Five maybe not-so-Fast Findings

1. I've decided to take both piano and voice lessons. I've been playing since I was 8 and singing since I can remember, but it's been many years since I took lessons, and I need to regain my confidence again.

2. My body has decided to catch someone's sore throat, and my nose is expelling GREEN phlegm. That's a new one for me.

3. I dreamt last night of a little boy, wearing a green T-shirt and blue cargo shorts with cute little brown shoes. He was maybe able 4 or 5 years old, darker complexion, fine brown hair in a bit of a bowl cut, long eyelashes and a smile that could knock me over. I wonder why my mind chose to create him.

4. I've been watching House seasons 5 and 6 over the last week or so, and perhaps I'm watching it too much because when I went to the post office yesterday, I kept waiting for someone to keel over of some heretofore undetectable disease. And old man stumbled and I immediately waited for the ambulance sirens. Of course, it didn't occur to me to find my phone to call 911. Hmm.

5. The package I sent Priority Mail yesterday at about 5pm to Seattle arrived TODAY before noon. Wow. Perhaps the United States Postal Service has a chance to redeem themselves here. I've lost soo many things in the mail in this past year, including checks, important insurance signature papers, cards, etc. Perhaps their motto could be "If we don't get it there fast, we won't deliver it at all."

if I'm working the graveyard shift, can I be called the groundskeeper?

I find it ironic that they call this shift I'm working the "graveyard" shift. Like it's okay to be dead, when in fact, the better part of the shift is spent rubbing my eyes and trying to stay awake.

I'm working as a reservations agent at Northern Quest Resort and Casino. Working here is wonderful. The people I work with are the cream of the crop, so to speak, of the customer service-oriented industry, because that is what makes or breaks this hotel and casino. We are chosen specifically for our customer service backgrounds and personable attitudes. So imagine a whole bunch of people who automatically smile when they pass by you, have proper manners, enjoy talking with people, and go out of their way to be a nice person, and that's what the atmosphere is like here. It's pretty interesting. Plus, in the reservations department, we each have our own desk and somehow, most of us chosen in this department are mildly OCD and like order. We all have our cubicles covered in information sheets and never leave our desk messy at the end of the day. It's fun not being the only crazy person in the office!

We also all read books in between calls (well, most of us) so it's nice being around people who get as absorbed in a book as I do! And the best part about the job? The Employee Dining Room. Yes. Northern Quest provides us with free food 24 hours a day. I don't have to cook, I don't have to pay for food, and what's at the EDR is nearly always healthier than going through the McDonald's drive-thru. Definitely my favorite perk of the job.

Anyway, I'm glad I enjoy this job, it helps make my life more enjoyable. I've been doing well since The Breakup. The first few weeks were miserable and I just wanted the pain to be over, but without pain, I realized I couldn't have learned how to recover from it and heal and become stronger than I was before. And everyday difficulties pale in comparison. While it would have been nice to not deal with such intense misery, I understand now that it helped me grow.

it's just an adult's way of legitimizing texting

So I was out with my dad tonight and he has a Blackberry. He got more texts than I did! I used to think people were pretty high-powered if they had a Blackberry because it's always been aimed at business people, but come on, at the end of the day, you're still texting people just like your 19-year-old son does 600 times a day. It was pretty surreal sitting there eating dinner with my dad merrily tapping away like a teenager.

I'll admit though, he WAS texting his boss back and forth, but MAN, times have changed. Remember when you called someone or had your secretary do it during business hours? Those time-wasters are long gone, now that texting is here to save the day! Sure, it may have taken longer to text back and forth than just pick up the phone, but in between texts, my dad and I had a conversation, whereas in the old days, he would have had to excuse himself to take the call.

I guess this again brings up the broader point of whether being more "connected" actually disconnects you from the people you're with. While my dad didn't have to leave the room to communicate with his boss, he WAS unavailable for about 30 seconds every 5 minutes to reply, even though he was sitting across from me. I guess it just depends on what the texts are. My dad's were with his boss, so maybe that makes it better? Do you think he should have excused himself, even though he was just texting? I think this will bear further scrutiny when today's teenagers enter the workforce.

Yes because Spokane and Mexico are right next to each other

I just got a "new match" from LDSMingle.com. The guy lives in Mexico and his entire profile was in Spanish. I'm serious.

Five MORE Fast Findings

Had more to say after I made my last post.

1. I just got an email from matchmaker.com with the subject reading: Don't let your soulmate meet somebody else. hmm...you'd think if he was my soul mate it would all work out...it's like a tarot card reader, don't leave without paying me $60!

2. It is so nice not being criticized for liking Adam Lambert or Lady Gaga or any of the millions of people that ex-fiance was personally offended by. I can watch Gilmore Girls without listening to snide remarks, I can watch Rent without constant ridicule, and I can sing loudly in the car again!

3. iTunes increased the price of most of their singles to $1.29. Sheesh. Stupid inflation. Or greediness.

4. So apparently Darius Rucker is Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish? Hey at least I joined the party right? And I guess he's a country singer now. Who woulda thought, a black guy doing country. He has a good voice for it though.

5. Why is John Mayer still famous? His voice never ever changes, why can't he get a throat drop or something? Perhaps he's too busy bragging about all those girls.

6. I couldn't wrap this up without ending on a positive note: I now have re-entered the world of popular music!! I actually have some songs in my iTunes that are less than a year old! woohoo!!

Five Fast Findings

1. My professional opinion is that, if you are a boy and your voice hasn't changed, you have no business singing for millions of people (ahem, Justin Beiber). It's just creepy.

2. My dog now runs to the door when my parents arrive home, even though I, his owner who feeds him and loves him, am sitting right there on the couch. Traitor.

3. I love Wii Boxing. I'm still sore from the other day but my back is going to be sooo toned in a few months.

4. Secretariat was an awesome movie. My mom scored some tickets to a sneak preview of it last night, and it was totally worth the $8 overpriced, burnt and salty popcorn. I recommend Secretariat, it's a good, clean family film, which have been lacking in the past few years.

5. I'm picking up some worms tomorrow for my compost bin. Red wigglers, which are top notch for compost worms.

Musically robbed or robin hood?

I've been driving my dad's car for the past two days while he takes my car to get some small repairs. Naturally, each day I've forgotten to grab my CDs and am stuck listening to the radio for my half-hour drive to work.

I've actually been listening to country. Every 5-6 years or so I'll go through a country phase for a few months, then it ends and I don't listen to it for the next 5-6 years. But for the past few days, country has been nice for me to listen to, mainly because it's basically positive music. No loud, clashing drums, or screaming, just a guy and his guitar, boiled down to the basics. And the majority of the songs are about "wanting a good woman" or something to that effect describing the perfect woman, which is really just about someone he can spoil while she who loves and supports him, in nice terms that don't involve swearing, innuendo or other crass terms. Try singing about that, Kanye West. It's nice to hear a guy, for once, who's not too proud to admit he needs a woman, and not just the first girl on the street who will go home with him, but the right woman. So that's kind of why I've been listening to country. That, and since me and my ex-fiance never listened to country, it's a bit of a fresh start for me. One day at a time, you know.

After spending a few hours on match.com, here's what I've learned:

1. Many men are in the military.

2. Most pictures are either self-taken (very up close and personal) or something involving the great outdoors and far away, with the subject bundled in fishing gear, snowboarding gear, hunting stuff or perhaps a wetsuit. Useful.

3. All profess to treat a woman like a lady and are true gentlemen. So either nice guys really do finish last or that's a bunch of crap. Probably a mix of both. welcome to dating sites.

4. Creepy old men from across the country will "wink" at you.

5. Seems like most every guy has a dog or wants one. Too bad my dog doesn't want a new daddy.

6. There are a fair number of 18 or 19-year-old guys who are "so tired of trying to find the right one." Yeah. Wait til you're 23, then we'll talk.

7. Most say sex is the last thing on their mind, or something to that effect. Either that's a lie, or it really is true and that's why they're hanging out on match.com all weekend instead of trying to get some. It would be interesting to compare psychological profiles of these guys on dating websites.

Five Fast Findings

1. I just got an anti-pull leash for my dog, where it's kind of like a halter collar, and it pulls on his shoulders rather than his neck. He is super sensitive about his neck. Even putting a collar on can send him into a nervous frenzy of yelping and running away. So this collar is amazing. Now taking him for a walk is simple, I slip the halter over his head, slide two sherpa-covered pieces that go under his front legs, and he's good to go! Nothing rests on his neck and I don't have to try to buckle something tight on his neck and he just prances along, glad that when he runs too fast for me, the leash doesn't pull on a collar on his neck!

2. My dog has so much energy and is in such great shape (yes, at 12 years old) that he makes me tired by the end of a walk, and he's still racing circles around me (yes literally). Sad...

3. I started my first day of work at the Northern Quest Casino and Hotel. I'm going to be a reservations agent, but the first two days of orientation are just so we can get acclimated to the environment as a whole. My group is cool, there are 10 of us and we're going to all different areas, from food service, to the casino floor or cleaning, or to the hotel. Well, I'm actually the only one working at the hotel, but I'll see the others and be able to say hi.

4. Me and my mom donated several large bags full of used beauty products on Saturday. There's an organization called Project Beauty Share here in Spokane that accepts gently used cosmetics, toiletries (shampoo, etc) or other bath/hair/beauty products, and sanitizes them to be donated to local women's shelters. It was really easy for my mom and I too, because we have soo much makeup that we just bought and never really liked, or hair products that we bought on sale but never used, or in my case, I also have tons of samples of makeup I collected from magazines or makeup counters, etc. We also donated several flat irons, curling irons and a brush that we will never use but still work. It got us to clear out our bathrooms, kept items out of a landfill, and got products to people who need them. I've been poor enough that I've been unable to afford a razor or shampoo, and I'm glad we were able to help. (note: the best way to judge if the project will be able to use the product is, ask yourself if you would give it to a friend. Also, at this time they are UNABLE to accept mascara or types of lip gloss/etc that use a wand or similar mechanism.)

5. Who is Bobby Vee??? I got tickets to see him at the Spokane Fair (did I mention this already?) but he's the only one out of all the lineup I haven't heard of. I even wikipedia'd him and I know for a fact I have never heard of this man in my life. I put the tickets on craigslist, but no interest. Guess everyone's thinking that same thing as me! I kid, I kid, I'm sure lots of older people in the area are huge fans.

shoe a thon

I need new shoes so badly. And I can hear my mom's voice now, "you need new shoes like you need a hole in the head" (which is a dumb thing because you DO need holes in the head, a mouth to eat, nostrils to evacuate mucus, ears to hear a fire alarm).

But I digress. I need new shoes! Specifically, high heels. I haven't been to church in like two years but now I'm going back and I have a place to dress up! I have two pairs of heels: a hot pink pair that I was going to wear for my wedding but they're super cute so I'm keeping them; and a pair of low black heels that my mom just bought for me last week.

And there are so many types of cute heels! These are a few of my favorites from GoJane.com:

I love reading funny blogs. If the blogger has a particularly hilarious way of wording things, I will be their greatest fan. That being said, if you too enjoy funny blogs, this is a great one (note: swearing is involved):

http://thethinksithink.blogspot.com/2008/09/paper-problems.html

So on a whim I've been signing up for dating sites. however, the cost of these sites has gone way way up since the last time I embarked on this whim. Did you know that to sign up with eHarmony.com for a single month, it costs $60?? And that's for the basic plan! I know the argument is what's $60 compared with a lifetime of happiness blah blah BLAH, but still 60 bucks is a lotta dough for no guarantee.

Matchmaker.com costs $50 for a single month (and all of these sites offer discounts for multiple months, but that seems totally idiotic because who hopes to be single after 6 months of surfing internet dating sites??? How lame is that??) and there is no guarantee, plus it's super annoying because the site emailed me like 5 times to tell me someone sent me a message, but of course I can't read the message until I pay the toll. Moving on.

LDS Mingle used to be pretty good, I've heard, but I found only two guys within like 100 miles of me, which was expected since I'm not living in Utah anymore, but I'm definitely not spending $15 for two guys. If eHarmony were $15, I'd consider it, but regardless, the number of LDS guys on dating sites living near Spokane is going to be low.

So I guess I'll continue to do things the hard way, blind dates, singles ward, etc. I don't particularly enjoy the emotional ups and downs of dating, but since I can't order a good LDS husband by mail (that, I'd pay $60 for), I'll try this route. It's hard either way though, because I'm still a bit in the family/children mode after coming so close to being married (which was supposed to happen like 12 hours ago, weird), so I'm a little blinded by that. I wonder how long it will take for me to get back into the singles mode. Probably just long enough to get engaged again. Talk about ups and downs!

five fast findings: perhaps my life is a bit boring

1. omg Internet Explorer is SO slow. I heart google chrome.

2. My dog stuffed himself! My other dog, Shelby is staying with me for the night before I take her to a better home (literally, not like, code for killing her or anything), and I'm trying to fatten her up from being underfed for a month (I was the one who fed her but I wasn't there for a month), so I put out a can of wet food. Well, shelby went to relieve herself and who but my dog Hiro raced in to finish it off. He ate HALF A LARGE CAN of food and now his little belly is way distended and he's sleeping on his side cause it was uncomfortable sleeping on his stomach. haha.

3. Having a Wii is awesome. I've been playing Wii sports on it. It's even better when I don't have to share it with a precocious 7-yr-old who beats me at everything!

4. There are going to be pig races at the Spokane Interstate Fair (which starts tomorrow). I'm SO there.

5. I really like Miley Cyrus' CD, Can't Be Tamed. At first I thought it was loud and cheesy, but after a few listens, the songs are pretty cool.

five fast findings

I'm going to start doing Five Fast Findings, when I have little things that I don't want to do an entire blog post for.

1. I have a confession, I know the vast majority of dog owners HATE when their dog drags their butt on the carpet, but I find it hilarious!! I don't even mind vacuuming later.

2. My car has been leaking transmission fluid and antifreeze and needs some seals replaced and my first reaction was, thank GOD that's all it is. Man. My car sucks.

3. The "t" button on my Samsung Gravity sticks, so either I write "hanks for he noe" or ttthanks for ttttthe nottte." It's kind of annoying but I'm not really ready to bring it in to Radio Shack to be exchanged for a new one (I have radio shack insurance and I just bought the thing like two weeks ago anyway) so it will probably be one of those things I always complain about but never ever fix.

4. My mom just got a Wii, so that we can both exercise. I played Wii Sports, and did the training exercise in boxing where you have to hit the punching bags, and I got 16 on my first try. Who rocks. But I was out of breath. So I guess I don't really rock so much.

5. I've been addicted to this game on Facebook, Sorority Life. I started playing like a week ago and I'm already on level 42. Another one of those things where I rock, but the fact that I've been playing it so much kind of negates the rockstarness.

The things I do for him

After sleeping for hours at my side, he suddenly bolted awake. Seemingly unable to speak, but obviously needing something, I mimed out different possibilities with him. Hungry? eh. thirsty? nope. Outside? his tail wagged and his eyes went from puppy-dog to huge and excited. We raced to the door "come on buddy let's go!" and he twirled and jumped a circle in the air three times before I got the door open.

My dog Hiro is pretty funny. My mom says he kind of looks like an alien. He does, a little. But I think he's incredibly adorable, even if no one else does. He was abused, we think, before I got him, so he is pretty scared of most men and often growls at people before he gets used to them. It could be nice to have a "normal" dog, but it's not a big deal to me, I just tell people don't try to pet him and they back away pretty quickly!

He and I are pretty intuitive with each other. One time, my almost-niece-to-be asked, how did you learn to speak dog? She had just witnessed me training Hiro and my shared dog, Shelby, and was intrigued. I guess I started learning to speak dog a few days after I got Hiro. He was pretty timid at first, but then as the hours went by he slowly crept closer to me. By the next day he was jostling my hand while I was on the computer begging to be petted. How could I resist? At first, he had accidents in the house, probably because of being in a new environment AND because he and I still didn't know each other well enough to get that I-have-to-pee signal across. And I'll admit, there were several times over the first few months where I'd glance in his water dish and notice it was completely empty, with no way of knowing how long he'd had a dry throat.

But now, he is pretty well aware that he has me wrapped around his left front paw. I know that when he gets excited all of a sudden, I go through three possibilities and ask, hungry? thirsty? outside? Whichever one he needs, he wags his tail, jumps up and twirls around and gets all excited. Whichever ones he doesn't need, he either stops wagging his tail or just does a fantastic ice sculpture impression and freezes in place. It's pretty impressive, I think.

Later at night though, he can get a little cryptic because he's hungry, thirsty AND has a full bladder, but isn't sure which is most important. Like a few minutes ago, he ran outside, but then ran inside right before I closed the door. I got him food and he ate two kibble bits then looked at me pleading. So I put on my shoes (muttering "sheesh the things I do for you.." not really minding so much though) and walked out into the front yard with him, which has his favorite spot to mark. Then we went inside and I gave him a piece of leftover pork (he's been a good dog today, he needs a lot of meat, he's a boy), which prompted him to race around the house about two times after finishing it, then he went and finished his dry dog food (gross) and slurped half the water bowl. Of course, now he's back on the sofa and trying to wedge himself between me and the computer. Thanks buddy. You're welcome on the food by the way.

But there is nothing like having a dog as a companion. Yes, humans talk with you and sometimes make YOU food, but the loyalty and unswerving love and dedication a dog has for you is unmatched by any human. I don't know that I'd want a husband as dedicated as my dog is to me, but I'll take my dog any day. I've had a tumultuous few years, and he's lived with my aunt for a while, he's lived in Seattle, in Deer Park, with my parents, in Idaho, and now in Spokane with a crazy cantankerous dog who alternates between sucking up and growling at him for no reason. And yet he never trades me in for a newer model. Even though he loves my parents now too and jumps on them to be petted, I'm always his priority when I walk in the door. If I had a husband like that, I'd feel selfish and perhaps a bit guilty, but with a dog I just feel loved and wanted. There's a dog shirt at Target I thought about getting that says "Better than a Boyfriend." Got that right.

Hiro sleeping. Look at his little paw tucked under his chin and tell me that's not adorable. A mother's love..

I have a favorite blogger. I first discovered her on a lark when she wrote a parenting blog for Parents.com or something (and I was like, 19, and in no way interested in having kids, so who knows why I was there), and I followed her when that blog ended and she moved to a private blog. It's kind of funny because I've never met her and rarely even post a comment to her blogs, but I feel like I know her because her son wasn't even a year when I started reading, and now he is 4 years old with a sister. She is a hilarious writer too and my poor friends, mother and former fiance had to suffer with me as I read passages aloud from her blog.

Anyway, I bring her up because she recently recommended a book: What We Have by Amy Boesky. It is a memoir, so I was immediately interested. I found it at the library last week(I love our Spokane County library, they are so well stocked!) and just finished it last night. It is the story of a woman who has lived her life in fear of ovarian cancer. Every other woman in her family has died of the disease before the age of 50, and she and her two sisters have always known it was coming. It's a wonderfully-flowing book that follows her life and family interactions and how the big cancer target has altered who they are. It is well-structured and I often forgot I was reading a memoir, because it moves like a novel. I felt like I knew her at the end of the book and was rooting for her family to beat the cancer curse. Anyway, this review is sounding like I copied it from Emily's review, because she loves memoirs too, but if anyone is looking for an engaging read, "What We Have" is it.

I've been reading a lot lately. Ever since me and the fiance broke up, I've been throwing myself into books. Perhaps because he and I watched a lot of movies, but I think a lot of it is, books make me fully engage myself. Movies, I usually have to do a craft or fold laundry or something to keep from getting bored (a whole other post there), but books, I have to fully concentrate on what's going on.

I got really into the Star Wars books a few months ago. It's nerdy, I know, but this entire world created and detailed is really kind of fascinating. Plus, after the breakup, they were comfortingly devoid of romance. But alas, I caught up to the newest book in the sub-series I enjoy, and now have to wait until the next book is released at the end of this year. So Star Wars is done for the moment.

I've always enjoyed memoirs. I was thinking about why that was earlier today. I don't like biographies much, and I'm not really a non-fiction type of person, normally. But I love memoirs, because they are written by real people, who aren't always trained authors and who don't (hopefully) recreate their life just to tell a better story. It is what it is.

Despite my love of reading, I'm pretty selective on my choices. I don't have much patience for "the classics." Dickens, Shakespeare, even Hemmingway, I don't enjoy. They are too flowery for my taste, and I know it's mainly because they were written 200+ years ago, but I just don't enjoy taking an hour to read one page. I learned to read at an early age and I learned to read fast, because I enjoy the story, not individual words, and I want to find out what happened! That's why I love rereading books, because there are often things I skimmed over the first time. It's like a whole new book each time. Because my priority is the story, it makes sense that memoirs are interesting to me. It's someone telling of their life. Plain and simple. No allegory to interpret, no two-paragraph description of the freaking sunset, just the story. And you know what? There must be a lot of fantastic book editors and ghost writers out there, because there haven't been many memoirs that my critiquing mind has found issue with. I worked for a newspaper, and the average person is a crappy writer. They do too much or not enough, etc. A majority of my day was spent rewriting press releases to a readable format. I have a pretty careful eye and I've caught mistakes in many a paperback novelist's book (Danielle Steel is the worse when it comes to editing. It's like the editors just stamp it good to go without glancing at a single page), but rarely do I find glaringly obvious mistakes in memoirs, even more subjective issues like sentence structure or flow. Perhaps because this is someone's life. This is their legacy, if you will, not just the newest $7.98 Walmart paperback.

That's why I like memoirs. If someone is willing to take the plunge and tell me why their life is worth putting on paper, I'm willing to take a few hours to care.

The tech generation

I'm going to take a moment to reflect on the so-called technology generation. Now I'm 23, and I was one of the first people in the eighth grade to get a cell phone. But when I got to high school, it was becoming more popular. However, texting was still not a trend until I was older. I didn't even learn how to text until my last year of high school or so, and I got my first QWERTY keyboard phone less than a year ago. That being said, I feel like I was fairly on track with other people my age. People about 5 years younger than me, fresh out of high school now, have probably had phones since they were in middle school, if not younger. Phones aren't really a novelty anymore like they were when I was in the eighth grade. For younger people today (referring to middle/high school ages up until about mid-20s) is assumed that you have a cell phone and that said phone receives texts, and 99 percent of the time, that assumption holds true.

I feel pretty tech savvy, but at the same time, I have resisted the urge to constantly have my cell phone with me. I do depend on it for quite a bit beyond communication (alarm, clock, games, etc), but I do my best not to text constantly. As I type this, I think my phone might be in my purse in the kitchen, but I'm not sure. I know I haven't checked it in 2 hours, and I'm good with that.

I went out with a group of people last night, most of whom were younger than me, some who were younger than my 20-year-old brother. And several of us had not met others in the group before last night, so there were some awkward moments when conversation died.....OR THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN IF EVERYONE STOPPED PULLING THEIR PHONES OUT AT EVERY LULL. I was amazed at how, as soon as people stopped talking for a moment, no fewer than 3 people would pull out their phones, and not only check it for messages, but actually respond right then and there. I'm of the class that believes if you're physically with people, pulling out your phone for any reason that's not directly related to those people (ie. calling an errant friend to meet up with you all somewhere) is frowned on. Clearly, I'm getting old.

The worst part was, since there WERE some conversation lulls (and music was loud and made it hard to converse anyway), instead of making more efforts to talk with the others, I too am embarrassed to admit I found myself pulling out my phone to text other friends not there. AND I COULD HAVE WAITED. It's not like telling a friend about the lame-o music was important. But when everyone else is texting, what do you do?? Stand around awkwardly while they finish? Yes. I suppose I should have, just for the principle.

My former fiance had this problem. We would be sitting at Pizza Hut, and rather than sit in silence or talk to each other, he would be texting other people. It got to the point where sometimes I would text him, as we're sitting across from each other, just to get him to interact with me instead of other people not present.

Neilsen conducted a year-long survey on cell phone use that I read about a few weeks ago that determined that teenagers in the U.S. (ages 13-17) sent an average of 1,742 text messages per month, which not surprisingly, is the highest of any age group. The next youngest age group (18-24) only sent an average of 790 texts, which is a significant drop, but as age goes up, the average number of texts goes down. Interesting, yes, but not surprising. I was interested to learn though, that the 18-24 group made the highest average number of calls, at 265. I guess we still value talking to people, somewhat.

Until last night, I wasn't sure though, how results like this would play into everyday life. So teenagers text a lot. Who cares? Some people say it's a good thing because they're keeping in touch more often, and quite a few of those texts are probably to mom and dad. Well, I don't know what it may translate to in the future, but I'll tell you right now, compared to my days of being 17-18 and hanging out with people I'd never met before, last night felt a lot lonelier.

finding my street corner again

I need to start blogging again. I promise I will. Me and Calvin had moved to Lewiston and our place didn't have internet, then I got a job working for the Lewiston Tribune (awesome job, just didn't pay anything worth living off of) and was too busy to care about a blog.

Then me and Calvin broke up a few weeks ago, one month before our wedding was to take place. Enough on that.

So now I'm back at my parents' home in Spokane, where Quest provides high speed Internet and my new job at Northern Quest Casino/Hotel hasn't started up yet. and i'm putting off going through my stuff to store, donate or organize.

Right now, my parents are packing for an overnight trip to Nelson, BC, Canada, where they will drop my brother off at his new place. He is going to school at Selkirk College, in the ski resort management program. And let me just say this. WHY is it so bleeding hard to get a cell phone that works in both the USA and Canada without paying $1.49 a minute roaming fees and 75 cents a text? Apparently my brother has signed up with a prepaid verizon phone, and they assured him there are no crazy roaming fees. BUT I did lots of research last night and I'm convinced he will probably have some surprises on his first bill. Oh well, it's HIS PROBLEM! Live and learn, that's what I say. Just like he is set on getting a full sized bed for his room (in an apt he's sharing with 3 other guys), but believe you me, getting a full sized bed in a college apartment is easier said than done. I would have LOVED to have a larger bed in college (thank you, 3 years of twin beds on bed risers, for my fear of rolling off the bed in my sleep) but there's just a lot of logistics. a) a twin bed is cheaper, b) twin beds in a college town are generally easier to find, c) sheets for twin beds are cheap and come decorated with cartoon characters, and d) have you ever tried to lift your own queen-sized mattress? Even with two people, it ain't easy. I hope he makes good friends with his roommates and that they are big, strong guys.

So it's now 2pm, Nelson is about a 3 hour drive from Spokane, and HAVE THEY LEFT YET?? Nope! They are still puttering around throwing stuff in boxes (well, my dad is running errands for reasons only known to him) and my brother is still cleaning his room (as predicted by me and disputed three days ago by him, simply packing to go to college does not mean all of the trash in your room magically disappears), and I'm sitting here on my computer. Bored out of my mind but waiting for people to leave so I can have some peace and quiet!

Anyway. I'm sure I'll be posting a lot here because I have something like 6 friends in the world. 5 of them live nowhere near Spokane (Alaska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Michigan, see I wasn't kidding) and one WON'T CHECK HIS FACEBOOK AND HE LOST HIS PHONE AND NO ONE ELSE WILL RESPOND TO MY TEXTS BECAUSE I PROBABLY BORED THEM TO DEATH BUT HE IS STILL NEW TO MY WORLD SO I KNOW I DIDN'T KILL HIM YET. Yes I'm talking to you Skyler.

Welcome to my street corner.