MLK Day

I love random days off.  We didn't do anything really, just explored the town a bit, and I am definitely ok with that.  I got a lot of stuff done and still had time to play some video games and make some progress on some recent projects.  It was a nice, relaxing day off.   I know this blog is incredibly boring and really doesn't have much to it, but that was my Monday.....and I'm totally OK with that.

Oops....At least I found my way home.

I had absolutely every intention of posting a blog about something yesterday...and then I got home from work...and forgot.  Yep, so thus far I've stuck to my 2 post a week pledge, but I've had a little trouble keeping the dates solidly Monday, Wednesday.  Oops!  At least they're getting put up right?

So overall, life is pretty fantastic right now. That's hard to believe with the lovely Car Adventure I just took, but I was able to pay for that repair and make it home to my family so I'm definitely not going to let that get me down.

Classes have started up again, and I have to say that I'm not nearly as stressed out about it as I have been in the past (catch me again on Finals week to have me eat those words).  I've done really well in my classes and graduation is in sight for the future.  That's a really incredible feeling.  By next spring I should have my Bachelor's degree in my hand.  It's a goal that I have had since I was a little kid and it makes me incredibly proud to be headed toward completion.  I also found out today that I managed to make the Dean's List for last semester.  I'd say that's pretty awesome considering everything I hold on my plate.

I also really enjoy my job and feel like I do it well.  There are days where I leave feeling defeated of course, but overall I think I know what I am doing and I feel like I'm appreciated by my supervisors. That alone is a huge part of my job satisfaction and I really appreciate that feeling.  I'm often given extra little tasks and jobs that others may not get to do and it makes me feel important.  AND I get to help teachers that are often incredibly frustrated to do their job better.  While occasionally we get some that are rude or disrespectful, I also get calls from people who are incredibly appreciative of the work that I do and am told on a pretty regular basis that I must be some sort of super hero.  It's a pretty spectacular feeling.

On top of both of those things, I have a really incredible family that makes me feel so incredibly loved and special.  Orion is such a spectacular little boy with so much energy and joy in him that it is overwhelming at times.  He is so intelligent and absorbs so much information that I have no idea how I am going to keep up.  My life is better simply because he exists.   And Seth ...well...how do you even explain that?

Sometimes life takes incredibly bizarre and unexpected turns and you end up someplace that you didn't expect, yet it feels exactly right.  That's how it is with Seth.  Two years ago I never expected to be where we are now.  Five years ago I couldn't even imagine what was to come.  Today, it's hard to imagine it any other way.  I'm not going to try to blow smoke and pretend that things were always perfect or anything like that, but sometimes I actually believe that things happen for a reason.  We've both lived and learned a lot, and it lead us to where we are now...which to me is home.  I'm sure that not everyone agrees with how we've chosen to live our lives and sometimes that still bugs me, but at the same time, it is our life and I'm very happy where I am.  That's what matters right?  I have no idea what the future holds, but right now I know this is where I belong. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and laid in bed watching him sleep (creepy, I know).  Laying next to him I realized that he is a ball of energy that makes me feel whole.  The only thing I know for sure is that I somehow managed to find my way home.

My Adventures with Car

Well, I'm not sure anyone really noticed, but I totally missed yesterday's blog.  To say that it was a Monday is definitely an understatement.  It started clear back on Friday.....

I stayed home from work sick and decided I needed to run to the store.  I got there and when I tried to lock the car and it did not honk the way it normally does.  I walked back to my car and tried to unlock the doors and the remote would not work, so I manually unlocked the car and tried to start it.  Needless to say, nothing happened. I called Seth to come jump start my car and wandered the store until he got there from work.  He got to the store where, luckily, there was a parking spot open next to me and tried to jump the car.  After 20+ minutes the car still would not even click.  I called the mechanic across the street and they said if I could get it to them they could look at the car. I was fiddling around in the car while Seth was fiddling around under the hood when suddenly the car alarm went off.  We continued to jump the car, it started, and I drove it to the mechanics.

They were unable to look at it that night, so when I got a call on Saturday morning and they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it I was quite surprised. They had tested the battery and alternator and found both to be in perfect working order.  They had driven it into the garage Friday night and it started fine on Saturday morning.  I asked them to look for a short in the wiring somewhere, maybe in the dash.  I got a call a couple hours later saying they couldn't find anything, so I went and picked up the car.  I drove it a couple times over the weekend and everything seemed to be in working order so I hoped it really was just a bizarre fluke.

Jump to Monday....I went to work in the morning like I normally would.  Nothing exciting was happening so over lunch I decided to take my car to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed.  Normally this process takes about 20ish minutes so I have plenty of time to get it done and get back to work without any trouble.  I pulled up to the shop, they pulled my car in and tested all my lights, and then proceeded to change my oil.  When they were done they told me I could drive it out of the garage....and once again it would not start.  No click, no chug.....absolutely nothing.

I tell them what had happened before and they decided to tell me they thought it was my starter.  I tried to tell them differently but they insisted that this was the issue. They said that if you hit one with a wrench it would help it turn over....and then proceeded to take off the engine cover.  I quickly realized that they had absolutely no idea what they were doing, so I called a tow truck to have them come get my car and take me to a real mechanic.  Keep in mind, by this point my lunch hour has come and gone.  I have let my co-workers and my boss know and luckily they were not terribly upset by my random disappearance.

We decided to push the car out of their garage to the parking lot in an effort to get it out of the way.  There was a young girl working there as well so we put her behind the wheel of the car.  She steered the car out of the door and then got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition.  I walked around from the back of the car to the driver's door and watched as she tried to use the automatic lock on the car door.  It obviously didn't work since the car battery was dead.  As I approached I watched her reach out and lock the door manually....and in slow motion I stuck my hand out and yelled stop.....she proceeded to slam the door with my hand in it.  She looked at me like I was an idiot and says "What?  The door wouldn't lock!"  I then looked at her and finally lost my temper.  My response is "Well it didn't lock because the battery was dead.  Luckily though I stopped the door because the keys are in the ignition, you dumbass." She rolled her eyes and walked off.   I crawled into my car and hid there until the tow truck came in an effort to keep myself from yelling at more people.

The tow truck came, and the man climbed out of his truck and popped the hood of the car so he could hook up a battery charger so we could get it in neutral to move the car onto the trailer.  As soon as he put the key in the ignition the door alarm starting dinging and the inside lights came on.  Needless to say, my head almost exploded at that point.  He looked at me funny and asked if I wanted to try to start it.  I told him that I wanted to take it to the mechanic anyway and that we may as well haul it since he was already there, so we loaded my car up on the trailer and rode off into the sunset to the mechanical rescue....or something like that.  In reality I pulled up to the Husker friendly depot and explained my issues to them. They even thought the problem was incredibly bizarre but promised to get it taken care of so I could make the 60 mile drive home.   It was then that I told my boss that I would not be returning to work that day.  Suddenly my 20 minute oil change over lunch ended up with me missing 4 hours of work.  *sigh*

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to have Jaime come stalk me for a while to keep me company and eventually they found the electrical problem that was causing all of my issues (OH DO I HOPE!!).  They got them repaired for what I think is a reasonable price.  Of course all of the phone calls of them I had made throughout the day (to Seth, my step-dad, the tow truck, work, the mechanic, etc. etc.) were made standing outside so that the lovely patrons of the different business wouldn't have to hear my incredibly graphic language or the death threats upon the idiots that had previously looked at my car, or my random anger at my car and provoked thoughts of trading the thing in.  By the time I got home I was FREEZING.  Sitting in my car, wearing my coat, and blasting the heater just could not take that chill off (I guess standing outside for 3 hours in January in Nebraska will do that to ya).  I quite literally ate a piece of pizza for supper, grabbed a blanket and pillow off my bed, and then curled up on the floor next to the space heater to try to warm up.  Seth watched the kiddo while I slept off some of my stress.  I woke up long enough to chat with the boys for a little bit, take a shower, and then went and crawled right back into bed.

Luckily I woke up this morning and most of the troubles seemed to have subsided.  I walked into the bathroom, ready to face the day.  Unfortunately what I saw looking back at me was this:

My first and only thought:   OH Damn....How the hell am I supposed to fix this??   At least it turned out to be a much better day than Monday was.

Boring Blogs of Nothing

Some days blogging is easier than others.  On those days there is excitement or passion...something interesting to share or maybe even just a random string of thoughts.  Today is definitely one of those days.  Instead I am sitting here, cruising through my Google Reader hoping for inspiration.  Obviously nothing came which is why I appear to be blogging about having nothing interesting to blog.  It seems a bit contradictory I suppose.  I'm not sure if it's that my brain is too tired today to be witty and creative, or if it's that some days I just feel like a terrible writer.  Maybe it's just the fact that my life is not all that exciting or interesting.  Either way, today was a day of working, school work, and hanging out with the family.  None of that is a bad thing, but none of it is exciting either.   Such is life sometimes.  I'm sure some day in the future I'll look back at this boring post and wish that life would calm down enough that I could have nothing to write about.  Once again, I guess we'll see.

Too old for homework?

Classes resumed for me officially again today.  After this semester I will only have 8 classes left before I graduate with my Bachelor's Degree.  I'm incredibly proud of this fact.  At the same time though, working, having a family, and school work combined are often an overwhelming and exhausting experience.  It's important to me that I still spend time enjoying my time with my family and not spending all my time buried in a textbook, but I also have high expectations for myself when it comes to grades and my education.  Today I'm quite stressed out, but once I get into a schedule again I know it will all work out just fine.  If only 5:30am didn't come so early.....Oh well.  Here is hoping for a successful semester.

Words

Spoken word has never been my strong suite.  It's easier for me to communicate if I can write things out, proofread, and make sure what I'm saying makes sense.  Otherwise I stutter and I stammer and I second guess my words. A vast majority of the time I end up saying something that I regret saying or I say things in a way that just doesn't make sense or doesn't accurately portray what I'm trying to say.  I think most of the time it's an issue where my brain can't adequately come up with words to explain how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking.  It's like.....how do you put into words something like love?  That overwhelming desire....that heart ache.  You can say so much with just a look but, at the same time, there is a level of pain associated with not hearing those simple words.  To look at someone and desperately want to tell them how much you care about them and to be terrified that they won't say it back.  To see someone and know in your heart that what you want to say is "I love you" but instead when they catch you staring all you can do is smile.  Fear is crippling sometimes.  Getting past that fear is almost always necessary.  Unfortunately it's a lot easier said than done.  It's easier to just pretend that things are ok, to not put yourself out there to be vulnerable.  Easier to stand proud and refuse to give in.  Sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone to do things to make your life better.  Deciding between the two is where things get difficult.  Should I stay in my shell, safe and protected, not knowing what the future holds, or do I open myself up to be vulnerable with the potential of being hurt, where there is also a possibility of inexplicable joy.  I guess we'll see.