UPDATE

The sky has finally cleared and the sun is shining again...up here at least. I can't believe the utter devistation that has happened along the coast. What makes it even more dumbfounding is that so many people stayed behind. I'm sure they had reasons, and I hope they were good ones. I'm not judging, you understand, I'm just completely bewildered by it. I kept thinking that I wanted to do SOMETHING, but I didn't know what. I'm too terrified by needles to give blood, I didn't know where to donate money, and I'm usually not good in any kind of crisis, so going down there to help was out of the question. My question of what I could do was answered in an e-mail from the employee association. They wanted donations of personal items, baby stuff, and pet food. Therein, I found my niche. If nothing else, in a crisis, I can shop. I still feel like I should do more.

We didn't sustain any damage, really. We lost a few branches from the walnut tree, and leaves were EVERYWHERE. It looked like fall came early, only all of the leaves were green. We lost power for a few hours, too. Steve and I would have never thought about getting up Tuesday morning if he hadn't gotten up to go to the bathroom and noticed the clock was off. I had to go and find my MP3 player, which unfortunately, has a pair of headphones attached that I used when I worked at the radio station (i.e. the Princess Leia hairbuns) to listen to the time and the weather. It was physically impossible to lay down with the headset on, so I decided to go ahead and get up and get ready for work. A lot of places had closed for the day, but not the SpRocket. I swear, on Judgement Day I'm going to have to ask God if he can wait until 5:00 for me to get there, because we WILL be open. Steve and I had enough hot water to take showers, but no lights to see about getting ready. I was trying to find clothes that matched and put on makeup, and I couldn't dry my hair, so I got to work looking like Edward Scissorhands. I'm not sure why being darker than normal might have cause this lapse in judgement, but I put on this shirt that I don't normally wear because it's not big enough. I suppose in candlelight, everything looks better, so I didn't think of the ramifications of wearing a button up shirt that was too small. By the time I got to work, I knew that I was in some kind of trouble. To put it delicately, a deep breath could have caused dangerous button projectiles. I kept my lab coat/utility jacket on until I had to leave for school, and I had no problem at first. When I was walking out, a security guard stopped me to ask a question, and while I was talking to him, I noticed a breeze. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what happened. I can thank God that I was holding the proof of a sign, so I just held it up and kept my composure. The last thing I wanted to do was bring attention to my...plight. Before I went to school, and it made me late, I had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a shirt to put on. It took me all of five minutes to buy it, but then I realized I didn't have a place to change, so I figured I'd do it in my car. Trying to be suave about it, I pulled the t-shirt over my head and over the shirt I was wearing. That being done, I had to figure out how to get the other shirt off. Let me just say that if anyone tells you that they were in the Wa-Mart parking lot, and they saw a woman in the front seat of a Durango who looked like she was having a fist fight with herself, that was me. I finally got situated, and I think I will be burning the evil shirt that started the whole mess.

Anyways.

As for the weekend, it was busy. We were having the Saturn/Apollo Reunion here at work, and I was slammed with sign requests. It wouldn't have been so bad, but two of the printer heads on our fancy printer went out, so I had to figure out how to make decent signs with only yellow and magenta ink, and vinyl. It wasn't easy. I was busy at work, and then ran to church to help serve the dinner for the Teacher's Appreciation thingie. Hardly anyone came, shame on them, but we had enough there to actually feed. After cleaning, I took the balloons and sucked the helium out of them and sang Ella Fitzgerald songs. I'm sure that the other ladies wished I did more cleaning. : )

Saturday was a series of unfortunate events for Steve. It didn't start out that way. I think we will have to give him the fourth Bless-His-Heart Award. We spent the morning cleaning the living room and working in the yard. I was doing the living room, and I was doing a meticulous job, starting in one corner, moving furniture, hanging pictures, and dusting. By the time I got to the other end of the room, it looked great. Steve decided he would work on filling in the doorway that he sealed up, so he taped a sheet of plastic over the electronics nook and started sanding...with a power sander. While he was doing this, I was happily ignorant doing my homework back in the bedroom. After a while, Steve came in COVERED with white powder. He told me he needed help cleaning up because he had made a mess. I told him I was doing my homework, and he'd have to do it himself. I will spare you the blow by blow, but after he came back in and told me I HAD to help, and I threw a fit about never finishing college and spending my life cleaning up his messes, I walked into the living room and saw what had happened. Apparently, it isn't possible to vaccum up plaster dust because the vaccume cleaner will suck it up, and blow it back out with the exhaust all over the place. Our living room looked like your stereotypical haunted houses, covered in thick dust and hazy. I will still mad at being made to clean up when I had other things to do, which in turn caused Steve to get more mad at me for fussing, and in his haste to get away from me and into the garage, he shattered the window on the kitchen-to-garage door...and he was barefoot. So there he is, trying to clean up glass, and just as he got it all up, he opened up the door again, and a shard of glass fell and stabbed him in the arm. By this point, I realized that trying to clean the living room when stuff is still flying about in the air and resettling, was moot, I went to help him clean up the new glass while he cleaned up his arm. After that, he was completely out of it, running into things, spilling things, and etc. I was glad when we finally got done and left to see his parents. I was afraid he would kill himself. All together now: BLESS HIS HEART!

Sunday was pretty uneventful, save for the fact I forgot that wearing black pants is bad when all things in the living room are coated with white powder. I had white handprints on my rear-end where I was looking for something in my pocket. Nice.

...I'M JUST LOOKIN' FOR SOME TUSCHE

Don't get scared, tusche is a type of lithography material. When Mr. Crouse was talking about it, I couldn't help but think of that song by ZZ Top. I guess I should be grateful that I didn't start to sing it out loud!

School is actually kind of scary this semester. My Medieval (I can never remember how to spell that) Art class is going to be a lot of reading and researching, and we have to do a research paper and presentation. She gave us an assignment on our first day which was to read the first 12 pages of our textbook and the book of Matthew. I was all, Huh? I've never been told to read the bible as an assignment! Math is...evil. I don't even want to think about it. Lithography seems like it's going to be both interesting and HARD. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it better than I did intaglio. It's just going to be more time consuming, but what else do I have to do in my spare time? : )

One of the things I've liked about going back to school in the fall is to see the new freshman coming to school in their new clothes, looking all scared. It's so funny to see those girls trying to slog from class to class across campus in their skimpy little dresses and pointy, high heeled shoes. It's even funnier to see them by the end of the semester when most of them end up coming to class in pajamas or have embraced some kind of Goth subculture and have tattoos and strange piercings. College can warp people fairly solidly during the freshman year.

In Other News...

I am actually so horrified by something I've recently done that I can't tell you what it is. I know you're wondering why I even brought it up on my blog if I'm not going to tell you what it is. My answer to that is because I need to vent a little. However, since I can't be specific about what I did, it isn't going to be very cathartic. The reader's digest condensed version is that I assumed something...and, well, made good on the old cliche about assuming things. I wish I could climb under my desk and hide fr a couple of months.

I can, however, tell you another embarrassing thing that I've done lately. You may not see why I'm so embarassed, but I am. As I've mentioned before, sometimes if I get bored, I will plug in names of people I haven't seen in a while to see if I can find anything about them on the internet. I know that's sad, but we all do weird things when we are bored. Anyway, I found this friend on a web site for his school's 10 year reunion. I thought it might be nice to see if I could get his e-mail address and drop him a line, just to see what was going on. Well, when I clicked on the link it said I had to become a member to access the information, which was on a Yahoo message board. Well, I have an e-mail address for Yahoo that I never use because I had created the account to play a joke on a former co-worker and so I plugged that in and hit submit thinking I could just jump in there and snag the address and jump out. It said since I hadn't used it in a while, I'd need to change a couple of things, which I did to regain access, and it basically told me that it had sent my request to join the XX High School Reunion group to the administrator for access. My friend (or used-to-be-my-friend) would be one of the administrators. It wouldn't be so bad since I didn't have my name on the e-mail account and the address is something that doesn't even remotely describe me, but my "secondary" e-mail address is one that I have had since I knew him back in the day. Now instead of just getting his address (which I now have access to) I'm too scared to do anything that might draw attention to myself or my screen name because I don't want to think I am stalking him. I also don't know how to remove myself from the list, and even if I did, I don't want to send another e-mail in case he recognizes me. What is the problem, you ask, since your original intent was to get the address anyways. It would be one thing if I had just been able to get his address and e-mail him on my own, but now it looks like I'm trying to be sneaky or something by joining his class reunion board. How in the world do I get into stuff like that?

UGG!

I talked to my friend's dad, and he says that her life is out of danger. Can you say "Whew"? Although she isn't doing well at all, she has gotten passed the worst part of he sickness and should be on her way to recovering. Her dad said she had three surgeries within three days, and will probably have to have a couple more. I'm glad she's doing better, even if she isn't well yet.

I felt like a complete idiot while talking to my friend's stepmom. I called their home number to see if I could get Sara's cell phone number (her mom was carrying the phone). When I got in touch with her, I kept stumbling over what I was trying to say, called her by the wrong name, and almost hung up before she could tell me how my friend was. I can't believe I used to have a job where I talked on the phone for a living.

I've got to leave for school in a little while. I have my history class today, and my other two classes tomorrow. SIGH.

I've also got to go outside and replace some signs, but I want to put it off until after I get back from school because I don't want to show up to class looking hot and sweaty. I hate summer.

Apparently, Steve likes his new bed. He was putting it together before I made it home, and I got there just in time to see that he didn't hurt himself dragging the matress/box springs across the hall. Actually, I got there in time for him to literally pin me against the wall with the matress. I guess he thought it would keep me out of the way! : ) Before I got a chance to put any sheets or anything on it, he had already lain down and fallen asleep. I figured he would wake up in time to have dinner, so I made burritos (one of his favorites). He didn't get up. So I put on a movie, BeetleJuice, and watched it as I ate. I figured he would wake up eventually, so I worked on the church scrapbook (sadly far behind because of me), and desperately tried to figure our how to make the pages look decent. I don't think I'm doing a very good job. It's weird. I am a graphic design artist, but I can't get the hang of scrapbooking. Eh, it's a soccermom past time anyways. ; ) At any rate, he didn't get up, so I had to throw away most of the food that had been sitting out for several hours. Wasteful hastered. I don't really HAVE to spend time with him I guess... heeheehee.

I called the hospital in Birmingham to check on my friend. She is still in SICU. I hope that's just precautionary. I tried e-mailing one of our friends who lives down there and see's here more often than I do, but I haven't heard anything back yet. I suppose it doesn't help that I've never e-mailed him before. I hope he doesn't think I'm spam.

School starts back tomorrow, and I've already started to dread it. I have to take algebra (again). Steve spent quite alot of time trying to explain the reason for variables. Did I understand it? What do you think? Mr. Lee also tried to give me an example of why we need variables. He said it was like having a dinner party, but not knowing how many people would be there, so you have to do the math to see how much food everyone should get. I just told him if that was the case, I'd wait for them all to show up, and then order pizza. I hate math.

Otherwise, I have Art History: Medival Art, and Lithography. Three down, five to go. I am so tired of being in school.

Weekend Update.

I wish I could tell you that I had an eventful weekend, but honestly I didn't. If you read my last post, you pretty much know about the most eventful thing that happened. As for that, I don't have a clue if anything has changed for my friend. I believe that if anything bad had happened since I talked to her mom, someone would have called me, but it's still kinda bad not to know. I supposed I could call the hospital, but I don't want to bother anyone in case she's in a room and sleeping and everything. I'm sure I'll hear something soon.

Friday night, in an attempt to help me not worry about my friend, Steve took me to Cheeburger Cheeburger to have dinner with Josh, and afterwards to Sweet Dreams Cafe where I preceeded to eat a piece of cake the size of my head. I truly, truly wish I cold be one of those people who lost their appetite when they were upset. We were also going to see the Dukes of Hazzard movie, but the projection system for that theater was busted, so we went home.

Saturday was one of those fabulously boring days where you don't really have anything to do, so you putter around. I love to putter. I spent most of the day trying to shovel the junk off the bed in the guest room. Angie has given Steve and I her old bed, which is bigger than the one we have now, so we are going to have to switch out mattresses. I never did get the whole thing finished. I never realized just how much junk can accumulate in a room that no one ever uses. While we were eating lunch, we watched a movie called "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou" or something. I had heard it was hysterical, but it was really only mildly funny. One scene in particular made the whole thing worth watching, but I'll let you find it yourself. We had also rented "Saw" which I've heard is good, but we haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Anyways, Steve had fallen asleep after working in the yard, so it was kind of late in the evening when we decided to go out. I wanted to start my christmas shopping, so we went to Marshall's and then we finally got to see The Dukes of Hazzard. In a few words, I liked it, but not in the same way I liked the tv series. My favorite line:

Big Guy: Hey, Hillbilly!
Luke Duke: We prefer the term Appalachian-American.

Maybe you just have to see it to find out why that's funny. : )

We had church the next day, of course. After church last night, we went to the SpRocket Center and watched some fireworks that were being put on for a group of people who were having a party here. Steve and I got to watch them from the roof since my office has roof access. I'm a sucker for fireworks. I wish I had had my camera, because from our angle, I could have gotten some great shots of fireworks going off by the Saturn V. When we left there, I had asked if it would be okay to go by Wal-Mart to get some stuff we needed. I expected a fuss, because Steve hates to shop, but he was oddly willing to go. I was really only going to get a couple of things, but I ended up getting a cart full of stuff. I was going to price espresso machines, because I had looked for some the other day, and the cheapest one was $299. I actually found a small one for $24! I love Wal-Mart. I've had dates there, I've found bargains there...it's a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, we ended up staying at Wal-Mart for a long time, and didn't get home until midnight. We fed the dogs and put them to bed, and before we went to bed, I had a big glass of Ovaltine. I'd never had Ovaltine before, and in my opinion, it has crack in it. It was really good, but after I had it, I couldn't sleep. In fact, I was wired. It was after 2:00 am before I fell asleep, which caused me to be late for work this morning.

I'm not so sure I am having a good day after that. Observe:

After being late, I struggled in and remembered that I had a task that needed to get done fairly quickly, and for some reason it took me all freaking morning to complete. I still hadn't given my boss my school schedule, so I printed that out for him and realized right then that something didn't look right. I was under the impression that I was going to have a class at night twice a week, but instead it's during the work day. Therefore there is another three hours of work a week that I'm going to be missing. It's too late to change the schedule and I need these classes anyways, so I decided to keep what I have. It still makes me mad though. I wasn't going to take a whole hour for lunch to make up for the time I missed this morning, so I went to the Off Campus Book Store to get my stuff for school (which starts wednesday). I had to go get my books for school which didn't take that long, but when I stopped at another place to get a gift for someone, I ended up standing in line for a while, realizing that it had begun to pour rain, and my windows were open. So I get back into the car and end up sitting in a puddle. When I got back to the office, I hadn't heard from my boss about the draft of a project I sent him, so I've been kind of twiddling my thumbs. I'm probably forgetting to do something as we speak.

One good thing did happen, though. I got my Campus Trial Pack when I bought my books. I know this is sad, but I love samples of stuff. I've decided that the only reason I'm still in college is to get the Campus Trial Pack once a year! : )

It's 2:03 am and I can't sleep. It has nothing to do with caffine or chocolate tonight, but it has everything to do with being afraid.

When I got home today, I had a message on my machine from the mother of a very, very good friend of mine. She called to tell me that my friend is in the hospital in critical condition due to a rather sudden, and severe, medical problem, and that things aren't looking very good for her.

Deep down inside, in the places where the sun never truly reaches but things are still very clear, I believe she'll be okay. I have to believe it.

All I can think about is that I never sent her a birthday card. That doesn't make sense to me, exactly, but it won't leave me alone.

Her mom said that at one point, they gave her a 50/50 chance, but they're doctors, right? They can fix just about anything. I have to believe that too.

I have a lot of friends, close friends, but I've only had a few that I could tell anything to. She is one of them, and those ranks are already getting thinner every day.

All I can do is pray. Please do the same.

Why is it when I ask a purely hypothetical question, people think I have a hidden agenda? Last night we went out to eat with Josh and Anthony. I decided I wanted to play the "Hypothetical Game" and I asked "If you were going to tell someone something that would make them morally uncomfortable, how would you do it?" No one seemed to get what I meant, so I used the example of "If you were in love with a married woman, would you tell her and how?" All at once they start asking me what married man I was going to tell that I was in love with. Even Steve...STEVE...asked me who I was talking about. I don't think they believed me when I told them it was just a question. I forget that most men don't watch soap operas. One episode of Days of Our Lives, and they would have never questioned my motives. *sound of disgust* I have yet to meet anyone who is fun to play the "Hypothetical Game" with!

You know what I think is funny (besides saying Nibby Bar)? When you run into someone who you know slightly and they don't have a clue who you are, so they desperately look you over while trying to remember where they know you from. This happened to me when I went to pick up some signs. A guy I had a class with was working there and I smiled my friendly I-Know-You smile and said hello and asked how he was. I could tell he recognized me, but didn't know from where, so as he answered me, he's raking me over with his eyes for a clue to figure out how he knows me and he spies my badge. A couple of seconds of staring at my badge, which is on my chest, he realizes that maybe staring at my chest may be a little worse than not knowing my name. After that I decided to let him off the hook and just ask for the signs. He seemed relieved. : )

Do you remember when I told you about my troublesome thumb? At first I thought that I might just be getting old age pains, but I've finally figured out what has caused it. I have a repeatative motion injury, kind of like tennis elbow. Except my injury didn't come from anything quite as noble as tennis. I got it from crocheting. I have a crocheting injury. That is the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Hershey's Special Dark Kisses - 2 on the nummy scale. No nightmares, but I do believe I got mild food poisoning. I had forgotten how old those things were. I'm still not sure how long I've had them, but I believe it's going on two years. *shudder*

Wow, I'm busy today (she says as she stops everything to write a blog entry)! Actually, I'm busy, but I can only go as fast as the plotter can print, so I have a few minutes. I got slammed with a rather sign saturated night function job that requires 7 signs and I haven't been able to print any of them yet because my boss is printing giant "First To The Moon" License plates for some kind of kick-off thing.

I finally got to see the pictures I took in California. You probably think that's weird since they were digital, but Steve has had them on his lap top, so I wasn't able to see them until yesterday. If I do say so, some of them turned out excellent. My favorite ones are the ones from Bodie, NV, which was the ghost town we visited. They are a little over exposed looking because the sun was BRIGHT, but it gives them character.

My friend Jason (or Father Hatfield as I will think of him from now on) and I were just talking about that sci-Fi channel show "Ghost Hunters". If you aren't familliar with that show, it follows TAPS, or The Atlantic Paranormal Society (I think) who are people who go into supposedly haunted places and try to determine if there is actually any ghosts there. I'm both fascinated and scared by it. Steve fell asleep early and left me all alone to watch it by myself, and it was scarier than usual because the big guy on the show even got spooked, and he is never shaken by anything. I was also doing dishes and running back and forth to see what was going on, so I missed some stuff. Jason was filling me in on what I missed. Then everyone went to lunch, leaving me alone up here. About the time everyone leaves, WTAK starts playing "Don't Fear the Reaper". Nice timing, you guys. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to start calling Jason during Ghost Hunters so that I can be safe, and if Jason hears me scream and drop the phone, maybe he'll call the police. With Steve being alseep, he wouldn't hear me. He sleeps like the dead.

Sherffin-Berger Nibby Bar (heeheehee) - 5 on the nummy scale, produced nightmare that didn't scare me, but freaked out everyone I told about it.

This has been a freakishly long day. I keep thinking that it's almost time to go, but when I look at the clock, only about 15 minutes will have passed.

Last night I went home and mowed the lawn. It looked like a jungle since we weren't able to mow it last week. I had looked at the weather online before I went out to mow, and I saw a bunch of the color splotchies headed our way. It was still far enough off that I knew I could, at least, get the front done, but I was going to have to hurry. I was doing pretty good (and getting all Zen again, which I tend to do when I mow) but I noticed the sun was getting dimmer, and I just knew it was going to rain. So I put the mower into one of the highest gears and start playing Death Race 2000 with the grass. I had no idea that the riding mower could pull so many Gs! So I'm finally done and I race into the garage and get everything put away...and I realize that the light was getting dimmer because the sun was going down, not because it was fixing to rain! How embarrassing. At any rate, it did rain, finally (a few hours later!)

Steve and I watched the movie White Noise last night. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't scarier, but the EVP stuff was creepy. Out of just about everything ghostly, the EVPs scare me the most. I know in my head that it could be anything making noises that "sound" like words, but I get heebed out about it. The movie, however, didn't make much sense, so even what did scare me was neutralized. Eh...

GRRR.

Why is it when I think I'm all Zen about life, something suddenly comes along to un-zen me? Why is it that these un-zenning things are things that I have no control over, and therefore can not fix or change?

I'm too old for this.

And please don't ask.

PURELY FOR THE SAKE OF SCIENCE

I'm sure I mentioned it a while ago, but for those of you not in the know, I have discovered an actual negative aspect to eating chocolate: Nightmares. *excuse me for a moment while I regain my composure*

Ahem.

Anyways, I had almost forgotten about this because I haven't had any plain chocolate candy (like candy bars or boxes of chocolates) in the house for a while, or at least none that I was eating close enough to bedtime to expirence this side effect. However, on my recent trip out to San Francisco, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit a magical place called Ghirardelli Square. Other chocolate lovers will recognize this name immediately as the second best producer of chocolate in the world (the first being, no surprise, Godiva.) As we were walking down the street, we were handed Ghirardelli coupons that would entitle us to 15% off of any purchase in the official store. Of course, I was not going to be content until I got to go in. It was like Charlie visiting the chocolate factory, without the added bonus of Johnny Depp, but that didn't make it any less wonderful. Of course, Mr. Lee being the generous guy that he is, loaded us up. Since we've returned, we have this chocolate lying about and I can't insult Mr. Ghirardelli by not eating it (even though I had to finally restrict myself to only one square after dinner so that I wouldn't go into sugar shock).

But I digress.

For the past three nights, I have had various levels of nightmares that made me remember that eating chocolate too late in the day plays havoc with my subconcious. Now, luckily, these aren't the kind of nightmares that trouble me all day. These are just mildly disturbing ones that bother me for a moment after I wake up and then start to fade immediately. Well, except for the breif edge-of-sleep one I had two days ago about the children in the Donner Party, but that is another post all together. At any rate, relizing this has given me a desire to preform an expirement to see what kinds of dreams different kinds of chocolate make me have. I know, I know, you're probably thinking that it is very gallant to sacrifice myself in such a way, but I'm willing to do this so that others may benefit from it. Heeheehee. Yeah, right. However, I am actually curious if it is true of all kinds of chocolate, or just the better grades of it, or what. If any of you can give me some chemical information about different grades of chocolate, I'd truly appreciate it. Darn it, Jim, I'm a chocolate lover, not a scientist!

So far, I have gathered this information in which I have placed the chocolate on the Kelly's Nummy Scale and it's dream inducing effects:

***
Godiva - A 10.5 on the nummy scale. Causes violent nightmares that not only scare the poo out of me, but follow me all the way through the day. Has not, however, scared me enough to stop eating it. I can't imagine anything less than finding a roach in one would do that.

Ghirardelli - A 9.5 on the nummy scale. Causes mild nightmares that are somewhat troubling, but start to fade as soon as I wake up.

After 8 Chocolate Mint hot chocolate - An 8 on the nummy scale. Didn't so much give me nightmares as made me have dreams that made me mad. Also, made me feel like I had a hangover when I woke up. Not quite sure why.
***

Next I shall be working with the Scherfin-Berger Nibby Bar. I can't see that this will be too bad. Just saying Nibby Bar makes me laugh! : )

I'll keep you updated!

Well, the Grizwalds are home! As most of you know, Steve and I accompanied his parents on a trip to California last week. We just got in last night, and there is a LOT to tell. I tried recording everything we did on Steve's laptop while we were out there, but I'm not exactly Jack Keroac. It will be too much for me to write as a blog entry, so I'm going to have to create a link from my web page to explain everything! However, I will tell you a few things I learned while traveling this past week:
A) Big cities scare me. I don't care how provencial that makes me sound. Give me Huntsville over San Francisco any day!
B) My prayer life gets way more active when Mr. Lee drives in the mountains.
C) Apparently, when frightened, I curl my toes almost all the way under my foot and make a squeaking noise that no one but Steve seems to hear.
D) Fresno sucks.
E) Apparently, Mono Lake is for lovers.
F) California is the most beautiful place I've ever been.
G) The story about the Donner Party is way more disturbing than I thought it was going to be.
H) The intent to send post cards doesn't always mean I'll do it.
I) I'm not normally agile, but I have the ability to climb large rocks with no problem (with a camera in tow, no less!)
J) People ruin photographs of scenery.
and lastly,
K) It really IS a dry heat!

I'll try to get my trip diary up and running asap! We had a great time and I saw so much! Woo-Hoo!

Weekend Update!

Well, the weekend started out very well. After work I met some friends at a resturaunt where we ate dinner with my former boss, Cathy. It was so good to see her again, because she was always so much fun to work for. we were having a great time, but I think we annoyed some of the other patrons because we were LOUD! I ended up having to leave a lot sooner than everyone else so that I could finish up some pressing things that needed to be done at home, but I had a great time with them. By the time I got home, Steve wasn't there. He had gone to play trivia with some other friends of ours, but he didn't get back until I had already gone to bed.

Saturday was somewhat eventful. My mother's side of the family had a family reunion. I don't normally go to them because my family makes me nervous. I wish I could explain why, but I can't explain it. Anyways, Steve and I drove to Scottsborough and couldn't find the community center, but we had a hard time locating anything that even closely resembled a gathering place. We drove down Broad street for a while until finally something looked familliar. I was drawing on a memory of a place I haven't been in about 14 years, and suprisingly I was right. This is kind of suprising seeing that sometimes I forget what I'm talking about in the middle of a sentence! Anyways, we went in and my Aunt Peggy started introducing us around. I got to meet a lot of people I've heard about, but never knew. Poor Steve starts off by embarrassing himself because he introduced himself as my wife! Heeheehee. I got to hug a ton of people (my family members are notorious huggers) and we had dinner. Steve and I finally made our way out and we visited the Unclaimed Baggage store (where I found a truly beautiful book of fairy tales that was a special printing and I'm sure whomever lost it was sad) and went to a small flea market before coming home. By the time we got home and settled, I got a bad headache and pretty much medicated myself and sat around for the rest of the night and played with the dogs.

Sunday was church and we went to my parent's house and celebrated Seth's 7th birthday. I love my nephews a whole bunch, but I'm seriously thinking that parents should make it a habit to drug and hog-tie children. And people wonder why I am reluctant to spawn any of my own! I also had another bout of "Kelly Can't Dress Herself" sunday morning. When we got home from morning worship, Steve came into the room while I was changing shoes, and he looked at me weird and said "Your earrings don't match." Now, I know for a fact that my earrings matched. I picked out a pair specifically to match what I was wearing and remembered putting them on. The first thing I thought was "Stupid men..." but I said, "They do too! I picked them out on purpose." Well, he reached out and took a hold of one of them and started laughing. He said "Well, they would match if this wasn't in them." Apparently another dangly earring had gotten caught in the ones I was wearing, and NO ONE SAID ANYTHING!!!! Thinking back, I was wondering why one of them was brushing my shoulder and one wasn't, but I thought that maybe my head wasn't straight or something. SIGH. Oh yeah, and Steve stepped on the hem of my skirt when he stood up to sing, and when I stood up I almost mooned the people behind us. I'm glad I got a hold of it before I embarassed anyone, or myself.