be going pretty good so far. we’re into our second week. we’ve decided that mondays are going to be our ‘bad days,’ when we go out to dinner and not worry too much about what we eat. last monday we went to one of our favorite italian restaurants. it was really good at first, but it made me kinda sick. i spent all of monday night feeling like crap. i think part of it was because i overdid the rich foods and accidentally ate milk-based foods. i hate being lactose intolerant.
i was really surprised.. so jimmy and some ppl from work are going on a diet challenge, putting in some money from their checks and whoever looses the most weigh at the end of 3months wins the pot.. so he snagged the scale to take in so everyone could get weighed up. i didnt get to weigh myself until today.. and i was quite surprised. i’m at the same weight now that i was last year when i went on a diet (and didn’t really do too well). so in a year i havent gained and i havent lost. but hey, so as long as i didnt gain, i’m ecstatic. lol

we’ve been doing a lot of vegetable eating. every night / every other night, i make a huge bowl salad for dinner and lunch the next day. it took me 20years, but i finally found a low cal dressing that i *love*. its one of the salad spritzers and only 2cals per spritz. every night’s dinner starts with a huuuge salad for both of us. yesterday i made a vegetable soup that came out amazingly well. water, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, a splash of lemon juice, poultry seasoning, and oregano (i love oregano). i didnt want it to be just a vegetable soup, so i added in the poultry seasoning to give it a bit of a chicken-y taste.  tonight i’m going to make some baked fish for dinner.  my breakfasts have consisted mostly of oatmeal or soup broth (i made a ton -l-), salad and soup for lunch, and salad and dinner for dinner. we usually give ourselves a treat of 100cal popcorn or a scoop of chocolaty cereal as a late night snack.

almost every night me and jimmy have been doing some exercising.. if we’re not out and about and walking around, we go out and walk around the neighborhood. i really like it. it gives us some quiet time to be together and talk about things.

last night i started again on murphy’s blankie. i scrapped my original pattern. i think it was just too difficult for me to start out with. i went with a very simple 3×3 pattern with each block 17in x 17in. four of the blocks are flannel fabric with blue sky and white clouds, the other five blocks are a dark blue print on polyester, and its backed with a flannel plaid backing. i have the front and back made, but i still need to sew them together and put in the fluff. i did fucking fantastic on it. all of my edges are nice, even, and straight on the front. for the back, i had to use three strips of fabric sewn together to make the correct size. i did so well with that that you *barely* tell where the sewing seams are at. you really have to look closely and search for them. yeah; i pieced together my plaid THAT well.
today i did a lot of work. i filled out my fasfa and found out that i couldnt submit it. instead i had to sign up for a new pin. new last name means a new pin. -sighs- i did a lot of researching for my classes. i ended up making myself REALLY confused. i pretty much have to go in and talk to an adviser now. i got a letter the other week pretty much say that i’ve taken too many classes and will no longer be getting any financial aid. i havent been getting any until this year. i have been taking out student loans in my own name. this year i got a pell grant. so i need to find out if my pell grant is being pulled from me or not. while i’m there i also have to change my name and sign up for a class or two. i need to set up my major. the letter i sent said i was major just as ‘general studies’.. i didn’t think that i’d EVER been that.. so maybe i was when i first started and someone didnt mark down my change to education major.. ill have to find out and change it. i should also be able to graduate this summer.. so i need to fill out the forms to do so.

when jimmy comes home tonight, i need to apply for NAU again.. sometime this week, i need to go and apply to them again (how silly huh? applying twice.. ) i need to apply to the college and then i need to apply to their education division. to do so with them, i also need to write an essay on why i want to be a teacher. i dont feel so bad about that.. i’ve actually been missing writing. i am thinking about taking a creative writing class online.

school starts monday. thats why i’m in such a rush and feeling a lil frazzled. i need to sign up for about two more classes to be full-time and i still need to get all of my books. THANK GOD friday is payday and i can ask jim to help out with my books. i have one class that i have NO idea where its at. its my only in-a-classroom class and its not on campus. so i need to email the prof or ask at the campus when i go there to do all of this paperwork and advising.

i still need to go to the dmv and change my name on my card. meh.