assignment

I start a couple more classes soon. The first assignment for a world religion course is a 200-300 word essay about yourself. I kind of hate the introductions because I don't really know what I should put in there.

Back ten years ago I had a list of I'll-never-be-one-of-those-people things I refused to do. I wasn't going to be a wife that called her husband at work all the time with some stupid crap. I wasn't going to cover my desk with pictures of my kids, blehck. I also wasn't going to bore people with incessant stories about my kids.

Well. I call or talk to Yago everyday while he's at work. Not necessarily because there's something going on that I'm too fragile to handle on my own but because I like to talk to him. (Didn't see that one coming...) I can't help but put a picture of my kids on my desk. They're cute. Besides, even if they can't see my desk I feel like it's a betrayal if I don't have their picture there. And what do I have to talk about if I don't talk about my family? Not much.

So this essay... it will be a challenge. As I sit looking at my nearly empty coffee mug from Paris maybe I can discuss how I came to worship the Coffee Bean. I am nothing if not pious in my devotion. I remember when I first converted from Catholicism in Monterey. StuckinMD was instrumental in my baptism.

lil' campers

We went camping last weekend with a couple that Yago works with.  I have to say I was nervous... I never get much sleep and I hate bugs and being dirty.  That said, it went surprisingly well.  Yago made some great camp food but I'm not sure how much more grease my body could have digested.  I ate a bowl of bran cereal as soon as we got home.

We were woken up Saturday night by a fight at a neighboring campsite.  Some guy drove by screaming, "Motherfu@#er!" at the top of his lungs, it woke the kids up too.  We heard one of the guys recounting punching a family member in the face.  When Yago went out to go to the bathroom and see what was going on he heard someone say something about a gun.  After that he called the cops.  Not cool to be camping next to hillybilly rednecks talking about guns.

Oh, I almost forgot.  We went tubing down the river.  Sounds fun, right?  Not if at the beginning you find a leech on your leg!  ARGH!  You know what's worse than bugs?  LEECHES!  I got it off my leg but then it was stuck on the innertube.  Oh, the humanity.  I wish I could say I didn't spaz out but I cannot.  Then a dragonfly on me.  I was screaming like a little girl when Debbie asked me if I was screaming because I saw a snake.  SNAKE?!  Dear lord.  She said she thought the dogs were keeping them away so I tried calling the dogs to me but they were so far ahead they completely ignored me.  Oh my god.  I was so tense... trying to keep my butt out of the water and doing constant leech checks.  Not fun.

done(ish)

I picked up the basement!!  Huge step forward and something I wanted to surprise Yago with when he got home.  We never really finished unpacking the basement but the kids and I made great progress earlier today.  I didn't even notice the smell...

I went to check on Yago's coworker's cat (are you still following my story) and there was some leak in the basement.  Since I am not "handy" in any way, shape, or form, I just kind of panicked for a bit.  I could hear the water and see the floor wet but was afraid of being electrocuted because the walls aren't finished and there are a bunch of wires all over the place.  I couldn't figure out how to turn off the water to the house so I pulled some levers near where the shutoff should have been.  Things seemed to improve.  It's not anything too terrible, just some wet cement floor and insulation.  I told Yago's coworkers about the whole thing so they could call their property manager.  I'll check it again in the morning and by afternoon the tenants should be home.

I'm done with the daily ice cream.  I think we'll transition to a weekly schedule.  God that stuff is good.

avoidance

I've enrolled in two online classes that begin next month.  Have I mentioned how much I hate the online courses?  I'd much prefer to be in a classroom but I don't think I can swing that for a while.  The courses I WANT to take have only been offered at the overseas campuses which kind of irks me.  I can't afford the class, airfare, and hotel.  Why don't they offer what I want to take at any of the stateside locations?  Instead, I'm going to wind up taking a ton of economics courses which will probably be more practical but not as interesting.  I really was hoping to be closer to done by now but I took the spring and summer off due to the move.

I unfriended my sister on facebook.  I guess that's bad but whatever, I spend too much time annoyed by her.

Why doesn't the carriage return in Blogger work anymore?  I have to use the arrows to move my cursor to start a new paragraph.

There are only two more weeks of summer vacation left.  It has flown by!  The school days here are only six hours and they have days off all the time.  At B-T Schmitty spent close to eight hours a day in class and had school a lot of days when the public schools were off.  All those federal holidays like MLK Day and Presidents Day?  His butt was at school.  Not so here.  I can't believe he gets out at 2:20.  I think it'll require a lot of extra work at home which means lots of fighting and pouting.  Ugh.

Yago comes home tomorrow!  I have seriously put on five pounds in the two weeks that he's been gone.  I mostly blame ice cream.  The local dairy here has the best ice cream I've ever tasted and I've taken to eating at least one, and usually two, big bowls of it a day.  Sooooo good.  Milkshakes, sundaes, topped with homemade chocolate chip cookies...  It's good with everything.  I'm hoping to do better today.

Much cleaning to do before Yago gets here.  (Mostly hiding empty ice cream containers.)  :)