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Thankfully Dad was in the cities yesterday so he picked me up after work and drove me to Willmar to buy my "new" Taurus. It's taking a little getting used to as it's so much bigger than my little Honda, but I think it's going to be nice to have for a while. No more stuffing four people in a car built to comfortably seat two. I cleaned out most of my car tonight to get it ready to be towed, which was really hard to do. I can't believe how attached I've become to a car. This is crazy. :P

I'm really worn out and so glad that tomorrow's Friday. I have to go in to work early a couple of days next week as well, but it won't be consistent nights of seven or less hours of sleep. The Sasha/Digweed show is this weekend, too! We've been waiting to see these guys for so long.

Well, the car hunt was looking dreary, but after speaking to Dad this afternoon I feel a lot better about it. If I can ever get ahold of this guy to look at a Honda Civic, I'm going to tomorrow or Thursday, but otherwise, there is a Ford Taurus with my name written on it waiting in Willmar. Not my absolute first choice for a car, exactly, but it will be roomy and sounds like it has several good features. Most importantly, it runs well and will be cheap to maintain (so I can theoretically save up for a down payment in a year or two). Hopefully I'll know more tomorrow.

The weather here is absolutely nuts for the middle of April. I stepped off the plane last night to find it had been 90 degrees here in the afternoon and was still pretty close to that. So much for those long sleeves and the sweater I had with me in preparation to return to cold and rain like I had left on Thursday. :P Today was similar, 85 or so, and kind of hazy. It feels like the middle of July. One saving grace is that it's windy as can be and looks like we're going to get hit with a decent storm tonight. Ahhhh, Minnesota weather.

Reality was painful to face at 6am this morning when the alarm clock started beeping, but I only have three days more to this week and can see the light at the end of the tunnel of insanity I'm in for the moment.

Do I really have to go back to reality at 7am tomorrow morning?! Just got back from CA and what a fun weekend! Friday was pretty uneventful, Saturday was a jam packed adventure to San Francisco, and Sunday was spent lounging around in the sunny 80 degree weather, playing games and out and out relaxing. I took a couple rolls of pictures and will post them and probably a longer entry about the trip later this week. For now, I need to rest up to begin another busy week of work and car hunting. G'nite. :o)

I left Matt and Ben this morning at the airport security check and began a pretty crazy day. Had an appointment to get my car appraised after getting the back end smucked in an accident last week. The other girl's insurance company wants to total it so as of next week it will no longer be mine and in the meantime I need to frantically search for something good for $1500. If anyone knows anyone that's selling something cheap and reliable, please lemme know! I will miss my cute little green Honda. It's the only car I've owned and I've been driving it since I was 15. It's been very good to me and is fun to drive. I think I've been reading too many car ads today; I'm starting to sound like them.

In 48 hours I will be a couple thousand miles away and back in my baby's arms. I have to get through a long day tomorrow at work, do some packing, and hopefully get to bed early, get up for another early work day and leave at second break to head to the airport and off to Stockton, CA. I'm so anxious to step off that plane and into Matt's arms and a FUN weekend in Stockton and San Francisco! I'm hoping to see Alcatraz, THE bridge, the ocean again, and so many of the other neat aspects of the area that I've heard about.

I'm a very happy camper. I have a few hurdles to jump in the near future with my car and finances, but things at work are going so smoothly and I am deeply and happily in love. Five months ago I had no idea I'd be in such a wonderful place now.

Russell Crowe gets cooler and cooler by the day! Apparantly he really does knit. Sweet.

It's Easter Eve so I'm in Willmar for the evening and tomorrow morning for church. I hadn't been home since Christmas nor seen much of my family since Thanksgiving so it's a mixed blessing and curse. I miss everyone, and it's nice to be reminded of the freely given love and encouragement that can be found here, but I am also reminded just how different some of my views have become from theirs. I see so much of myself in my father in the things I think and what I choose to say. He is probably one of the most liberal in our family, although he has chosen to teach his children to be a little more conservative for Mom and the rest of the family. At least I know where much of what I do comes from and it's nice to know that I'm not the just a complete freak of the family.

We've been munching on a full turkey dinner and snacks all day. Now I hear people lining up to get plates of leftovers and soup for supper so I think I shall join them. We are definitely a family of consumers (food and otherwise).

Gone, but apparantly not entirely forgotten. I've been absent from the internet for three weeks or so now... since the house of skark was shut down and the dsl went kaput, and it's nice to randomly be hearing from a few people I've been losing touch with (like I tend to do when things start actually happening in my life).

We've been bouncing back and forth between his Mom and Dad's place and my apartment and so far it's been going even better than I had hoped. Although the house situation has been on hold for a while and things are just chugging along at their usual pace, I feel great amounts of promise welling up underneath the garbage moods I've been rolling in and out of. Maybe it's just pms subisiding. Who knows... I'm happy.

Found this a few weeks back on someone's blog (sorry I can't remember who it was to credit them).

We went to check out a rental place in south-eastern Minneapolis today and I'm giddy about it. It's the upper floor of a duplex (which means we would be the noisy upstairs neighbors instead of waking up to them at 7am), and has teeny bedrooms but a huge common area that makes us wonder what we could possibly do with all of the space. The three bathrooms to four bedrooms ratio brings me back to the wonderful childhood days of never having to wait for a sibling or a parent to stop hogging the bathroom when you're trying to get ready in the morning or just gotta go. :P I really think this place could be a kickass location for this bunch. I'm hoping things go smoothly in the near future for the boys getting a new place (this one?) and me getting out of my current place and going through whatever may come in dealing with my family on the issue.

Sure the idea of her and what she does are a little nuts, but I have been finding myself more and more fascinated by some of the ideas Martha Stewart kicks out of her fanatically organized, ever-so-crafty and original brain. Then there is Not Martha for those that are slightly less inclined to dole out a spotless product every time, and who don't necessarily need to have their silverware coordinate with their chair cushions. I may need to find some holiday in the near future as an excuse to make these. A substitute for Easter eggs perhaps (since all they ever do is sit all beautifully colored getting rotten over the course of a month or two in a grey paper carton in the fridge)?

I want one.

Matt installed Greymatter on my site a few days ago and I finally have the motivation to start setting it up. Now I can't figure out HOW and he's off working somewhere. That'll teach me to be lazy for days on end when he's urging me to work on it. :P [/sarcasm]

I should make mention to the kickass Wiki he also put up on Magnificentwheat a few days ago. The concept is fabulous. The reader can edit ANYthing on the site and it turns into a big mess of links and a whole lot of wacky content. RussellFreedom for president in 2004!

I was paid quite a compliment at work today by one of the few people that I converse with on a fairly regular basis. He mentioned that I do what needs to be done around there; that I "keep a low profile and run under the radar," which allows me to get away with a little bit more than the average person. I was just starting to think it was exactly what was holding me back, as some of the loud brash folks seem to have the supervisors wrapped around their fingers, but I think he's right. I'm flying low, getting my work done and doing it well, and in the long run, I hopefully come out on top.

"How to bury a drunk." (via memepool)

[rina] bbc's olympics site is cool
[rina] lots of stats
[porked] who one the womens curling event?
[rina] hah
[rina] you seriously wanna know?
[porked] unfortunatley.
[rina] Women's Preliminaries Draw 7
[rina] Britain 7 Switzerland 4
[rina] Canada 8 Germany 4
[rina] Norway 5 Russia 4
[rina] Sweden8 Japan 7
[rina] whatever that means
[HighElf] go canada go?
[porked] i some how got stuck watching that last night and never got to wee how it turned out.
[rina] what do those scores mean?
[HighElf] don't have any idea how curling works.
[rina] i know nothing about that .."sport"
[rina] heh
[porked] i have no idea either
[rina] hahahaha
[HighElf] heh
[HighElf] but the disc thingys move around and hit each other. :P

.....Does anyone have any insight into this?

What an excessively cool site for an exsessively strange car. It's growing on me.... I think I need the Mini Cooper S in British Racing Green with a black roof.

Grr, I was so looking forward to the weekend, to staying up late, to playing games til all hours of the night. Got out of work and all was well for a couple of hours, got some supper, ran an errand, then found out that I can't play the game I wanted to play because of some bullshit with my computer and rampant stubornness. And now it's not even 10:00 and I'm out of gas for the night. I don't want to give in and go to bed. It seems like such a waste of good weekend. So here I sit, wasting away, staring at webpages I don't even care about, and wishing someone would talk to me. So, so pathetic.

Well said.

"A chocolate husband. Oh, how darling!"
~ Majula, The Simpsons

"There's a nut in my eye."
~ Apu, The Simpsons

Things I miss about cable television:
. Cirque du Soleil broadcasted every so often on Bravo... I miss this the most.
. Junkyard Wars (and everything else on TLC). Yes, even a random "Wedding Story" mush fest once in a while.
. The Travel Channel. This channel is great on lazy weekend afternoons.
. VH1
. The Weather Channel. The web is a great substitute, but not on a dialup, and I miss a few of the specials.
. seeing The Simpsons static-less without having to stand next to the television holding onto the antenna.
. The Discovery Channel

Happy Valentines Day!

I love you with all of my heart, Matty.