Bad Babies

My cousin Marthena is pregnant with twins. She isn't due until the end of September. She has been having contractions on and off for several months now. Apparently they've decided they are ready to arrive. Bad babies...no cookie for you! She has been on complete bedrest for that whole time in an attempt to keep them from arriving early. This has been driving her mildly insane of course, since she used to working a ridiculous amount of hours and is an avid runner. Not the ideal candidate for this. But she's been reading, and being crafty and my mom went to visit her for a week. So she's been tolerating it.

Apparently tonight she is going into labor for real. She's only 31 weeks along. Which means they are considered in the size/age range of "routinely survivable". One of them is 3 lbs. 11 oz. and the other is just over 4 lbs. And they're giving them steroids to help their lungs develop. They'd like the labor to be delayed but at this point it seems like it might have to just happen now.

It's really scary though. I may not be a fan of babies for myself, but I certainly would like all of my second cousins to arrive safely in the world. Send good thoughts out to northern Ohio that they and my cousin do well.

Books Everywhere

So, this reading thing has gotten ridiculous. I finished More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel. It was really good. I've been meaning to read her books Prozac Nation and Bitch for quite a while now. This one was about her addiction to Ritalin and cocaine. It was very good. Not necessarily a fun book, but well written, interesting, and actually gave me a little insight into what it's like to have an addiction. I figure if I am ever going to be a therapist some day, it's not a bad idea to at least read about people with problems. Even if my classes don't give me an opportunity to actually interact with them in person. Here's a quote from it that I really liked:

"You're not understanding what I'm saying!" Is she yelling? Dr. Singer never yells. "This is why you do drugs. This is why you feel terrible. You think it's because you feel everything too much. But it's not. It's that you don't feel things enough. All those times that you panic and get hysterical waiting for some guy, any guy, to call you, it's not because your feelings are exaggerated. It's because you don't feel at all."
"That's crazy." I think I may be about to cry, but I don't. "My feeling are excessive and inappropriate and, too much for anyone to handle. So I do drugs and it's manageable. "
"I don't think that's true. I think if you weren't afraid to feel things , it would be ok. If you were not afraid to hurt when you hurt, it wouldn't be so bad. But then you push it away, and you end up going crazy and feeling crazy about nothing - about waiting twenty minutes for a call - because you don't allow yourself to just feel what is really there. "

I finished it this morning. Last night, while in Meijer, Anthony picked up Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. After I finished More, Now, Again I got on the computer, checked my email and then decided I absolutely had to start Harry Potter. Now, I KNEW I wasn't going to be able to stop. Harry Potter may not be a stimulant, but damn it, those books are addictive. You'd think I would have learned something from the first book, but apparently not. At noon I started reading, stopped only to grab something for lunch and take a quick shower. At a little bit before 5, I finished it. I read 650 some pages in under 5 hours. It's official, I need help.

On the plus side, it was a great book, I loved it. And now I can't wait for the people I know to finish it so I can start talking to them about it. In the meantime I'll attempt to keep my mouth shut. Also,l I am not feeling terribly patient about waiting for the last book to come out. Over a year seems like an awful long time when I'm ready for it NOW.

Evil Storm

This was an....interesting...weekend. Saturday, Stav and I worked more on the website while they had a garage sale. I sold a few things too, and made a little bit of money, which was really nice. The site is getting closer to being done. I registered for my domain name and bought server space on www.godaddy.com . It's actually a pretty decent price, and Stav uses them also. I actually got to do some of the work on the site myself. I now have a little bit of an idea of how to use Dreamweaver. I know about a billionth of what is possible, but hey, it's a start. I mostly want to learn enough to make sure I can add pictures and update the links myself. I don't want to make Anthony and/or Stav have to do it all of the time.

Saturday night we went to Harper's. There was a going away party for Stav and Paul. (sighs) I am really going to miss those guys. I can't believe they are leaving. As Erin was talking about in her journal, it really is the end of an era. People are moving, getting married, having kids...and I can't believe it's all happening so fast. Somehow it seemed like it wouldn't all end...that there would be a way to have things just go on the same, forever. I suppose that's really naive, and I always knew it wouldn't actually last, but that didn't stop me from hoping. I'm going to miss running next door to borrow a book, drop off the rabbits for an hour or two while our house is getting "fixed" by construction workers, or just hanging out there for a BBQ. All of the random bar/club nights, and parties...They're some of my very favorite people. I also doubt I'll see Nancy or Kracker much, even though they aren't the ones moving to California. The going away party was a ton of fun. It was in the VIP room at Harper's, and we all got in the club free. We also had free champagne (really good champagne too) and food. Ooh, and we got fun hats! They had random fedoras laying around. They had a couple of different colors, I thought I was wearing one that was grey, or light blue but it ended up being purple. Apparently black lights really mess up my sense of color. It was incredibly funny when we left the club. Erin, Kyle, Katie, Anthony and I were all wearing the hats and there was a huge line of people waiting to go in as we left. Six people or so made comments as we were leaving about them...mostly whispers of "are they VIP's?" We all walked out like we were very important...and then cracked up when we got across the street.

I woke up Sunday morning when Anthony left for work at 6:45, and then again at 8 or so when the storm got out of hand. It had been raining/storming most of the night, but it started to get insane around 8. I drifted off for a few minutes between the lightning and thunder strikes, but I bolted out of bed at 8:20 when it sounded like our house got hit. There was an incredibly huge crash and the house shook. I am not actually sure what near us got hit, but it has to have been very close. Our power went out at the same time, and as of last night at 9 o'clock it was still out. I had sort of a lazy morning, I wandered around East Lansing with Ion and Stepha, to see what was going on with the power and to try to find food. We didn't have any luck with the food, but it was kinda fun. I also read most of the day. It's amazing how much more reading I get done when I can't turn on my computer. I finished reading "The DaVinci Code". I really enjoyed it. It was the perfect book to read in an afternoon. I am not quite sure why people made such an huge deal about it though. Yeah, I can see why it irritated the Catholic Church, it just always seems so silly how big of a deal people make about things like that.

I was supposed to take engagement pictures of Erin and Kyle on Sunday. The storm nixed that idea. Kyle got kidnapped by Consumer's, and was gone all day. Erin ended up coming down anyway, and she and Katie and I went out to dinner. We went to Old Chicago, we'd never been there before so we decided to try it out. It was actually really good. Erin and I split a small pizza. When the waitress brought it out, she put a piece on each of our plates, and then dropped the other two pieces on the floor. It was pretty funny, but I felt really bad for her, she seemed horribly embarrassed. It worked out well though, because we got a new pizza for free, so we ended up getting more than we paid for. We also got honey raspberry ale, which was yummy. I am still not a huge fan of beer, but I have found a few I like. They just have to be higher end. The three of us also split a giant cookie. It was so good. We also took half of it home. It was just a fun dinner. The three of us haven't had much time to just hang out and talk in quite a while. On the way home we got hit on by a bunch of redneck guys in an Explorer (or something similar) with a decal on the back window that said 'get er done...". Very quality guys. They yelled something out the window that sounded like a cross between Yetti and King Kong. We never did hear what they were saying...Erin made some fantastically funny comment about it, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. We all ended up laughing so hard we cried.

Sleeeeep

I am so tired this morning. It could have something to do with the fact that it's 7am and I am awake. I'm not sure what exactly is going on with my brain. It seems to think that when Anthony gets up for work, I should too. (sighs) The rabbit chewing on the metal cage isn't helping either. I left my trusty spray bottle at Anthony's place too, so I had to resort to putting a small amount of water in a glass and throwing it at him. I have one soggy, pissed off Jack right now. Squirrel is still cute and relatively well behaved though. I was so shocked the other day when I had to yell at her. She's picking up a few bad habits from Jack. He's mellowing out though, so I guess it will even out eventually.

We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the other day. It was awesome. Bizarre, but awesome. Then again anything starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton is pretty much guaranteed to be a little off. I actually liked it a lot more than I liked the original. I know that's probably going to get me tarred and feathered, but it's true. Maybe it's cause I saw the first one much older than most of my friends...but I dunno, it always just seemed like one really annoying drug trip. With candy. Willy Wonka, as played by Johnny Depp, was also mildy annoying, but it seemed to fit a lot better with what I remember from the book.

Another movie I liked that I forgot to mention was War of the Worlds. Despite Tom Cruise's annoying habit of, well talking, his movie was great. He may have gone off the deep end in his public life, but it hasn't affected his acting. The movie wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was still really good. I have to say though, it wasn't the alien creatures, or the gore that freaked me out. It was people. The scenes with people desperate to survive and how utterly mindless they became nearly made me sick. I have a strong stomach for most things, after all, I loved Kill Bill and Sin City. But a couple of the scenes showing how easily people fall into the mob mentality made me absolutely ill. Yes, I know. I'm weird. But, aside from that, it was a very cool movie.

Mmm, tuna

I made an awesome dinner tonight. Tuna steak seared for three or four minutes on each side, with fresh raspberries on top. I made cold peas with a wasabi dressing too. It was so light and fresh tasting. Perfect summer food. I decided I could probably eat a whole tuna by myself at some point. However, considering the price of good tuna, I am quite sure I couldn't afford that.

Giant Pig of Death

This weekend went really well. We had fun hanging out with my parents, and got some good ideas for the bricking of their house. They also got me a new bunny cage. It's actually a dog cage, but it works really well, is easy to clean and folds up for transportation. We already have one at Anthony's place, he bought it for me. I gave them back the cage my dad and I made. It's just a bit too small for two critters to stay in at once. And now I'll have a cage at their house so I don't have to haul one back and forth.

Anthony's graduation party went well too. Meeting the whole family was kind of overwhelming, but it wasn't too bad. I got to meet people a few at a time, so that helped. His grandma is really cute. I'd pay a lot of money to see her and my grandma talk. I think they would be really entertaining. I was glad I finally got to meet them, and that it wasn't quite as scary as I thought it was going to be. They party was a luau theme and the roast pig they made was yummy, if alarmingly huge and scary looking. A few of his friends and Erin and Kyle came, which was really nice.

7:54 AM

It's 7:54 AM and I can't freakin sleep. I woke up around 6, and haven't been back to sleep since. I woke up because the light in the kitchen was on. Now, I have no idea WHY it was on. It was off when Anthony and I went to bed, and neither of us remember turning it on. I still maintain that there's no way it was me. For one thing, I am remarkably adept at maneuvering in the dark. I think it comes from being blind...I'm turning into a bat and developing sonar. I can now use echo location to find my way around. I never turn the light on to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. Plus, this apartment is pretty light, from all of the street lamps around here. It was the kitchen light that's about 6 feet up on the wall too, which would be the last light I would turn on. If it's isn't easily accessible, there's no way I'd bother to go for it when there's a switch right at waist height. I blame either Anthony, or the rabbits. Jack? Squirrel? Were you guys having a party last night? I think I better go check the fridge for missing beer.... What is really weird is that I am not even tired.

I'll be "getting up" in about a half hour. We have to get ready to go to Hartland today. Anthony and I are getting haircuts from Malissa. Mine has grown at least 4 inches in the past 2 months and I can't take it any more. After that, we're going to my parents' house. They are planning to replace the wood siding on the house with brick and desperately need my advice. Apparently they are incapable of making brick decisions without me. Frankly it's a good thing they asked for my help, I am MUCH more efficient at deciding what looks good. When the house was getting built we spent 4 hours in the tile place. I picked out tiles for my bathroom in 20 minutes and STILL like what it looks like. They agonized for hours and really hate what they have. After we drive around for a while and look at brick houses we are going to have a BBQ. That was kind of random too, they just decided they needed to make dinner for Anthony and I. It's great...I am always thrilled to have other people make me meals, just a little surprised by it.

After dinner we're headed back to Lansing to feed the bunnies and then to his parents' house in Grand Junction. That means a total of 4-5 hours of driving today...fun. Anthony's graduation party is tomorrow and it was easier to drive there tonight than early tomorrow. I finally get to meet his whole family. All 9 billion of them. I've met his parents and his brother Brad. There are EIGHT other siblings, who are all married and have at least three children. YAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. As an only child, I am confused and frightened by this. Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it.

Pthhbbbtttt

May I just say....HAHA, I knew before you did Erin! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the fact that the other half of my brain is now engaged. Kyle told me he was going to propose the day he got the ring, which makes me feel quite special. So I knew a whole two weeks before Erin did. I also got to see the ever so sparkly ring. Erin seemed determined to trip Kyle and I up, she mentioned something random about weddings nearly every day for those two weeks. All I have to say to Kyle is, 'I'm impressed', you managed to keep a secret from the nosiest person ever. Well done.

So I'm a Fugitive Who Can Transform Into a Huge Dog...SWEET!

In honor of the new Harry Potter book coming out and the fact that I just re-read "The Order of the Phoenix" in one day.

You scored as Sirius Black. You are the most loyal friend anyone could ask for because you'd go to any length to ensure their safety and happiness. You're free-spirited and very difficult to confine to a caged life. You love being in the company of those you love and love to show them how much they mean to you. You loathe those who only live for self-gain and show disloyalty. You're a great person but sometimes its needed of you to think more rationally than being quick to jump into things.

Harry Potter Character compatibility Test
created with QuizFarm.com

Mmm, chocolate

Apparently I've been craving myself...

BROWNIE BATTER! You scored 77% SWEET, 74% CHUNKY, and 74% UNIQUE!

brownie batter ice cream with a rich brownie batter swirl Mmmm....you are a very sweet mix indeed! You are warm, loving, and caring to all those around you, but you're not boring in the least! You have a wild streak and a creative, unique streak, too. You are a great friend, an interesting person, and you know how to have fun without ending up crouching over a toilet bowl. Nice!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 67% on SWEET You scored higher than 80% on CHUNKY You scored higher than 78% on UNIQUE

Link: The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor Test written by weered1 on Ok Cupid

Etsy!

I found the most amazing website this week. It's a site that is for selling handmade craft-type stuff. I am sure to most of you that sounds less than exciting. However, as a person who has so far mostly spent money on being creative instead of making money on it, it is heaven. When I first saw it, my thought was 'Oooh, a website for Erin." Then I proceeded to go insane because she was on vacation and I couldn't tell her about it. Eventually the thought occurred to me, 'Hey, you have photographs, why don't you try selling them?' I've spent the last few days putting together a shop, I have a dozen or so of my photographs on sale now. In keeping with the Drifting Visions theme of my future website, that is also the name of my Etsy shop. The shop is similar to eBay in that the site doesn't actually sell your products and ship them out, they just put buyers and sellers in contact with each other. But, there are no auctions and it's limited to handmade stuff. I am impressed with how well the site is organized. It's clean, simple, and pretty easy to use. Plus, they are just starting out and so they're really open to suggestions. The link to my store is Drifting Visions Etsy if you would like to check it out (hint, hint...)

I am also curious, is anyone actually reading this?? Or, am I just talking to myself most of the time? Leave me a comment on here, just to let me know please!

It hasn't helped that I've changed what IM client I've been using, so my profile with the link to this keeps getting lost. Lately AIM has been bogging down my computer like crazy and driving me nuts. I decided to try out Miranda IM since several people have been raving about it. I was impressed up until the point where I realized that reading people's away messages wasn't an option. It's a really nice set up over all. It's an incredibly small file that has the basic IM options and beyond that there are hundreds of plug-ins to use. I loved some of the plug-ins, they were just what I was looking for. However, it makes absolutely no sense to me that neither the Miranda program nor any single plug-in will allow you to check away messages. The only way of seeing them is to send someone a message, which just gets annoying to me and to them. I then downloaded Gaim, and I love it. It just rocks. Much smaller file than AIM and much less of a nuisance. Besides, now I don't have the damn advertisement windows in my buddy list. And it lets me check away messages. Anyone who is annoyed with AOL and/or wants to be able to chat with people on AIM, MSN, and yahoo, etc, all at the same time should check it out. I tried Trillium years ago and it just made me cranky. I'm impressed to have found one that I finally like.

Chasing Rabbits

I let the rabbits run in my room while I am in here. That way they get exercise and are much less cranky. Usually it works out great. Today I forgot to close the bedroom door while I went to put in my contacts. I've been wearing my glasses all day but I needed contacts to go running. I have one contact in and all of a sudden there's a crash. With one eye shut so I can see out of the eye that does have the contact in it, I see that my door is open. And there Jack is, joyfully hopping through the living room. You know the scene in Lilo and Stitch where he goes rampaging through the model city of San Francisco? It looked a lot like that. He's adorable but rather destructive. I think maybe I should have a padded room for him. When he saw me coming he hid under the couch. Since it's nearly impossible to coax him out, I just left him there while I went to put in my second contact. I wanted to be able to see what I was chasing around. I'm not sure I really needed to go running. I got an awful lot of exercise running right in the house. 20 minutes later I finally got him back in the room and in his cage. Squirrel is still out and about in the bedroom because she's well behaved. I'm never quite sure how to deal with her though. I am used to the wild antics of Jack. She just quietly sits around and cuddles when you pick her up. The oddest thing I've ever seen her do is lick my ear. Which, is kind of strange, but from what I can tell, to rabbits that just means 'I love you'. I think I'm glad most humans don't do it that way.

Sex and the City....in Lansing?

Doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Katie and I had an incredibly girly night last night. We went out to dinner, bought candy and makeup and watched Sex and the City. I was appalled to find myself painting my toes purple and watching four women bitch about men. Then again I've been told I'm the most like Samantha, so I find that a bit more reassuring. After all, how you not want to be like someone who fights tooth and nail to stay single. Granted, if she's my role model, I failed miserably. Silly me, I went and found a nice guy to date. But I can definitely see myself saying this...(Samantha:) "I think I have monogamy. I caught it from you people. (Carrie:) "Now it's airborne." In fact, I have a feeling that at some point I said something similar to Erin. It's much easier to blame your friends for such things. I'm slowly starting to admit I even have a girly side. I'd much prefer to pretend that I'm a cold hearted vixen who breaks men. And I am, I did that for quite a while, and while it's loads of fun, I'm not sure it's really a full time occupation.

Fourth of July

Somehow the 4th didn't quite go as planned. Anthony and I invited a few people over (mostly friends of his) and a total of two people showed up. One of them was the downstairs neighbor, so I am not quite sure how much that counts. However, Brigit made it, so she gets extra points. A lot of it was because of the weather, the random thunderstorm doesn't exactly set the mood for a summer barbecue. It also led to the Lansing fireworks getting cancelled. However, the ass hat guys who live on the other side of the house decided it would be a great idea to launch fireworks RIGHT next to the house. (rolls eyes) After the third one whizzed by the window, Anthony politely asked them to go somewhere else. There is a park with a huge open field directly across the street from the house, so it really wasn't a difficult request. Apparently they went there, but not far enough. We were sitting there watching a movie when there was a huge boom, and the house felt it was hit by a cannonball. (cause you know, I've been hit by so much cannon fire...) We went downstairs and there was a ridiculous amount of smoke and a GIANT GAPING HOLE in the front door. Apparently the genius guys couldn't keep a bottle rocket aimed in the correct direction and it flew into the front door and broke the window. One of the guys came up in a bit to drunkenly make a bad attempt at apologizing. And everyone wonders why I hate the human race.

I'm Going to Hell...Wahoo!

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fifth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test