failed-to-say.net

It’s been a while since I’ve wrote a decent entry. A lot has happened, or so it seems. Christmas and New Years were good. My sister had the baby on January 1st around 4:30 in the afternoon. She had a boy, as expected, and named him Traevion Alexander. We’ve been calling him Trae. He had an infection in his lungs that spread to his lungs, so he was on oxygen and had to take antibiotics and stay in the hospital for about a week. He got to go home tonight, though. So far we’ve only got to see pictures, but I’m hoping this weekend I’ll get to see him and hold him. Tori’s sick, so she probably won’t be able to see him for a while longer. Either way, it’s exciting to have a nephew. I just can’t wait to meet him.

Has it really been a month since I last posted? Wow. Time flies. I can’t believe it’s August already. The kiddies will be going back to school soon, which means school sports, which means uniforms and suck, which basically means things will be picking up at work.

The last month has been fairly steady. Not overly busy, but busy enough. I’ve been getting pretty decent hours, usually about days a week. So long as I can cover my bills, I’m pretty much happy.

We had a family reunion yesterday and another one next Sunday. Then those will be done for the year. I’d say I’m looking forward to being done with those, but next Sunday we’ll have two new additions staying here – Tori and my sister. Tori’s here often enough that it won’t be anything out of the usual. Besides, I like having her around. My sister – not so much. She’s between places. She has to be out of the old by Sunday, and she can’t get into the new one for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I’m not thrilled.

I love my sister. I really do. But in the grand scheme of things, I really don’t like her that much. Maybe that’s a horrible thing to say, but she just makes really poor decisions. If it were just her, that would be fine, but she has Tori and another baby on the way, so she really needs to get her crap together and grow up.

On a completely different note, I’ve opened up several new fanlistings over at Lost Realist, my fanlisting collective. The new ones are for Eisley’s album, Combinations, and the songs Try by Nelly Furtado, You Picked Me by A Fine Frenzy, So Contagious by Acceptance, Paperthing Hymn by Anberlin and Use Somebody by Kings of Leon. I have 60 fanlistings now, and I still have a few that I need to do some updates on – be it layouts, affiliates or other random stuff. It’s probably taken me over a year to get to this point, but I’ve almost got them all up to date and the way I want them.

My next plan is to work on glimmering-girl.org. Right now it’s pretty bare, but I’ve had a hard time deciding what to do with it. For a while it was my main blog. Now it’s pretty much a placeholder. I’ve thought about turning it into my collective. I want to do something really cool with it, but I haven’t decided how yet. Hopefully, I can come up with something. I’ve basically let it just sit for the last couple of years. If it weren’t for all of my fanlistings being hosted there, I probably would have closed it, but I just don’t have the time or energy to move them all – especially after almost having all of the fanlistings up to date.

I’ve also been trying to get back into writing. It’s slow going. I’ve started a collaboration with my friend, Taye, and I wrote the first chapter. That went pretty well. It took me a few days to get my head into the game, and she seems to be having the same trouble. It’s just hard to jump back into things after being so out of practice for so long. I hate it because I miss writing. I have most of the ideas in my head but the trouble lies in getting them out out paper.

It probably doesn’t help my productivity that I’ve done nothing but watch The Closer most nights for the last week or so. I started rewatching from the beginning, and I remembered how much I loved the show. I’m up to season 4 now, and I’m current with what’s out of season 5 as well, so I guess my lazy TV watching is almost over since I don’t have much of it left to watch now. I guess that’s a good thing?

I haven’t posted in a while. Oops. Things have been a bit hectic. Work has been busy. Then I got my new car on Friday. My sister wasn’t too happy about the trade, but then we’re not too happy with her right now either. She’s pregnant again by a guy that already has a slew of kids he doesn’t take care of. My mom chewed her out. She told her that she was ruining her life. Since she’s moved out, she’s dropped out of college, wasn’t able to make her car payment for two months (thus the trade), probably ruined her credit and she never has Tori. How is she going to raise another kid? We’re about all convinced that she’s on drugs, and if I thought it was possible to get her into drug rehab, I’d gladly pitch in to pay for it. I hate seeing her ruin her life this way.

On a brighter note, I really like the car. It drives so much smoother than the old one. It just feels massive by comparison, but I think that’s just because it’s higher off the ground than my old one – not like that would take much, though.

I’ve also been reading the Left Behind books by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. I started reading them back when I was in high school. I probably got about halfway through the series before I stopped for whatever reason. Now I’m picking them back up, but I had to start over because I couldn’t remember much of anything that happened.

Also, next month Half-Blood Prince is in theaters. Blaine and I are already planning to go see it. I’d like to go to the midnight showing, but I have no way of knowing if I’ll have to work the next day, and, if so, I’ll be completely useless unless I don’t have to go into work until later in the afternoon, so we’ll see what happens. I’m really excited about it, though. It’s been a long wait!

So it rained cats and dogs pretty much all day today. Tori’s preschool class was supposed to go to the zoo today, but that was canceled due to the rain. It’s weird, though, because it’s still kind of muggy out, though. But because of the rain, I can’t even open a window.

I finished reading City of Glass by Cassandra Clare over the weekend. I have to say I really enjoyed the trilogy, and I definitely think I’ll be rereading it. I like series like there where you’re sure there is some foreshadowing, but you’re not really sure what it was until the end. Usually on the second read, I can pick up on more of what I missed the first time. It’s fun.

My sister didn’t make her car payment this month, and, according to my grandma, it has put my mom on the warpath. I can’t really blame her, though, since she cosigned for it. I guess she went ahead and paid it just so it wouldn’t come back to her. I don’t know what my sister’s thinking. I make more than her and work more than her, and there’s no way I could try to make a car payment and try to keep an apartment. I have no idea how much she pays for car insurance either. Mine is really pretty cheap, so anytime I get offers for insurance quotes, I’m really not that interested. It would be pretty hard to beat twenty bucks a month.

Stupidly, I forgot that Lost came on at nine tonight, so I’ve already missed the first fifteen minutes, and it’s one of those shows that once you’ve missed the beginning, there’s really no use in trying to watch, so I’ll have to try to watch tomorrow. I hope they have it on the website by then, at least. I have tomorrow off, and I’d really love to find out what happens in the season finale.

I feel horrible – both physically and mentally. I think I’m coming down with something, which explains the physical aspects. I just felt icky all day today. The big tip off was that I felt hot most of the day, which is completely unlike me. Typically, I’m cold. Not today, though. My sister is to blame for my mental issues. I don’t know what’s going on with her anymore, but she’s like a complete stranger. I don’t know what she’s thinking. Of course, that could be the problem – she’s not thinking.

I go to the dentist on Thursday to get a tooth pulled. I never thought I’d be looking forward to such a thing, but I’m ready for the stupid thing to be gone. It’s been bugging me for way too long, and I’m ready to be pain free.

It was really nice out when I felt work today. I drove home with the windows partway down, and considering I’d felt like I was burning up all day long, the wind felt great. I wish I didn’t feel so tired lately. It would be nice to be outside enjoying the change in the weather. I’m cooped up inside way too much. Of course, there’s not much I can do about it when I’m at work.

I was hoping Tori would still be here when I got home. I’ve missed spending time with her. And I’m sure she would have loved to play outside, but her dad had already come and got her. I have to say more and more these days, the idea of letting Tori go outside just to play is scary. The way that kids keep disappearing in random ways makes me want to keep her locked inside all the time, or at the very least find out more about a fence installation to keep the bad guys out. It doesn’t help that my grandma spends about eighty percent of her time watching news channels where missing children is all they talk about. I think it’s beginning to make me paranoid.

Man, it has been a long week. I feel like I’ve been totally out of it. I went to the dentist on Tuesday. I’m getting the tooth that’s been bothering me pulled next Thursday. They gave me a prescription for some the pain and an antibiotic. The pain medicine makes me tired, and they both kind of make me sick to my stomach. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much about the loss of an appetite, though. It sure beats walking or running on a treadmill. In fact, it saves me from exercising at all. Of course, it’s just a temporary thing.

There’s also been a lot of family stuff that’s been going on. I don’t really feel like going into detail, but the short version is my mom kicked my sister out of the house. I think the whole situation has us all stressed out. My grandma and I met her after she got off of work last night and went to IHOP. She didn’t look good, but I guess that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I want to feel bad for her, but the truth is she’s the one that brought this all upon herself.

I have a new TV obsession, and it’s name is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I just started watching the other day, and I blew right through the first season. I love it. Plus, it’s really filled the void this week since most of my shows are repeats. I really hate that. I was just glad Lost is new and won’t be doing the stupid ’show a few new show, repeat some old, and then show some more new’ jig. It’s very annoying.

On a completely different note, my sister drove her car to death. The transmissions bad, and now she needs to get a new vehicle. She’s already been out looking for something else. I have no idea how she’s going to pay for it. I have to admit, if our mom buys her a new car, I’m going to be severely upset. I get so sick of everyone just catering to her. If she didn’t feel the need to be out driving her car all the time and leaving it running when she runs inside places, she probably wouldn’t be having this problem. I just don’t feel sorry for her. I can’t find in me. Everyone else already does that plenty enough, and I’m not sure she deserves it.

We’re also going to be getting started on the bathroom remodel. The guy that’s helping install the new shower is supposed to come this week, I think to look the situation over. Unfortunately, since my room shares a wall with the bathroom, I need to move my desk away from the wall for some reason or other. I didn’t really understand the whys. I was more concerned with the how because there is not a lot of extra room in here, and I don’t know how or where I’m going to move my desk and everything in this general area so that it’s out of the way. I might be a bit withdrawn if I can’t get to my computer. It’s times like this where I wish I had my own Toshiba Satellite laptop. Then I could just snuggle up in bed and do my thing. My grandpa has his laptop, but he doesn’t seem overly keen on sharing it. I’m sure he’s got it bogged down with all of his junk. Whatever. I just hope the rearrangements in my bedroom won’t have to last too long. I have a feeling it’s not going to be very comfortable of convenient.

Today was my grandma’s birthday, and we had a dinner for her. My mom made potato soup, and it was really good – and that’s really saying something since I typically don’t care for it. And we also had chips and lunch meat for sandwiches. My mom made a caramel apple cake. Cakes seem to be her specialty. She likes to experiment with them. Most of the time they turn out pretty good, but there have been a few botched efforts, such as the Kool Aid cake.

After we ate and the presents were opened, my mom, Allyson and I went to Goodwill, TJ Maxx and Kohls. I found a cute shirt at TJ Maxx, and a couple of pairs of shoes at Kohls. I also went shopping yesterday and got a shirt at Maurice’s before I stopped by Sears to pick up a gift card for my grandma’s birthday.

I really need to buy some new make-up. I’ve been trying to take care of my skin, washing it at night – especially when I’ve been wearing make-up, and then moisturizing with some facial lotion. I almost bought a blackhead remover while I was at Target yesterday. I know that Clean and Clear has a product for that, but sometimes that brand dries out my skin, so I was kind of reluctant to get it. I might go to Wal-Mart tomorrow and see if I can find some other brand for the same thing, and see about buying some new foundation while I’m at it. I’ve almost spent all of my birthday money, which is just kind of depressing.

On a completely random note, I burnt my tongue eating the potato soup today and it hurts.

Whew, I’m trying to play catch up with watching Heroes. I missed out on about the last half of the second season last year because I was busy writing for NaNoWriMo. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do it again this year, but I have a feeling if I do, then I’m going to be behind on several shows pretty fast.

My mom, sister and Tori stopped by earlier. They went shopping. No surprise there. There was a show on about a couple that has sextuplets, and we were trying to fathom having that many babies all at once. It would be such a huge job. I mean, even if they had a Bob stroller with the two seats, that still wouldn’t be enough. I have seen the three seater kinds of strollers, but I think they’d still be hard to come by. I think about trying to deal with six of Tori, and there’s no way. I couldn’t deal, and she’s not even here all the time. Crazy.

Well, I’ve had a busy weekend so far. Friday I went shopping with my mom, Blaine and Cody. The boys wanted to buy some new clothes for school. They managed to blow all of their money pretty quickly. I didn’t see too much, but I did buy Tori’s gift.

My brother is a hoot. He loves to do impressions of people. He was doing them of Bart and my uncle. Crazy kid. Along the way he and Cody spotted some used Harleys for sale along the road and babbled about that. Then my brother was trying to convince my mom to buy him an Eclipse from some guy that was selling them somewhere. I really didn’t get the details. I usually just sort of shut off after a while. I think I’m getting the hang of this selective hearing thing. We dropped Blaine and Cody off to meet their girlfriends at the park, and I hung out at my mom’s house most of the day.

Tori was with Mitch, and Allyson was supposed to pick her up at his house while she was in town. She had to go straightened out some stuff with the financial aid office at school, and she was going to get her afterwards, but Mitch decided to change plans and said he’d bring her into town later. He was supposed to drop her off between four and five, and Allyson called when she didn’t hear from him, and he’d made some more plans and said it wouldn’t be until later, so, naturally, she was upset. Then he called back a couple of hours later to say he was on his way into town. It should have taken him thirty minutes to go to the house. He didn’t show up for another hour and a half. So Bart had a few words with him. I won’t get into the details, but I think Allyson and Mitch had talked through things enough to be civil and have a tentative schedule for seeing Tori.

Then today we had Tori’s birthday party out at the park. She had a strawberry cake with chocolate chips in it that my mom made for her. She seemed to enjoy opening her presents and she played in the park with Dennis’ (Allyson’s new boyfriend) niece.

Tomorrow I have the last of the family reunions to attend. I’m anticipating a lot of food and a lot of people, as there is every year.

I went to a family reunion on Sunday, and the highlight of the event was watching Allyson and Trey basically beat the crap out of each other. It was ridiculous and childish, yet hilarious none the less. My sister managed to knee herself in the eye while Trey had her in a headlock and wound up giving herself a black eye. Definitely laugh worthy if you ask me. I kept telling Allyson to be careful. Trey is about as accident prone as Bella Swan. Of course, his mom rushes him to the ER for the smallest of things. It’s beyond me how they can afford to make a weekly visit to the emergency room and still manage to sail off into the sunset on Caribbean cruises just about every year. What do I know, though?

My brother cut his hair, which is just bizarre now. I didn’t even recognize him at first on Sunday because so used to his long ‘do. It looks better though. You can at least tell he has eyes now, which is always nice.

I’ve been busy this week working on a label. I’m just about finished with it. I have a few things left to do, but I needed to take a break from looking at it to regather my thoughts. I really had when that happens. It’s like I have all of the pieces there, but when it comes down the last part, I can’t seem to fit them together. Usually taking a break helps, so, hopefully, I’ll finish it either tonight before I go to bed or tomorrow after I wake up. Oddly enough, I woke up this morning with the logo design in my head. I wound up deviating from what I have in mind, but I think this worked out better. I guess I won’t actually know until I send it off.

Tori’s birthday is in a couple of days, and I’ve yet to buy her anything. The kid has just about everything, so I’m not really sure what to get her. I mean, she’s going to be four, so she’s pretty much pleased with anything, but even so, it’s still hard to choose. I guess I’ll have to hit the store before Saturday. Allyson’s having a party for her that day at the park, so I still have a few days to think on it.

- So the night out with the girls was a blast. Amanda was late, naturally. I wouldn’t expect any less of her. If she wasn’t late, she wouldn’t be Amanda. So Shakti and I went ahead and ordered and we were eating dessert by the time Amanda arrived. We talked about what’s been going on since graduation, movies, books, boys. All that fun stuff.

- I met my sister’s new boyfriend, Dennis, yesterday. I don’t know much about him aside from the facts that he’s 25, has a younger brother and sister, and he’s tall. But he didn’t appear to be stoned, so that’s at least one step above Mitch. The jury is still out on the verdict.

- My brother pulled a muscle in his shoulder last night, and our mom had to take him to the ER. At first they thought he’d dislocated his shoulder. He was at our cousin’s house, wrestling. Boys are so ridiculous.

- I finally got to see The Dark Knight! I felt like I was the only person who hadn’t seen it for a while. It was so good. Heath Ledger was so amazing. I still can’t believe he’s gone. :(

- I actually wrote some yesterday. I have been so slack about writing, but I made myself sit down and reread the last thing I wrote and I added over a page. That’s not huge, but it’s improvement at least.

- I also talked to Taye a bit. I’ve missed her. We caught up, and I think we’re going to try our hands at a collaboration. We’re actually picking up something we started ages ago. I think it’ll be fun. I’ve missed my friend and I’ve missed writing way too much.

- So I was looking at this contraption called the Stokke Tripp Trapp. When I first looked at it, honestly, I had no idea what it was. Upon reading, it was obvious it was one of those sort of change as you grow sort of things. It reminded me of one of my all time favorite books is The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen because the main character’s dad used to always buy stuff like that. Things that are supposed to make life easier. Random, but it was just a funny thought association I had. Honestly, stuff like that is great. If you take care of it long enough to get the use out of it. With my family, that seems nearly impossible.

- 6 days until Breaking Dawn! Wee! I’m rereading Eclipse right now. Unfortunately, I think I’ll finish either tonight or tomorrow, so I don’t know what I’ll do to tide myself over until Breaking Dawn. Probably read Twilight again for the millionth time. *obsessed*