Stess's Journal

It was kind of nice, to have a three-day weekend with no obligations. My folks went out of town with one of my dad's coworkers, so we didn't have any 4th of July plans. I was off work on Friday, spent the day sleeping in and playing games. Saturday I went to the Apple Store and (after waiting in a ten minute line for help) talked to someone about how to fix the crazy popups and stuff on my computer. Yay for a solution that worked without needing $70 virus software! I will probably invest in the $20 adware, but that's manageable.

Sarah and I had some interesting conversations this weekend. She has started reading more, and talking about books led to talking about writing, talking about fanfiction and ideas. We sat in the living room for two hours last night and came up with what started as a fanfiction for a series she had read, and turned into something totally different. It was pretty fun. And I'm starting to get excited about writing again. I've been trying for ages - trying to force myself into wanting to write, I do want to, I just wasn't...wasn't into it anymore. I'd lost sight of the characters and the stories that I loved about them and now I'm getting back to it. I want to remember why I was so excited in the beginning, and I want to create new ideas and new stories for the characters who's personas weren't fully fleshed out. I'm not going to set some unachievable goal, like writing every day, but I'm going to push myself to write more, and write often. Even if it's just a sentence, I'm at least going to *read* what I have as often as I can, so that I don't forget what I've already put down on paper.

July should be an interesting month. I'll be packing and getting ready to move to the new apartment. Always fun times. We'll see how things go.

So, I was all proud of myself for the deal I got on my cellphone, turns out there was SO a reason for it being cheap. Terrible, awful phone. So, I took it to the store with my mom (since I am not a registered user on the account, go figure) and exchanged it. Suprisingly, she actually encouraged me to get what I wanted, which was an iPhone, since they dropped the price to $99. So I have an iPhone now, and I have spent the last two days making it mine. It now has a pink sleeve (so that I don't destroy it) and the ringtone is either "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, "Syndicate" by the Fray, or "Flying" from the Peter Pan soundtrack (also used in some recent Disney vacation commercials). :)

In the course of this, I discovered somewhere along the way that Jars of Clay had a new album out. In April? How did I not know this!

It is AWESOME.

Go buy it. The Long Fall Back to Earth. Favorite JoC album so far. Entirely. (I still need to actually own Good Monsters)

So, y'all remember the story from a few months ago about the apartment that gave us the shaft, basically, going back on their price because we didn't respond in the time frame even though we totally did.

( Yeah, it happened again. )

So, long story short, we're moving to a smaller apartment in a different complex come early August.

Life is ok otherwise. Money situation got sorted, work is going pretty well. We're a little slow at the moment but that's unfortunately to be expected...still, we're hanging in there. Almost gotten motivated to write again, I'm coming back to old ideas rather than getting stuck on new ones, so that's good. Sarah's in Cali for the week so I have the apartment to myself. Not that it will be any different than usual, since we never see each other, it just means I can leave the kitchen light on all night and she won't yell at me. (kidding!)

Suffice it to say that this will go down as one of the worst weeks I've had in a long time. Monday started out terrible, I was *really* late to work because I overslept, and I felt like an idiot and a jerk. But I talked to my boss and everything was ok. I still felt bad, and when I feel bad I do things that make me feel better, and that usually involves buying stuff. Which I did. And I bought something I wanted, or thought I wanted, and ended up overdrawing my account.

So then I had to borrow money from my parents, which involved telling them exactly what happened, and that's never a fun conversation. The guy at the bank was really nice, and really helpful, and he helped me think of some solutions and even helped me apply for a credit card, and this time I was approved. But the good news is I'll be able to pay my folks back and pay all my bills when I get paid this week, and then I can start over from ground zero and do this right for once.

OH and I almost forgot. On Thursday our new sales guy quit. Left us in kind of a fix, so we're dealing with that.

So by Friday, my week was on the up, I wasn't feeling like a complete loser. And then I spent all night Friday and Saturday talking to my boss at Blockbuster, who had two kids going to the prom last night. And since we were being all reminiscent, it made me think of my prom. Whenever I remember prom I try to remember the after-prom - going to Lake Conroe and staying up all night, playing spoons at 2am, and swimming at 4am, watching the sunrise - because that was awesome fun. But the dance itself...remembering that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, because it makes me think of Jonathan and how excited I was to be there with him, and what a let down it was. He left me on the dance floor during the first dance...he didn't dance with me again until the very end. I still had fun, when I wasn't in the bathroom with Jessie who felt awful, but...yeah. Thinking about Jonathon doesn't help my really crappy week at all.

Time for more adventures in bizarre dreams! Yay!

( I killed the Wicked Witch in an amazonian jungle and my brother got stuck in a blanket )

Seriously, y'all, I cannot make this stuff up. My subconscious is weird (not to mention the rest of me).

I totally just snuck into my parent's house at 1:30AM and left three Easter baskets on the dining room table. Win.

Tonight has been a little insane though, I spent two hours playing a game online and getting increasingly irritated at the person leading the voyage. Then I went to Wal-mart because I forgot to get a basket for my brother, and the Easter stuff had been cleaned. out. Like, there were entire shelves just empty. And this woman walks up behind me while I'm looking at some of the leftover candy and leans over to me and goes, "I don't know where you live, but the one over in Noblesville has SO much more stuff left." I kind of laughed and said I didn't really need much. And she walks over to her husband and all sniffily said, "This is ridiculous, let's just go to the other one by our house. Absolutely ridiculous." Lady, it is 1 o'clock in the morning on EASTER SUNDAY. Wal-mart is the ONLY thing still open besides the grocery store. What did you expect? Maybe you should have done your Easter shopping three days ago LIKE I DID.

And then, to top it off, I went to grab some cokes and milk, and the manager is hoarding some teenagers carrying like, three things apiece of toilet paper out of the food isles, saying something along the lines of "You guys are in here, making a mess, and running around, and disrupting my store, I will not have it. You need to leave now." So they leave, and then I hear the manager on the intercom calling all employees to the front, and as I'm walking to the checkout he's giving them a peptalk about the teenagers who have apparently ransacked like, the entire wal-mart and they now have to go around and pick up everything these kids knocked off the shelves and stuff.

SERIOUSLY IS IT A FULL MOON WHAT IS UP WITH PEOPLE TODAY.

So, on Monday Sarah and I went to look at another apartment. I was looking online and found a really nice one for about $175 cheaper than what we are paying now, so we went to check it out. Of course, it was a special deal, but turns out the apartment was managed by the same company who owns the place we have now. They had an apartment available in early May, which would have been three months before our lease was up, but even with transfer fees and deposit, we'd end up saving what we paid in a couple months.

So we decide to go ahead and do it. The apartment was a little smaller and a little further away than ours is now, but it was a good deal. Between the two of us working, however, neither of us was able to get back over to the leasing office during the week. We had 48 hours to respond to the offer, so on Wednesday Sarah called and left a message saying yes, we did want to transfer. Thurday I called back to confirm we wanted to transfer. Both times we left messages, because nobody in the office answered the phone.

Friday I get a call from the leasing office there. "Hey, just calling to see if you guys were still interested in the transfer. The price has gone up, but we'd be happy to give you a new quote, just let us know!" I proceeded to leave a very irritated message saying I'd be in on Saturday or Sunday, and that I was not. Happy. I had communicated with one leasing person first through email, and then a different one when we went in, and the first girl emailed me Saturday, saying she didn't really know what was going on, she'd given the other girl our messages, but she would be there over the weekend and would be happy to talk to me. I sent a very irritated, slightly awesome email about how I was not pleased about having to get a new quote, how we had responded within the time frame but because they weren't there to answer the phone we were being forced to get a new price, etc.

Sunday afternoon. I went over to the complex and spoke with the girl who had emailed me. She had talked to the manager, and even though the price had gone up by over $60 dollars/month, they were willing to "split the difference" and give the apartment to us at $30/mo more than our original quote, but still less than the current price. Sarah and I were both so fed up at this point that we decided you know what, it's not worth it. The apartment is smaller, the drive is further and inconvenient, the only reason we were going to do it was because of the deal, and even though it's still a lot less, we're both totally pissed off at the leasing staff, and that's never a good way to start in a new apartment.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

I just want you to know, I am still alive. I just haven't updated LJ in a while. I've started like, seven different entries, but never got around to finishing them.

Life is ok. Mom is doing great, she's back at almost her usual self, just a little more conscious of those things that caused the stroke to happen. I was a little sick too, week before last, but I'm ok now. Work and everything else pretty much progress as normal. I went to Kentucky with my brother for a weekend, got to see all my cousins and spend some time with family, which was fun. And this last weekend I started up RenFaire rehearsals again, so I'll be doing that for a while.

Overall life is kinda uneventful, still trying to work out how to pay taxes along with everything else, but maybe I'll make it work. I'm writing again, which is a good feeling. I'm going to try to push myself to do more.

So, um...Happy March?

So, my mother had a stroke. A small...mild I guess, stroke, on the right side of her brain. She woke up this morning and had no feeling at all in her left arm. She's a nurse, though, so when it didn't go away like what happens when your arm falls asleep or something, she knew she needed to go to the ER. She had a bunch of different tests done, a catscan, an MRI, and something else they tested to make sure that there weren't any side effects or any major things that could have caused it. She's just fine, they didn't find anything wrong. Her arm is still a little weak, but she's ok. She's being held overnight, but she is okay.

Needless to say, this...was....scary. To say the least. It was scary enough with my dad - when he had all those problems - it was a scare, and I thought then how lucky I was that I still had them both. But...then...it was so random. It wasn't like...like this. This is totally something that...that really could have... ...

So...yeah. Some things in our lives are changing. And we'll see how life goes from here. But this scared me, a lot. This...well it has not been my week, so far. And it's only Tuesday.

So, what was a relatively unexciting, boring, not-at-all interesting weekend turned very sour very quickly. And by that I mean, I did my taxes on Sunday and apparently I owe the guvm'nt quite a bit, actually. I guess they haven't been taking enough out of my paychecks, which, hey, you know, I can't really complain that much. But now I have to save money like whoa so I don't get you know, arrested. Or something. Not fun.

Once I got over the sticker shock, as it were, I realized you know, maybe this is a good thing. I need to break these spending habits, and obviously the "owing my mother over $400 thing" wasn't really doing it. Maybe the "owing the government over $1200 thing" will. I CAN do this, it will just require a lot of willpower. oh lord help me.

So, in an attempt at something of a "last hurrah of random spending" I dragged Sarah to go see Coraline at the movie theaters. You could tell that people weren't paying for movies anymore - on a Sunday evening there weren't very many cars in the lot and only two other people in our theater. That movie is awesome and creepy as hell. And very beautifully animated. And creepy. With some suprisingly good voice work by Teri Hatcher and Dakota Fanning, really neat characters and interesting music. Also, it was totally creepy. Did I mention that already? Yes.

Creepy in a good way though. It's truly a horror movie for kids. It's the kind of thing that would have given me SO MANY NIGHTMARES OMG but at the same time is totally awesome. I likened it to a more kid friendly version of Pan's Labyrinth - you sort of think you're in this harmless but slightly eerie fantasy story until everything goes so very very wrong.  I highly recommend it to anyone over the age of 12. 

Creepiest part of the story for me?   ( spoilers under the cut )

Anyway, we'll see how the next few weeks pan out.  I know I'm not the only one with financial worries, but I thank God every day that I still have a job I love, and a nice apartment and a cool roommate (who will go see creepy kids movies with me), great friends, and a loving family.  As long as I have all that, I think I'll be ok.

So very, very cold.

I have a new lj layout! I like it a lot. Yay for free iStock photos and boredom. I'm supposed to be putting away laundry, but that was a way more fun way to waste an hour.

Looks like I'm going to go to Kentucky in two weeks with my brother for the weekend! Road trip! Except he's totally going to drive, and I am going to DIE. My aunt is getting all the cousins together, since we haven't all seen each other since like, four Christmases ago. Should be fun!

We got crazy snow today too, more than 3 inches in less than 2 hours. Riiight at the end of rush hour. GREAT TIMING THERE, ZEUS. There were some nasty wrecks (one closed an entire highway, and involved more than 30 vehicles), but my office all survived in one piece. It took me almost half an hour to get to work though, and I live less than ten minutes away. It was fun times.

I really, really want to turn up the heat, but Sarah will be home in twenty minutes and she will yell at me :P electric bill schmectric bill

I'm just rambling now for an excuse to keep posting an entry instead of being productive. /end ramble.

Oh Twilight.  I have been sucked in.  I don't even really LIKE the books, and I have been sucked in.  Worst part is, I inadvertently got my roommate addicted to them as well.  (like, she drove twenty minutes away because our Wal-mart did not have Eclipse to buy, woe.  And now I don't have to buy them because she did.)  See, someone loaned her the first book, and then I finally got convinced (after several people tried) to read the book, so I borrowed the borrowed copy from her.  But then, in a truly ironic incident, I gave myself a papercut, and bled all over a page of my friend's book about vampires. :P  So i bought him a new book, which I promptly returned to Sarah, and in the process of telling her how incredibly...teenage they were, she was convinced to read it, and the rest, y'all, is history.
( And when I say teenage... )

I could weigh in more thoughts, but I have been surreptitiously adding to this post kind of all day, and it is time now to go spend time with my family and celebrate my dad's very belated birthday.  Perhaps I will write more when I finish Breaking Dawn.  (I haven't read that one yet, but I know what happens, and I laughed so hard last night when Sarah comes in my room going WHAT THE HELL.  SHE IS ___")

I went to church this morning, I didn't know if my folks would be there, but I didn't go last week either and I wanted to go.  Turns out my parents are in Columbus.  I called them after service and told them they needed to download the podcasts for the last two weeks.  I'm listening to last week's now.

They're doing a series on Song of Songs.  This is a very large church - and I have never been to a church that dared to do a series on this book in such a public format - not in a small group, or class setting.  Dave Rodriguez is not a man to be afraid of talking about tough stuff, and being real about it though.  I sat in the back of the auditorium, in the very top row.  I could see almost everyone in the room.  It was one of the most amazing sermons I've ever listened to.  We were talking about Chapter 2 of Song of Solomon - it was outstanding. 

Even as a perpetually single woman, I was still touched by the message - seeing every couple in the room looking at each other and laughing, or putting arms around another as Dave Rod. talked - it was so neat.  He talked about the line where the "beloved" or woman says "His banner over me is love", and talked about how it was a military term - how men would carry the names of the god they were fighting for on a standard or banner into battle, and how it meant that the lover was fighting for the woman - fighting for their relationship, fighting for her.  Despite the fact that I inevitably ended up with "Carrying the Banner" from Newsies stuck in my head - I just thought it was an amazing visual.  How we need to carry the banner of our loved one into battle when we face things like pornography, or temptation.  Carry the banner.  It was great. 

They had a panel of couples, one that had been married for 7 years, one for probably 10-20, and then another that had been together for 43 years.  After the message, Dave asked them what they were thinking.  The younger couple talked about how hard it was to focus on each other with kids around, but they still thought each other were totally hot (which made everyone laugh).  Then the man from the oldest couple said something about what Dave had mentioned about touching and kissing, and how it was a good reminder to ourselves and everyone that we're still in love.  And he said "After 43 years, it's still a thrill."  What a great line.  There was a couple in front of me with their teenage daughter, and she was blushing so hard, but her parents were laughing, and I thought, I hope she knows how lucky she is.  I do.  My parents still love each other so much, they still FALL in love with each other all the time.  I have never, not ever been grossed out about the idea of my parents being intimate because I love the fact that they still are, even after 30-odd years of marriage.   Heh, it was funny too - Dave talked about telling each other constantly why you fell in love with that person, and why you're still in love with them.  And he goes , "Try it today.  You never know where that might go!"   LOL!  My preacher is giving people tips on how to get lucky with their spouse.  IN CHURCH.  I LOVE IT.

Seriously though, it was one of the most amazing, touching, and powerful messages about love I've ever sat through, and this is week 2 of 4 on this series.  I'm not missing next week, even though he said it would be "kinda awkward, and DON'T BRING YOUR KIDS!".  I'm guessing this is the "your breasts are like young does" section.  Heee.  If you are interested, you can listen to the podcasts on the website - they don't have this week up yet, of course, but they have last week's. 

I really, really need to move somewhere where I don't have to scrape more than 2 inches of snow off my car...twice.  In one day.

That is all.

I have found my song.

I have had a lot through the years. They change as I change. But this one, I think, I might be something I hold on to, at least for a while. It's how I live. Plus I like the song, and the singer. I've had the CD for awhile now, I just really realized that this song is me.

( I Stand - Idina Menzel )

Honorable mentions can go to a couple other songs, with equally powerful and appropriate words. Since I'm in a sharing sort of mood, here they are:

( Unwritten - Natasha Beddingfield )

( Brave - Idina Menzel )

Other honorable mentions:
"Defying Gravity" and "For Good" - from Wicked

I am not entirely sure if this is the correct order of the dream, but iin the retelling this makes the most logical sense. I don't remember it all, there are bits and pieces of it that I have forgotten in the last hour of being awake. It is also possible that this was two dreams, if I woke up when my alarm went off and then went back to sleep, so the complete disconnect between the first and second parts might be because of that.

( It's weird though, to wake up and realized you dreamed about dying and going to heaven, realizing exactly how you imagine heaven in your own mind, and finding the sort of people you think, or wish, would be there too. )

---

Happy New Year everybody!  I hope 2009 will be a great year!  I know it is going to be an important year for America, with our new President, with everything going on in the economy and the world.  I'm not clairvoyant or an optimist, but I have a good feeling about this year, and high hopes for what it may bring.  I wish the same for all of you.  

It's been...an interesting year.  In some ways, a really good year, and in others not so much.  I did a lot of growing up this year.  I think, more than anything, that is what 2008 was for me.  I turned 25, I got an apartment and a real job...and I'm really proud of all that, I just wish I had something to show for it.  Sure, I grew up.  But living from paycheck to paycheck, owing my mother over $400, not-so-great health, and a million things left undone is not the way I wanted to end the year.

So 2009 is going to be different.  I just...feel good about this year.  I still have a job, which is awesome, and I love my job.  If I work hard, I can continue to improve not only myself but our business.  I want that.  And I'm taking the steps I needed to take six months ago to get my finances in order.  I'll pay my mother off by the end of February, lord willing, and then be able to save up so that in July, depending on what Sarah and I decide to do, I might be able to afford to have my own apartment.  Or we'll move somewhere else, but I don't know that I particularly want to stay where we are.  I like it, I just don't think it was the right fit for us right now.

I also plan on writing.  A lot.  I think I might (try to) invest in a small, cheap (probably old) laptop, so that I can write away from my computer where I am easily distracted by other things.  I have, in the last week, come up with another story idea, separate from that 5 - book series that I will probably never ever finish.  If you remember the brainstorming ideas I had for NaNoWriMo (which I never did), it was the Princess and the Pea idea, but I've managed to actually come up with a plot and story worth writing a whole book around.  ( Random derailments of thought, let me share them. )  I'm kind of stuck on it right now, so I may put the other (back) on hold and work on that idea for a while.  Regardless, I'm going to work on something

Anyway, so I guess if anything, those are my New Year's resolutions.  Save money, live better, (isn't that...wal-mart's slogan?  lol)  and write more.  2009 seems to be shaping up to be pretty interesting as far as the world goes, so maybe that means good things.  Regardless, I'm determined to meet it with my chin up. 

Well, I had a pretty good Christmas!  I got lots of nice clothes, a couple unexpected gifts and some fun stocking stuffers (LISA FRANK STICKERS!!) I closed at Blockbuster on Christmas Eve, so I got to the house pretty late (we closed early, but it was insanely busy).  I got home around 11pm and everyone was still awake, and we ended up watching most of A Christmas Story, even though my dad kept pretending like he was going to go to bed, only to reappear in the living room after commercials declaring he couldn't miss the next part.  Mark and I both worked on Christmas day, but I had to be there at 1pm.  We weren't busy, just steady.  Mostly people calling "Oh, you're open?"  Yes.  Yes we are.  Still, we got caught up from the craziness that was the past week. 

I was exhausted last night, but I made such a mess trying to get everything together to take over for christmas plus then bringing all my gifts back and pretty much dumping them on my bed, that I couldn't clear off space to sleep in it without making it impossible to walk in my room.  So I slept on the couch, which is actually pretty comfy.  Sarah is in California for christmas, so I had the apt. to myself.  Fun times.

I don't want to work tonight.  Tomorrow we're doing the rest of our holiday activities, which includes returning all the gifts that don't fit.  (lol)  Then we're going to a Brazillian steakhouse for dinner!  mmm.

I had another strange dream last night, that I was back in school but the whole college was in like, a high-rise apartment building.  And I was convinced I was naked, but I was wearing jeans and a shirt the whole time.  Bizarre.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!

Time for more adventures in Stessie's Weird Dreams! 

( I didn't get to meet Daniel Radcliffe, I played for the King of Greece, and I desperately needed a Coke. )

I woke up this morning to a 1/4 inch solid layer of ice encasing my car, I had to use my ice-scraper to pry my car door open, and spent ten minutes trying to de-ice enough of the window that I could drive, ended up driving to work with my window down and a little box of viewing space on the front window.  In news of the less strange and weird, I'm trying to get over whatever sort of life roadbump I'm on and catch back up.  After the holidays, things should improve.  Until then, it's one day at a time.  I owe my mom over $400, but I'll get it to her eventually.

Life hasn't been great around here lately.  I'm working through my issues, but Mark was one of 26 people let go from the hotel where he works last week.  They'll keep him on as a bartender, but not as a supervisor, so it's a lot less pay.  He's going to start looking for another job this week.  My dad is having knee surgery on Wednesday, and then on the 30th he's going to have some nodules or polyps removed from his lymphnodes.  It's not a big deal, but I know how my dad is with surgeries.  Plus the fact that they reeeeally can't afford to have more medical bills, after Mark's dental work, and everything else.  It's going to be a small Christmas this year, but we're all still doing what we can to make it a good one.  

Still, life keeps going on.  It's been worse, it will get better.  I'm not sending Christmas cards this year, nor am I doing a lot of christmas gifts.  I love you all and hope you have a wonderful and blessed holiday.  You'll hear from me again before then, but just in case, Merry Christmas :)