1) We had a fair bit of rain two weeks ago, which lead to flooding in some areas. My hometown was very lightly bit by this, and seeing as my father is the local director of Emergency Management, he was coordinating all the hoo-doo with shelters and alerts and all that natural-disaster jazz. Which meant that Mom didn’t have a way to get to (or rather, back from) her appointment to have her back stabbed with medical goodness. So she opted to drive up here and stay the night while the anesthesia wore off. I had a grand old time making making her watch cute kitten videos on Youtube while she was jacked up on drugs.

2) The day after that was my birthday, so Mom and I went out for lunch and shopping before she went back home. She scored some new scrubs for work, and a couple of e.l.f. brushes. I scored some more brushes, and a shiny birthday gift in the way of her paying for my car tags this year (thanks, Mom!). And of course, Kev got me some nice swag for the birthday… a battery backup for my computer. Seems like a lame birthday present for a chick, but I was actually quite chuffed, as storm season is upon us. There’s nothing more frustrating than having your computer blink off for a split-second power outage. So now both of us are covered in the event of power outage. Huzzah!

3) I’ve actually been clocking some good hours at work over the last few. This is what I love about the people I work with… if you need help to cover hours in an emergency, they’ll find the help somewhere. If you want more hours, they’ll find them somewhere. I feel so blessed to work with such an amazing team… doubly blessed that they kept me on board after the Christmas shopping season was over.

4) The end of the semester is coming! I have one week of class left, then finals. I’ve already finished work on two of my classes, but I am behind an all of my others (oh snap!). So this week is going to be a hard push to get all of my work completed. I have two papers, one take home essay final, and three “reflection journal” entries to write up, then studying up for my lone in-seat final next week. On top of that, I need to start pulling together the loose ends for the Psych Club community service project, and start writing up certificates of participation for all the on-campus and online students.

Yes. Things are just a tad bit busy over here.

On the plus side, I’ve registered for classes next semester… my LAST one before finally nabbing my Bachelor’s! I’ll have my field practicum, my research project, and some filler electives. One of which is… wait for it… choir. AH! AH! It’s been twelve years since I’ve been in choir! This is both exciting and terrifying.

I’ve had a few good hauls, and some products I’ve been playing around with to review. Once things slow down a bit, I’ll be able to post those. In the meantime, however, I’ve committed myself to a beauty detox for a month. I’ve not bought anything beauty related since the 15th. Not even a hair tie. Once that month is up, I’m still going to be on a tightened-belt budget. It’s a good thing none of the upcoming MAC collections have been catching my eye, eh? Except the Summer Shower lipstick from the Fashion Flower collection (April 28th). I don’t know why, but that one is so tempting!

So, what’s been going on in my world lately? I rocked another 4.0 last semester, and this semester is shaping up to be pretty awesome as well. I’ve been shaping up some ideas for my senior research project, and getting rather involved in the Psych department. So much so that I was freshly elected president of the Psych Club… which I think is a somewhat odd thing to happen in the middle of the academic year. It’ll look nice on grad school applications, innit?

In the work sphere, I landed a seasonal job at one of my most favourite stores on the planet, fully expecting to get drop-kicked when the holiday shopping season was over. But somehow, I managed to stay on. The hours are extremely slim now, and I’ll probably have to pick up a second job over the summer, but I’m just happy to be there.

Things in the family sphere got pretty hectic back in August, and that has partially settled down in the past month… but I still worry about my mom’s health. She has been pushing herself way too hard, trying to keep everyone and everything together – to the point of her going to the ER because her back is playing tricks again. It gets on my nerves that I’m not close enough to really help her and Dad out more… all I really do is offer phone-support. And phone support isn’t much of a help if she slips and falls on her ass when nobody else is home. Yeah. I get to sit here being worried, while nobody else seems to notice or care just how seriously bad her physiological state really is.

Bah.

So hell, let’s not dwell on that unhappiness. With the new semester came a new chunk of financial aid… and I splurged a wee bit and went makeup crazy. I have an Urban Decay and Sugarpill palette coming in, some MAC lipglasses, a blusher from TheBalm, and a 15-slot MAC palette for which to insert depots. Yep, I’m depotting my MAC eyeshadows. Never thought I’d see the day when that’d happen… but it just makes sense to conserve space. What’s even better is that everything was either deeply discounted or ‘free’ (rather, swapped out on MUA). The only thing I really dropped coin on was that Sugarpill palette, which came out to $39 shipped. So I’m really chuffed to have landed so many sweet bargains. I’m sure there will be some epic picture posts of my haul to follow.

Played in my garden for a while before dinner.  Two of three lavender plants are doing good… the other one looks kind of puny.  St John’s Wort is up and at ‘em… feverfew, spearmint, and peppermint are good… oregano is making a slow comeback… and I can already see the tiny little starts of columbine leaves.  Trimmed off all of last year’s dead shoots, cleared the redbud leaves (the nice thing about putting your garden under trees… it insulates it for the winter for you), loosened the soil and sprinkled it with fertilizer (read: chicken pooooo).  I’m not replacing anything that doesn’t recover… except maybe the sage. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that, since I had to take it to the ground last year.  I might just pot a little bush out on the patio here, and bring over my smallest lavender bush.  Just depends.  I still haven’t gotten a handle on how much sun this place gets… but my little window herb planter dealie is already sprouting, so it must get some.

Tomorrow; read anthro book, study anthro exam, write cover letter.  IT NEVER ENDSSSS.

I’m also clean, groomed, and smelling of oranges. I fucking rock.

Since I’m not gonna be home for x-mess, Mom decided tonight was Christmas Eve. I opened my pressies, and had them open theirs. Being skint as I am this year, I couldn’t afford much better than your run-of-the-mill gift-set, but they were chuffed: a box of Walkers Shortbread cookies, Earl Grey and English Breakfast tea, and a pair of mugs. Aye… some things I’ve carried back from over The Pond will never fade… we loves us some fukkin’ Walkers.

It’s just too bad I couldn’t get anyone else to like Marmite. SIGH. Ahhh I remember last Christmas, I got a leetle pot of Marmite, and had my brother try it… and he strained his neck, he was gagging so hard. Hahahah.

[pottymouth]
OH HELL I COULD TOTALLY BRING MARMITE. YES. I AM PACKING SOME MARMITE RIGHT FUCKING NOW. I WILL TORTURE THE FUCK OUT OF KEV WITH SOME MOTHERFUCKING MARMITE, YEAH!!
[/pottymouth]

As for my motherlode, I have a nice warm set of flannel sheets (RAWK!), a half dozen little ceramic jars for my herbs and botanicals, and a pair of latte mugs I fell in lurve with, each emblazoned with “Naughty” and “Nice” on either side. All I have to do is swich hands, and BAM! People will know what I’m all about that day. HA! Ah love eet!

I can’t lie… I’m gonna miss being with the fam this Christmas. Thanksgiving wasn’t a big deal, because we really don’t do Thanksgiving much. Christmas, though… yeah, that’s different. I love the family, the baking, setting up the Christmas Night party spread, cranking tunes. I love the Wensleydale, the Appleton, my spinach cheese balls and whatever heavily herbed cheeses look good that year. But who knows when the next time will be when Kev and I can spend Christmas with his crew? I am kind of stealing him away from everything down there… so it’s only right that I pop down this time around. We’ll have a few years-worth of of cheese-fest, at least.

Hmm.

Welp. I guess there’s only one thing left to say:

Kev: “I’m so gay. There’s something about you that makes you a dude.” [slight pause] “What a horrible thing to say!”
Me: “No, no… well if it helps, everyone online thinks I’m a dude until I’m like, ‘No, no, I have tits, seriously.’”
Kev: “…well bring ‘em here!”
Me: [chuckles]

Wait, no, that wasn’t it. I mean:

Happy Holidays, everyone

At least I can sound like a proper caveman.  Can you imagine if I said “I plate”?  Pah!

Anyway, I failed to mention last night that Dad is back home, because I was freakin’ tired.  I twittered it, though, so you can’t say you weren’t informed… you can only say “I didn’t look hard enough for the information.”  So take that.  But yes, Dad is home, and sore, but I’m happy to have him back to Diddly-Dadding around.

Now I guess I should actually start working on that homework I was talking about.  But not before “wow”ing over how amazing it is to feel so loved by such a wonderful manboy.  Sometimes I get so happy I could barf.  And I hope it’s not like, barf barf.  I would think love-barf should be made of glitter and roses.  But I don’t think glitter is something a body synthesises.  Maybe roses, if you’re a vessel for the Holy Virgin, but glitter?  Nah.  I digress!  No one has brought me such happiness, fulfillment, and contentment before.  It’d almost be like ‘peace’ were it not for us both being kind of childishly chaotic.  I think it’s as close to ‘peace’ as either of us will ever get.  And it’s pretty damned nice.

Wish I could say the same for my night.  I came home, sat in the car for a while, left again, came back, had a beer, and then had a mild panic attack.  Which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing had I not been on the phone at the time.  I needed the release, without worrying about reigning it in for the benefit of party-two.  He wanted to stay on the phone with me.  I got nagged about hanging up, he wanted to stay that much.  I guess that should be a comfort, but… I don’t know.  There’s a very, very delicate balance between “leave me the fuck alone” and “please don’t go”.  A sort of, please be there, allow me the comfort of knowing you’re there, but don’t be so present that I should worry about what you’re thinking when I need to worry about calming myself down.  I guess it’ll take some practice.

After that episode, and after I had fully recovered (took about an hour?), the night went alright.  Still feeling a bit overwhelmed by this whole mess of life, but the worst of it has been expelled.  Like having a zit on yer ass, I reckon.  The pressure is off but it’s still going to hurt for a bit.

In other news, thanks to Kev’s inquisitiveness, I found out that Peter Heppner has indeed released his solo effort, imaginatively titled “Solo”.  International release dates are, unfortunately, still being negotiated.  But with the glory of the Inter-tube, who needs international release dates?  Soulseek to the rescue!  It’s not as great as Wolfsheim — only a few songs pack a somewhat similar sort of punch — but it’s still pretty good.  ‘Alleinesein’ was probably his best choice for a debut single, and definitely my favourite.  ‘No Matter What It Takes’ is also pretty striking.  The rest?  Well, it’s going to take some time to bond with.

Dad went into surgery this afternoon as I was out gathering overnight-supplies and running other general errands.  Rushed to finish everything up as quickly as possible so I could meet back up with Mom.  So we sat.  And sat.  And munched the little bit of protein I brought up.  And sat.  TV. Sat.  Wait.  The surgery lasted nearly four hours, which is pretty freaking insane for a laproscopic procedure.  But well, the doc did say it was quite possibly the worst gallbladder he had ever seen.  Full of rocks, pus, infection, nasty, and all sorts of fun… which burst as they were pulling it through one of the incisions.  So they spent a good hour, hour and a half, flushing out the infected-explosion.

But he came out and went back to his regular room on second floor.  He’s looking good, in a lot of ways.  All should be clear, but there is still the chance that they didn’t get everything all flushed, so they’re probably going to keep him til Sunday so they can closely monitor him and drop the big-shit antibiotics.

And nowww… I think I’m going to get some solid food, a nice stiff drink to settle my nerves, and start looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

It begins with me finding my brother downstairs, who tells me that Dad is in the hospital. That would’ve been nice to know, oh, I don’t know, when he was being taken to the hospital? Sorry, sorry… that just bugs me that I don’t know this shit until way after it’s happened. I immediately start conjuring ideas up about how I could maybe, probably, possibly use this to get out of having to take my exam at noon, but nah, not if it isn’t serious. And I know, I know, that makes me sound like a horrible selfish bitch, but hear me out. It’s rarely serious, cos of Dad is a whiner… you know the ones that think they’re dying if they get a case of the sniffles? Not in a hypochondriac style, but a big ol’ pitiful baby style. That’s Dad. Not that I’m bad-mouthing it or anything… he’s cute as a button when he’s sick. At any rate, turns out it may actually be something, in the area of the gallbladder. Which again, isn’t serious, but hurts like a motherfucker anyway. So I’ve made sure to be extra nice and not poke fun of the sickie. He was released, and is scheduled for a test tomorrow. If it’s NOT the gallbladder though… well. Hmm.

Went on into class, banged out my exam. Didn’t go so well. I swear to god, I did actually write “Chuck E. Cheese’s” as a movement which led to the development of social work as a profession. Also, some other “prominent” figure in social welfare was listed by me as being “so not in Wikipedia”. I only choked terribly on about a fifth of the exam, which, if I get every other question right, isn’t bad. But I never count on getting everything else right…

Came back home to watch over Dad while Mom ran errands, happy for the excuse to skip out on Micro. He slept. I reorganized my papers and notebooks. Made a pizza run, and settled in for the debate. And, when I first started writing all this, I had quite a bit to say about McCain’s Healthcare Plan of Epic Fail, plus a sidetrack into just what’s wrong with the American education system (adding more strength to the idea of being a school counselor… srsly), but… now I’m just not much in the mood for that sort of talk.

Sadly, what I really DO want to talk about isn’t something I feel like talking about in a public setting… and not really even in LJ, either (though those on LJ know a bit more detail already). Just private, thankful thoughts on just how strange life is, and how lucky I am, and how amazed I am that everything I ever hoped for, but shrugged off as unrealistic, was actually very real — very attainable. As I said tonight… were it any other time, under any other circumstance, with any other person, I would be shitting my pants right now. But for once, for the first time… I’m not scared of the uncertainties and difficulties that surely lie ahead. I’m actually entirely comfortable with this. Excited about this. Hell, I even feel like I need this. This is the path set out before me, and not taking that path would defy all reason.

Knowing myself as I do… I know that being able to say that is pretty fucking monumental.

On the subject of holiday bliss, though… I’m faced with the feeling of not even wanting to be around here for Christmas.  It’s rather odd… every other time I’ve tried to be away for the holiday, I’ve failed miserably (then again, the circumstances for which I was being away were pretty fucking fail, too).  But now, the very thought of being all ha-ha-happy-christmas with fresh young SNERTy attitudes makes me feel rather ill.  I know, yes, I was the same way at one time, but for the moment, in my bitter elderly cane-shaking fury, I must say I think teenagers are only good for one thing: asking me “would you like to try a combo meal today?”

Maybe my mind will change with time, but the idea of just getting a hotel room and declaring it “Fuck All” Day sounds mighty fine.