Less Poo, More Eggs!

Thus was my disgruntled complaint as I reached into the chicken coop in which five chickens roost and only one lays an always poo covered brown mottled egg.

Earlier this morning I did manage to collect an underdeveloped egg from one of the other chickens. It was at least whole which is a vast improvement over the cracked shells and yokes my dad has found prior. It was half the size of Butterscotch's eggs which makes it about three fourths the size of a white store bought egg, and it was kind of pink looking because, although it is that pretty orangey brown of Butterscotch's, it was also covered in little white spots so it looks very nice, (once I washed the poo off).

Life on our ten acre "Farm" seems to be full of poo. I walk through cow poo to check on my dying climbing rose and chuck poo around the base in an effort to keep it alive. Apparently, not only did I plant it in clay laced soil that won't drain, but what I thought was a fairly sunny spot against our ugly pole barn, is shaded for a lot of the day by both the barn and a nearby tree. I am stupid, and as much as I pray for and check on my poor little rose, I'm afraid that I will never see our ugly metal barn covered in roses as in Robin Mckinley's Beauty. Alas, if only I had a Beast who loved me enough to send magic rose seed and hurry them along!

In other news, I may have saved my dear cat Starr's life by finding a book called Crazy Kitty. My mother read through it and realized that Starr's use of the living room carpet to pee and other various ways of incorrectly using the litter box may stem from recurring tenderness of the paws. She had a very rough time with her declawing years ago and after tearing out the glue, had to be stitched and has never allowed anyone to touch her front paws. She was nicknamed Miss Prissy Paws because of the way she sits up with one paw held up, limp wristed. To fix this problem, we've moved a spread of newspaper and the cats food dish to her favorite corner to pee in the living room and found a finer, softer kitty litter. After being placed in the box, she went and after I made her try, she actually covered where she had gone! A miracle! if only it will last!

Things I've accomplished today so far.

* Dressed and ate breakfast while reading/stalking blogs and facebooking.
* Watched K tune my piano, yay!
* Dusted piano.
* Sneezed
* Dusted Dining room and piano
* Sneezed a lot more.
* Chatted with brother J1 (my brothers both have the exact same initials, JDS so they will be J1 and J2 in further posts) J1 and J2 are coming home from their respective summer living arrangements for the Fourth, we are very sad to learn that J1's girlfriend, the very sweet C will not be joining us.
* Emailed J1 finished novel.
* Mourned the passing of Billy Mays
* Planted Wine and Roses bush in front of ugly propane tank.
* Considered possibility of hauling ladder out to barn to hang old fence pieces as trellis myself, envisioned myself falling from ladder into muddy pile of cow poo and called boyfriend D for help.
* Successfully found nails, hammer and ladder and dragged all from the garage to side of barn.
* Lifted heavy, dirty, spider-infested, water-logged tractor tire from mud mire and began to role it away to lean against far away fence post to make an archery target.
* Dropped tire, screamed and killed very large spider.
* Righted tire and rolled further, imagining D coming over to find me trapped under said tire, attacked by giant, Harry Potter's Aragog's descendants.
* D came to the rescue, rolled tire the rest of the way and figured out how to use complicated folding and extending ladder.
* Dumped can of nails into muddy poo and had to pick them out.
* Handed poopy nails to D and held fence in place while he nailed it to ugly metal barn wall.
* Kissed my hero and sent him on his way.
* Cleaned up.
* Fixed lunch
* Will eat
* Next, I get to go visit Grandma R. and help her pick out a new purse. Yay. at least this doesn't involve poo. : )

Finished!

The Acorn's Crown by Laura G. Smith is finally finished. At least until I get it printed and get feed back, but the original manuscript is finally finished despite attempts by Starr to keep me from my work as seen again here! (actually mom took this picture, I left my work up and the picture of Starr in front of the screen was up and Starr sat in front of the screen again!)

Anyway, now that it's basically done for a while, I'm going to catch up on some sleep. K, a man I know from church is coming to tune my piano in the morning, then I'm taking Grandma R. purse shopping. Pray for my sanity on that one! I love my Grandma, but she can be trying.(as all people can) Good Night!

Dog

Sirloin, the cow's eye is still there in her head, Thank God, but it is all white, so she is probably blind, can we say Sirloin will be a sirloin or two or five?
Leila, my mother's precious baby one year old Sheltie, is now a muddy mess. I took her out so she could go potty and she followed me as far as the bridge over the creek and refused to be carried over it. I left her thinking that meant she would stay on the other side of the muddy creek since she doesn't like to cross it when it's dry. However, shortly after crossing the bridge, I heard splashing as she jumped into a giant collection of cow created holes in the mud full of water and (probably) cow pee. Yay! I yelled and she got back out and I made her SIT beside a tree and STAY until I got back from checking the cows where they stood across the sunny field in a mud hole in the one spot of shade.
In lighter news, Butterscotch the Chicken followed me as far as the creek as well, but she was smart enough to wait at the edge and not get covered in cow-pee mud. That's what I call Smart Chicken!

Cows, jobs, what-have-you

Yesterday I had to get up early to help herd cattle around our back yard and into a shoot so the vet could put them in his fancy headlock thingy and administer vital pink-eye medication and fly tags. The entire small herd has pink-eye because they either: a. step in their own poo and then scratch their eye with said pooey hoof, or b. are covered in flies which hang around both pooey end and face end and infect them. Both are likely.

In other news, I had an interview with the Claycomo library and now I have a job. A twelve hours a week, paying me a pittance, so far away I will burn most of my paycheck in gas job, but a job nonetheless. Yay.

now I must go check on Sirloin, the cow with the bugle like moo, cutest calf and most atrociously infected eye. She was given a shot in the eyeball, (it bled alot) and now I have to go make sure said eye ball is still in cow's head. ew.

New photo

This is a photo of me from a shoot I did last summer. Last night I did my best to turn it into a fairly decent likeness of my novel's main character, Grace Allonmyer, the Ferinya or Queen of Syarador. Photoshop is pretty cool, although I am quite the novice and it shows when looking at said picture close up! Enjoy! It isn't really an awesome pic of me, I think I sort of look sick actually, perhaps hungover, although I've never been hungover so I don't really know, but the light on the crystal in the necklace is cool! The people of Syarador are different from Earth peoples, they have a wide variety of skin and hair pigments, which signifies nothing more than to show who's child you are. They inherit their skin from their father and their hair from their mother, making it quite obvious if someone hasn't been faithful, no need for Maury and his paternity testing here!

Pet Peeves

People who aren't aware of the fact that they are bothering those around them is one of my pet peeves. Among those people are parents who allow their children to be loud and obnoxious in public, especially in libraries.
2nd and most egregious are smokers. Your right to fill your lungs with disgusting, tar producing smoke ends at my right not to breath it. Today at the library, a stack of Easy Readers came in so bitterly smelling of smoke that it made it difficult for me to handle them to shelve them. In order for a book to smell that badly, it is quite obvious that either some very young child is smoking while reading (highly unlikely lets hope), or some older child (who smokes) has a very low reading level, or most likely, some poor child has idiot parents who smoke while reading to them. Very sad. No parent has the right to fill their child's lungs with smoke, it is one form of child abuse that has yet to have a law against it -and that is wrong.

An interview!

I finally have an interview with the Mid-Continent Library system! I've been applying for positions with them for a month. The interview is Thursday evening and it's for a part time Page position and it's about forty minutes north of here but it's a job, and it's a step up from unemployed volunteer! So I'm praying that I get it, and then I'm praying that I do so well that eventually I'll get transferred to a library closer by or promoted and I'll be able to pay off my bills and get an apartment so I can finally move out of my parents house and have plenty of space for my book and shoe collections. I know, I'm nutty, but I'm out of space for bookshelves and my closet is overflowing!

I'm working I promise!

Yay! I've gone from having three unfinished chapters to um about six, maybe. However, I am working on it steadily!~ On other news I also now sort of have a job! I am visiting with my aunt's mother everyday and fixing her lunch and making sure she eats plenty. She is elderly and is recovering from something she was in hospital with recently which has affected her short term memory. It's actually quite fun. She's very sweet and has an adorable little dog. Her memory is improving but I do get the impression that she probably wouldn't actually eat much if I wasn't there to fix something and eat with her.
From there, I now go to the local library to volunteer for a couple of hours. I'm volunteering there as sort of an internship with the understanding that when an actual paid position becomes available, I will be in line for it. I have volunteered for this library before, in fact, I helped move it some years back. I also worked at the library at college. I had hoped that would enable me to get a job with one of the local libraries but I've applied to the wealthier library that has lots of positions open but I've not heard anything from them. I figured, (and when I talked to my friend who manages our local library she said I was write) that they usually hire from within either the current employees or the pool of volunteers, it's just like any other business really. Thus I am an intern, and I shelve books. However, I do it better, faster and with more attention to detail than any highschooler or bored old lady (no disrespect meant). I have knowledge, drive, focus, and an intense love of the written word in bound print. Because of the summer reading program, I will probably spend most of my time straightening and shelving the Easy Readers and Juniors sections because those are the most backed up. Tuesday I spent four hours on the Easy Readers; I straightened and read the shelves for mishelves as I shelved the first cart which made it much easier to shelve the other two and a half shelves of backlogged books. When I returned on Wednesday I did the same for the Juniors. It is amazing to me how many new books, series and authors have been added since I read from these sections!

My novel!

Although those who know me will say that I have been saying that my book is almost finished for quite more than a year I must announce, (though no one reads this) that my book is so near completion that I plan to have it done by the end of this month. If it is not so then I shall be quite irritated with myself! However, as this picture shows, I may have some obstacles impeding my work! This is Starr, my cat who likes to be in the middle of everything when it suits her, usually when I am least wanting her attentions. Here, she is laying on the notebook from which I was typing the current chapter!
I have been unemployed since March but have only recently begun to pull myself out of the funk into which I had fallen and now find myself feeling rejuvenated and hopeful. My dad has agreed to allow me to print several copies of my novel using the printer at his office. I provide the paper and will pay a cheaper price for the printing than I could get at any of the Office printing service places around town. I checked and at the unfinished size of 311 pages, the cheapest price was $33 for one copy with a comb type binding (which after thought I realized wouldn't be good anyway). Instead I will by cheap three ring binders and use the large volume hole-punch at dad's office. This will hopefully enable me to print at least five copies to pass around to various people to read and give me feedback and in some cases, editing marks for which purpose they will be provided paper and post-its. Anyway, I am so excited! I'm hoping that if the book is finished and printed out by the end of the month and distributed to my people, I can give them two months in which to read it and return it to me with their notes so that I may edit the novel and ship the query letter and first two chapters to the one person I know in the publishing industry. Then I will pray and sweat and cry while I wait for my future to be decided. Meanwhile of course I will start on the sequel, oh and try to get a real job, you know, one that pays money. :)

April Fool's Day!

Today I short-sheeted my parent's bed! I've never had an idea for an April Fool's joke before and I'm so excited about this one! My mother seemed so disappointed when she came home from work and no one there had played any jokes and she hadn't played any either. I can't wait for her reaction! I will post again to let everyone know!

Conspiracy Theory

Suddenly it seems as if the world is against me, or at least against specific products I have previously enjoyed purchasing. Sounds paranoid, I know, however Walmart has inexplicably stricken all VO5 styling products from their shelves! I have extremely touchy curly hair that is quite difficult to work with and I had finally found a product that kept it from being frizzy without making it look wet and molded, or being constantly sticky or crunchy or having "product dust" and now it is no where to be found and there is no explanation anywhere!
To continue this annoyance, I also could not locate my delicious Crest Vanilla Mint toothpaste! They lured me to try their multiple new flavors several years ago and I fell in love with the Vanilla Mint and was so happy when it turned out to be the nations favorite and stayed on the shelves and I have been a loyal customer since and now, just like my VO5 Curvaceous Curls styling mousse, it has seemingly disappeared. Grr.
The same thing happened around Christmas time when I discovered by a fluke that the Only place in which to find a Chocolate Orange, my all time favorite Christmas candy was Walgreens! and forget about trying to find the delicious Chocolate Raspberry they made one year to tease me!
To add to the list, I have searched many local stores where I usually find my Vogue and InStyle magazines but to no avail! They are still selling February's issue of both magazines! Meanwhile, Marie Claire and Glamour are already April issues! What is happening to my world!? Again, no information is available online other than that Michelle Obama is on the cover of the mysteriously unavailable March issue of one of my magazines. Are they available elsewhere and they've suddenly decided that the midwest has no use for updated fashion information?
I am so frustrated! The economy is drowning in a pool of media disparity and I would gladly stimulate it by continueing to purchase the brands that I've long been loyal to (despite the fact that I no longer have a source of income) but they are nowhere to be found! Yesterday I went to Walmart, again, on a chocolate finding mission in preperation for next week's female misery. My mother had informed me that the wonderful eight packs of fun sized candy bars were on sale for a dollar. Usually I pig out on my favorites, Snickers and 100 Grands, but low and behold another favorite has left the shelves and I will have to make do with Snickers and Mounds instead. What is this madness?
The news is nothing but depressing, and my dad talks of the Mexican drug cartel taking over Mexico and how Mexicans are going to flood across the border so he is going to buy a gun. Guns and ammo however, are on back order all over the place because everyone seems scared. The future seems bleak but I am trying very hard to remember that today is a beautiful first day of Spring and God has the whole world in His hands. He loves me and will provide for me.

Not so bad, just cold!

Today is not so bad as yesterday. It is freezing and I did hurt myself at the gym this morning, but I did go! I also got my February schedule and I get to be at the mall and office less and I don't have to miss any of my dance class with D! YAY!!! Now I just have to pray that paying the phone bill won't overdraft my account since I have a huge stack of debit receipts and no idea how much money is actually in my account!

More Complaints

I swear I don't complain all the time but lately I've been quite down and it seems that the old adage about when it rains it pours is true.

• Last week in the midst of my mourning for my Aunt, my D lost his job and this has really bothered him quite a bit, not just because he lost his job but because of the way his cowardly boss did it. The jerk brought up a bunch of random stuff from the past, all of which D could answer for, but he tried to make is sound as if it was D's fault and that he deserved to be laid off. In actuality, what their company did is directly reliant upon construction and manufacturing and they've been rapidly loosing clients for the past year and what it truly comes down to is a lack of work and a lack of money. This has been pretty demoralizing to my poor D and I and I am struggling to rely on my faith the God will bring us through. Meanwhile, my hopes for our future seem pushed further and further into financial oblivion.
• I learned today that there is a little bit of restructuring going on in our marketing department and my new supervisor is the director of marketing who lives two states away! My current supervisor is making a lateral move and becoming the internal marketing director. Apparently all of this could mean a possible opportunity for upward movement for me but I have to ask myself, do I really want that? Sure, I suppose it would mean a change in pay but it would also mean quite a shift in responsibility and I still feel like a kid half the time!
• It is way too cold and I'm sick of winter and snow and ice and wind chill and being cold because running the heater is expensive, also static electricity and sweaters and dry skin and dripping, stopped up, sneezing no-good noses and chapped lips and hands and tired eyes.
• I bought Mary Kay eye primer so that I could use those nifty cream eye shadows without it gathering in my crease and giving me a line and it doesn't work. I let it and the eye shadow dry well and yet I have nice little blue lines across my eyelids. Nice :(
• They moved and set up the wrong desks from the annex to the office. They took the shelf like desk tops that don't have drawers for storing stuff and I doubt there will be room for the two desks they have so far left behind that do have the drawers.
• Because A is my new boss and will be doing my schedule and there are several weekend events in February, I might not get my Friday evenings off for the dance class that I paid 80 dollars for and worked hard to convince D to take with me. Stupid boss in far away state. Who moves two states away and still gets to keep their job and gets skyped in for meetings all the time and flown in at the company's expense once a month? WHO!!!!???? In this economy? It ridiculous! Our front desk staff has been drastically cut in the last two months to save money and they still fly her in?! GRRR!!!
  

Death

The following are quotes, sad but somehow funny ones from Austen's Persuasion and Dicken's Great Expectations respectively.

"Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman, sensible and amiable; whose judgement and conduct, if they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never required indulgence afterwards. - She had humoured, or softened, or concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years; and though not the very happiest being in the world herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children, to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her when she was called on to quit them. - Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father."

"Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she had fallen, and Biddy became a part of our establishment."

I wish that I knew how to express death in such a way.

Things to be happy about

• I just bought a new dress and several cute blazers all for only 31 dollars because I bought them at Goodwill. I know it is shallow but it makes me feel good to wear something new and know that I look good in it and I look good in my new dress, D said so too! The dress is a purple sheath and I found the perfect purple and green blazer to go with it and I'm going to wear it to the service on Saturday because purple was Aunt Paula's favorite color. If I can find her awesome purple nail polish amongst her belongings dad picked up from the nursing home then I will wear that too in her honor.
• Yesterday, since I couldn't work because I could not function without crying, I came home and typed up about half of the stuff I've written this month on my lunch breaks so Chapter 20 is nearing an end maybe and the other stuff that gets sandwiched into existing chapters is there as well which brings me to my happy note. The book is now longer than the first Harry Potter book:) now I know that it isn't the length of the book that matters it's how good the content is, but it really makes me feel like I've accomplished something when I see that 77,678 at the bottom of my screen and then to know that I'm still writing, the story isn't finished!
• D and I are going to the eye doctor so I will get new contacts and stop wearing these awful-fall off my nose like a little old lady-glasses!
• I have followers!
• I have nine kept appointments towards my goal of twelve by the end of the month and I have two that may have come in today but I'm not working today so I can't check to see if they have. If I get twelve I by my review I will get a raise and I will reward myself by buying my sword!!!
• I bought a replica of a Scottish Claymore dagger two days ago, it is awesome!
  

A Lament

My Aunt Paula passed away this morning and I feel robbed, not just because she died of cancer of the lungs and brain but because I feel I was denied, through other people's choices, the chance of knowing my Aunt better, and of knowing her youngest son, my cousin Blaine better before he died as well. My Grandpa R was married before to a woman he knew with in months that he should not have married but he stuck it out, that was the way he was raised. They had three children, a daughter and then a few years later, boy/girl twins who were born in different counties, one in the car on the way to the hospital and the other born at the hospital. Their mother ran around behind my Grandpa's back and had affairs, the children sneaked their mother's cigarettes and lied to cover up for her. When Grandpa found out, they got divorced but the children stayed with their mother and became wilder. They were young teenagers when my Grandpa married my Grandmother and after a while there came a son and then when Grandma prayed that God would give her another little boy so her little Johnie would have a playmate, it seemed God rewarded her faith by blessing her with both a little boy and a little girl which she had always wanted. That little girl was my mother.
As his second family grew, my Grandpa watched as his first became wilder, each child making bad choices and rebelling in ways he could not stop, and by then they were adults, having children of their own, some even without his knowledge. This is why I have half-cousins that are actually older than my mother. Grandpa was angry and afraid, until his first children mended their ways he wanted them to have little to do with his second chance at raising a family. And so it was that my mother hardly knew her oldest brother before he was shot to death in California. His twin has made much better choices, she married a good man after making some mistakes with bad ones, but she has a host of children who have all found God and are working hard to raise their families in the light. Their families all live south quite a ways so I see them every year or so when some of them come back to visit.
My Aunt Paula, she lived life as she saw fit, with no regrets about who she made angry along the way. She never grew up and realized that life was about more than what made her happy. In the last few years, especially after reuniting with her son Blaine who discovered he had a brain tumor about ten years ago, Paula began to accept our invitation to come out to our family reunions and so I got to see her perhaps at least once or twice a year for the last five years. The worst year was 2007 because we saw her so often because Blaine, who had come out of several surgeries before and lived and had seemed like he was in remission, relapsed and died in November of 07. This bright and shining light, this strong and courageous cousin I didn't get to know for most of my life, went out of it just as quickly as he came in. Now, his mother joins him in eternity, and I must wait for my own sojourn into heaven to get to know them better.
Rest in the Peace of Heaven which you could not find here on Earth, Paula and Blaine.
My Aunt Paula,

Gyms

I joined a gym last night. Its the gym right down the street from my annex so its very convenient to go work out there in the morning before work. I'd thought about joining for the last couple of months as I've gone to so many different gyms and seen the hundreds of gym goers working off fat and building muscles and I missed the free gym we had a college that Natty and I tried to go to every once in a while. It always made me feel as if I'd accomplished something and it gave me an excuse to read something fun like a magazine or juvenile fiction. So this morning I got up early and went and now I'm sore. I walked and ran on the treadmill for fifteen minutes then I did the stair master for ten and then I wandered through the weight machines and did several but the one for the abdominal muscles I could not figure out. I tried, and I had it on the lowest weight but I could not do it and I was really quite embarrassed. Oh well, maybe next time.

My Book

Yesterday, I wrote the end of my novel. That sounds like an announcement warranting lots of shouting and cries of jubilation, however, I still have a hole from where Chapter 19 is currently written to and the beginning of "the end" and there is still all of that character relationship development that I'm adding throughout the entire book so that my 254 page, 74,000+ word manuscript still has some massive growing to do. This monster that has so involved my life and imagination for the last 8 years is going to continue to feed off of me and what is most frightening is the discovery that it has, in this process, while not even in full maturity, given birth to, of all things a sequel! So that even once this manuscript is in the hands of an editor being cut and tortured and sent back to me for rewrites, I will also be working on it's monstrous little offspring! ARGHH! It seems I am compelled to live the rest of my life caught between two worlds, this one, and Syarador.

This is a quote that I've thought about recently as the
neighborhoods in my home town have largely, it seems, stopped
using trashcans in favor of just throwing bags out on the curb
on trash day.  It's from Monsieur Ibrahim, a movie we watched
in French club in college and it's always stuck with me.


Rich people live here.
Look at the rubbish bins.

             
What about them?

             
To find out if a country...

             
...is rich or poor, look at the bins.

             
If there are bins and no rubbish,
it's rich.

            
If there's rubbish by the bins,
it's neither rich nor poor...

           
...it's touristy.

            
And if there's rubbish but no bins,
then it's poor.

             
So this place is rich?

             
You bet, this is Switzerland!

             
Is this place poor?

             
Yes, this is Albania.

             
And here?

             
Smell that? The scent of happiness.

             
This is Greece.

             
People don't move.
They take the time to watch us pass.

Ok, this suit is called

St. John

Bengal Tiger Knit Jacket and Knit Skirt

"What's wrong with that?" you might ask. Well, let us see. Hmm. Maybe the fact that Bengal Tigers have stripes? Leopards have spots. This by the way is from Saks. Originally each piece of the suit cost more than one thousand dollars, they are out of the skirt now, but the jacket is on sale for just over six hundred. I'm amazed. You'd think that fashion designers would know the difference between spots and stripes, but maybe they took more home ec. than biology. Still, I thought Tony the Tiger made it pretty obvious to most toddlers which cats have spots and which stripes. Oh well, at least they didn't say it was giraffe.

Poet critics beware.

This is the product of boredom, a bad at work dinner, and perhaps too much cold medicine,

Popcorn

Insubstantial puffs of crunchy air,
Sugary, sweet, not good to eat,
but I don't care.

Filling, bloating, sticks in teeth,
makes me weep.

Tricks my stomach,
fools my eyes,
thickens my thighs.

Tires my jaws as
crunch, stick, crunch, stick, suck.

Stomach full,
hunger unabated.

Oh well, I never claimed to be a poet, but it made me laugh so I thought I'd share :)

• I've just learned that I our annex has been deemed to be no longer cost effective so sometime this month everything here, including my desk and computer will be moved to the clinic office building. This makes more sense of course as there is quite a bit of wasted over here, but it means that there will be considerably more opportunity for somebody above me to discover that there really isn't really enough paper or administrative type things for my co-worker and I to do during the many hours the powers above us have assign for us to spend at our annex. In fact, now that we won't be responsible for cleaning and taking care of the annex, we will have even less to do, not that taking out the trash and cleaning the bathroom were thrilling and time consuming tasks, but at least it was something to do to make you feel as though you had earned your paycheck. (I don't generally take out the trash or clean toilets at home if I can help it.) This change may be good in that the powers above may let us in on what we are actually to be doing, or bad because they might just pull back our hours, or it could be bad because I will still be just as bored but not be able to use this blog as an outlet for fear of having a doctor, or other power from above peeking over my shoulder at any moment. The doctors don't really bother me too much, at least most of them, because they all sit in their offices and play fantasy football and facebook etc., but a few of them are a little bit more serious about their jobs and the fact that I am an hourly employee and they are salary may be some significant factor in how our online activities are viewed by the powers above. Personally, I just want another job, however, the job market in Kansas City for someone of my particular skill set is not promising and to be realistic, the job market in general is not good right now.

• I have a great many ideas that I've been trying to keep notes on for further advancing the character and relationship development in my novel. The more I read the novel in its current form, and talk to my mother (thus far, the only person to have read the prologue and 18 complete chapters) the more I realise what I've left out and how I can fix it. Also, this blogging community is becoming very useful. It is something of a distraction, but it also helps me to clear my head and the blogs of others are often very informative. I'm reading lots of Brooklyn Arden and branching out to read some of the blogs she follows as well as the blogs of people who comment on her posts. Although I haven't acquired any following, I wasn't really expecting to and I suppose it takes a while, I am excited by what I am learning from those I follow. However, it would be considerably easier to "follow" a blog if everyone had visible "Follow this Blog" buttons. Just a thought.
• I registered my D and I for our intro to Ballroom Dance class and I am extremely excited!
  

Books that need to be read!

Ok, I read Nervous Conditions for a Colonial Lit class in college my senior year and I loved it, it was beautifully written and heart wrenching in so many ways. Its the sad but sometimes funny story of a young girl who is struggling to understand herself and her society in rapidly changing colonial Rhodesia in the late 1960's and 1970's. I've now discovered that a sequel exists titled, The Book of Not and I must get my hands on it.

At somepoint in high school, the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane caught my attention and has kept me subconciously keeping one ear to the ground waiting for each forthcoming book and finally I hear today of A Wizard of Mars to come out this year and I am thrilled!

I would also like to finish a few books that I began last year and still have not finished. For instance I am so close to the end of Gulliver's Travels that it is pathetic that I haven't just finished it already! It is such an hillarious work of social and political satire that kept me in stitches for so much of it and I am sad that I put it down and got distracted by other matters. I read the Count of Monte Christo prior to Gulliver's Travels and thoroughly enjoyed it, it was so much better than the movie and I am actually disappointed by how much Hollywood felt the need to change the plot. The endings are so different, the movie should probably not even be touted as based on the book.

I also would like to finish A Curse as Dark as Gold, an excellent book, and one which I had the pleasure of buying directly from the author, Elizabeth C. Bunce and had it signed by her when she and her editor, Cheryl Klein of Arthur A. Levine Books, came to my local library fundraisor. I have no excuse for not finishing this book beyond I had to get a job and I've been trying to write my own.

I should also try to finish reading The Lord of the Rings, it is simply rediculous that I have never finished them considering I have reread the Harry Potters at least twice each and more for the older ones and I've read The Chronicles of Narnia at least seven times through, I reread The Last Battle over Christmas. I suppose my problem is that I am a chronic rereader. I've read Beauty, Spindle's End, Jane Eyre, Tiger Burning Bright, Ella Enchanted and P&P and several others, over and over again whenever I am bored, depressed or needing some uplifting inspiration. I should probably turn to my Bible just as often but I do not, which I think seemed to be the theme of the lessons at Church today.

Sick Day

• This morning, when I awoke at my boyfriend's house instead of my own at the late hour of 9:30 when I was supposed to be on my way to work at 9:00. I work about a forty-five minute drive from home. I was feverish part of the night, I've been feverish off an on for the past few days and my nasal passages have seriously got to go. Medications do nothing and I feel like my head is huge. So, I called my boss, left a voice message and here I sit, taking a sick day, one I don't get paid for and can't afford. I guess I will make up for it by working extra hard on my novel, I have many pages written but not typed so I'm going to get on that. The best thing about today is that I get to spend it all with my wonderful guy. I'm going to try really hard not to be a gushy writer who writes about her boyfriend all the time, but he truly is a great guy. When I woke up on New Year's Day with this super cold virus, he rushed right out and bought me several types of cold medicine and several boxes of Kleenex. He takes such wonderfully good care of me. Now, I'm going to hurry up and get some typing done.
• Ok, I changed my mind. I just saw the preview for the movie Ink Heart and I have to say I am excited! I didn't know they were making a movie of it! It was one of those weird books that took me a while to finish and I loved it and sort of disliked it at the same time because it gave me weird feeling inside and I didn't know why. I read the sequel and loved it and it didn't give me the weird feeling inside. I don't know why, but that's the way it was. I hope the movie is good and they do justice to the book. Since taking a class on book to film adaptation I understand why they do make a great many of the changes, but I still feel there are many books that have been ruined in film, such as Ella Enchanted, and Eragon. These were good books diserved to be treated better. Although, I must say, Eragon was, in my opinion a little, shall we say, immature. It was really good for the first book by an eighteen year old, but the movie was poorly done and did not realize the book's vision at all and was so badly received by the public that the following books won't even be adapted to film which is quite a shame as the next two books were considerably better than the first. Ok, now, I will go type.
  

The Irritating Necessity of Gainful Employment

• My job is boring, "yes, of course, so is mine" you say, and I understand. I am a Direct Marketing Associate. I thought Marketing would be a good fit for me, hoping that I would be able to put some of my acting and creative skills to good use and in some ways I have done. However, perhaps I am too efficient at the "office" portion of my job because I am forever sitting here at my desk wondering why I've been scheduled to be here for another hour. Some days in fact, I have absolutely nothing to be accomplished. Is this a defect of mine? Is there some task I have overlooked? So I make up things to do, I color-code my schedule with highlighters. Yellow for all the irritating times I must sit, mostly alone, in this silly little office. Eventually I get tired of attempting to come up with some semi-workish thing to do, and do other things, such as this blog. Now comes the irritating pang of guilt, the nervous look over my shoulder at every passing shadow or banging door, worried that my boss has come to deliver something and has finally caught me not doing something work related! I am such a meek, insecure person inside, despite the strong persona I try to show the world, that my stomach ties itself in knots, and my body quivers with the turn of the key in the door, and my heart continues to pound even after the intruder to my solitude is proved to be, not my boss, but my fellow employee who feels as I do. What to do?

• I spend my lunch hours scribbling furiously away at my novel, but with each passing day I discover the end is further from sight! My characters keep taking my plot and twisting it, their relationships become more complex and chapters I thought safely finished rear their heads and demand a rewrite! I've forgotten to describe this adequately, this relationship needs to be dramatized more and my characters are not very obediant. I want them to speak and their words will not come, I can not hear their voices! I have to finish this story, all hope rests on it and it's sequel. I think back to my past frustrations, waiting for the next in a series and I wonder in awe that it came as quickly as it did. My hope is that my first book, once finished will provide me with enough income that I can quit working full time and just focus on my writing. How much faster could I write, if I could give it even half of the time I'm working at this awful job?

• Ok, another complaint. I work for a chiropractic clinic, and the DC that I see showed me in my x-rays that I have an entire extra vertabrae in my lower back. An L6 to be exact, which was actually supposed to fuse to the other bones in my sacrum and be S1. This is apparently an inheritted trait as my paternal aunt also shares this phenomenon, although hers is not as fully segmented as mine. Mine actually has it's own disc and moves and everything causing my lower back to curve slightly more than the average person. This causes pain when I drive for long periods of time, or have to stand or walk a great deal, especially in heels; things that I have to do for this job. My chiropractor's solution, besides getting adjusted regularly, is to stop wearing heels. I don't think so. I waited my entire childhood for the privelege of wearing high heels, and then I spent a good deal of time learning to properly walk in them, which is something of an art by the way. I also happen to have a closet full of them, all with corresponding Dr. Scholl's inserts either permanently asfixed or interchangable amongst them. The high heel is a staple in any even semi-fashion concious woman's closet and I like to think I am slightly more than semi. Really, if I have to be a mutant with an extra anything, couldn't it have been something a little cooler, like the mutant X gene? I could do some cool accessorizing with a weather power, even wings would be an improvement, I'd be a natural for a Victoria's Secret model.
  

The Product of Bordom

Why do people start these things? Is it because we all inherently have the desire to be heard, or recognized as intelligent beings? Or are we all simply bored at our jobs as I am? Whatever the reason, whether anyone is "listening", I lift my voice up among the throng and say, "hello".

Today began with the discovery that my nose and accompanying sinus cavities have decided to mutiny against the rest of my sundry parts and create mass discomfort. A court martial was summarily called for, and the culprit, having plead guilty of attempted sabotage, was consequently subjected to copious amounts of cold and flu medication. The effects of which only furthered the attempted sabotage by fuzzying the brain. Alas, my poor brain.