It's absolutely pouring outside. The way that it's pouring, I doubt that it will be clear enough for me to walk tomorrow morning in the park. I don't really want to go to the gym because it's too sterile for me. There's no outdoors to it, and staring at the liquor store across the parking lot so that I can at least enjoy the idea of sunlight isn't doing it for me.
I've been enjoying a particular clump of five trees. I haven't tried to identify their type, but they are all the same, and they are so tall and have arranged themselves in a half circle. I find I am willing to bear the strange looks from everyone as I go to each one and place my head against them. Only briefly, now because I dared to linger earlier this week, and found myself covered with huge ants. By covered, I mean 2 or three. But they were huge. I am not a lover of insects. Yet, I accept their existance, and try not to harm them, etc etc.
I went to take a picture of them today with my digital camera, and my frickin batteries went out.
I am going to try to set up my dr's appt for Fri morning. I am nervous as to what they may say is wrong with my back. There's no denying the lump or the puffiness next to it.
I've been a bit stressed lately. I can barely balance regular life and my 50+hours a wk job. Much less, all the changes on the horizon. That's why I started walking. I remember last year when I was living with my x for the summer, just as roomates, how stressed I was, and how much I loved my walks. How much I got out of them. Whenever any sort of funk settles upon me, after my initial reaction of trying to cope, finding myself freaking out, no matter what type of calming music or thoughts I try... I eventually walk. Then everything seems to fall into place.... somewhat. I also try to do something progressive each day.
Sitting around thinking 'AAHHHHHH.... Kids!..... AHHHHH moving in with a man!...... AHHHHHHH moving! AHHHHHHH quitting job with nothing really lined up???!!! AAAAAHHHH finding a place to move into!!!! AHHHHHHH! Holidays are so soon, and it looks like that's when I'm likely to meet his family..... AHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHH!' It just doesn't help. So, I don't think that I was really to much into a funk per se, as much I would call it being overwhelmed.
I was having a hard time finding the 'looking forward to this' feeling when I know that's what I should be feeling. And that I thought was wrong. I know I love this man, I know I want to live with him, and I know that we'll be as happy as we know how to be, and that time and patience, perhaps the kids' will come along to be happy too. So I had to think of the things that I'm moving for, the things we will be doing, and the new experiences ahead. Then I started getting excited.
Mike and I are talking about doing a hobby together. We've both agreed that our art is our individual art, and that groupings are possible, but not neccessarily plentivul for the future. We like our self expression. But we also agreed that one of the problems that each of us had in the past is lack of common ground, and living different lives under the same roof. The idea is to have a hobby together. We came up with a couple: Wine/Mead making and gardening. Something we are both interested in, and that we can enjoy results together.
I started to think of us makig our own house full of furniture. That really excites me. I've had a bug up my ass for about 3 years to make some furniture. And any man that asks me what I think about taking some ideas from the set designs from LOTR gets major points. Just maybe I will get my double Rohan doors to my bedroom...
hubba hubba.
Ok, it's 3:25 am. I've just gotten in from work, and what was supposed to be a short entry... got kinda windy.
ah well.
x
I wish I could be excited about moving. But instead. I'm gonna have anxiety about it. Everytime that Mike and I try to do anything there's been an obstacle. Small ones, big ones, unexpected ones. Now that we get closer to time, and the countdown is finally nearing the end, it's like I can't be excited. I feel like I'm waiting for some other shoe to drop.
In good news, I've been working out again. Outside. In the outdoors where I love to walk. That was why I did it in the first place. It's an instant attitude adjustment for me. Which reminds me... I need to ask Dusty if she wants to buy back her gym membership. The membership is useless to me in Dayton.
I hope to relax a little more as things settle in. I was hoping to be done with Wendy's for good, but I don't know about that now. I am thinking I may have to still be a shift supervisor.... Don't really like that idea, but I think it will make the transition a bit smoother. And if that's what I can do to help, then that's what I'll do.
I have to return to the rental car tomorrow morning. I was just getting used to driving a nice vehichle.
This entry sucks.
But this is my life today.
There are good things going on too. I am making a baby blanket for my friend Tracy.
I am going to move.... eventually, and that puts me one step closer to photography school.
The pictures from the wedding turned out decent, but I think I've been cured of doing pictures for friends' wedding. There are complications there that I just don't like. I love my friends, and it's just so much stress as to wether or not you will catch a moment, or not catch a moment... or if some pictures turn out too dark... or if the reception hall is full of mirrors.....
oy .
I have to go through the pictures and pick out the 'portfolio' ones. I like to be able to present the most aesthetic possibility.
Tomorrow morning, I go for another walk, dump a load at my storage unit, do a couple loads of laundry, and just all in all, try to keep myself for the next 4 weeks.
Less than a month, I anticipate.
I said I would update about my vacation.
here goes.
Thankfully, I had basics training the week before my vacation. I was gifted with a personal day... Not really gifted, since it was mine to use, but getting it before my vacation was very much a gift. I paid the 10 bucks difference and went a day early.
Greyhound stopped for dinner in some hole in the ground in West Virginia. The menu was meat, meat, and more meat, and after that, how about a side of meat dipped in sugar for dessert?! Needless to say, I am actually starting to not like french fries. I am tired of french fries. I can tell this by the fact that I will only eat enough at work to sustain me until I can sit down and eat something else.
Next time, I'm packing light. Being a female and a photographer is hell on luggage... Even if the luggage is on wheels. Get it? Hell on wheels... Ja, whateva, I thought it was funny. Or maybe I'll even try something else. I'll bring one change of clothes, and then I'll go to thrift stoes in the area and pick a new style for every city I visit. If I can be bothered.
My heart's desire was to spend time with my father AT the farm. The first day, My father and I went, we went on a lesson trail. My father lead the trail and we went on trail with the instructor, a pair of grandparents and their bratty grandchild.
Not to beat about the bush, but to get straight to it. The grandparents wanted to canter instead of trot. (go faster) I didn't have a good hold of the reigns because I was prepared to trot. Next thing you know, I horses were on separate paths instead of trotting single file, we were cantering. I was loving it. Until my horse started going for the trees, then my horse wouldn't steer away from the trees. And my horse was determined to get back in front of the other horses that passed her. I know we were galloping.... There's a sense when a horse changes stride. You just know they've kicked it up a notch.
Well my horse went under a low clothes line. My thought was , " I can't let this catch me about the throat, or this could be really bad." So I grabbed it. The clothesline had little or no tension so I grabbed it, slid off the back of the running horse and smacked the ground flat on my back, knocking the wind out of me. It sounds so dramatic, It happened so quickly.
This little incident had me advil laden, tylenol PM'g, epsom salt bathing, heating pad laying for most of the week. Except for when I was BACK at the farm riding and helping. That's right, I got back up on the horse. I wasn't 'hurt' as defined by the scary 'what could have happened', and I was trying to do the 'When in Rome'.
Anyhow. the update on the situation is that I will most likely have a dr's appt tomorrow morning, after finding an inflamed area in the center of my back where it hit me. I just want to be safe. The paranoia of a lump in the middle of my back is just not something I want to live with.
Moving on.
My brother is so grown. I can truly say I saw the man and not the boy. Even though I still woke him with a pounce and a wet willie in the ear. Ha.
But I watched him be 'Daddy' and it's a trip. It's a complete different dimension of him that I never realised. The little girl is almost four and she's sweet, and of course I love her. She looks so much like my sister did when she was little.
I watched my Daddy be 'Grandpa' and it was sweet.
I think the biggest disappointment was my sister and her boyfriend. I had so hoped that she had changed when she was so loveable and personable last year. But this year she was an absolute snobby bitch, and I nearly gave her tough love except I didn't think that it would help things. She always was selfish, and she's continuing it. I didn't want to make the rest of the family uncomfortable, but If I heard one more thing about a stupid fucking car part that her boyfriend wanted to look around in junkyards for... and didn't mind taking so much damn time to do it. Including having my sister arrive a whole day later so he can look for this stupid car part. It's a novelty part. and I don't want to say what it is because I don't want her to fucking look it up on the internet and come across my journal.
Not that I'm hiding, I just don't want to deal with her. I love her BECAUSE she's family. I'm not into blowing steam to make me feel better, because I wouldn't, I'd just be aggravated, and she wouldn't get it, and she would use it to justify her poor behaviour.
Anyhow. I rode 6 out of 7 days. I took a roll and a half of film. I've been doing something lately which is trying to relax and get out of behind the camera, and actually 'feel' my vacations too.
I did get to bond with the baby horses. I managed to get one shy one out of it's shell. It was my favorite. Funny how favorites happen. They are quite competitive over attention. The idea was to familiarize the horses with grooming, and human touch. I'd say there were eight babies. One of them was bottle fed, it had an adoptive mother after it's real mother rejected it after getting separated in the herd. So, I bottle fed the baby, gave crates of bread to them, and brushed them.
There were 2 shy ones. Milky Way, and Triumph. I made some headway with Triumph, but she wasn't really ready to be handled. Milky Way and I got along famously after he figured that he really liked the curry brush. The next day, he came right up to me. Then the next day he followed me. The last day he even approached my father who took some pictures. I have none of his pictures yet, but I hope to soon.
The good thing about my vacation is that the pulled tendon in the bottom of my foot that could never heal because I could never rest it. Well, I'm crossing my fingers that it's healed up.
I came back on Saturday and Mike and I went to the hippie retreat and spent a mostly blissful day together. Had I not gotten sick and MOST inopportune time, it would have been perfect.
Anyhow. He had bought us a tent and went 2 days earlier and set it up so that we could have our favorite spot and we could just relax.
So, we just hung out and had fun and I of course had to love on one of the baby girls. Mike told me that I needed to make sure I didn't have a baby on my hip when I came around him in a sarong. I did it on purpose. I knew he was going to help with the childrens' programs and I wanted to distract him. I love being a female.
Later on in the evening, when we had 'retired' I had to ask for some sierra mist, my stomach was flipping end over end. I didn't know what was wrong, except i needed tums or sommat. Mike and I donned clothes fit for civilization and went to the lodge to see if the first aid kit had tums or antacid. Actually, I was hanging over the railing trying not to be ill, and Mike was getting me tums. Thankfully someone had something heavy duty and some water to help me with it. It was foaming as soon as it hit the tongue. bleah. I was starting to feel like I would pass out.
It still wasn't taking effect fast enough. So Mike drove me to the nearest krogers for saltines and peanut butter. I was in the agony of 'either get something up, or let me sleep'. I was falling asleep sitting up in his car. In the morning I realized that it was a bad case of eating poorly while camping, low blood sugar, and a mouthful of bug spray. Note to self. No necking after bugspray. Actually we've agreed to get a natural bug spray. Wonder if there's a natural, edible, bugspray that is actually pleasant. I sense a market. The hippies would love it.
Right now, in regular life, Mike and I are talking about all the basics of moving in . About all the things having to do with the coming holidays and wether or not the kids are going to be ready to 'have holidays' with me and him together because things are happening so quickly in their eyes. The whole situation is enough make me ill.
I spent an hour at walmart tonight in the clearance aisle wondering which quilt to buy which kid, for their beds...that we will have to buy... and did i really want to buy a quilt for them when i was so terrified that they will just turn around and go 'oh, she got that for me? can I sleep under the bathroom mat instead?' Or something equivalent. In the end, I always over think things. But I got them each a quilt, they were on the clearance... Worse case scenario, I've got 3 quilts instead of one.
Oy. My poor head.
I was late to my asst mgr meeting because Tim gave me vague directions. I walk in, and I write on the test that I was not supposed to write on. Some days are better than others. When i told them, they were lucky I was dressed, I closed last night, Aka, in bed by 3 a.m. and in that stupid meeting by 9 a.m., aka not enough sleep, he started pointing at all the other managers that were in the room that closed last night. Well, I replied quite quickly (and splendidly), "That's okay for 'them' but I require 6-8 hours of sleep to look 'this' good.'"
Okay it's 1 a.m. I should be getting to bed.
I gotta keep looking this good. *snort*
I suppose I should put it under opinion. But This is my spot so I say 'word'.
I find it highly ironic that the last time we suffered a gas price increase there was a poll that went out. The poll asked a simple question: "How much would you be willing to pay for gas before you would change your current lifestyle."
The wording isn't exact, and the poll was taken by a news crew, I apoligize, I have no reference for it.
The answer was repeated a hundred different ways, " 3.00 a gallon... 3.50 a gallon... " etc.
Then comes Katrina and bam, were right at 3.00-3.50. At least here in Ohio we are. Depending on what day of the week it is. Everyone knows the leeches raise the prices on the weekends.
The president would like us 'not to blame- hold out on the blame' etc.
Fuck that. Regulate oil and gas prices now before we stall, if not topple, this fucking economy.
I manage a fast food restaurant. I realize to some that is not a glorious position. To those, I say, "Kiss my ass. I manage a 1.5 million dollar business, and chances are you've been to one of the restaurants and ate. It isn't kind, nor is it smart to degrade/ look down on someone you are buying food from. I mean you trust us enough to put the stuff in your mouth, right?"
Small tangent aside, I see directly, immediately, and unquestionably any slight fluctuations in the economy. I see it in my nightly sales reduced by 10-25 percent depending on the night. And I know that my business isn't the only one affected.
I just wanted to pop in and say a quick hello.
My vacation was much needed. I feel better, and I went to the horse farm 6 out of 7 days. My father took the majority of pictures, when I get them, I'll see about updaiting my online photo album.
I'll update later about my vacation.
xx