I have no idea what the hell I have, but I’m really sick. I have a terrible headache, my throat hurts, I’m stuffed up & exhausted. Also? I hate being sick. Troy had to take a sick day today, his new medication is kind of screwing him up. It will until he gets used to it,  I think. It was a good thing, because we forgot to get the car inspected & registered on his last weekend & it expires at midnight tonight. He took care of all of that first thing this morning, so at least we don’t have to stress out about that anymore.

I’m very touchy & emotional right now, although I’m trying very hard not to be.

Wow, it’s only Wednesday & we’ve already had, what seems like, s really busy week. On Monday, we made a couple of doctor’s appointments for Troy & my daughter for the next day (neither one is sick, it’s just annual stuff). After that, we went to our cell phone provider & got Troy a new phone, since his contract was up and mailed a swap package off. Awhile after we came home, a storm began & within a few minutes, we had a total white-out & no power. Fortunately, I still had a cell phone signal, so I texted my daughter & found out her school was without power, too & she asked me to be very careful coming to get her, since visibility was so bad.

The drive was horrible. There was a slick layer of solid ice under the snow, so that after anyone had driven on it, the ice was exposed & traction was almost nonexistent. Every time I’d stop at a stop light I almost couldn’t get going again. I saw two accidents on my way to the school & after I got there, she told me there was another further up Main Street. We made our way back home very slowly & carefully & didn’t leave again for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, Troy had his doctor’s appointment at 10 & I picked my daughter up at 10:50, since she was nervous about her appointment & not concentrating anyway. Her boyfriend showed up to go with us about an hour or so before we had to leave, so we sat around and talked with the two of them & then we left. Of course, she almost managed to make herself sick worrying & believing the worst of her doctor, both before & during her visit, but we made it through. Her boyfriend took her out to dinner afterwards & back to his apartment to watch movies. She came home still angry at me so we ended up in an argument before bed, which always makes my night. Not.

Anyway. Today has been fairly mellow. She woke up in a better mood, so we’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

A few weeks ago, Rhi drew an animate USB cable, holding a whip & fuzzy handcuffs. I fell in love with the picture immediately and told her to scan it so that I could open a Cafe Press store for her & put the image on shirts and stuff. She did & I promptly forgot about it, until I scanned one of my own images and Rhi told me to add it to my shop on a white shirt. After I finished that, I remembered her little USB guy & got it ready to go on shirts. So, if you’re a geek at heart & love funny, eye-catching designs, check her store out, and if you really like them, buy one, it’ll help feed her dreams & build her confidence in her artwork.

If you’re not into that, I’ve added some new designs to my own Cafe Press store, so give them a peek.

Troy has a friend from work, who, with his wife, owns a salvage yard here in our town. Troy does a lot of computer work for them, and in exchange, they get us parts or pay for automotive work for us. I love going down there & hanging out while he’s working on their computers. People come in & out all day, looking for this Dodge Charger accessory, or that Toyota Camry part and so on. Someone will look it up to see if they have it & if they do, they tell them the general area of the yard the car is located & they head out, tools in hand, to take the part off that they need. Sometimes they come back empty-handed because that part wasn’t good anymore, but mostly, they find what they’re looking for & are satisfied with it.

There have been a few people who have come in & not had a clue what to expect, I think they imagined that all of the parts had been removed & cleaned for them & were just waiting on a shelf or something. They don’t seem to get the difference between a salvage yard & a parts store. We all have a good laugh when they leave, mostly because of the looks they get on their faces when they’re told they need to bring tools & remove the part themselves. They always look like they smell something particularly rank. It’s pretty amusing, really!

I think everyone has their own idea of what the perfect house would be for them, or at least, I know I do. I look at design magazines, catalogs and stores and start putting ideas together and thinking about how I want things to look. I’d love to do my home in a Tuscan style, with beautiful Hinkley lighting, rich terra cotta and gold with a lot of stonework. I think it would be beautiful. I’d do my kitchen in a nice, modern country style, with lighter colored wood cabinets and countertops and wood floors, with red tile. I know it’s going to be a long time before I’m doing any decorating on a place of my own, but that’s ok, I can dream as often as I like & maybe by the time I’m ready to start, I’ll know exactly what I want.

Really, you’d think I’d have heard of this, between Erin & his friends or all of our that range from 20-38, someone would have heard of Beer Pong & said something at a party. I saw it mentioned on the internet somewhere once & just kind of blew it off, not thinking it was a big thing, or a game a lot of people played, until I found a site that sells beer pong tables. After I looked at those & clicked all of the links, I thought I ought to research it a little, to see what the big deal is, they have world series, after all. If this had been around when I was in my 20s, I can guarantee we’d have all been playing it! It really does look like a lot of fun, I have friends that would really enjoy it, I’ll have to tell them when I see them this weekend.

We were all sitting here the other night, watching “Mr. Brooks,” and Troy grabbed a soda. Sean looked back & asked if we saved our cans. We don’t, of course, because there is nowhere here that buys them and we just hadn’t thought of it. In Colorado, we saved them off & on & used the extra cash when we needed something between paydays, but since we moved here, we really haven’t. Maybe if we got one of those can crusher things I’d be more inclined to, and maybe a bin to keep them in. I imagine that some place here must buy aluminum, this place is growing all the time, things have to have improved in 14 years, right?

This just makes me so sad. He had such potential & was such a good actor. I’ll miss him and his work.

~~~ Love has given me wings so I must fly. (A Knight’s Tale)

It was a really busy week last week, for some reason. Between my daughter breaking up with her fiance & starting a new relationship with an ex (it’s really not as bad as it sounds, they’ve been friends for about 5 years & went out last year), getting things together for my booth for faire and everyday life, I haven’t had a lot of time on my computer lately. I had a really great birthday on the 18th. My mom came & got me & we went to St. George for the day, shopping. I got some nice new clothes and did a little shopping for my daughter, got some coffee and stuff like that, too. We went to lunch at Olive Garden and had a really nice time together.

After I got home, I showed off everything I bought and Troy, our daughter & I went to Chili’s for dinner, Troy went to work, she went to her boyfriend’s & went to Dawn’s. Morgan baked me a nice cake that she decorated on her own and we sat around bsing & laughing until about midnight. My daughter woke me up at about 8 on Saturday, texting me, trying not to wake her boyfriend up. We texted back & forth for awhile & then he brought her home so that I could take her shopping for some new shirts & shoes. We did that, came back here, watched TV for awhile & then went searching for the movie “Waiting,” all over town (we never found it) and then he took us to lunch & we came back home. I went to Dawn’s house again, after Troy went to work & my daughter & her boyfriend left to hang out.

Sunday we went to see “Sweeney Todd” with Dawn, our daughter, her boyfriend & his cousin. We had a great time & loved the movie. It was everything I ever imagined it would be. I’ve seen the stage production a few times, but always thought a movie would be great and this was the way it should have been done. It truly captured the filth & pollution of Victorian London, along with the poverty and horrible way the poor were treated by the rich. I’ve never seen a version before that managed to convey Sweeney’s rage at the judge and the savage way he murdered him before now. The soundtrack is something I definitely want to buy, as well. After the movie, the kids went their separate way & we went to Dawn’s to game.

All in all, it was a pretty tiring weekend, and if I belonged to one of those wine of the month clubs, I would have certainly been enjoying a glass on a couple of those nights. We were also dealing with a lot of stuff from my daughter’s ex, and him being obsessed and scary for awhile there. It wasn’t a lot of fun. I think (hope) that he’s moving on now.

I got up early Sunday morning & went to the bathroom. I noticed that my daughter’s light was on, which made me wonder what was up, since it was 4:20am & she never stays up that late (or gets up that early). Troy got up after me & she was still up, but we settled in & tried to get back to sleep. A few minutes later I thought I heard a quiet “Mom?” at my door, but since it never repeated, I figured I was imagining things and went back to sleep. When I got up later, I was coming out of the bathroom & she asked if I would go out to the living room with her to talk, so I got dressed & joined her. I could see that she’d been crying, for awhile it looked it.

She looked at me & said, “We’re not getting married, and we may not be staying together, either.” I asked her why & she told me that she hasn’t been sure for a few months, but she was afraid me & Troy would be angry at her & that she would hurt her fiance. Apparently she’s been pretty dissatisfied for awhile, and I told her we wouldn’t have been mad at her if she changed her mind the day of the wedding, her happiness is really what matters to us. She has been wondering also, for awhile, what it would have been like if things had worked out for her & (the boy that she dated last winter that couldn’t get over being afraid of getting hurt in order to have her as a girlfriend), and she was really wanting a chance to find out.

So, no more wedding stress to add to our graduation stress. She’s going out with the other guy now, she’s happy and she isn’t stressed & snappish anymore. I’m happy she came to her senses before she married him!