Here we go a-traveling

I think I'm packed and ready. This is the first time in a long time that I've packed for mor than 4 days and it didn't involve any navy blue polyester. Scary but fun.

My mother and I are leaving for China in the morning. I'm surprisingly nervous. Surprisingly, because this isn't the most daring adventure I've ever embarked on. I'll even have my mom with me! I guess my main concerns revolve around getting stuck either in Shanghai or in Tokyo and not having enough money to get back to work in time. I believe this is the first time I've gone on a vacation without a credit card in years and years.

Other than that, I have my warm clothes packed. According to Peter's wise council, I've packed enough beads, hatchets, and mirrors to hopefully buy something equivalent to Manhattan. If Peter Stuyvesant can do it, why can't I?

I would love to write more but this week has been ridiculous and I'm exhausted. Today was the latest I slept all week and it was 6am eastern time (though it was 5am in Monterrey where I was).

For those who are concerned, we will be leaving tomorrow morning at 10am flying from Atlanta to Tokyo. We should arrive there around 2:25pm on MONDAY afternoon. Then we'll get a flight from Tokyo to Shanghai where Israel will meet us and we'll stay for the night. Then we'll spend the week around Ningbo where he lives. I'll probably fly back to Tokyo Monday morning and leave around 4pm for Atlanta. Crazily enough, I'll get back on Monday around 2.... Go figure. I'm supposed to work on the 14th but am trying to swap just to give myself some more time to miss flights and such.

That's all for now. I plan to be checking email and myspace and such. I'll try to update on how the trip is going but I'll have to see how that goes.

Currently reading : The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity By Lee Strobel

oh yeah

I'm proud of myself. The other day I ran 2.5 miles in 30 minutes which is not fast but my personal best. I haven't been able to run much because of my schedule but I ran for 25 min solid and went faster than I have before. And this is only my third time in a week. Hopefully I'll do enough walking in China to make up for not going to the gym. Hate to take a break so soon after I've just started back. As long as I keep trying, right?

I heart sore muscles

Thanks in huge part to J, I am now a proud member of PTC's World Gym. I am also the proud owner of very sore muscles. It feels so good. I went yesterday and today. Ran/walked some, worked out, and did enough crunches so I can feel every muscle in my stomach. It feels fantastic. I can't wait to see results.

Had a great day with my family. Celebrated my birthday with wonderful food and lovely gifts.

I have to work at 719 in the am so I'm out. Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.

caffeine is the devil

I knew getting the Diet Coke with my Zaxby's was a bad idea... And here it is, one hour and 35 minutes into my most fabulous day and I'm still awake, messing around online. But the Zaxby's was sooo good. Well worth the pain.

Many of you are aware of the somewhat obsessive, never satisfying relationship I have with Flica, our online scheduling, swapping program. I would like to point out here that my relationship with Flica is not completely one sided. When I signed in a while ago to see if they posted my new schedule it said happy birthday. How nice, huh? Who says scheduling doesn't love me? ha

Lately has been tired. That's mainly why I haven't written. I went to Maine this weekend which was really nice but other than that (and partially including that) all I do these days is go to and from the airport, either by plane or by car. It's all good though. Today was a nice day at work. I had really friendly passengers who made me smile. The weather is still bumpy and I'm getting a little tired of being thrown around for hours on end, but what can you do?

I'm learning that pride goeth before a super suckiness at crossword puzzles. All my life I've fancied myself a word girl. I like to read. I read a lot. I remember a lot of what I read. I like to write. I like good spelling and proper grammar. But I can not, for the life of me, do crossword puzzles. And it makes me feel like I'm stupid or something. I think it's God's way of keeping me in my place :-P. Tanya says I need to start out with easy ones, but I guess the easy ones aren't easy enough. Now I feel like I have to be able to do them just because it's a challenge.

My China trip is sneaking up on me and I just realized I have a lot to do. It looks as though my mother dearest and I will be making the journey together, which will be nice. That's a long way to go on your own.

Another thing that will make long trip much more pleasant is that I have the best friends in the whole world and a bunch of them went in together and got me an ipod for my birthday. I consider myself most blessed. Not just to have an ipod but to have friends of the quantity AND quality that I have. And that's just my friends. Nevermind my amazing family. God has been and continues to be so good to me. A very wise person told me recently that it's really important not to focus so much on one thing you want that you miss the other things around you. I'm afraid I do that sometimes when it comes to my friends and family. I want that one special person. I want to find that someone I will spend my life with, but obviously it isn't God's time and I would hate to think that I neglect the wonderful friendships that I have because I'm looking for something else. Oh yeah... I love love love my ipod. It rocks my face off.

Just some thoughts from a very blessed, but crossword-ly (yes I just made that up) challenged girl.

5000

Sometime recently I had the 5000th view on my blog. Woo hoo!

This was a long week of work. Now I'm home for one night and off to PWM tomorrow to see the fabulous Amy for her birthday, as well as my lovely Matt, Adri, and Shane. Should be good times.

I like the ad where they're like "lock the cashbox... or is it stop the catbox?" It makes me smile.

It's Friday night at 9:14pm and I'm ready to go to sleep. I feel lame. But too tired to do anything about it.

Hasta la pasta.

when you feel so tired but you can't sleep...

Evidently sleep hates me. I spent most of the afternoon trying to stay awake and now I've been lying in bed for almost 2 hours and can't go to sleep. My mind won't ever stop going. So frustrating.

I'm realizing how much I have to do tomorrow. I start a 4 day on Tuesday morning so I have to get ready for that. And my room is disgusting. It seems like all I do is try to keep it clean. Lately I haven't even been trying though. I think I've been in denial about it, like if I ignore it it will clean itself, which is probably how it got to this point. It's awful. So I need to clean it up, do laundry, put my clean clothes away, pack for this week, etc... Basically good times.

The last two days off have been lovely. Last night Amie, Jay, and I had supper with my family, which was fabulous as always since my mother is the best cook ever. Then after supper Peter and I went shopping for dress shirts. Too bad noone else knew that's what we were doing and it just looked like I was wearing 6 ties for the fun of it (we were trying to match shirts with ties he already had).

This morning I went to church then back to the family's for lunch. Also got my hair styled, then restyled, then restyled, then finally when I threatened Peter's life he put it back in a way that I could wear in public. I don't really care what he does to my hair really, it just feels nice to have my hair messed with.

Tonight Amie and I used what was left on a giftcard she had and all the change in the bottom of her purse to buy stuff to make quesadillas. It was so disappointing though because the avos we bought were harder than rocks. The lesson for the evening was microwaving avocados does not make them soft. It just makes them really hot. (I swear it was Amie's idea.. haha). The quesadillas were pretty good considering it was my first attempt and I had to use a frying pan to cook them.

Oh yeah, this is something I overheard on a flight the other day. A man and a college age girl were talking and I'm almost positive he asked her if she was bilingual. Her answer was (in English) I'm not bilingual, I just speak Spanish. I really hope I misunderstood her, otherwise I should probably feel sorry for her for being so stupid. It did make me laugh to myself though.

I'm thinking about joining the gym. It's not like I need something else to spend money on every month, but I really, really need to exercise. I would feel better, look better, probably sleep better. I'd save money in the long run cause at this point I'm having to replace all my clothes because none of them fit me anymore :-P. Right now there is a $1 sign up fee so I pretty much have to decide tomorrow if I'm going to do it... My foot is finally getting better and I can get back to running. It's frustrating cause J started back running the same time I did in Nov. but didn't stop and he's lost about 10lb. I, on the other hand, have gained several more, bringing myself to an all time high. Woo hoo. I'm not saying I'm fat or anything, I just know I could be healthier and it would be good for me to be active... We shall see.

This is getting long and I'm still not ready to sleep so I think I'll have to try something else. Hasta la pasta.

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain/plane

I'm so glad that I only have one flight tomorrow morning, then I go home. The part that isn't fun is that the flight is at 6am. We were supposed to go back to ATL and do a round trip to the grand city of Erie, PA but our FO lost her voice so she had to be replaced and the replacing took so long that our rest got super reduced tonight. wheww... That was a long sentence and now I'm all out of breath. The problem is, I slept really late this morning and can't seem to be tired yet. All day today I've felt slightly out of it. I drank coffee thinking that might pull things together more in my head, but nothing has seemed to work. I feel like I'm forgetting something. I just had a panic moment and went to check and make sure that my manual was in my bag.

I've noticed that they made myspace somewhat Australian or something.. It's kind of odd cause they put the date day first, month second, opposite what we do here. I wonder how many people that will confuse. My heigh is also listed in centimeters. So for all of you who have been wondering how many centimeters tall I am, now you know. I know it's been keeping you awake at night.

I continue to be addicted to Flica. Swapping is just too much fun. I swapped my 4 day next week for one of J's which should be fun. Work isn't that much fun anyway so it's always nice to be able to work with someone fun. Still working on some swaps though. I need to get some more hours but would rather work longer on the days I'm already working than give up more of my off days.. We'll see.

As much fun as Tulsa is 410 is going to come too early.

And if I had a million dollars we'd take a limousine cause it costs more

I've had that song stuck in my head ever since I heard it this morning. It makes me smile a little :).

I just realized that I didn't speak to a single person I know today. Only my pilots and I just met them last week. At least they're nice. I was in Montreal last night and my phone is roaming there so I can't call. I did get some text messages and a voicemail upon my arrival back into the good ol' US of A. I'm not complaining. It was a quiet day which is fine, just a little odd to realize that.

I also didn't have any internet access while up in Canadia, which is quite frustrating. I'm addicted to Flica (our scheduling site) and keep checking to see if they've approved any of my swaps. Today was nice though, despite the lack of communication. I got up late this morning (we landed in Montreal at 1215 last night and didn't get to the hotel until 130. That airport is enormous), then walked a few blocks out of the ghetto to eat lunch. In spite of the cold it was nice to get out, walk around, and see the city a little. I don't understand how people live in climates like that. I saw something really interesting - we were walking back from lunch and passed a little park where there were a lot of pigeons parking off with their feathers all fluffed up. All of the sudden they started flying around, but kind of in an orderly way. I thought the wind was doing something weird. They flew to one side, then back, and I saw this lady trying to walk through them and was thinking every time she walks a different way they keep flying in her face and all around her. I finally realized after she had made a half circle walk around the park, that all the pigeons were following her. I guess they had seen her coming up, flown over to her and kept going until she stopped. It was the weirdest thing. And sure enough, she stopped and started throwing bird seed to them. I didn't know that pigeons could recognize a person but that is definitely what happened. And even before she started throwing the bird seed more birds kept flying up. Definitely something a little out of the ordinary.

This morning when I woke up I washed my face I was looking in the mirror and noticed a weird mark on my cheek. Some of you know that whenever we take off I write the time on the back of my left hand, kind of between my thumb and index finger. Evidently I spent a great deal of the night sleep on my hand. No amount of soap and water would get it off so I had to go to lunch with three little numbers on my cheek. How cool am I?

This hotel we're staying in is really nice. I'm in the grand town of Monroe, LA. Not a bad place though, it seems. They have earplugs, popcorn, full kitchen, nice soap and shampoo, pleasant color schemes, and will even go grocery shopping for only the cost of the groceries. There is a mall across the street and breakfast. Only drawback seems to be that I can't pick up wireless. Arg.

Ah, I have just discovered why they give you earplugs. Here comes the train! I don't think I have anything else to blather on about. Tomorrow night I'll be in Tulsa, then Thursday I'm home. Four day trips are way too long!

I've tried posting this 3 times with the proper time, not Pacific time, and it won't let me. Arg!!

I can't think of a subject

I don't have much to say. I don't seem to very often lately. Probably makes some people happy :-P. Things are good which helps, I guess. I just had a day of driving around in the rain, talking to my other little sister Roya, seeing the family, eating my mom's great food, and general pleasantness along those lines. The weather here is disgusting. Friday it was awful. There were tornadoes south of here and it rained and rained the entire day. Yesterday, when I had to go to work, it was beautiful. And today when I'm home again it's gross. It may seem like a complaint that the weather is only beautiful when I hvae to work, but I'm actually really glad I'm not having to work in this weather. Flights get delayed. People get grouchy. I have to be in the rain cause we don't have jetways in Atlanta. All good times.

Yesterday I flew to Melbourne, FL and back and then to New Orleans and back. It was a pretty easy, normal day except that I was really tired. Then I came home and watched The Devil Wears Prada with J. It was cute. Glad I've seen it now. Maybe because I had already read the book, it was one of the few movies I've actually really wanted to see. We did watch Invincible Friday night which was good. I'm all about the feel good movies. There's enough crap in life that I don't need to pay someone to bring more of it into my head.

There isn't much else to report on. I was reading back on some of my old blogs and they seem more interesting to me for some reason. Who knows... I need to go put my clean clothes away and do something productive. I'm reading Case for Faith and would like to finish it soon. I guess sitting on myspace isn't going to make that happen, huh? :-P

Oh yeah, Amie's gonna be home soon too. Woo hoo!!

polar opposites

I'm in a really good mood today but need to vent about a few things that really bugged me today and recently.

I can't stand people that let their children drink lots and lots of Coke on airplanes. Or people that let their children stand up and move around while the airplane is taxiing. Do they let their kids stand up in moving cars? (FYI to parents - the juices on airplanes have nearly as much sugar as sodas.) I can't stand people that turn around before I've gotten to them and are already telling me what they want when I'm obviously busy with someone else. Or the people that think they're cute telling you they want the filet mignon. Yeah, we all want filet mignon honey.

Now for the good stuff.

This morning as I was driving into work I saw the love of my life landing. I nearly wrecked, I was so distracted. I wish I could've just stopped and stared as it flew over me and landed... I even got goosebumps watching it. As you can see, I worked today. It was my 7th day being at work. Normally I would hate it but these last few days of work haven't really been typical. I got to spend an entire day in San Francisco. Did a lot of riding around on planes and not working but still getting paid. I did a two day on Tuesday with a great crew which made that trip really nice. Got home last night and was able to swap a trip later this month for a trip today. The moral of the story is, work is going well. I did a round trip to Springfield, MO, made money, and am now home and not tired. I did accidentally wear two different trouser socks. It was noticeable if you looked at my feet, but I don't think anyone did. One was opaque and the other like hose.. Haha..

I can't remember what else I had to say. There are my gripes and my smiles. Polar opposites. Life is good (even though the weather here is disgusting). Hope everyone else is happy as well.

the sun has returned

I write this as I eat my super healthy breakfast of my mom's apple cake and sprite. Good times. Yay for eating whatever I want. At least I'm not eating pizza (and I'm mostly not eating that cause I didn't think about it til just now.)

When I go back to work I'm going to have forgotten all my announcements and what I'm supposed to do on the plane. These days off have been fabulous, and the best part is, they aren't over yet.

I'm glad the beginning of my Christmas wasn't an indication of things to come. I worked Sunday night and Monday morning. I was on the ATR, but I figured it was a nap so it couldn't be too bad... On the way back from Dothan in the morning it was completely white outside from the time we got off the ground until right before we landed in Atlanta. It was really turbulent and just as we were coming into Atlanta to land they made us go back around. I wanted to cry. Because of the clouds and my nausea (I think my equilibrium is off cause I'm fighting a cold) there were times when I couldn't tell if the plane was tilted or straight. Right as we landed I threw up. Thankfully there were no passengers within 6 rows of me, though it would've been okay cause a few of them threw up as well. I finally got off the plane and was headed toward the bus. It was really rainy and windy but I was so happy cause I was going home. I was walking through one of those covered walkways they put out on the ramp without a care in the world. As I started to come out of the end of the walkway I was noticing how quiet the ramp was. How many sleeping airplanes there were. How I've never seen so many dark airplanes parked in Atlanta during the day - when I face planted. For some idiotic reason there is a bar about ankle level across the bottom of the walkway. If I wasn't so mad and hurt I would've laughed at myself (as I'm sure many of you are doing right now). I put a huge hole in my hose, scraped my knee, my hands, my phone, and have a lovely little bruise right on the bottom of my shin. Add to that the fact that I fell on my hands on the ramp in Atlanta in the rain, which is absolutely disgusting. Thankfully no one was around to witness my gracefulness. I still don't know what they were thinking putting a bar across the bottom of the walkway. It's like putting a bar across the bottom of a door. Makes no sense.

Anyway... the rest of my Christmas was much, much better. I went home, showered, put on my pjs, and went to my parent's house. We opened presents, napped (well I did anyway) and ate all day. We sat around and compared injuries. My dad has staples in his head from work, Joy had surgery on her foot, and I can't seem to walk. Evidently Peter is perfect though :-P.

The last few days have been really lovely. I need to get going to so I can go hang out with my family this afternoon.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night

I just wrote a whole nice long blog about how happy I was this Christmas season and then when I tried to copy a link into it went away. Suck...

The moral of the story was: I've really enjoyed this holiday season. I wish I could have soaked it up a little more. It's the first Christmas in years when I've really enjoyed the festivity of it all. The music. The decorations. I haven't dreaded the presents or the buying of them because this is the first Christmas in years I haven't had to use credit cards to buy gifts. I can buy them knowing I won't be in the hole next month. It's a blessing. I'm blessed to be spending time with most of my family tomorrow and a lot of my friends. I'm blessed that my family likes each other. That we can all be together (apart from geography) and have a good time. I've been sitting here this afternoon wrapping presents, listening to Christmas music, and drinking a peppermint mocha latte that Jamie brought me (he's the best). I was supposed to work at 6:55 but for some reason they changed it to 8. I get a little less sleep but I don't really care.

I love this website postsecret.blogspot.com. I really like the ones from today. Some are sad. Some are happy. Some are hopeful. It's good to be reminded how good I have it. Some people have such a hard time around this time of the year, and all I can say is that I have absolutely no reason to complain.

I need to get ready to go to work. I hope you are all happy and able to celebrate Jesus's birth with someone you love.

Woo hoo

I'm so happy because except for a nap tomorrow night I don't have to work until next Friday!! It came at just the right time cause I worked a ridiculously crazy lot this past week.

I don't have much to say except that I'm happy to be home. I'm looking forward to seeing my family and friends that will be around in the next week. I hope everyone is having a good holiday. If you aren't call me and I'll try to make you feel better.

I'm off to enjoy the beautiful weather, run errands, hang out with Amie, go to my family's later.. All sorts of good, fun things.

I'm dreaming of... a great insanity

I had a great many weird dreams this morning. That's probably what happens when you sleep really late. I dreamed that a lot of people I knew were in sort of a rainforest type thing. Somehow we were up among the trees but on normal ground. Jennifer Anniston was there and she really liked I think it was a skirt that my sister or someone had gotten from the thriftstore. There was a little mixed boy that somehow I was going to be taking care of like he was my child (since that's what I need right now). And then there was the phone call from Michal saying that she was upset and wanted to talk cause she thought she was going to be an aunt to a mixed boy or something equally bizarre. There was so much more but I can't remember. Probably for the best.

I need to get dressed for work. 3 more flights and I'm home for a whole day. I feel like I've been away for a long time and I don't like it.

Funkiness of the blog

I think I'm in a blog funk. I've also been pretty busy lately and when I'm not working or going I don't feel like writing.

I'm in the Hampton Inn in Cinci. This hotel is sooo nice. I wish all our hotels were this nice. My room has 2 beds. One has soft pillows and the other has firm. And there are little cards on each bed just to make sure you know which is which.

I got a new pair of jeans the other day. They're Sevens and I love them. They're also European sizes so I can't tell if I should feel bad or good by the number in the back so I just feel good cause I like the way they fit me. That makes me happy. I also got some yummy pj pants and lounge pants. At least Old Navy can get something right. I spent a ridiculously long day Friday looking for said items. Also got some more of my Christmas shopping done. It has been confirmed that I'm not completely a girl cause I don't really like shopping. Oh well.

I'm excited about not working much next week. I put in my bids for next month today and am once again nervous about what I'll get. Except for Sunday night and early early Monday morning I'm off from Friday afternoon to next Friday. I ended up swapping and working this weekend cause one of the two flight attendants at our company that I don't like picked up my trip last week. It would've been four days of misery. Not that these last few days have been sunshine and roses. I honestly can't complain that much though. The weather's been great. We've been on time. My crew is nice. I just don't feel like being here. I think I realized one reason I'm enjoying work so much more - I've been working on the 70 where there are 2 flight attendants. I'm working alone on this 3 day and it's killing me. Though I may be in a metal tube with 20-50 other people, sometimes I don't have a single conversation all day. It can get lonely. (I don't think the old guy today saying "Can I tell you that you are really beautiful" counts. What if I had said no? It did kind of make me laugh until he wouldnt' stop looking at me for the ENTIRE flight. Not glancing at me. Just sitting and looking at the constantly. Gentlemen, that's when you go from flattering to CREEPY.)

Today when I was feeling lousy I got my laptop out and played Regina Spektor's "Fidelity". It actually made me feel better. It's such a fabulous song. Or maybe it was the tea that is said to make you feel like you've been sitting out in the sunshine with your shoes off for 45 minutes... Who knows..

I can't wait to be home around Christmas. Joy is home now. Roya is home too. My daddy will be off work. The roommates will be off work. What more can one ask for in life?

ode to mini marshmallows in coffee

As glad as I am that I'm not addicted to coffee, sometimes I wish I could just drink coffee like normal people. That is, drinking coffee that actually tastes like coffee. Not coffee that has been so tampered with that you can barely recognize its presence.

I got in from work late last night, ate, fell asleep watching tv on the couch, finally went to bed and was all twitchy so I had a hard time sleeping. I kept waking up this morning which for some reason made me think that I was rested. Got up around 845 to go to the doctor. Drove 45 min round trip for a 2 minute visit. I guess I shouldnt' complain cause it was only 2 minutes cause I didn't have to wait like I normally do. I was still feeling awake so I went by Marshall's and got so sleepy I wanted to take a nap before I drove home. Hence the reason for the sugar-flavored creamer-mini marshmallow loaded coffee.

I have really been loving the weather these last few days. I realized the other day that I blog about the weather a lot, but I think it's because it has such a big impact on the way I feel. Lately I've been noticing the change from the bright blue skies of fall to the cloudy, whitish skies of winter. I'm okay with it too (not that me not being okay with it would change anything). Monday I left for work wearing short sleeves and carrying only my sweater. It was such a nice change from the low teens and twenties temps of last week.

My day has suddenly been given direction so I must go follow.

much ado about nothing

It doesn't really seem like blogging has been my thing lately. Don't really know why. Just hasn't happened. Once again, maybe because life is good and I'm happy. Or maybe just cause I haven't spent that much time sitting around lately.

Tanya's birthday was this weekend which was good times. We went out to dinner on Friday night and then her family had a surprise party for her at our place on Saturday. Yesterday was church and lunch with my family and last night was the Christmas program at Heritage. Amie came to lunch with us which was lovely. Peter made chicken quesadillas and we had lots of fresh veggies, guac, and hummus. I've been eating really well lately come to think of it. That's probably part of why my clothes continue to not fit. Last Wednesday J and I bought steak and brocoli and he cooked them and it was sooo yummy. I worked Thursday and Friday and it was just about the coldest I've been in a long, long time. I was in MSP again Thursday night and when I left for the airport the next morning at 445 it was 1 degree. Then we got back to Atlanta and it was only about 19 there. I had a snow storm blow in the door on me in Detroit as well. Other than the fact that it was brutally cold it was kind of fun. All the natives up there probably thought I was an idiot cause I was so excited by all the snow, but seriously, how often does it snow enough in 5 minutes to completely cover the ramp in Georgia? Pretty much never.

I have to go to work this afternoon but I come home tomorrow and don't work again until Saturday. I need to get my Christmas shopping done this week. I much prefer shopping during the week when less people are out.

This is probably why I haven't blogged. I have nothing interesting to say. I'm going to go try to be productive in the 2 hours before I go to work. Hopefully OKC isn't frigid tonight.

Oh yeah, watched Scoop last night. Was pretty good. I want to watch Love Actually since it's kind of a holiday movie. Anyone have it and want to loan it to me?

Happiness is Lindt dark chocolate truffles

I like the part where I have to go to the dentist tomorrow morning and I'm eating lots of chocolate. My little brother is fabulous and bought me Lindt truffles - the 60% extra dark chocolate kind as well.I'm also watching That 70s Show and going to go to bed soon. I like not working :-D.

I forgot to tell something really great that happened to me the other day. When Adri and I went to the mall on Saturday the first thing we did was go to the food court. She wanted Chinese and I wanted a burger so we split. I got in line at Johnny Rockets and decided I was at the Mall of America so I guess I could splurge and spend $9.50 on a burger and a shake. Not even fries. Just burger and shake. I'm getting ready to pay and a realize that I left my debit card in my uniform pocket. I tell the lady I couldn't find my card and I'd come back - was going to get Adri and bum from her. The lady behind me in line asked if I had ordered. I said yes but that I had left my card in my other coat so I'd come back. She told the lady to just put it in with hers. I argued with her but she wouldn't listen. Her total was $35 and some change for me, her and her two daughters and she gave the lady $40 and said to keep the change. I felt really bad and moochy but she just told me that it had happened to her and Merry Christmas. It made me happy to realize that some people still are really nice to strangers for no reason.

Today Peter and I went to the doctor at 615 this morning. I had to get something minor done to my foot but evidently they still felt the need to put me to sleep. It was really funny when I was waking up. I vaguely remember saying random things. Asking them if the crackers they gave me afterwards were Captain's Wafers( (the kind we serve on our flights), asking the lady if she was offended that Peter referred to her as a black lady... Who knows what else I said. I felt so good though. I came home and slept until about 4:30pm, only waking up once. Since then I have moved to the couch, eaten Zaxby's and chocolate, watched lots of tv and now I'm going back to bed.

All shopped out.. :-)

What a lovely few days I've had... See, when I'm happy and busy I hardly write. When I'm grouchy and bored I write all the time. So I guess that means for the most part no news is good news.

I just saw Adri off to the airport. My flight doesn't leave for a few more hours so I've just been sitting here at the hotel, browsing open time and listening to Andy Stanley's sermons online. I heard the first sermon in a series called "Pause" last month and have been wanting to know how the rest of it went. The series is about temptation. It's really awesome and has given me a really different perspective on things. He says that temptation isn't just about your self control. It's about how much faith you have in God. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the devil didn't tempt him to do evil things. He tempted Him to meet His legitimate needs in a way that would displease God. It wasn't about whether He could do the things the devil tempted him to do (turn stones into bread). It was about whether He trusted God to come through a provide for the natural needs God had given Him.

Anyhoo... Minneapolis is nearly the coldest place I've ever been. This morning I was outside for about 30 seconds. My hair was wet from the shower (smart move, Grace) and during that time it froze stiff. It was so weird. When we got here yesterday it was 15 degrees. There were a few snow flurries today but nothing significant. It was so much fun to have Adri come up with me. Last night while we were eating I realized I was also "working" and it didn't feel like it at all. Just felt like I was hanging out in Minn with my friend. We went to the Mall of America which is absolutely ridiculous. We would go different ways to get to stores we wanted to see and come around a corner and see a whole different part of the mall we'd never come across before. I still don't think I've seen half of it and I've been there 3 times now. We rode a roller coaster, bought fuzzy socks, ate a lot, bought Lindt chocolate, and just had a lovely time.

Friday night after I got off work J and I finally made it to see "Casino Royale". I'm glad we went. I really enjoyed it. Then we had Taco Bell and wandered around World Market afterwards. What a classy date ;-). It was a good time. You know you have a good friend when you can do silly/normal things and still have fun. Then it was back home since I had to get up at 4am on Sat. Always a great way to start the weekend.

I need to start getting my stuff together to go to the airport. I'm off for the next few days which makes me happy, except that I have to go to the doctor tomorrow and the dentist Tuesday. In between those times I'm just going to be chillin though.

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end... not today though

I just had the most frightful coughing spell. I hope I don't die :-P.

It was nice being at home for a few days. Now it's back to work. I'm so excited - I get to spend tonight in the oh so fabulous Albany, GA. Saturday night I'll be in MSP with my favorite Amherst resident. I'm so excited.

Yesterday was a day of waiting. I had to go to the foot doctor and you know how doctor's visits go. You wait, then you fill out paperwork, then you wait some more, then you see a nurse, then you wait some more, then you see the doctor.. and that's usually about it.

After that it was time to take care of my car. I'm trying really hard to be a responsible car owner so my lovely car lasts me forever. The brakes were making funny noises, the oil needed changing, and I wanted to make sure it was ready for winter. And you know how it goes when you're at the mechanic. You wait, and wait. Except first we drove the car to hear the sound the brakes were making and of course, they were completely quiet. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I brake like a 25 yr old girl and the mechanic brakes like a 65 yr old man... I need to work on that. Needed a new air filter so $60 later my car is good for another 3k miles. Oh yeah, and it has a leak in the that I eventually need to fix. The part is only $275. Good times.

Next it's over to Verizon. I got my new phone last week which was great but it keeps freezing up, takes at least 30 seconds to respond when you dial a number that isn't already stored, and takes forever to wake up when i turn it on. I go in just to see if they can do anything about it and the same guy gives me a different phone. That seems great, but when he goes to swap all the numbers over it won't do it. So they keep trying. So I wait. And wait. And go across the street to the store. And wait. And knit half a scarf. And wait. I took old and new phones home, after deciding just to manually swap the numbers over, and discover you practically need a magnifying glass to see the screen on the phone. So maybe I'm spoiled. So what? I paid for the phone with the bigger screen. I shouldn't be swapped for a lesser quality phone... This morning I went to take the old phone back. I get a text from the guy and he asks how I like my new phone. I told him it was alright. Was trying to get used to how small the screen was. He said he'd mail me a different phone. For nothing... Nice hey?

After Verizon I went back by Faith's shop to get her to snip up the sides of my hair where I decided it should be shorter and to watch Tanya get her hair colored. More sitting around but much more enjoyable as I had Tanya and Faith keeping me company. By then it was nearly evening and time to go home and get stuff done.

Last night was apartment family supper. We made poppy seed chicken which was fabulous and asparagus which is such a lovely food. I cant' believe I ever hated it before. J's overnight last night got canceled so we had the pleasure of his company as well. Did 3 loads of laundry since I had no clean clothes and have to go to work today.

The weather is disgusting. It's drizzling. On the way back from Verizon this morning I had to stop and buy wipers. At least I can see now. My drivers side window has this problem of not wanting to roll back up when it's raining. It'll probably cost me at least one million dollars to fix :-P. I really have to go get ready for work now. Woo hoo.

eatin popcorn and playin hookie

What a lovely, lovely Tuesday afternoon... It's so nice to be at home right now and not working. I figured out that due to a lot of my flights earlier in the month being longer than scheduled I had enough hours to drop the day trip I was supposed to do today. I'm so glad cause if I hadn't I would've had to rush home yesterday to get ready for work, then rush around all day tomorrow getting everything done that I need to get done.

On Sunday I drove Joy back to school and had a really nice visit with her up there. At times I envy the dorm life, the closeness of going to a small school where the majority of the people have common beliefs. I can't help but wonder how different my life would have been if I had gone to a different college. Or moved when I went to college. It's not a matter of would it be better, would it be worse, but just as to what the differences would've been. I probably never would've gone to South Africa. But who knows.. I'm really happy for Joy and the life she has up there. Everywhere we go on campus people know her, and I don't think it's because of her reputation for meanness :-P. I got to see where she works and see her at work. (She washes a mean dish.) I was able to meet people I had heard stories about. We baked a cake, ate pie at a friend's parent's house, watched basketball practice (she's the manager), went to several classes, saw people I've met before... And just in case I had forgotten what a small world it is, I was walking into the main building to meet up with her for a class and a girl walking next to me asked if I was a Holby. Not surprising since Peter and Michal have been up there as well and a lot of people greet me by saying "Hi Joy's sister". Her next question was the surprising part. She asked if I had gone to music camp in Pensacola. I told her I had, wondering if she had gone there herself. She said no, but her sister in law had. Turns out the one other person from camp that I lost contact with and have wondered about is married to her brother. She had seen pictures of me from camp while visiting them over Thanksgiving, heard my name and made the connection somehow. I'm so happy to have found my friend after all this time.

Somehow, mid-blog I got really distracted. I'm trying to get stuff done around here before I go get my hair cut. I'm quite excited about that. I love getting my hair cut. After that it's Michal's basketball game and who knows what else... The world is my oyster - except I don't really like oysters. Where did that phrase come from anyway?? Anyone want to clean my room and do my laundry?

chillin with the mormons

I'm so far behind in blogging I don't even know where to start. Last week was really busy. One thing went right into the next thing and by the time I got some free time I was so tired I couldn't do anything.

Right now I'm in Salt Lake City. Been here for a couple of hours now and am allowing myself to veg and not feel bad about it. I should've just left my running shoes at home since my bag now weighs about a million pounds, but I guess I need to leave myself the option to run if I feel like it. I didn't run any last week. I feel kind of bad about it but it was pretty much all I could do to sleep, much less do anything extra. I'm really happy because for the next week I don't have to get up ridiculously early. I'll be here in Salt Lake again tomorrow night, then Milwaukee Wednesday night.

God has really blessed me lately. Things have been crazy and haven't always turned out like I wanted them, but somehow it's always turned out better. I dont' know if that makes sense. I did my charter flight on Thursday and didn't come back that night like I had planned. I had gotten tickets to take J to the opening of Casino Royale for his birthday at midnight and missed that, which was really disappointing, but because I had to spend the night in Ft. Lauderdale I got paid a whole extra lot of money. A whole lot. I also got a huge tip from the passenger so I earned nearly half what I make in one month on that trip. God is good. It's amazing how differently I feel about the holidays knowing that I'll be able to buy Christmas presents and not go into debt. This will be the first Christmas in years that I haven't used credit cards and it was making me nervous. I actually voluntarily listened to Christmas music the other day. It felt nice.

I also dropped my cell phone yesterday on the way down the steps to church. It went off and would only come back on when it was charging. A piece of metal had already come out the charger and I was wondering how long it was going to last. A little worried cause I don't want to have to spend a ton of money on a new phone right now. I can upgrade in June and wanted to hang on til then. I took it into Verizon and left with a brand new version of my same phone, all my numbers, pictures, everything from my other phone - for only $50. My phone has been through a lot of abuse so I was grateful to get a new one without spending all the money I just got.

There's a lot more to tell but I'll tell it later. I'm going to see if I can find some pictures of this airplane I worked on the other day. It was amazing. I'm anxious to get my schedule for next month. Wonder what I'm going to be stuck with over Christmas...

just emptying out the brain so it can sleep

10:15 on Saturday night and I'm in bed. What a way to end the week. This week feels like it's lasted for at least 2 weeks. 6am Monday morning feels like it happened months ago :-P. Okay.. maybe that's exaggerating a little.

I don't really know what to say right now.
Does anyone really live happily ever after?
I really need to get rid of the disgusting fishtank in my room.
I really need to clean my room. I can't walk without stepping on something. I'm running out of clean underwear. I can't find anything.
I have lots of scarves to knit.
None of my sleeping clothes feel right right now.
I'm happy with my schedule for next month.
I want to love someone and have them love me, all at the same time and not have to stop.
I want to be able to be happy whoever I'm with and whatever I'm not doing and not always feel this sadness below the surface because one person isn't there.
I need to change the message on my voicemail cause evidently it's annoying to some people - though when I went in to change it the other day it just made me laugh.
I want an ipod.
I want to go somewhere warm and relax on the beach.
I want the people I love to be pleased with me.
I want God to be pleased with me.
I want to want to do what's right.
I want my feet to stop hurting.
I want to stop feeling bitter.
I don't want my heart to be broken again.
I want my loved ones to never die.
I love this weather. The blue skies and windy days make me happy.
I'm nearly 26. I'm completely single. If I ever have children I will be an old mother.
I think that I pushed my limits on how much I can work and still like my job this week. It makes me happy to be nice to people though and I'm getting a lot better at it these days.
I can't believe this year is nearly over.
I'm reading a book about a lady who was from Zimbabwe but she also lived in Hong Kong and Manhattan. I wonder if I'll ever live in a foreign city again, and if I do where, when, how, for what reason, with who? I want to but I don't want to go alone again and am not ready to change jobs again (I don't want to lose my flight benefits.)

I'm going to sleep. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break, rested lots, ate lots, and spent lots of time with loved ones.

This is the part where I ate too much

Myspace has been quiet lately. I guess I haven't been making much noise around here myself. It's about that Thanksgiving time. Actually it's almost over. Today was a good day. The trip I just finished was a good trip. It's amazing what a difference it makes not having to get up at the butt crack of dawn. I have really begun to like my job. I think part of it has to do with my schedule but I know that for the most part it is only a God thing. It's an answer to prayer to realize that I now have a completely different attitude toward something, and not because of anything I've done. This isn't to say that I won't hate my job and hate passengers tomorrow, but lately things have been really good. I flew with a great crew and once I left the fabulous Atlanta airport at 7am Monday morning, I didn't come back until this afternoon. It's so much easier getting in and out of Salt Lake. Anyway... too much airline stuff.

I had all this stuff to write about and now I've forgotten. I just got back from eating with my family and some of our friends. I'm super full and should fall asleep soon. That's probably why I can't remember what I was going to write about. No one's going to read this anyway :-P.

Oh Atlanta, I hear you calling

I know, I know.. the blogs are getting to be excessive this week. What can I say though? I have a lot of time on my hands, no one particular to talk to, and feel like writing.

I'm in Allentown, PA and the weather up here is beautiful. I just now walked down the street to RiteAid in jeans and a tshirt it was that warm. I had to get some generic tylenol pm and airborne. (I refuse to get sick.) I would have stayed out longer but I've been warned about this town so much that I started feeling like every person I passed was about to mug me, and I really don't feel like getting mugged today.

We ditched our Jamaican captain in Atlanta this morning and now our entire crew is Atlanta born and raised. That's quite unusual, especially in the airline industry. Everyone is transplanted. Our old captain had this theory about sleeplessness. He said it's a female problem because they have 4 or 5 circuits going to their brains as opposed to the one that men have. That's why it's so easy for men to shut down and go to sleep, while women can lie awake for hours thinking and thinking. I think he may be on to something there... I've been having this problem lately and it's driving me crazy. It's getting to the point where I'm so focused on going to sleep that I can't go to sleep. I got in bed around 730 last night, watched Grey's at 8 (excellent, by the way), and was still rolling around half awake at 1015. Got up at 415 again this morning.

One of my passengers asked me to marry him today. It was pretty funny and evidently I blushed. Kind of picked my day up since I was really tired and dragging, and since it was the first time I think anyone has ever asked me to marry them. Too bad he was quite bald (and not in a good looking, Shane kind of way) and old (and not just 35 old ). I had another passenger that seemed to be under the impression that it was my job to care about his travel woes... Crazy people.

I'm going to go run. Hopefully that will help me be tired enough to sleep quickly tonight.

Why does it always rain on me?

The rain and dreariness seems to be following me around. It was gross in Atlanta the last two days I was there and evidently it's gorgeous now. Now I'm far from Atlanta (Toronto) and the weather is disgusting. I'm getting reports of amazing weather everywhere except here.

Despite the gross weather and grayness, today is a good day. I feel good. I'm learning to enjoy my job more and not hate passengers so much. haha... I can't believe I just said that. I'm really tired but that probably has something to do with the fact that I got up at 415 this morning. I'm having the old "to nap or not to nap" debate but I think I might not have a choice. I probably won't be able to fall asleep tonight anyway. I was planning on running today but I just don't have any energy.

I was going to watch Grey's Anatomy online so I could know what's going on before I watch it tonight but evidently ABC discriminates against people outside of the US. Jerks!! It's kind of scary that they know where I am. Maybe they're watching me right now...

I've decided that my mp3s need some serious purging. I can't even leave my music on shuffle because all these stupid songs that I've never heard before start playing.

My mission these days is to become less bitter. It's not a pleasant undertaking. Requires a lot of letting go and forgiving but I believe it's necessary. Now that I've begun the process I'm finding out a lot of other unpleasant things about myself. Yay Grace!! Go team :-D. It's all good though. I've been so busy thinking about other areas of my life that I hadn't even noticed this and am only now realizing what a bad thing it is. I googled bitterness and was reminded that I can't expect God to forgive me of the wrongs I do Him if I'm not forgiving other people the wrongs they've done me.

That's my soul baring for the month. Hope you enjoyed it.

I'm off to rest or something. I woke up with a sore throat this morning and was reminded of how important it is that I rest and take care of myself these days. Last November I got all kinds of sick and I can't afford for and don't want that to happen again. I've taken two airborne today and am trying to drink a lot of water. Any other suggestions for not getting sick?

This is getting long but I have to tell this: This morning when we were coming through security they let us in front of the old couple. The FO walked through first. I was behind him and I heard the old guy say "he looks like a terrorist". He was obviously joking but everyone around turned and looked at him. His wife nearly knocked him out and was fussing at him. The security lady got so mad. She's all you aren't allowed to say stuff like that in the airport. And I walked away laughing. I don't know why it seems so funny to me but it makes me smile every time I think about it. I'm going to put it in my brain file of funny things that are guaranteed to make me happy when I think of them.

Will you hose me down with holy water, if I get too hot?

I just ran 2.15 miles in 25 minutes and I feel like I'm going to die. This should be motivation to keep running regularly, cause if I only run every once in a while every time feels like the first time, and it sucks. My legs will probably hurt again tomorrow as well. Hopefully they have a gym in Toronto cause I'm going to spending the whole day there.

Tonight I'm in Rochester for a really short night, then Toronto, and Allentown on Friday night. I don't like the schedule of this trip very much because as the trip goes on the work load increases each day. I have one leg today and 5 on Saturday. I'd rather work hard in the beginning and get it over with. Oh well. I have two long layovers and I'm hoping to be productive on this trip. I should bring my knitting needles with me but I think I've got enough to occupy me for the time being. It's back into birthday and Christmas season for me.

As lazy and "chill at home" as yesterday was, today has to be the opposite. I have a bunch of stuff to do before I leave. Have to go get food for the trip and return some stuff. I need to tidy up some so I don't leave a mess for my roommates. And I have to pack...

I had to pay my $60 AFA fees today and it pissed me off. Ever since I got off probation in January or February they've been taking $39 out of my paycheck every month, but until I pay the $60 membership fee I can't make use of the union. It's ridiculous. So when I got a letter from them saying I was in bad standing I figured I'd better suck it up and pay it. So frustrating. At least if anything happens to me now supposedly the union will back me up... Hopefully I won't need to find out.

It's shower then store then work time. Woo hoo.

And If I had a million dollars I'd buy your love

Yesterday's blog title would have been more appropriate today. It's raining, it's pouring. If it wasn't so grey I might enjoy it. I keep seeing leaves fall as well which is kind of sad. There's still one tree right outside my window that is mostly green and partially yellow. It's really pretty. Almost like a picture framed by my window.

Today is get stuff done day. I had a fabulous night's sleep last night. I know there was a question about whether I liked the pillow top thing I bought for my bed, but let me just say, I love love love it now. My bed is so comfortable. I love sleeping in it, though I'm not sure how much of that is due to the rarity of me sleeping in it. Before I woke up I was dreaming (as always), and for once it wasn't something awful. I don't know what it is but the last few nights I've been dreaming about really disturbing things. Yesterday's dream had to do with someone who was like the child catcher on Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, except he just like catching little boys. Anyway, this morning I dreamed I was in Atlanta. I had been at some event in a skyscraper and was leaving to go to my car. It turns out the skyscraper had these showerhead-like sprinklers coming off the roof. By the time they got to the ground they were massive and were flooding the park area at the bottom where my car was parked. We walked through part of it but I couldn't get to my car. My purse was in there as well. Finally someone was giving me a ride home and they were just like, don't worry about it. You can just get a new purse. There were lots more dreams but I think all the rain and swimming across reminded me of that part.

I managed to swap and get the day off next week so I can do the charter flight if it works out. This means I have to work the two days after Thanksgiving. At least I'll be home in the evenings. I've also managed to swap my hours up to 93 for this month. That may not seem like much but that's only actual flight hours.

I can't remember what the point of this was going to be. I put my flannel sheets on my bed so it's all nice and pretty and ready to be slept in tonight and then again Saturday night :-P. Now it's time to tackle the piles of clothes all over the floor. Mara on Davefm is keeping me entertained. I was going to say that when I'm rich I'll pay someone to sit and talk to me while I clean my room, but if I'm rich why would I be cleaning my room??

I swam across, I jumped across for you

It's funny how one day can feel so different from the next when nothing serious changes. I didn't even get that much sleep last night and I still feel sooo much better today. Maybe cause it's Monday. Oh wait, I don't really have Mondays.

I got up 39 minutes before I was supposed to duty in this morning. I was having a genuine, all out, freak out. I usually try to get to the employee parking lot 45 minutes before my duty in time. I can't be late or anything for a good long while or I'll get in a lot of trouble. I was praying really hard that somehow God would help me get there on time. I was out the door in about 8 minutes. Long story short, I lied to scheduling and they dutied me in. I feel really bad about it actually. I still made it to the airport on time. The traffic was easy and the bus was practically waiting for me when I parked. I should have trusted God to get me there.

I did a nice dayline. Went to Greensboro, NC and Oklahoma City. When I was in the airport between flights I saw a lady that I had played in a quartet with my freshman year in college. It's so crazy. Even with the amount of time that I spend in the airport it still blows my mind when I see someone I know. Especially someone I haven't seen in so long. Maybe because Atlanta is one of the busiest airports in the world and it just takes a few seconds difference to meet or miss someone. She was on her way to get on my favorite plane and go to Korea. I don't think that anything happens just by chance, but I'm not sure what greater purpose there would be to me running into her today.

I'm getting distracted now. Tanya, Amie and I are going to do absolutely nothing tonight except sit on the couch and watch tv. It rocks my face off. Tomorrow I have to clean my room. See what treasures I can unearth.

Oh yeah, I also got offered a very lucrative free-lance flight attendant job. Just one day. It's not definite yet but I'm praying it works out. Then maybe I can buy Christmas presents :-D.

G to the R to the A, C, E

The thoughts in my head are like a broken record. I'm getting so tired of them but don't know how, or necessarily want to move on to the next thoughts. I haven't run all week which frustrates me. I was doing so well for a whole week or so there :-P. I wish there was somewhere convenient to here that I could run outdoors. Instead I have to go to the smelly little "gym". Oh well. Complain much, Grace? I know what I sound like. I can hear myself and I'm tired of it as well.I'm going to try to run some of this craziness out of my head.

huh???

What's the deal with 32 views in the past 30 minutes and 1 comment?? Guess I'll have to write something more comment-worthy next time.

the time has come to say fair's fair, to pay the rent, to pay our share

I have nothing significant to post about. My last one was so long it should make up for not writing for a few days.

I've decided I don't like daylight savings. We aren't all farmers anymore. We don't need the daylight at 6am to milk our cows. Why can't we have it back at 6pm so we can feel a little more alive? I don't like when I get to work at 545am and the sun is coming up. I don't like getting to work at 545pm and it's already getting dark. Makes me tired. Seasonal depression, here we come!

I finished my 4 day yesterday. The next 3 days went sooo much better than the first one. I had a good time actually. I was dead tired and very grouchy by the last round trip yesterday but that's to be expected after 4 days. I didn't run the whole time I was away and I feel pretty bad about it. Obviously not bad enough. Tuesday was the only day that I had a whole lot of time to run but it was in the upper 80s and I was tired and preferred to lay by the pool.

My schedule is swapping out nicely for this month. I was supposed to work Wed-Sat every week which would have me working the entire Thanksgiving weekend. Now I work Mon-Thurs and get off around 3 on Thanksgiving day. Woo hoo!! Having a line is so great. I might not be able to hold a good one but I can swap my way to a good one. I also have 14 days off this month which is just ridiculous. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I have lots of people I need to visit and will probably pick up something since my hours are pretty low... Anyway, enough about work.

I've had this odd feeling lately that I'm about to get in trouble for something. I can't think of anything I've done that I would get in trouble for though. I guess it's just the way they train you at work - to always be on your toes cause someone is waiting to bust you for something stupid - like following someone through an open door instead of swiping your badge, not wearing your scarf, not marking a new revision down, leaving your manual somewhere.... aaahhhh... So if I did anything to anyone or anyone is mad at me for something I did or didn't do, let me know so I can get rid of this feeling. I also had really weird dreams last night so that might have something to do with the odd feeling.

Now I need to go exercise or shower or do SOMETHING productive. I have to do a nap tonight but otherwise am off until next week.

I heart my company

Or not...

I really hope that yesterday, day 1 or 4, wasn't any representation of what the rest of this trip will be like. I showed up at work yesterday all ready to go work and have a good time. But when I signed it I saw that our flight was already delayed an hour. Never a good way to start the day. Our flight was delayed because the plane we were supposed to take was late coming in. No idea why. The weather in ATL was perfect... but whatever. When that plane finally got there we went out to it, only to find out that it has maintenance and we can't take it. Our captain gets them to swap us to a different plane, which of course, isn't in Atlanta yet. We go to one gate and wait and wait for the plane. Only to be sent to another one all the way at the end of the terminal. (We're walking around outside as well).

We finally take off around 740 (flight was supposed to leave at 515) and still have to go to Detroit and back and to Montgomery... I knew then it was going to be a long night. I did the math and figured out that we'd get back from DTW around 1130, which was 30 min after we were supposed to leave for MGM. A smart company would have planned ahead and put another crew on that flight. I guess a smart company would've found a different airplane for us in the first place instead of making us wait 2 hours for one that they already knew was late.

Anyhoo... We get back to Atlanta and park at D35, only to be told that that plane was staying there for the night and we had to go over to C35 to get the plane we were supposed to take to MGM. It's almost midnight by now. For those of you who don't know, these two gates are both at the far end of each concourse. They are the farthest two gates away from each other on the ASA concourses. So frustrating... We were the second to last Delta flight to leave last night. So we finally get to the gate and everyone is clapping for us cause evidently they've been waiting forever. It was nice and I was thinking, maybe this won't be so bad after all.

We finally get everyone on the plane, which has a broken lav. Some people were griping "I'm not a happy camper" "Took you long enough to get here" etc... but most people were ok. I'm waiting and waiting for them to come tell me that that is all the passengers. Everyone is sitting looking at me, wondering what's going on. I have no idea. Finally the gate agent comes out and says there is a couple who really needs to make the flight. The husband is handicapped. Unfortunately we only have one empty seat. So they finally persuade someone to give up their seat. People offer to switch around to let them sit together. It's all good. And then we wait. And wait. And wait. We finally see them coming up in a wheelchair and find out that we also need a lift. The man can't walk up the steps. So we wait for that. Then we get the man on the lift and bring him up on the plane and they don't know how to get him to his seat. He doesn't have use of either of his legs. Evidently the people whose job it is to work with handicap people, getting them on and off planes, are all gone for the night so we have rampers working on this. Finally someone moves so he can be in the front seat and everyone picks him up and somehow maneuvers him into his seat. We've all be on the plane for over an hour by now.

I have a man call me to his seat to ask if that's the only lav we have on the plane. I say yes. He says, well I'm a diabetic and when I have to go, I have to go. At this point I'm too tired, irritated, frustrated, to even care. So I just look at him, I think. He says, well I guess I'll just pee in my seat. I said ok. You have got to be kidding me. My dad has been diabetic his whole life and last time I checked he's never had this problem. I'm just thinking, noone is making you take this flight.... aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. Seriously, what does he expect me to do? Pull out my tools and fix the lav? Personally find a different plane for him??? People are so ridiculous. This whole time we had a jetblue jumpseater standing up in the front with me. It helped some cause he would entertain me when I thought I was going to shoot myself in the head.

We finally take off at 106am. I just turned off all the lights and let everyone sleep. It took a whopping 29 minutes to get to Montgomery. We pull up at the gate and of course everyone is anxious to get off. We're happy cause they have a jetway so we don't have to deal with a lift. I stand there at the door waiting for them to bring the jetway up. They dont' seem to know how to drive it. Then they tell me that we have to pull the plane up further cause they jetway wont' reach. I tell the captain who says no just as they're slamming the door in my face. We have to make everyone sit back down, restart the engines, and move the plane about 5 feet forward... Right now, all I want to do is hide in the corner and go to sleep. We FINALLY get everyone off the plane, except for the handicap man. Unfortunately all of their people who are supposed to help with handicap people have also gone home and there are two women to deal with it. Between the jumpseater, these two women, and some really nice passenger who came back to help, we finally get him off the plane. I then proceed to kill myself... oh wait, nevermind. Then we go get in the taxi, ride 20 minutes to the hotel in podunk nowhere Alabama, and sleep until I can't sleep anymore.

Thankfully I have a great captain and saw a lot of my friends from work when I was waiting around. That made it all a little less painful. I had one passenger come back after he deplaned in Atlanta and ask if we could be friends, and another ask if I had a card so we could go for coffee... Not so much. But it feels good to be asked anyway. Makes a really, really miserable night a little more bearable. Now I'm going to be late for work if I don't hurry. I know this is really long but last night pretty much took the cake for miserable days of work and I felt it should be documented.

all that saved daylight....

This is practically a modern miracle... It's 10am and I just got back from running. I ran/walked 1.8 miles. Took about 20 min. I don't know what it is but whenever I run in the gym here at the apartments I can't go very long. I think it's cause there's no circulation in the room and I feel like I'm about to suffocate. I'm going to write about when I run in here cause it seems to be the only way I can keep up with it. I left off one day this week (Friday), so that makes 4 out of 7 days that I ran. Today starts a new week so I'll have to see if I can make it 5 this week. Honestly I'd be content maintaining 4. Just as long as I don't run less.

It's back to work this afternoon. It's a pretty easy trip, but I don't really feel like it. I'll be in Montgomery tonight, Corpus Christi tomorrow, and McAllen, TX on Tuesday. Weather.com says it's going to be in the high 80s in McAllen so I'm hoping I can get a little sun.

When I was in the gym just now another lady came in and since the tv was on a fish show I told her I didn't care if she changed it. She put it on some horror movie. The funny thing was, though, she kept closing her eyes and looking away. I just don't understand why people like to watch things that scare them. I hate scary things. I hate scary movies, scary books, scary costumes, haunted houses... All that stuff just grosses me out. Why do people voluntarily subject themselves to that? And ENJOY it.

This weather is so amazing. J and I went and walked part way around the lake in PTC yesterday. It was such a beautiful day with the breeze, the trees changing color, the sky sooo blue... I love this time of year.

I need to go shower so I can get to church. Blessings and peace to everyone on this beautiful day that the Lord made for us.

if only dreams could come true

So I told my dad that I hated him today. It was a first, but he, admittedly, deserved it. He sent me some stupid video that scared the daylights out of me, and any of you who know me well know how much I HATE being scared. I can't believe I trusted him... :-P It makes me laugh a little thinking about how much it scared me though, and the fact that I knew when I replied and told him that, he would laugh as well - and he did.

I'm so happy to be off work for a few days. I don't have to work again until Sunday which is good cause I am le tired. Since 5pm yesterday I flew to Raliegh and back, Cleveland for an 8 hr night, back to Atl, then a RT to Panama City. All within about 20 hours. Good times. Friends are coming in town and I'm sooo excited to see them. Hopefully there will be lots of quality hanging out going on.

My room is messy and last night I dreamed it was clean. Bummer.

I need to shave my legs cause they were prickling up against the sheets last night at the hotel so bad that I could hardly sleep.

There isn't much else going on in my head right now. I've been going through all the trips in open time next month cause I don't like the schedule they gave me. I'm going to swap all those babies out. I'm hoping to get a SFO or OAK overnight so I can see my sister.

My old man magnet seems to have been activated cause they seem to be the only ones who pay any attention to me lately. And I'm not talking about 35 old (that really isn't that old any more - SCARY). I'm talking about men that ask me where I live and then tell me "oh my son lives there with his two boys". I had my second second-time passenger the other night, and he was, of course, an old guy. I should have just said hello and moved on and not tried to figure out when we'd flown together cause when I did he reminded me that he had given me his card and asked me to go to dinner with him sometime and I had never called him... Oops.

I guess I should go be productive. I also need to run. I think I have already lost some weight. I put on some jeans that haven't been fitting so good lately and I laugh at myself as I admit that I turned around in the mirror and said (out loud) "wow". hahaha.... I'll just leave it at that. :-P

PS. If anyone wants to clean my room, you're more than welcome to do so.

What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you

It's a good thing the weather is beautiful, otherwise I think I'd feel pretty lousy. I slept sooo long. I only woke up around noon. There were helicopters flying over here for about an hour. I'm guessing there was a wreck or something. I went to the gym to jog but was feeling very unmotivated. Only went a little over a mile and a half and walked a lot. I didn't eat or drink anything this morning which is probably part of the problem.

I would just like to say that my baby sister is queen of the world when it comes to volleyball. She's only in 8th grade and is awesome. She is one of 3 people on her team allow to jump serve and she's awesome. Not to mention that she's absolutely adorable. I watched her play yesterday. Her team did really well as long as she was in. Unfortunately they lost but they were playing a really hard varsity team and their team only has one varsity player on it. So I'm proud of them.

I need to get out and do something today. I find that lately I've been much happier when I'm away. Probably the whole distraction thing. Maybe it's avoidance. I don't know.

I don't really have anything interesting to say. I'm kind of frustrated but will probably feel better when I've accomplished something today.

She looks like a flower but she stings like a bee

Just ran nearly 2.5 miles=about 30 min. My face is doing the whole half and half thing. It's pretty funny looking. Good thing I have bangs now so it's not so obvious.

I napped for 2 hours. Then Amy came over for a few hours and we got to catch up. I'm thankful that I have a job that allows me to have face to face conversations with my far away friends more often than once a year.

How long before I'll start seeing results from running? (Impatient much?) I'm hungry, need a shower, and need to find a way to go to sleep soon since I have to get up at 4am again.

I may have said this before...

But I am sooo tired. The whole theory I had yesterday about getting my second wind and not being able to sleep was true. The sad thing is it was even worse than I expected. I got in bed around 8, read til about 830, decided to sleep. Couldn't. Turned the tv on til 9 something. Decided to still. Lay on my stomach. Lay on my back. Lay on my side. Turned the heat up. Turned the heat down. Still couldn't. Turned the tv back on minus glasses hoping the blurriness would lull me to sleep. No banana. I didn't fall asleep til after 1am. 4am comes around waaaay too early when you've just fallen asleep. The first flight was ok cause I drank coffee but by the time we were in the taxi line waiting to go back up to Portland it was all I could do to not let my head drop on my chest (while sitting in the front jumpseat). Good times.

Portland is beautiful. Atlanta was yucky. I'm glad we didn't stay there. I'm going to take a nap, run, then hopefully see Amy. I finished the book and it ended just as poorly as I expected. What a depressing book. It was still interesting I guess... Everyone was so messed up though. Now I'm reading one of David Sedaris's (sp?) books that one of my passengers gave me cause it was "too gayed up". As I get into it I'm beginning to see what he meant. We'll see how far I can make it.

When I'm tired passengers are sooo stupid. I have to wonder sometimes if they do it on purpose. I'm still all for everyone that flies having to take a course. I'd be willing to teach it - Air Travel 101. I'd tell them stupid things like "hey, when you get on the plane and then we take off, pretty soon after that we're going to serve EVERYONE on the plane a drink and a snack. NOW is the time to get one. Not 30 minutes later when they've just finished and are putting things away and you wake up. Not after they're finished and you 'make space on your tray table'. Not right before we land and you wake up and decide you can't make it another 15 minutes without a drink or you'll die." Also, don't make it seem like they're asking you to choose between your mother and your child to die. It's a freaking drink!!! Not a life changing decision. Have a little foresight and think about it before they get there if it's such a hard decision. Not after you said you didn't want anything and they moved 4 rows down and then you decide you want them to come back and go through every drink available, only then to decide on a bottle of water........

I have no idea where that came from. Something just possessed my fingers and all that came out. Oh yeah, and don't put all your trash at the edge of your tray table and look at me waiting for me to pick it up. I don't want to touch your trash that you just slobbered all over... Now I'm really finished (I think). I had to get that out of my system so I could go to sleep. I'm not really as grouchy as I sound. Not really grouchy at all. This is a good trip and my crew is really fun to fly with. People just get on my nerves sometimes.

I'm really liking the song suggestions. I need to get an ipod. One of these days...

I'm too sleepy to think of a subject

I'm in Albany, NY and I'm sooo sleepy, but it's only 6pm so it's too late to nap and too early to go to sleep. So I'm sitting here in the armchair in my room struggling to stay awake. I have a feeling that around 7:30 I'm going to get my second wind and be wide awake til 11. I don't know why I'm so tired. It might be cause I kept getting woken up this morning. Who knows... I have to get up at 4am tomorrow though so I need to sleep good tonight.

I would like to make note of my accomplishment for the day, week, month... I ran, not walked, but ran 20 minutes today. I warmed up by walking for 2 minutes, then ran for 20, then walked for 3 more. Might not impress anyone else but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the longest I've run in years. And you know what made it possible? (I know you're dying to know...) I listened to music. My mom bought me some new headphones that actually stay attached to my head while I run and I used a little mp3 player. It was amazing. During some of the songs I actually FELT LIKE RUNNING. As I was running I felt like I had discovered the goose that lays golden eggs or something. My main problem with running, other than just being really out of shape, is that I get really bored. I run for 5 mintues, watching the timer the whole time, and get so distracted by the pain and tiredness that I stop. It kind of sucks though cause now that I know what I'm capable of I'll have to do it again next time. (That doesn't really suck. I just raised the standard on myself. Go me!!) Now I need to get some new running shoes cause the ones I'm wearing are the same ones I've had for 3 years and they hurt my toes a lot. Needless to say I'm pleased with myself today. I also walked to and from lunch which was nice. It's really cold up here so you have to walk fast to keep from dying :-P.

I need suggestions for good music to run to. I found that a lot of the hip hop stuff, though it has a quick beat, it isn't strong enough. The song that I liked running to the most was the Jay-Z Lincoln Park remix, which I don't normally like, but it was fantastic. I'd appreciate suggestions.

Speaking of accomplishments (though this one has nothing to do with anything I did), I have a new "nephew". Chasity and Aaron had a little boy last night. I'm waiting to hear back from her for more details. Some of you may know her (and therefore may care). I'm really happy for them.

I think I'm going to go watch tv or read. I'm guessing football is the only thing on, as football seems to be the only thing people care about in the fall. I'm working on what feels like the longest book ever "Cider House Rules". I never watched the movie but I found the book at work a few weeks ago and have gotten sucked in. It's going on forever and ever. I just want to know how it ends. It's really interesting. Lots of controversial things in it, but that's what makes life interesting sometimes, isn't it?

Happy Saturday to all.

today is my Monday

I've mentioned this before but it's so wonderful I have to say it again. One of the things I appreciate the most about life is the chance to start over and over. I love the way God made each day to only last 24 hours and then it's going to be over and you get a new day. I love how as bad as one day may feel, the next day can be totally new and different. The fact that everything changes and nothing lasts forever can sometimes be a sad thing, but I think it's also a blessing. Yesterday I felt really sad. Today I feel so much better. Nothing has changed. I just feel better. I actually have to go to work today, which would usually bum me out, but I'm kind of glad about it. I talked to my mom and sister yesterday which seemed to help a lot. I'm not sure how. Like I said, nothing about my circumstances have changed, but I just feel better. Maybe it's having someone else to share your burden with. Knowing that others will pray for the things that make your heart hurt. Knowing that you don't have to deal with your problems alone. It feels good. They are still the same but don't feel as discouraging. Yesterday was nice. I have faith that today will continue to be nice.

It started out kind of scary. I woke up to the sound of a door closing. My house is usually really quiet in the mornings as both of my roommates work early. I looked at my watched and was horrified to see that it said it was 1:30. I have to be at work at 3:55 and have to do laundry and pack and get ready for 6 days of work. I jumped out of bed and was surprised to see Tanya in the hallway. Evidently she was feeling bad and didn't go to work. It was soo weird for us both to be home in the morning. Nice though :). Even though we're both just doing laundry and computer stuff, it's nice to have someone around. Oh yeah, evidently the battery stopped on my watch and it was only 930. Good times.

This morning I dreamed that I was at some big house by the sea (I think). It seemed that there was someone giving tours?? I had J's camera in my hand cause I borrowed it (which I actually did). Strangely enough the ground, which was sand and shells suddenly became like water and we were all kind of swimming around. After we got back on stable land I realized that I had lost his camera. Not cool. Did I mention that I have really bizarre dreams? At least there weren't bugs involved.

I guess I need to go work on my laundry and my room. It's a disaster and I've kind of given up on it lately. But I know that I don't want to come home to the same wreck on Thursday night and then again on Monday. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to clean I go.

It's raining, it's pouring

It's been raining since about 8pm last night (at least). I love waking up and hearing it. It's one of my favorite sounds to sleep to. Right now my bed is the most comfortable place in the world. Which is a good thing since I've spent nearly 12 hours here. I went to bed fairly early last night cause I've been feeling kind of blue. Ask me and I'll tell you why, but I'm not blogging about it. Once I was in bed it took me another 45 min to put my laptop and planner away and actually go to sleep, even though I was exhausted. I feel like I'm always exhausted lately. Might be the weather. Might be work. Maybe I'm just easily exhaustable (whatever that is). I think one of my problems with going to sleep may be that it seems to take me a long time lately. My mind never stops going. That why I was so pissed off when I was awakened at 4am. I knew it would require a second falling asleep. What was me up was the sound of a bug buzzing against my window. It was so loud, I started conjuring up images of enormous bugs that could carry away small people, shoes, etc... and since I just got some new shoes yesterday, and am kind of fond of them, I figured I needed to exterminate said bug before it stole them. (That and the sound of it was preventing me from going back to sleep.) Thankfully, due to the state of my room I didn't have to search far to find a shoe on the floor to kill it with, and I did - in the dark no less. I went back to my comfy bed to resume my sleep, and was severly annoyed that my guts were hurting and I couldn't sleep. After lying there long enough to realize it wasn't going to stop I figured I had to get up (out of my wonderful bed). I got up, figured out why my guts hurt (I'm so glad to be a woman) then got settled back in my bed. My only complaint about the whole sleeping situation is that someone needs to invent sleeping pants that don't ride up. I hate getting in bed, sliding your legs under the blankets, and having my pants go up to my knees.

As I lay in bed, trying for the third time to fall asleep, I thought of the options for pants that stay down. They are 1. sweat pants with elastic at the ankles. These usually stay down better but you usually wake up with lines around your legs because they went up as far as they could and then just squeezed for the rest of the night. 2. leggings... who wants to sleep in something so tight? 3. stirrup pants... oh wait, this is 2006. Do they even make them anymore?

And that's as far as I got before I realized my guts were still hurting and it was after 5am. I won't tell you that I got up AGAIN and out of sheer frustration and desperation took some prescription medicine to numb all feeling and knock me out. The beautiful thing is that it was raining the entire time. It rained during my dreams of being on airplanes (the bug interrupted that one - stupid bug). It rained during my dream that I was late for work and couldn't find somewhere to sign in (pleasant, huh?). And now, as I write this long, pointless, stupid blog, it's still raining. All I can say is, I'm glad I don't have to work today. I do work tomorrow and then for the next 6 days.

I got paid yesterday which was really nice. I haven't used my credit cards in several months, and though it is really hard sometimes, it's been great. It feels great not to spend money I don't have. It feels great to know that my debt is only going down. I feel like, for the first time in years, I have a little bit of control over my finances. I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a really, really long tunnel but at least it doesn't go on forever. I found a website (somewhere on CNN Money) where you can put in your debt, interest rates, minimum payments, and it will calculate when you will pay it off, 1. by paying the minimum payment, 2. by paying the same amount every month 3. or how much you have to pay per month to be finished during a certain time period. It also give you a month by month plan of how much will go where, etc... It was interesting and encouraging.

This is the most rambly, stupid blog I've written in a long time. I'm aware of it though so it's ok. I guess I should get out of bed now. I'm going to see my family today cause I miss them.

Tell me this doesn't make you smile a little...

http://fun.from.hell.pl/2003-11-24/bubblewrap.swf

hey... whatever it takes

Fortunately and unfortunately

I don't have anything significant to say. It's Saturday night and I'm sitting on my couch. I've been here for about 5 hours. I came home with the intention of napping, cause I'm at that point of tired where I can't do anything until I've slept. Unfortunately, I didn't go to sleep. Hopefully I will soon. I think it has something to do with getting up at 430 for the last several days and then sleeping longer, but very poorly last night.

Today I went with Jamie on a low fly by over the Great Georgia Airshow in Peachtree City. It was really cool. We were in an MD-11 which is just a tad bigger than the planes I work on every day. We flew over the field at 500 ft. I could see the whole area where I'm from, the grocery stores, the street my parent's live on, etc... The only bad thing was it was really windy and all the circling around made me feel like I was going to lose my lunch. I'm getting kind of tired of feeling like that. Thankfully I didn't. It was really great.

I don't really have anything else to say. I'm going to try to sleep soon. I have to work tomorrow afternoon. Good times. I miss good times. I miss a lot of things and I don't like it. I just wish it would all go away. Winter is on it's way and I'm not happy about it. I don't like being cold.

Prop planes...

...are the devil in airplane form. I just got off a 2-day trip that seemed to last for ages. Without being too graphic, I came as close to puking as one can without actually puking. This was while I was sitting in the jumpseat facing all my passengers. The one at my left knee was trying to hold conversation with me. Good times. Then I remembered why I don't fly that plane anymore. If I ever contemplate picking something up or swapping something on the ATR, I demand that any and all who love and care about me, prevent me from doing so. For those of you who don't know, the problem with prop planes (ours anyway) is that it flies at such low altitudes so it never gets out of the clouds and stuff that makes flying bumpy. It's pretty much bumpy the whole flight. On our last leg home the autopilot didn't work either. Fantastic. All I've got to say is when the airplane's rocking, Grace is puking. Nothing quite like spending two days carrying a barf bag in your pocket in case you can't make it to the bathroom. Nothing like doing a job that sometimes makes you sick and want to die. I heart my job.

Other than that it was a good trip. The lady I flew with was really nice. We talked a lot, and unfortunately she and her family have the craziest relationship problems I've heard of in a long time. It's really sad what kind of stuff people will tolerate. I had some really nice passengers as well. I had a lady talk to me the entire flight from Augusta yesterday. She was so enthusiastic about life, it was great. I want to be someone like that. She loved her job. She was blessed and completely aware of it. I don't know how people are that way but I'm going to find out.

I also really enjoyed the airport on this trip as well (if you can believe it). It may have been because I can see out the windows from this jumpseat. I could see the airplanes taking off next to us, see the lines of airplanes coming in, see all 21 of the waiting to take off. I've said it before but airplanes amaze me. I was sitting there in my jumpseat and realized again how weird it was that I was in a metal tube, weighing thousands of pounds, moving very fast high above the earth. It just doesn't make sense - but I'm glad it works. I was my favorite plane yesterday and today. It's really sad but I think I have a crush on this plane. I always look for it when I'm at the airport. I admire it's sexiness. It's power. How big and beautiful it is. And whenever I see it, it makes my day a little bit. I saw it as I arrived at work yesterday and then again today when we had just taken off. I saw several other 747s but none of them are quite as nice...

I think that's all I've got to say about airplanes and airports. I'm really tired and hungry and still feeling a little unsettled from flying. I think I'm going to go veg for a good long while. Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weather as much as I am.

salmon skin roll... mmmm

I'm supposed to be packing for work tomorrow but I think I'm going to go to bed instead. It's only one short night away so I don't really need much stuff anyway.

This last week or so has been really nice. Any sort of funk that I was in previously has definitely gone. It's been good to be at home. Have time to do stuff. Reconnect with people I care about. I still didn't do everything I was supposed to but I got a lot done so I'm happy.

I just got back from hanging out with the girls for Kat's birthday. We had sushi and it was fabulous. I'm slowly but surely learning about it. I really like sushi but eat it so rarely it's practically a new experience every time. I don't think our waitress liked us at all. We weren't THAT difficult :-P. It was a lot of fun though. I had the rainbow roll which is a CA roll with avocado and the chef's choice of fish on top of it. Also had two Unagi rolls. They were quite tasty. I'm so happy cause I even got Faith to taste it. She also had the bean sprout salad, which she originally turned down, and tofu - and enjoyed them all. I really enjoy helping people broaden their horizens. Even if they don't like everything they try it's nice to at least try. The CA rolls had orange caviar in them, which if I've had before I never noticed. I only really noticed this time cause I cut the rolls up and saw it. Either it doesn't have much taste or there wasn't enough of it to taste.

Today was a busy driving day. Peter, Amie and I went up to Atlanta, met Wendy, ate at Moe's, and then went to IKEA. It was the second time I've been there and just made me wish I lived in a cool apartment in the city or something. They have such nice model rooms there. I'm still on my comforter search. Found something that was a possibility, but I'm really broke (broken - haha) right now, so I was just looking.

Speaking of broke - this whole cutting up the credit card thing is scary. Through the beauty of online bill pay, my bank account was nearly cleaned out yesterday. The suckiest part of it is that I'm going to be traveling for the next week and a half which makes it a lot harder to eat cheap. Maybe I can lose a little weight this way though :-P (or maybe I should just exercise).

And speaking of traveling - my company is stupid. It is taking them days and days to process requests for my swaps. I'm trying to get some different days off at the end of the month and I put in a few requests to swap and finally two days later they get denied so I have to put more in and they sit for two more days. So frustrating. What are they doing over there? Playing tiddlywinks??? That's my rant for the night.

The last day or so has been full of all sorts of accomplishments. I found the much sought after bathtub scrubber I need at good ol' Walmart. I did my laundry.... Okay, so maybe not a lot of accomplishments. I did get out of the house at least. I'm starting down the slippery slope of rambling. I need to sleep so I can get up early and get ready for work.

as I was saying...

I so love not working.

Yesterday I went to my parent's house and helped my mom and Peter paint their living room/dining room/kitchen. It looks really nice. I spent a lot of quality time on the ladder. Funny how I can spend nearly every day on a plane, even jump out of a plane, but I'm not crazy about being on tall ladders. Tall buildings either. One of the best things about going to my parents is that they take care of me. It's nice, after taking care of myself all the time - fixing all my food, paying my bills, doing my laundry - to have someone else take care of me. Peter takes really good care of me. When I walk in the door my mother asks me if I've eaten and starts offering me things. Then when I pick an apple, Peter suggest peanutbutter on it. I'm like sure, whatever. I start eating the apple. He takes it away from me. Cuts it, cores it, peanutbutters it and gives it back. Then he starts making tea like I like it (his way). It's the only sweet tea I like. Then we paint. We listen to music. We talk. We talk about our family members that aren't there. We compare who has talked to who and how they're doing. We try not to drip on the floor or paint on the ceiling. Then we eat more. Yay! I got to see my daddy a little when he got home from teaching. He works so hard. I admire him so much. He's set a high standard for men in my life.

After all the painting we drive over, in my lovely shiny car, to the school and watch my not so baby sister play volleyball. Her team is all very young and they're already able to hold their own against varsity teams. They won some but didn't win the match, but they still played really well. Michal is a rock star. I love my siblings. It's crazy how they're all growing up. I'll try not to embarrass them on here with talk of manly facial hair and the likes...

Last night I spent the entire evening (once I got home) watching tv and swapping trips. I've been halfway successful. I'm off on Friday for Kat's birthday. I have to do a sucky ATR trip on Saturday and Sunday. I can't believe they actually approved anything. Still trying to work some stuff out at the end of the month. The bad thing about having these days off is that I'm going to be working constantly for the rest of the month. J's trip got changed so he came over last night to eat leftovers from when I cooked on Monday. Now that I know how easy it is to cook shrimp I think I'll do it more. I really love leftovers. Except for when I cooked Monday, it seems that all I eat is leftovers. Sunday I ate Saturday night's leftovers. Monday morning I ate some of Amie's leftovers (she doesnt like them). This morning I ate some leftover smoked turkey chili my mom gave me. It's so good. My mother is quite the cook.

This morning I was going to go play tennis with Jamie, but then there was the confusion about the location, which led to a confusion about the time, so I ended up just going to the gym and mostly walking, a little running, 2 miles. It's better than nothing. The weather here is amazing still. I saw someone at the pool yesterday. I might go today. Who knows... I have a lot of house stuff to do since I haven't really done anything this week. So I guess I should go do it instead of sitting here blogging :-P.

I'm so happy these days. It feels really good. I would be waiting for the other shoe to drop, but why ruin a good mood waiting for the next bad one?? Life is good.

betty homemaker :-P

I so love not working. It's kind of bad. I should be independently wealthy so I don't have to work to have fly privileges. I've been chilling this whole week so far and it's been great.

Yesterday I woke up at 1030. Then I sat around in my pjs and tried to swap trips online until J came over and we went and washed, waxed, and detailed my car. It looks sooo good now. All nice and shiny and pretty. After that I cooked supper. It was whole wheat egg noodles, shrimp, sugar snap peas, brocoli, asparagus, and sauce. All homeade. It was really yummy. It was fun. We had apartment family supper.

I forgot to mention our lunch at my parent's house on Sunday. My little sister made yellow curry chicken and rice and veggies. It was so good. I'm glad she's getting an earlier start cooking than I did (not for lack of trying on my mother's part). Cooking is so much fun. I can't wait til I have more money to cook with and maybe someone to cook for on a regular basis. (And before I have everyone offering for me to cook for them... you know what I mean :-P).

There's more to write but I have to go... toodles

Insomnia is the devil

There are very few things that are as frustrating to me as not being able to sleep when I want to. The fact that I took a nap this afternoon could be part of the problem...

I called in on the trip I was supposed to be doing right now. I was tired of being gone and it was a stupid trip anyway. It's nice to be at home. Unfortunately that means I have to do all the things I've been putting off doing cause I haven't been home. My room is a huge disaster. I wish I would just wake up and it be clean.

I had a lovely visit with Adri. It was her birthday on Friday so we hung out, went out, shopped ourselves out, pigged out. You get it. It was fun. I think if I lived up there I would be tired all the time. Her friends are really fun as well.

I don't really have much to say right now. Most of the stuff on my mind isn't blog material. I'm still working on locating the off switch for my brain. Oh wait, all I need to do is be an airline passenger and my brain will switch off.. hehe. Just kidding. They aren't all that way. Just enough of them to make it seem they all are.

Oh yeah, I left my cell phone in Adri's car so I will be unreachable via phone until sometime Tuesday.

This weather is amazing. One of my favorite things to do is drive with the windows down and the music up really loud. This weather is perfect for it. Not too hot, not too cold. I need to make some new cds of "turn it up" music. You can't just blare anything. It's a good thing that I don't care what other drivers think of me when I'm dancing and singing in my car.

In spite of the insomnia, messy room, lack of money, forgotten cell phone, and other brain clog, life is really good. I flew back next to a lady yesterday who lost her husband of 40 years while they were on vacation in Barcelona in May. They were walking and he just fell down and died. Helps me put the things I whine about in perspective.

I'm off to attempt to sleep. Good times.