“The history of warfare is made up of moments… and decisions… that could have gone either way” -Erasmus

I don’t know why it is that I can’t sleep lately, it’s kind of frustrating. Last night I tried laying in bed starting at about midnight, and around 2 I was still lying there awake, so I decided to read. I stopped reading about 2:45 and I remember seeing the time at 4:35. I’m guessing I fell asleep shortly after that, but still… that’s ridiculous.

I’ll be in Jackson in about 5 days and 6 hours, which is pretty exciting… I think I’ll sleep a lot better in his arms.

Here I am up again tonight thinking that if I continued to read, I could finish this book and get all the way through the next book I want to read (it’s only a few hundred pages) before noon….. and seriously considering it. …

(at this point in typing this up, I decided I needed more but didn’t know what to say, so I thought for a while)

We’re going to Bay City to see fireworks tomorrow… we as in my mom’s side of the family, including Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Ann, Uncle Ron, Carment, Autmn, David, and Kevin. I’m anticipating it to be quite a bit of fun for some reason, though in the past it has seemed really boring. Usually the adults talk and the conversation just barely is interesting enough to not ignore completely, so I’ve never been able to do a bunch of reading while waiting for darkness to fall (we always go at like 5pm, which is kind of ridiculous considering fireworks don’t start until quite a few hours after that).

… and of course mom and dad will probably have Megan drive there, now that she has her permit ( i know, it’s weird that she can drive now)… so they’ll be telling her how to drive and ruining my concentration for reading on the way there and back

I think I’ll try listening to some shakuhachi music. See if it helps me to relax enough to sleep. I’ll finish my book tomorrow, there’s no need to completely wreck my sleep scheedule by reading until dawn.

Good night all

The origins of the ‘Free Men’ of Arrakis

This isn’t actually about the origins of them, but I’m on the last book of a prequel trilogy to Dune. Lot’s of reading, and it’s been great.

Grandma is home from the hospital, she actually has been for quite some time. She’s not walking around too much yet, but she has started the therapy sessions.

I’ll be going to see Charlie again soon. It’ll be so nice to see him, long distance relationships are really tough…. It’ll be even better when we’re both back in Mt. Pleasant.

I think the summer will be going be much faster soon:

in 6 days i’m seeing charlie for 3 days

a week home, then vassar band camp

a day home, then Yale band camp (hopefully)

maybe less than a day home, then Port Huron Band camp

then about 4 days home and moving into the apartment

then another couple days and CMU band camp

I figured out last night that i only need to take 16 hours a semester for the 4 semesters. Or I could take 17-18 credits per semester, take 6 credits in the summer and have a philosophy minor too… which i’m strongly considering.

hiccups

Grandma’s surgery was fine, a little bit longer than it should have been, but still fine. Aunt Ann and I drove back Friday night and since then I got pretty sick. I have a horrible sore throat and it gets a ton worse when i try to swallow. I’ve been to the doctor and he gave me some antibiotics.

Last I knew, Grandma was capable of walking very short distances, though she is still in quite a bit of pain. Mom and Dad are driving down Tuesday (Grandpa is coming back Monday) and staying through Friday or Saturday.

I couldn’t fall asleep last night because I had hiccups from about 9:30 to 2:00. I’ve been really bored the last few days, and nothing sounds very interesting at all  I just want to be back with the people at college again.

So driving down with aunt ann wasn’t too bad. I only stalled the car twice, once getting out of my driveway and once in downtown toldeo.

Grandma’s surgery starts tomorrow morning, so i’m going to bed early.

To Ohio

My Aunt Ann and I are driving down to Cleveland tomorrow to be with my grandpa while my grandma has surgery on her knees. Unfortunately, we’re taking my Aunt Ann’s Vibe, which is stick shift… so she’s going to teach me how to drive stick shift on the way down.

It’ll be good for her to get away from her 4 kids (my parents are going to watch them while we’re down there) and also good that she’s not going by herself. She spends a lot of time alone or just with her kids, because her husband works in Virginia.

Talking about her family, Carmen is going to stay here for a couple weeks while her family is visiting her dad in Virginia so that she can go to drivers training with Megan.

yay penguins

It’s nice to see that the German Zoo allows this. Maybe someday people will be a little more open to gay human couples adopting children.

I have to put some of these pictures in here, i mean…. who doesn’t love penguins!

Mom is really having a hard time at school lately. I hope it starts to get easier for her because the stress is really taking a toll on her health. I hope that I don’t end up in a school system that gives me as much trouble as Mt. Morris gives to my mom.

Also, thinking today, I’m so ready to get out into the world to teach. I feel like the rest of college is just for the degree. I’m pretty sure that I could go out there now and do a pretty decent job of teaching high school band. Perhaps the BMusEd degree should be revised….

Our Happiness lies in the hands of another…

…and mine is in excellent hands.

I had such a great time in Jackson. Just giving him a hug was worth the 2 hour trip down there. I only wish I could have stayed longer.

He also got me a gift for my birthday, The God Delusion, which had come up a few times in our stumbling and conversations.

Unfortunately, while I was down there, the brakes decided to give out on me luckily I was in a parking lot with a Sears and didn’t have to drive very far at all to get them fixed.

I spent today just lying around. Earlier I watched The Wicker Man which was disappointing…  I only watched it because I came across it on a list of films that make you think.

I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone.

QVC (lack of) Fashion

It’s Megan’s birthday party today so she and about 6 friends are outside, throwing water balloons at each other, walking through our forest, sitting around a fir, and playing badminton. Some of her friends are quite weird, so I decided to save myself the embarrassment of forced conversation with them in favor of sitting inside stumbling and playing computer games.

Unfortunately, Mom is watching TV in here (so she can be in fairly close proximity to the goings on of the teenagers here) and she keeps flipping back and forth between QVC and Bonanza. Everytime she switches to QVC she says (mostly to herself) “I don’t care too much for the clothes from this company” or something along those lines, but she continues to flip back to… as if something is going to come on in the next 60 seconds that she will be interested in. I don’t want to talk about Bonanza…. it’s just boring.

Mom does occasionally order things from QVC, and so I’m going to see if I can find a few pictures of things she has ordered in all of their god-awfulness.

6:54 – I typed QVC in the address bar, and the first thing that catches my eye is QVC: Fashion … heh, that’s only accurate if one of the stupid uses of the confusing colon ( : ) is for it to be used in place of the words “lack of”

6:56 -  a picture for this one

This is the QVC Customer top rated Tee

6:59 – I went to the other room to get the numbers off of some of mom’s QVC boxes to see if I could get pics of exactly what she ordered.

(side note: my sister mixed skittles and M&Ms in the same bowl, which is quite frustrating)

7:03 – Here are the pics from mom’s most recent order:

where’s waldo?

So…. As you can see, my mom is a little lacking on Fashion Awareness… but what really gets me is that people buy enough of stuff like this for it to remain in production.

In the microwave window

Everything I listen to look at or think about leads to Charlie. I can’t wait to see him.

I’m finding it really hard to keep myself entertained without talking to him, lol, and then we don’t always say a whole bunch.. but a feel a ton better.

just 3 days and 11ish hours until i see him!

bubble bath

I like having titles that only mean something to one person.

Yesterday i got some sawdust or something in my eye, and got a few scratches from it, so I’m supposed to relax that eye as much as possible for a day or two… it feels quite a bit better today already.

I’m going to finish this episode of family guy, then try to finish cleaning my room.. which has taken far too long already.

Oh! Maybe I’ll play some more Pikmin 2