blah.

well, Jacob and I finally got our new apartment :D that's a good thing. we are somewhat kinda moved in, not entirely yet though, still have a LOT of unpacking to do. Garnet is adjusted at least, which is good. she is currently chasing around a catnip turtle my mom gave us. it's kind of hilarious.

work is picking WAY up and since we're not having a May class of crew trainers come in... I only foresee it getting worse. I have team doubles this week. it kind of makes me want to cry. granted I do get to come in later and leave earlier, but honestly, I just don't want to be around the same group of kids for that long every day! it's like a three-day team that DOESN'T LEAVE. oh well. they're good kids, just I'm TIRED. haha. and it's only Tuesday... well, technically Wednesday now, might as well be anyway.

lot of people I know have been graduating from college recently too. I can think of one in particular that just makes me feel ugh. I can't decide if I miss him again or not. the hatred comes in waves. the hurt is always still there. I dunno.

been watching kittens to combat the ugh. not helping much. mostly just makes me want a fuzzy kitten.

totally cool.

So a lot of stuff has been going on in my world lately. The boy and I have an application in at an apartment complex we really like, and I'm going there tomorrow to get them a copy of my ID so they can let us know if we're approved and such, hopefully by the end of the week. We have a bed and we picked out a mattress, and I'm getting more and more excited and somewhat totally freaked out every day, haha. I really hope the apartment comes through for us because I cannot wait to have our own space and actually start building our life together. It's going to be at least a little easier now that summer is picking up at camp and our busy season is looming upon us. Also, robotics training, which I was pleased to be picked for, is next week! I'm excited about that too. It feels like a secret club lol.

I do hope that with the busy season and robo training I'll start getting more teams again though and remember what it is that made me love camp so much in the first place. As much as I complain about it, and I totally don't want to go to work tomorrow (though that's mostly because it's so EARLY), I do love my job. I don't want to be there forever, but I feel like I could stay a while. It's easily my favorite job ever. The past few weeks I've had teams that really reminded me what can be so awesome about camp. Kids who are actually eager to learn and will feed off you being silly, who will respect you more because you have no shame and can be 'one of them.' then again there are the ones who won't respect you no matter what, who are little banshee and will run all over and generally be unholy terrors, and there are ALWAYS some bad chaperones, but. Camp is fun. No doubt there.

Part of the reason I'm having a hard time with stuff lately though is that between the major amounts of stress, the lack of sleep, and my normal mental issues, plus the hormonalness I'm dealing with this week, all those usual mental issues are just magnified. The giant beast is looming. I hope it gives up soon. I don't have time to be prey right now.

It's taken me a whole year, but I finally feel like I'm starting to get on top of my finances again. I'm still broke for all intents and purposes, but I feel better about it all. I certainly feel more comfortable month to month now. Part of it is thanks to the nice chunk of change I got back with my tax refund, but having that has enabled me to make some changes that are saving me more in the long run, like changing my huge phone contract out for something much more reasonable, paying my credit cards down more, and paying my car insurance policy in full so I don't have to worry about it for several months. We were going to have to move into an apartment soon anyway but now it feels much more viable and I feel like I'll actually be able to contribute and feel comfortable doing so. And soon I'll hopefully be making more at work... Yay. Maybe we can afford a nicer place before too long? One can hope lol.

In other news, I am really into kpop still. I'm totally loving the new song Blue by Big Bang. It's so good, and what I love is that it kind of breaks away from the usual kpop sound. It sounds more like the American style of pop, and while I'm no American culture devotee per se, it's a neat thing to see. Er. Hear. Anyway. I've been watching the K Crunch Indie segments on Eatyourkimchi too, and loving them. So good. It's nice to see more than one dimension to Korean music.

Also, today I went out and bought Jacob's birthday present :) I'm excited! His birthday is in two weeks. I should have waited to buy the present because I sick at waiting to give presents, I get so anxious :P but I couldn't wait to get them because I had the perfect idea! So yay :)

Oh, I also had a tasty Five Guys burger. Nom!

Rippito fippito sippi slow motion!

I don't feel epically great today. This is a combination of the fact that I am hormonal from PMS, took some Sudafed on an empty stomach today, and am having bad allergies due to a horribly warm winter leading to needing the Sudafed in the first place. So I'm kinda meh. I did at least get to sleep in which is always nice, but still I feel pretty meh. Maybe because of how long I slept, partially. Oh well.

Jacob and I are still trying to figure out our future living situation, made more difficult by the fact that he has been working every day for the past month and it's hard to find a place to live when you can't go out looking very often. So I think we're going to be stuck living at the first place we looked at that other day, which is not horrible but... I'd just prefer not to. But oh well. His dad wants us to have a move schedule planned by the time he gets back in town next week. That's fair, since we did say we wanted to be out by the end of March, but it's a little tight if we want to look anywhere else. Jacob isn't working Fridays anymore for this month, but one Friday doesn't mean we can achieve much. Maybe we can look at a few other places though.

Complicating matters further is the fact that I am still making like no money at work. My next paycheck is going to be abysmal because I am simply getting no hours. I don't know what to do about it either. Other people are getting plenty of hours so clearly there hours to be had but I'm kind of afraid to talk to scheduling about it lol. Oh well. I AM getting crosstrained in robotics at least, so that's the training incentive plus hopefully more teams. Since they usually don't have enough robotics people they usually get teams more often... Hope so. That would be great. I hear robotics teams are easy too lol.

Life otherwise is not bad though. Jacob's dad offered to buy us the bed we wanted for our apartment and is giving us a couch if it will fit in our place. There was some bad weather here Friday, but it didn't come down where I live and it looks like the part that went up by where my sister lives went north of them, so that's good. I still need to check up on my storage unit but it survived last April's storms so I'm not too worried. Our cat is still adorable, I've been having fun in WoW and I'm even still knitting, so things can't all be that bad :P also I've been enjoying the new phone I got from Ting, which is saving me so much money and thus rocks endlessly. I was able to afford it due to an awesomely large tax refund, which hopefully will also find a dentist visit and maybe a lady doctor one as well. I love this phone also because it has a keyboard, which rocks and upon which I am currently typing this post :P

Oh, and I got to go to Cricket's with Jacob last night. Always win :) he is amazing as always. He keeps accidentally calling me his wife to his guides in Vent which amuses me greatly :P but he is right, it may as well already be true! I can't wait... :) soon we will be married... Really soon. I always forget how soon July really is! Aaaahhh, I'm so excited :)

But... Now I want more chicken wings.

things sneak up!

like July. July is sneaking up on me! the past year has felt like a literal WHIRLWIND, and it doesn't seem like it's going to slow down any time soon. think about it, just since January last year I've moved states, gotten a job, found a boyfriend who quickly became a fiance, got ourselves a cat, started the process of looking for our own place - which we're hoping to have by the end of March! - and we're going to get married in July, just a year after we met. HOLY COW. I feel like I'm living in fast forward. and now it's actually 2012, getting closer to July every day - it's almost March right now - and it hits me, this is about to be REAL. I'm going to be married. we'll have our own place. and not years from now, THIS YEAR. in four months. I've been sitting here comfortably thinking of this as a thing in the future, and then it snuck up and now it is here. agh!

well, it's been, is, and will continue to be a pretty crazy ride, at least for the foreseeable future. but I think it's all going to turn out well. I'm excited, anyway. a little nervous... well, okay, a lot nervous, but I know it's going to be worth it in the end. this isn't ever where I would have seen myself being this time two years ago. but I think it's better. for the most part, I'm happy. there are some aspects of my life that could use some improvement, but there's very little I could actually point at and say, 'that right there, that's what's making me unhappy.' that's a pretty good place to be, I think. I have a lot to be thankful for. not the least of which IS my wonderful fiance, who, yes, will be my wonderful husband a lot sooner than it feels like!

I at least have a pretty cool dress, which I need to tweak the fit of just a bit but that I think will look good on me. well, I mean. it does look good on me. I did try it on :P but I think it will look particularly good once I get the proper undergarments and modify the fit a little. I need to get some shoes to wear with it, and figure out what I want to do with my ungodly hair, and ooh! I need wedding jewelry! mostly just earrings, I don't wear much in the way of other jewelry anymore. but this is a wonderful excuse to finally go pore over all the lovely shinies at Bodyartforms again :P

we're just going to have a small private ceremony, but we want to have a big party afterwards for all our family and friends, and we totally haven't started planning that at all except that Jacob is insisting we have dancing, and that we do have to have a first dance. ACK. I am not a dancer... but okay. also, I'm really excited about the registry I've been building. I have plenty of stuff for a house, since I've obviously lived in an apartment before, but I'd love to have some NICE stuff, and it's fun going through and picking out stuff to put on a list :P even if we just get a few things, I'll be excited!

at any rate... I have been feeling kind of down and ugh lately, but I think I might be managing to pull myself back up out of it now. and at least I've managed to be consistently excited about things like moving into our own place and getting married. if I really couldn't be excited about anything, then I'd be worried. I've even started knitting again. that's a nice improvement, and a good measure of me feeling better, it seems like. I don't even have to feel guilty about the yarn I'm using since I finally spent that Hobby Lobby gift card my sister got me for my birthday! and I've been forcing myself out of the house more often, even just to run down to Kroger to buy little things I need instead of waiting around until Jacob and I can go together. I like getting out of the house, really, so that usually makes me happier anyway. I should start going down to the coffeehouse to read and stuff. when it gets warmer I'm totally going to go walk around Bridge Street more often again. I always enjoy that.

now, to wait for Jacob to finally get home! we're going out to eat with his mom tonight... so this should be fun :P

I keep being nostalgic for Starkville. it doesn't make any sense to me. yeah, I had a few good years there. it was home, for all intents and purposes, and I knew where things were and had favorite places and people I saw all the time (whether or not they were actually 'friends') and... most of the time I was happy. to some degree I miss the relationship I had then, but that's water under a much, much higher, happier bridge now, so I don't think anything but the feeling of being happy then is what I'm missing.

I want to be happy where I am, and I have a lot of reasons to, but I feel like I'm still not 'home.' Jacob and I have been scouting out apartments and we're hoping to be in a new place by March, but I'm not sure even that will do it, though it will be SO nice to finally stop living in someone else's space, and maybe I'll finally feel like getting out of the house and find some cool places around the city. still, I have a noted lack of friends aside from Jacob, and I feel kind of out of touch with here. I've had a job for a whole year now, but I still feel like a newbie (despite three training classes having come in). I don't know how to fix this, really.

I keep having really weird dreams and stuff, and it just keeps popping up in my head, and it's bothering me. I feel guilty about it, because I feel like I shouldn't feel this way. I mean, my driver's license says Alabama. I'm filing taxes here this year, and I'm about to be married and living in an apartment here. this, now, is home. but somehow I don't feel like I belong here. I remember one time when I went to visit Keni I sat in the driveway for a while and just cried because Starkville felt so weird to me and I didn't see how it would ever feel like home. it didn't take me very long for that feeling to change and to feel like it really was. I wish I knew when Huntsville would start feeling like home, or how to speed that process up. I'm ready to stop missing somewhere I can't go back to.

I wish so much that it was viable to just run away. get in my car, drive somewhere, just be THERE for a while and not here. I am so sick of being here. everything I do is wrong or futile or frivolous to the point I feel guilty doing it, everyone is either hostile or condescending or is accidentally getting taken advantage of by me, and I feel so stuck. more little things keep popping up as well. ugh, so irritating.

I really can't deal with the thought of going to work tomorrow. I can't deal with doing much of anything right now because the times when my brain decides to involuntarily incapacitate me always seem to coincide with the times I have tons of important crap to do. I kinda hate life right now. so it's really not so surprising that I want to just run away... starting over always sounds so nice, but irony of ironies, you need money for that too...

motivation.

That is something I have not been able to find lately. There is plenty I need to be doing, but I can't make myself feel up to it. I need to find a new job, clean up around here, do laundry, even play my game backlog and knit... Can't seem to care. Nothing seems interesting. I hate sleeping in until 3, but no matter how hard I try, I always wake up then, no matter how long I slept or how early I went to bed. Ugh. It's so fail.

I know why I do it, but it's not any better knowing why, obviously. I hope it gets better soon though. It likely won't without intervention, but I can't afford that right now, so... It's a giant catch-22. Sigh. I think I live in one constantly.

Anyway. At least I've been doing better about some self-care stuff thanks to a new app I got called Habit Streak. It basically tracks when you succeed at habits you want to form so you don't want to break the streak. My teeth are already thanking me, though I still need to go to the dentist. Oh well. Another of those when I have money things.

I need some friends around here. Sigh.

learning to be domestic.

I remember, Way Back When, a friend and I used to keep tabs on our domestic skills and cheer each other on whenever we learned a new one. mine were things like pancakes and making tab curtains. my list has since certainly grown longer, but I still have times like tonight where I feel frustratingly inept at running a home. usually when I try to cook. normally I'm a decent cook; I can follow a recipe, and my food usually comes out well. but I don't have any creativity in the kitchen it seems. menu planning is hard for me, and making a shopping list is hard for me, and staying within a food budget... and also when I try to improvise recipes, they always come out SO BAD.

Jacob, being the most incredibly amazing person ever and ridiculously supportive, is very good at making me feel better about this. he always tells me that whatever I'm making smells delicious and tastes wonderful, though at some point it just starts to feel a little suspicious when it's EVERY time, haha. but he is so incredibly sweet. no matter what, it seems like, he can pick my spirits up. it's nice. it's more than nice, but I can't even say what it is. I just know I love it, and I love him for it.

I think part of my ineptitude is just that I fail at decision making. I cannot prioritize (when should I start making this in relation to that so they'll both be ready?), I can't make decisions as small as 'what will we eat this week,' I can't even reliably decide what I want to eat any given day. the other part is inexperience, because while I've been on my own for quite a while, I've had a terrible reliance on prepackaged foods and making the same things from scratch over and over instead of branching out. there are other issues too, but suffice to say... I need to really step it up.

particularly since I'm getting married and will soon have to set up a house again! this time I get to set it up how I want it, for the most part - Jacob will have input of course, but omg, my own pots and pans, that I can put where I want and use how I want, and storage containers and matching dishes and squee! setting up a registry is a whole 'nother mess of decisions that are driving me nuts, but I'm loving it. I hope I at least get a few of the main things. I have some house stuff obviously, since I did have an apartment, but I want nice things that go together and will last me a while. granted I will totally be grateful for anything I get because I am not spoiled and I know better than to expect gifts. but just the thought that I MIGHT get awesome stuff is exciting enough for me :P

there's a lot of other stupid crap going on in my life right now, but nothing I really feel like talking about right now. hopefully most of it will get worked out in the next couple months. also, I would just like to say that in addition to being amazing at being supportive, I feel like I have such an easy time communicating with Jacob, which I hear is important :P I really can tell him anything though, and be honest about how I feel without worrying that he'll be upset or take something the wrong way. we argue, but we talk it out and smooth things over and compromise and... it's almost crazy how much easier this is than my LAST relationship with someone who fought me every step of the way. it's still hard work, just like any relationship, but it's totally worth it. I am totally confident I made the right choice to spend the rest of my life with this guy.

hokay. time to stop babbling and saying stupid crap that sounds sappy because my brain can't think of any other way to put it. hurr durr. also, now I want pancakes! dang it.

so I keep remembering that I have blogs various places and ton I update them every once in a while but not often enough to justify having so many. I've mostly moved on to microblogging sites like Tumblr and Twitter and now I'm on Facebook AND Google+ AND Path and it's kind of silly to still have my Secret Blog and my Blogger blogs and my LiveJournal which is really just a glorified rss feed aggregator these days. but yet I have them. it's even more pointless since most of them have absolutely zero readership so pretty much every blog I have is a secret or at least it's just me yelling in an empty room. kinda pointless. oh well. maybe one day I'll consolidate, settle on one kind of publishing and stick to it. maybe I'll find some way to become relevant and actually gain followers. it's doubtful, but who knows.

so far as actual content... as per the norm on these 'first post in forever' posts, I suppose it's time for a life update. since we last joined our heroine, she has moved from Starkville to Huntsville, and is greatly enjoying life in the Rocket City. I got a job working as a Space Camp counselor, aka crew trainer, and it's been... challenging, but rewarding. I met an amazing guy named Jacob whom I dearly love and we're planning to get married next year. we have a cute and fuzzy brat of a cat named Garnet, and we're hoping to find a place to live soon. my personal life aside from that has had a few rough patches lately, mainly thanks to a certain ex of mine screwing around with my head and being his typical douchey self before disappearing into oblivion once more. yes, I am still somewhat messed up over Keni. now, though, it's more that I'm mourning our friendship, because I miss it and he used to be such a good friend and now that I'm running low on friends I could use him around. but despite him saying he wanted to try to be friends again, he fails at it spectacularly and so I just give up. but I miss what we had. thankfully, Jacob is wonderful and amazing and makes me feel special. it's nice, after having such an emotionally damaging relationship with Keni, to be with someone who makes me feel good about myself and actually supports me no matter what. I still hate the thought of Keni being with that cow, but whatever. not my concern anymore.

I'm really excited because it's almost Christmas! basically my favorite time of year. plus since I'm a temporary worker, I get a week of layoff every so often, and my layoff week is this week... perfect timing :) I hope I get to see my friends over break. I could SERIOUSLY use some girl time!

you know what really bugs me?

"I hate when people tell me they can't help me because it's 'not their department.'"

have you worked customer service/retail a day in your LIFE? seriously, every employee can't be expected to know every aspect of the company. division of labor is a wonderful thing that means people can work more efficiently. I think what you really hate is that you are not 'precious' enough in the eyes of the company that they won't just bow to your every demand and cough up the knowledge they're obviously pretending not to have just so they don't have to help you.

another thing that bugs me is people who claim to be too dumb to understand technology. "oh, I will never be able to click a mouse, I just don't know anything about those things." you push it, just like any other button. you click whatever you want to, and if it doesn't do the thing you want, click on something else. click twice perhaps. click with the other button. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, just try random crap. if you don't know what you're doing, actually read the things that come up and use your logic and reasoning skills to figure out what it means. 99% of dialog boxes are not technical terms. you know what "OK" means. are you okay with what the box says? THEN CLICK IT.

however, I do like steak. I had a delicious steak this weekend. it had a lobster and mushroom topping on it and I really want another one. someday when I am not broke, I will eat lots of steak.

nom.

ugh. I have a god-awful cold that I picked up from Keni, who decided to catch it from Steven. this cold is all kinds of miserable. right now I feel like death; I took some Benadryl earlier to stop my nose from being that painful kind of tickly, and took a long nap, but despite drinking orange juice before I slept, I think I'm crazy dehydrated. also, drinking too much orange juice seems to have its own unpleasant side effects... lol. I have a chicken pot pie waiting for me, but I'm not sure I can actually eat it right now. it smells so good, but I feel so bad. I'm sure eating would make me feel better - at least give me a little energy - but I can't even think about it, with how bad I feel. I need some Sudafed... stupid laws.

I wish I could get Keni to stop by the gas station on the way home and get me a giant blue Powerade. they always make me feel better. he won't want to though, and while I do have a 'favor no-complaining' in stock, I don't want to use it up on something as simple as Powerade. I did consider using it to get to Alabama to get some Sudafed. that would have been pretty worthy. but for some reason I can't spend it, lol.

ugh. I just want to be well!

today has been a festival of... bad. interesting, but bad. I did manage to go to most of my classes, all the important ones anyway. got a thing of cotton candy. did a little bit of work. played some WoW (my paladin is finally 80!). tried to take a nap and kind of failed. moped a lot. watched the D&D game the awesome people did at PAX, or at least the first three and a half videos of it, so that was awesome. because I really love that group. especially Wil Wheaton. lol. :P

still very sad though. still for the same reason. and everything just feels like a giant cavalcade of fail lately. god, I have got to get out of this funk.

petting the crazy dog is fun though :)

well, it's been a sucky weekend, lol. there have been a few bright spots, but not many. we finally got the new part for the toilet, but can't get the old one off, so we haven't fixed it yet. at least the water is off to it so it doesn't make noise anymore.

and I tried to stretch to 0g last night - actually I did stretch to 0g last night, the plugs went in fine - but it was way too early, which I knew, and still tried to do it anyway, and at first it was fine but then when I was trying to sleep it was unbearable pain that was keeping me awake. so I went back to 2. sigh. I know I need to get some 1g stuff, but it's so hard to find. the people on BAF buy it up as soon as it gets posted because it's so rare. that really pisses me off. I can't afford it anyway though, so I guess it doesn't really matter. for an exercise that's supposed to be teaching me patience, it sure does anything but.

and overall I'm just not happy with the state of things. that's not even true - I hate the state of things. but I don't think it's going to change any time soon, or basically ever, so I'm stuck being unhappy until I can get over it. ugggggh.

one of these days I will have something happy to post and stop depressing people... lol.

I've always sort of wanted to start vlogging. (ew. that word just sounds dumb every time I hear it.) I've always sort of wanted to start video blogging. and now that I have a laptop with a webcam built in (actually two laptops with webcams built in... I'm special!) it would be even easier. but I really have nothing to talk about that anyone actually cares about. (kind of like this blog. huh!)

I could do like a video podcast, and do short scripted-ish episodes discussing things, but I also don't have any interesting hobbies I know enough about to make a podcast on, especially not ones that don't already have a million podcasts about them like WoW, other video games, or knitting. I don't have any special skills to teach, I'm not good enough at Japanese to do a language learning series (although that's an interesting idea for when I do someday have those skills), and nobody wants to watch me sit around and whine about my personal problems while drinking beer. (it's not cute when the preteens do it, and they don't even drink.) so. basically I have a desire to do something I really can't. that sounds familiar.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with being internet famous! I always have been, but I just can't seem to hack it. I want a viral video series too!

lol.

I am so very tired of wanting things I cannot have. why can't I just want reasonable, attainable things? life would be so much simpler.

or if I could just have, like, two of those things... that would be great.