Oh yeah! I keep forgetting to mention...

It's really funny how many people around here think I'm Spanish. Bus drivers, friends, and even Spanish people. Like, some cute little old Hispanic guy was standing next to me a couple weeks ago while we were waiting for a bus, and he starts talking to me about the cold weather, and I had to tell him I don't speak Spanish, and he was really surprised. I really should be taking advantage of all the Spanish I'm exposed to every day on the bus. It would certainly be a good way for me to relearn what little Spanish I did know, and get a little bit better. I should get a book or something.

Hallo friends! I found myself home and relaxing on this fine Sunday, so I thought I would give a small update on my current life.

I feel the need to share my funny realization that, even though I'm not taking classes or doing anything work-wise that will be relieved come May, I am still eagerly awaiting the approach of summer, because there are lots of people in my life that are in school, and they are so busy with classes I rarely get to see them. So, hurry up end to the semester! I miss my friends!

Another realization I had this week is that not having school in my life has stopped my awareness of the passage of time. It occurred to me this week that it had been exactly a year since I've seen one of my friends, and it blew my mind how such a great amount of time only seemed like a couple months. See, when I'm in school, I have very distinct frames of time that make it easy to measure my life. It kind of reminds me of high school when, during the fall, I lived my life week by week with band competitions every weekend to measure time. And then, spring would come, and that half of the year always ran together without something to do all the time. I mean, there would be specific spans that would stick out, like musicals, and concerts, but without that weekly event, it was a little hard to keep track of life. Well, now that I'm out of school, I have a very similar feeling. It seems like time kind of stopped in May, and it's weird that I know time is still moving forward for other people, but I'm just still in the same spot, doing the same thing that I've been doing for 9 months. It may sound like I'm complaining or unhappy with this, but I'm really not at all upset or frustrated by this position. The spot that I'm in has brought me so much to be thankful for, and I'm amazingly lucky to find myself in the situation I'm in. I have wonderful friends, with wonderful things for me to do, and I have a job, a job that I'm happy with for now and provides me with enough of an income that I'm more than comfortable, and am not scraping to get by. I just need to remember that however skewed my perception of time is, I need to remember that these years a important and I need to live them and enjoy them in the fullest.

I do need to keep in mind that, while I'm doing okay income-wise right now, I have a ton of weddings coming up in the next couple of months (3 of which I'm a part of!), and I really need to make sure I'm saving money for traveling, and for things to wear to these weddings, and for the many gifts that I want to give my friends that I'm so very happy and excited for. It's going to be an exciting year, one full of marriages and babies and new friendships and old friendships growing stonger and so many things to celebrate these milestones in life. I look forward to it ^_^

Missing you all greatly, and hoping your lives are as blessed as mine.

What have people heard about Gateway computers?

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668191.php

Like this?

I don't think I can afford a Dell or Mac or Sony laptop that has what I want.
I DON'T want another Toshiba.

I was able to make a pretty cheap HP that I think has everything I need. What news is there on those?

...Really wish I was more technologically inclined...

But I like my Alyyysaurus how it is! :o(

I'm a little bummed :o\

My roommate Lindsay informed us a couple of weeks ago she would probably be getting married in the next year sometime. And I'm really excited for her. I'm really not all that close to Lindsay, so it wouldn't be that hard for me to lose her as a roommate.

But today... Kathy told us she put down a down-payment on a house :o( And yeah, I'm really excited for her too, but I really like having her as a roommate. And then she goes on to say that she will probably be taking Shara with her! And that would just be so sad for me! Losing Kathy and Shara would just make this house so different! It's hard for me to imagine living here without them.

I guess I have to switch my mindset back to how it was in June, when everything was so up in the air, and I was excited to be prepared for the worst. I just never imagined how lucky I would be finding such a great group of people. There's always a chance that I could find a whole new great group of people, but I just get so attached and set in my lifestyle. Looking on the more optimistic side, I guess I have more of a reason to get a car now, cuz I will need need NEED to be able to visit my friends, and now there won't be anyone to take me to our potlucks, or church, or other fun places.

I knew my living situation wouldn't stay as perfect as it is forever, but I guess I was expecting more gradual change. This will be almost all at once! Ho hum and such. I guess I have to start preparing for the unknown again.

ZOMG Cutest guineas ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(i may have to attempt to sneak my phone in and get a picture cuz, wow, i just cannot describe the cuteness!!)

These next couple of months are going to be awesome ^_^

My ponderings as I walked to work this morning:

About worms. So, it's their natural instinct to climb "up" whenever it rains. Higher ground, avoid the floods, etc etc. Does this mean that when walking along the sidewalk on a rainy day are you more likely to step on the wriggling worms if you are higher up? Is the number of dead worms you see plastered to the sidewalk after the sun returns more likely to be larger at the top of a hill than at the bottom? So, when it rains, if the worms emerge from the grass onto the sidewalk and continue up a sidewalk to higher ground at fairly regular intervals, will you be able to tell if it rained longer in one area than another by the gradient of dead worms left on the sidewalk? And after thinking about all this, I realized that I was thinking about all this. A bit concerning. Sometimes when I actually think about the things going through my mind I worry for my sanity.

So, I totally just realized that I've been logged out of Lj since the first, so I haven't been seeing any of the friends-locked posts since then. Oops! O:o)

This post is a bit tardy, but that seems to be how I work these days. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Kari and Deborah, and Kari's roommates and friends. Let me just tell you, deep fried turkey legs = AMAZING! And since we had the fryer, we went ahead and made deep fried ice cream as one of our desserts. I got to play Bananagrams, and learned how to play *enter name of card game I can't remember*, and I learned how to play pinochle! We were later joined by Tony and Dewey, and I got to throw my football around a bit. I didn't get home til 2, and managed to oversleep an hour, but I still made it to work with 3 minutes to spare!

I got to play football with a crowd from my church, which was super fun. I love my friends here! I've been helping with planning our next fun event which will be gingerbread houses and caroling. Oh, memories of all our wonderful houses last year...

So, since I've been living here, I've seen almost all of Gilmore Girls through to the end of Season 7. And I am not ashamed to admit it! That show has such an amazing way to make me angry, and happy, and sad, and frustrated. And I must say that the dialogue is so very amazing. Whoever writes the scripts really does a good job.

Where did November go??

Started my training for breeder tech! My new Guinea pigs (not New Guinea pigs) come in on Wednesday! I'm so excited!! Can't wait for BABIES! (everytime I say babies or write babies or think about babies I also think of Jeannette. BABIES EVERYWHERE! <3)

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or votes or advice on what laptop I should get for Christmas ^_^
*It needs to be able to play SPORE
*It will hopefully have a camera so I can Skype with my friends scattered around the world
*um, i though this list would be longer, but that's really all i care about
Your thoughts are welcome!

We had our first snow! LOVE LOVE LOVE THE SNOW! I can't wait for Christmas. I get to see wonderful people the weekend before AND the weekend after Christmas. I'm a lucky girl ^_^

Soooooo, how bout that Lj post that hasn't come for about 2 months? My apologies, friends. I do hope that you are all doing well, and that you all know that I still love you and think about you muchly.

Anyways, I have a life! And it is a good one! There are so very many good things happening or that have already happened that I should talk about, but I know it will be hard for me to remember the majority of them, but I will do my best. Pardon the most likely scattered and confusing logic of my brain as I piece together the things that make me squee ^_^.

To start off going way way (way way way) back, because I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, my graduation party was really nice all the way back in AUGUST. And I'm still sending out Thank You notes -_-; But it was awesome to see people.

I had a lovely trip to the Pocono's with Bill and Marielle. Full of awesomeness and getting lost and town wandering. And cuddles, of course. Love you Mommmy and Daddy!

I only made it to two PSU football games, but it was certainly a knew experience for me. It was so weird not being part of the band! And kinda sad. But I still enjoyed them, and Penn State has done really well this season. Eagles, on the other hand... Yeah, that has been hard to put up with at work. Where I'm surrounded by mostly Redskins fans! But my pride and loyalty will not fail me!

Another chance for me to go home was Diana's wedding, which was really nice. I got to see some people that I've hardly seen for four years. And it was really a beautiful wedding. Yay weddings! I like them, so you all better start getting hitched soon so I can go to more :oP

Two of my roommates are leaders for the youth group at church, and I got to go on a trip with them to Virginia where I walked through my first Scaremare. It was pretty freaking cool. Liberty college owns this big old mansion and every year around Halloween they make it haunted. And do a really good job. So that was fun.

The day after Halloween was my friend's birthday party. And she had one of those Murder Mystery parties that you can set-up with the use of this website thing. And it was 1920's themed, so there were gangsters and flappers and all sorts of silly goodness. Such a good time!

I have finally experienced drunkeness! Yeah, not a fan. I was at Tiff and Jim's for their post-Halloween party, and I asked them to find my limits. Which they did. And it resulted in much throwing up :oP But the party was really fun, and I met some awesome peoples, and I got to play with a Connor who loves me ^_^

And for a work update, I applied for an Animal Caretaker 2 position. Which would be doing fun tech work like drawing blood, and administering medications, and assessing sick animals. I unfortunately did not get the position, but it went to someone with a lot more experience than me, and I think she certainly deserved the job. I did, however, get a promotion. I got her job! Which is breeder tech. And while I won't be doing tech tech work, I will have a higher status, and get to talk to investigators and get an email address. And they're planning on starting a breeder guinea pig colony, so I won't only be working with mice! I'm excited :oD

I have a couple fun events planned for the weeks to come which I will hopefully be more prompt in updating you about, cuz my posts are much more interesting and thoughtful when they aren't just a summary of a huge gaping absence of my Lj presence.

Love to you all!

So Neil Gaiman is going to be in D.C. THIS SATURDAY! Sadly, I will not be in the state to get him to sign anything, or even to just wear a feather in my hat and feel kinship towards others doing the same. Le sigh. At least I will be having an awesome time in my beloved State College! Huzzah for football games!

It is sad to think that, right now, I am missing my very first Penn State home football game in four years :o(

I learned today that my house already has a name. It is called The Booty House, since we are pirates. And I am okay with that.

So, I deleted my entire text message inbox for the first time since January. My phone can only hold 70 messages, so I had just been deleting new ones as they came so as to preserve some old ones that meant something special to me. I really don't know why I kept them so long. I mean, it's not like I was expecting or even hoping things would start up again. I guess it was just nice to know someone thought so highly of me at one time. Someone that could make every nerve and muscle beneath my ribcage tingle with giddiness. But I've decided that it's not healthy reliving past emotions when I'm lonely instead of going out and maybe trying to experience real emotion and form new relationships with the lovely peoples I am meeting everyday. So there.

The sky this morning was painted in such lovely shades of purple.

Oh! And the happy news of the week is that I got moved to the rat/hamster/potentially guinea pig room! The ratses are so sweet! And the hamsters are super cute, too. And we don't have any guinea pigs right now, but we probably will in the next month or so, and I will most likely still be in that room, so yay! It's a really easy room to do right now since there are so few cages in it, so I get to finish early, and then go help other people, which always makes me feel useful :o).

I'm very amused that right after I move and finally get the internet working in my new place XKCD posts this:

http://xkcd.com/466/

So ohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh, I finally have a permanent residence! And it is most lovely! Saturday I moved the majority of the stuff I have with me over to my new little house in Rockville. And Sunday we moved the rest (including a mattress the Brubakers are letting me borrow). It was a little weird at first. No one was home over the weekend, but, luckily Lindsay came back (after a month of being away cuz of recovering from surgery when she donated her kidney to her brother), so I wasn't completely alone my first night.

Monday was for exploring! The transportation to and from work was easy enough to figure out, so I got home early enough on Monday to do some fun things. So, my power adapter, after finally giving out (and by giving out I mean, it was totally fried... smoke and all), was in need of replacement, so I took a lovely walk from the White Flint station to White Flint Mall. It was only a 15 or 20 minute walk, which is really nice to know I can get there so easily. Along the way, curiosity drove me to stop at a local magic shop that was really fun, and they had an over-energetic, adorable, playful border collie there (not the first border collie I've met that was obsessed with playing fetch... maybe I should reconsider what kind of do I want). I passed the Russian Gourmet restaurant place, but I will have to stop in that one a different day. Other things on my list of "places to check out" are MOM (My Organic Market... sister, you will not have to worry about finding foods for Connor when you visit me ^_^), the Kosher market (it's really close and looks cute inside!), the hobby shop (a bit farther away, but not difficult to get to), a couple interesting looking Asian restaraunts, crap, I know there are more, but it's hard to remember all these new places. Oh well, I'll just have to post about them when I visit them.

Anyways, I didn't meet Kathy or Shara until Tuesday afternoon. They both seem super sweet. I made dinner that night, and we went out for ice cream with their friend Chris. Wednesday, Kathy invited me to a pot-luck dinner thing that was also really fun, and I got to meet a lot of their friends. I'm happy that my new people are interesting people, and I really look forward to getting to know them, etc.

I'm going home this weekend, where I will get to see friends and family for a graduation party, and Labor Day weekend will be when my parents will move the rest of my stuff down from Pa to make my settlement permanent ^_^. I will also get a bed and sheets and other little room things to complete the me-ness of my room! Yay! Can't wait for my friends to visit me, so hurry up! K?

Oh! Almost forgot! Nature! I have it! In my backyard and in my neighborhood and everywhere. We have black squirrels scurrying amongst the dogwood trees in the backyard. Oh yes, it is a lovely yard. And my roommates say they are fine with me having a small garden out there :o). Bunnies traverse our yards and bound to and fro as I walk to the bus every morning. So many people have dogs! I want to play with all of them!

(and a train just passed reminding me to mention how much I like hearing the distant train whistle)
I AM SO BLESSED WITH AWESOME THIS SUMMER!

THE INTERNET! IT WORKS!

Amazing super-duper post of DOOM to come!

LOVE!

Oh oh oh! I forgot to mention before! So my first impressions of the soon-to-be-partly-mine house:
There is an attack flamingo at the door.
There's a pirate flag on the wall as soon as you walk in.
There is guitar hero.

These things give me serious hope that the people I will be living with are awesome. We shall see ^_^

So, for those of you that I haven't squeed at yet, I HAVE A HOUSE!! Well, not my own house, but a house that I will be sharing with 4 other girls, and paying really decent rent, in a really decent area, and I'M JUST SO LUCKY!! It's an adorable teeny tiny little house, at least that's what it looks like, but there's so much space inside! And my room is a really good size! Do to the "bigger on the inside" scenario, Carrie suggests I should name it the TARDIS. I think I may keep that to myself til I get to know my roommates better, and know that they won't think I'm a freak... So, wow, I just keep finding myself in the best situations, and when they aren't the best situations, someone is usually there to help me, and then they turn into the best situations. To those of you who have been there to help me through the rough times, thank you. You have no idea how grateful I am. I mean, looking at all the good fortune I've been having, I'm starting to wonder if I don't deserve it, or if I'm going to get a big ole kick to the ass later to balance things out a bit. We shall see. For right now, I will just enjoy my bliss and share my love for you all. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

Speaking of love! I got to visit my sister and Jim and Connor this weekend. Such love I have. My life is so full of love! Did you know that! Love is a many splendid thing! Love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love! ...I should watch that movie. It's been awhile.

Anyways! Yes! I still love you, and miss you and hope to share so much more love with you.

Thanks for all your sweet and comforting words. Daddy will be fine. He had another atrial fibrillation, a bit worse than the first time. But he is home now, and seems to be doing okay, and will still be able to go to California with us at the end of the week. So much love to you all.

Daddy's in the hospital again :o(