Massive quantities of coffee required

For the longest, I would drink maybe a cup of coffee in the morning, but definitely not every morning, and maybe if I went out to eat or somethng, but ya know, I think I'm officially an addict now. I HAVE to have it every morning, and usually 2 cups, not 1. It's almost strange to think about because I probably know more people who HATE coffee than those who have a dependency on it. But you have to understand something...I used to be one of those people in the "I hate coffee" club. Of course, I can't STAND to even WATCH someone drink it straight up. I've got to have sugar and milk in it, that's for sure. Right now I'm on a French Vanilla kick for whatever reason.

So what else is going on in Candyland?

Well...for starters, we're going to the Memphis v. St. Louis game tomorrow.

What else?

Oh yeah, someone I've known since I was like 12-going-on-13 is getting married this summer and "doesn't know" if he "can" invite me to his wedding. Well, actually it started out with him coming up with excuses FOR ME as to why I probably couldn't come. But I'm almost certain, although this is not confirmed, that maybe a few of his other friends from school will be invited that he's known for a lesser number of years. I guess number of years doesn't mean anything anymore. I guess if I was that meaningful of a friend, he would have at least sent me a card or something when I got married and bothered to send him an invite to my wedding. I sent invitations to every single person that meant something to me over the course of my life. The place we got married seated only 100 people, so I invited 50, Michael invited 50. Of course now we both wish we had invited twice that many because it didn't even DAWN on us that some people wouldn't be able to come, so we had empty seats on BOTH sides, and other people were like ::SNIFF:: "Why didn't *I* get an invitation?" Of course, we're talking about Michael's entire church of like 500 people, and it was pretty obvious they couldn't be crammed into the place we got married, lol. But I left off of my guest list the Great-uncle in Arizona I've only seen one time since birth that probably doesn't know my middle name so that the day would be more special having everyone there that truly meant something to me. So I guess I answered my own question. Oh well. I have my theories as to why he might not want me there. Of course, he won't come out and say he doesn't want me there, but he won't say he DOES want me there either.

Which kind of leads me to my next topic. What is it with men these days? They try to get around the issue to avoid confrontation, ESPECIALLY when it comes to women, I've discovered. It's like, a man will fist fight another man, get up, and shake hands and limp away. But oh boy, a man pisses off a woman and he can expect for her to remind him of whatever he did for the rest of his life. It's like the difference between cats and dogs. Dogs are forgiving, loyal, faithful to the end. But dang, you just look at a cat the wrong way, and you are asking for an ankle thrashing every morning as long as that cat lives.

Oh yeah, and I had a wacky dream last night about my own wedding. A lot of the details are blurry, but it was the day before the wedding, and apparently I was having to choose between who I was going to marry...Michael or some guy I saw in a movie the other day. I can't even remember the actor's name! Isn't that nuts? So I was sitting there, in this dream, going over in my head the pros and cons of marrying/not marrying each one. And finally I went to my mom, threw my wedding dress on the ground and said, "Can't I just call this whole wedding thing off? I can't make up my mind and I don't want to make a huge mistake!" And when I woke up, I felt very uneasy and my stomach was churning. And then I realized "Oh yeah, I'm already married." WHEW! I also had a dream that I was working at Dillard's again. Once again, the details are nonexistent. All I can remember is I was carrying a small black purse, and I got in trouble for this because you are supposed to carry a clear purse at all times (for security purposes). That's a real requirement they have...not just one I dreamed up, lol. And then it was time to leave to go home and we had to wait for some customers to get out of there, and then I counted down my drawer, and started to walk out and the manager wouldn't let me leave until he went through my purse. What is freaking hilarious about this is that during the dream, I was thinking to myself "Just wait 'til I gripe about this on my blog." Am I a nutcase or what?? I'm dreaming about blogging!! I really do need to get out more.

Good day

Today was a pretty good day. As a matter of fact, the past couple weeks (besides the kids getting sick and having to go to the doctor on Monday) has been just great. Couldn't be better. Heck, even my commenting system AND weather pixie is working now, all at the same time. What a concept. I've been doing better about keeping the laundry caught up by doing a few small loads per day versus letting it pile up all week and having to spend all day Monday getting it all done. I've also been doing better about making my bed every morning instead of waiting 'til almost time to get back in it, lol. Everything is exactly where it's supposed to be...no dishes in the sink, no toys everywhere, the bathrooms are clean, heck, even my bedroom is clean. The floors are vacuumed/swept/mopped. What's the occasion? Absolutely nothing. It's not like anyone comes to visit me anymore. Nothing screams "Come visit me!" like a dirty house and a huge mountain of laundry, and nothing screams "Stay away!" like a clean house. I've been finding more time to practice some new songs on the piano, and I've even schedule some times for a few people from church to come over and practice with me. Slowly but surely I've been checking things off my to-do list. It's a great feeling to know that in the slim chance someone stops by for a surprise visit, they will be amazed to see how nice the place looks. I've also had time to sit down and do some thinking about what I want to do with my life. RIGHT NOW I want to be a stay-at-home mom, but once the kids get older and in school, (which we don't plan on having anymore kids by the way), I am NOT going to want to sit around the house all hours of the day, twiddling my thumbs or doing needle point, waiting for them to get home. Plus the kids are going to have things they want to do, like sports or other activities, and those things cost money that's not in our budget and WON'T be in our budget when Michael starts teaching, so I want to work, not only to maintain my sanity, but also to help pay for their needs/wants. So I've decided I'm just going to take it slow, one semester at a time, and gradually work towards getting my degree. I've been doing a lot of digging for information, and asking different people about different things, and the more I find out, the more I really want to do this. I am going back to my roots by sticking with what I really wanted to go to school for in the beginning...to be an English teacher. I was greatly inspired by my English teacher in 10th and 12th grade. Not only was she a wonderful teacher in every single way, she cared about me and all of her students. She wanted to see us excel and succeed in every way. She was challenging, but at the same time wasn't so unbearable that you couldn't get any of your homework done for other classes. I knew then that I wanted to model myself after her someday. So that's my goal. Now I know I don't HAVE to be an English teacher to be like her, but English was my best subject in school, so that's what I'm shooting for. Plus I like Shakespeare and all that stuff :-) But anyway, I'll let everyone know how all that goes. More later.

Attention!

In case you haven't noticed, I have a commenting system up again, which I stole from somewhere else. Of course, it's free for anyone else to use, so I don't think that counts as stealing. What's a real bummer is that just as soon as I get a working comment system, my Weather Pixie stops working. How typical...you fix one thing and then something else breaks. ARGH!!!

Blue

Why is everyone so depressed lately? It seems like almost every friend I've talked to over the course of the week has been really down and out about something. And then there I am, offering advice, wisdom, comforting words. Goodness knows, I'm always down on myself about something or other, so how in the world do I have advice, wisdom and comforting words to spare? But I always seem to be able to put my problems aside and help someone else with theirs. Like yesterday for example, I was talking to a close friend...she's married, has 2 young kids around the ages of my kids, and she was just spilling to me marriage woes, money problems, and all the stress she was dealing with. And the thing is, I just called her out of nowhere just to chat. (Being a mom of 2, long, meaningful phone calls are few and far between.) By the time we both realized we needed to get off the phone because we'd been on it for over an hour, she said to me, "I really am glad you called. I feel a lot more calm now." But that was only one instance this week. It seems like everywhere I turn, I've been helping people sort out their feelings. Why can't I be my own sounding board? Life would be so much easier if we didn't require a 3rd party person to dump all of our problems on. Or would it?

On a completely different subject, Memphis freaking beat Loserville ::AHEM:: Louisville last night..the freaking #6 team in the freaking nation, and it was freaking superb. The crowd was huge, loud, all that good stuff I love to see at a basketball game and I WASN'T THERE! :( I had to watch it on TV. And at the end, the students stormed the court. Incredible!!! Me, Michael, and yes, even Travis, were jumping all over the place and hooting and hollering near the end of the game. It was a late game, too...started at 9 and wasn't over 'til after 11. I'm so used to those 7 o'clock games that when last night's game was over, I thought it was only like 9, and then I looked up and saw it was 11. So I went to bed, laid down on my pillow with a smile on my face and drifted away into Tiger dreamland. :-) I believe I will have cardinal stew for lunch today. Yummy.

Chinese Frogs

As a continuation of my record keeping of the crazy dreams I've been having as of late, this is only the most recent one. There will be more to come, I'm sure.

I was on my lunch break from work (whatever job I was working, who knows) and I went to the mall. I was walking around, basically window shopping different clothing stores. I didn't buy anything, but just looked around at all the stuff I couldn't afford to buy. Then I realized I was hungry and should probably get something to eat before heading back to work. So I head to the food court, and not really sure what I was hungry FOR, decided to eat Chinese. So I get in line, grab a tray, and they were deep frying...you guessed it...frogs. What was bad is that they'd put these little frogs into a deep fryer, and some of them jumped out of the pot, onto a big plate, all on their own. I glared over the counter at one of the Chinese dudes working back there, dishing out these frogs, and I yelled at him, "That is so CRUEL, serving frogs!!!" Well, apparently he took offense to my bashing his frog frying, because he began to chase after me, spatula in hand. He chased me out an emergency exit door, by all these dumpsters, and then I ran to the parking lot, jumped into my car, slammed the door, he was cussing me in Chinese, and I floored it. You may be laughing, but this was terrifying somehow. It was like he was going to FORCE me to munch these frogs!!! Sure, frog legs might be a delicacy to some, but I'm gonna have to pass.

In OTHER news, I am thinking about going back to school. It just doesn't seem right that Michael's going to have a degree and I'm not. :-) But in all seriousness, I've been thinking about it off and on for quite some time now, and after giving it much thought, I want to go back to school to do what I had originally planned on when I graduated highschool...becoming an English teacher. I would love to teach high school, but middle school would be okay. I just know I'm not cut out for the elementary age. What's great is that I only lack 4 of my core classes...English Lit II, Physical Science, a Fine Arts elective of my choosing and a Science or Math Elective, and then I can do all the stuff that's actually related to my degree. I think I'll have to opt for the Science elective because math is just not my cup of tea. I was happy just to be able to skip straight into College Algebra and get out of there with an A. Why would I even THINK about taking another math class? I'm not a glutton for punishment, THAT'S for sure! So what's even BETTER is that I can get my Bachelors at Ole Miss here at the Northwest campus in my own back yard. I may start as early as this summer with an online class and see how that goes, and then get the only 3 classes I need in the fall. I am also hoping that with our income, and the fact that I'm married with two kids, I can get some federal money to help pay for all of this, but we'll see.

Oh, pray for Michael...he has his first algebra test tonight, and I feel like I helped him prepare for it every way I know how. I made up a really fun test for him to take last night to see what he could do, lol, and he didn't do half bad, but just pray, pray, pray! I do not want to be held responsible if he flunks it!!!

Forever

Forever is a harsh word. You will have to pardon my deep thoughts for a moment because I feel like being deep for a minute. Let's say you've known this person for most of your life. You've MORE than just known this person for a large fraction of your life. You shared a close, intimate relationship with this person. No, I didn't say sexual necessarily, although part of the relationship COULD be sexual, but I'm talking about just intimate. You could share anything and everything with this person, you went through thick and thin with him/her. You shared each other's homework, lunch money, clothes, late-nite phone calls about nothing at all, scraped together whatever change you could find in the car just to put $2 in the gas tank just so you could make it to McDonald's on Tuesdays for 29-cent hamburgers. And then this volume of your life is ended abruptly, slammed shut, and you realize it took a part of you with it. They move away, and you get a couple of phone calls, maybe a visit while they're in town, then a few more phone calls, and then suddenly, no more phone calls, no more visits, their e-mail address doesn't work anymore, and in this great age of communication and technology, you have lost all contact with this person and don't even know where or how to begin to find the person. You thought you would ALWAYS be in contact SOMEHOW with this person, only to stop and realize they are gone forever. But then you wonder if that person is trying to find YOU. Then you think wouldn't it be almost unreal, like a dream, if that person showed up at your door, unexpectedly, out of nowhere. What would you say? Would you hug? Would you cry? Would you explode with happiness? Would you be angry that they had shut you out of their life somehow by not keeping in touch? Just imagine all of the catching up you would have to do, and then realizing there's just not enough time to talk about everything that's happened over the years that's worth even bringing up. Just imagine. What if that person is thinking about you at this very moment that you are thinking of that person? What if he/she is frantically searching to find you all the while you're searching the Yahoo yellow pages, dialing up every person in the United States that has the same name, only to discover NONE of them match who you are looking for? And then it's another dead end. And then you think there's got to be SOMEONE in town who knows someone that knows someone that knows someone that knows where that person is. Is the search in vain? Is that person even alive anymore? I mean, forever is a long, long time to never talk to the person again that you would've given your left kidney to.