Good Day--Weight Loss and Coffee

I've had a good day. I'm sitting at a new coffee shop that opened up. It's local. I like local coffee.

I had work this morning. Yay! I like my job, and I like money, so it was good. :-) I ate lunch in the break room. Then, I ran errands. I went to the store, went to the post office, did a little gift shopping (didn't get anything). Then, I came to coffee. I've got 23 handwritten pages (approx. 20 double spaced, typed pages). Oh, of my new story for workshop. I was going to work on it more, but I might wait until this evening or tomorrow.

Also, I've been steadily gaining weight over the last two years. My clothes were becoming too small, and I don't have the money for a new wardrobe right now. So, at the beginning of October, I started counting calories and trying to exercise more. Since then, I've lost 10 pounds, 2.5", and dropped a pants size. So, ironically, I might have to get a new wardrobe afterall. But I'm super excited. For the first time in my adult life, I'm within the healthy weight range for women my age and height. I'm small boned, so I've got more to lose, but it feels good. I walked approx. 3.1 miles this morning at approx. 3.5 mph. That feels good too.

Well, it's getting dark, and I ought to go by the library on my way home. Talk with you later!

Spring Cleaning and Homemaking

I'm up too late. I was playing with my new craft blog. I'm not sure if it's ready to be viewed yet, but I'll hopefully post a link soon. Especially for you, Lina! I actually still haven't finished that placemat I started once. . . . I just moved on to other things.

I have been so unmotivated for school the past two weeks. Spring came, and I went into Spring cleaning/homemaker mode. All I want to do is clean, organize, throw things away, and especially, SEW! Yay for sewing! I've been making some things from patterns, but I'm also playing around with freestyle type sewing. Not clothes, though. I'm not up for clothes yet.

So this week, I really need to buckle down. I have got to start my new story so I have something to send to my mentor. It's been simmering the past two weeks (hey, I'm amazed that I came up with something at all!). Before I can start, though, my MC needs a name . . . I also have to read a bunch of stuff and write my essays. I'm kind of excited about the essays, though.

And when I'm not doing all that (when will I ever not be doing all that???) I need to clean up the house 'cause Harry's coming next week! :::waves arms like a puppet::: YAY! At least I'm in a cleaning mood, right?

I also have work this week (like tomorrow morning--I need to get to bed!), but not too much.

Oh, and after two weeks of feeling mostly normal (yay!), I've started feeling dizzy and feverish again. I hope I get our insurance info soon so I can make a doctor appointment. And my symptoms aren't flu-like, so NO I don't have swine flu.

That's what I've been up to! Someday, if I can ever get my craft blog working, I'll post pictures of all the cool stuff I've been making! (Unless it's a present for someone . . .) I hope you all are doing well.

Annie

P.S. God made me laugh today.

Weather, Writing, and MLK, Jr.

Well, it turns out that all those clothes were a little much. The below zero weather really hasn't bothered me. That's partly due to all my amazing cold weather gear, and partly due to the fact that this is dry cold. I actually felt colder trying out my cold weather gear in Texas when I walked to check the mail in +30 weather. Here, it's not so bad. And I love all the snow. I'll try to remember to post some of the few pictures that I have.

I've been having a really good time. I'm excited about this semester. I'm really writer-ed out, though. I'm ready to go home (except that once I'm home, I have to start in on my first packet). I accidentally missed this afternoon's lecture when my alarm didn't go off. I have just one more full day, then a half day plus graduation. The next morning, I head home! Yay!

I find it significant that today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day. I don't think I can articulate what I'm thinking, so I will just say this: In Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, he says, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." (http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html). I don't think we're there yet.

Annie

Having Friends is Nice :-D

You know what's funny? That book I told you about in the last post is still bothering me. :-\

So things have been going pretty well here. A week and a half ago, Kyle and Lisa came for a Sunday and we hung out together. We went to lunch, Best Buy, Borders, and downtown to the Riverwalk. We had a lot of fun. I've missed hanging out with friends. Of course, that night I had a dream that a 747 landed on our roof and Paul nearly got squished 'cause he was too busy goggling at the plane to run away. :-D

Last Friday, my cousin Abby texted me and asked if I wanted to go see Fireproof with her. I hadn't heard of Fireproof before, so I watched the preview and thought that it looked good. It was a good movie. It was fun, too. It was a Christian movie, but they did a pretty good job of not beating the audience over the head with the gospel. The acting was a little cheesy, especially at the beginning, but overall, it was good. The guy--I always forget his name--Kirk Camero--is a good actor. The girl who played his wife could have done better, but it wasn't bad. And it had some good comedy relief. After the movie, Abby and I went to Chile's and talked until around midnight. I had a blast. I hadn't been to the movies with a friend I'm not married to in awhile.

Work is going well. I get a good discount, so I'm going to buy a new winter coat for January in Vermont. Also for visiting Montana in the winter, which will hopefully happen soon. Grad school could be going better. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble getting things onto paper. I think part of it has to do with the fact that my glasses are 4 years old. I only realized that about a month ago. They've been giving me headaches and making it hard for me to do anything that has to do with computers, books, television, or writing. So basically, I can play the piano, do housework, and sometimes crochet. Paul my sweet and wonderful husband is going to take me to the eyedoctor's, even though we don't have insurance. He's so sweet!

Paul and I have both been feeling overly tired lately. I'm not sure if it's a lifestyle thing or if we're sick or what. It's been very frustrating though. If you wouldn't mind praying for us to figure out what the problem is so that we can fix it, we'd really appreciate it.

Well, that's probably a long enough post for now. Talk with you later!

Annie

I LIKE happy endings!

Yay! I wrote something! :-D It makes me happy. That's only the second short story that I've come up with on my own. I've written a few others, but those were all for the Book Thing. My short story is different than the stuff I often write, but I enjoyed writing it. It was nice to know that it was short, so I didn't have all of this pressure.

On a sad note, I just finished reading Specials, the last book in that series I was telling you about. Well, I had really enjoyed the series up until part three of Specials. I just really didn't like the ending. Okay, I'm gonna spoil the ending, so if you want to read the books someday, don't read between the asterisks. *The ending was so sad! Through the entire third book, the main character was doing things so that she could be with her boyfriend, the one she loved. She was trying to get him medical help and change herself because her superhuman senses saw him as weak. Well, she goes through all of that, and in Part Three, he dies! And it wasn't like he died in the big battle scene or that his brain damage got too much. It was for a stupid reason. He tried to get surgery that was too risky, so his brain rejected the surgery and noone was around to help him because of the battle. So, his brain just stopped working and they took him off the life support machines 'cause they needed the bed. It was a horrible random death. And the last time he and the main character had been together, they had a fight. It was HORRIBLE! Why do people keep writing these terrible sad endings for books? I really enjoyed the rest of the series, but I'll never read it again now. What really gets me, is that his death didn't even make sense with the plotline. I can think of some other things that would have made more sense. Like if he'd just been in a coma and then the main character turned the villain good and she came and fixed him. Anyway, it's just really been bugging me. It probably wouldn't have bothered me so much before I started dating Paul, but now I can imagine what its like to lose the one you love. I honestly kept hoping the main character would die 'cause at least she'd be at peace then. Ergh!*

Okay, rant over. I should probably get back to writing. I'm not sure what, though. I guess I could write an essay until I think of something creative to write. Catch ya later!

Awesome Summer!

I know; I’m a bad blogger. It’s all my love/hate relationship with technology. This summer has been pretty awesome. I went to graduation and Christy and Joel’s wedding in May. Seeing so many ELH-3 girls together again was awesome. We got some good pictures. In June, I went to Audrey and Jason’s wedding and got to hang out with Holly. And Karen came to visit, which was amazing! I’m so glad that she and Dave live closer now. I was going crazy without them!

In July, I went to grad school, which was also amazing. I had a blast and got so fired up about writing again. I went from grad school to Jonathan and Malori’s wedding. From their wedding, Paul and I went on a road trip to celebrate our first anniversary. I had so much fun! That was our first really long road trip. It was stressful in some ways—like that crazy mid-western storm! 120 miles long and at least 4 hours to get through—but a lot of fun. We ate original deep dish pizza at the original deep dish pizza restaurant! And guess what? The guy who invented it was from Texas! Yup, everything good comes from Texas. ;-) I can say that, too, ‘cause Paul’s mom was from Texas, so he came from here, too.

In August, I got to go to Kendall and Joshua’s wedding, which I didn’t think I was going to do. I road the train to meet up with Christy, Alisha, and Amanda and we road tripped up to the wedding. I had so much fun with the girls again. And guess what?? Christy and I got to be flower girls! Yay! And hanging out with Kendall was great since I hadn’t seen her in forever.

I finally found a part-time job. It’s been pretty good so far (I’ve been there about two weeks). They’ve been working with my schedule and mostly scheduling me for afternoons. Yay. Part-time is so much nicer than fulltime.

Grad school sucks right now. Not because of grad school but because of my infernal writer’s block. ARGH! Quick, someone give me an idea for a short story based on character! Any prayers for my writing would be greatly appreciated. I’d hate to waste this opportunity.

I know this is getting long, but I just want to thank everyone for their prayers for my brother-in-law. Jeff is doing pretty well. He got the back brace off this week. This whole situation has really been a miracle. God was really looking out for Jeff. Hit by a drunken driver while riding his bike and only two cracked vertebrae and no paralysis—I’d say that’s a miracle! Continued prayers for his recovery and for the medical bills are greatly appreciated. Neither Jeff nor the drunk driver has insurance. And if you wouldn’t mind praying for my mother-in-law, she has hepatitis or something crazy like that. The doctors hope it will clear up by December. We’re praying it clears up sooner.

Well, that’s another brief update from the life of Annie!

P.S. I read this book Uglies by Scott Westerfeld for grad school. It’s not wonderfully written, but it’s not horrible either and it was pretty interesting. The main character kind of drives me crazy, though. I just finished the sequel, Pretties, and I’m taking a brake before I start the third one.

Just a week away!

Ha ha, so I keep saying that I’ll get better about updating, but I never do. I think once I get into my grad school schedule, I will require myself to update once a week. That sounds like a good plan.

Guess what? I leave for grad school a week from Tuesday!! AHH!!! I can hardly wait. I’m also freaking out, too. I’m going to be extremely busy during the residency. We just got the tentative schedule. I want to go to practically everything, but there’s no way that I can. Thankfully, we can purchase CD’s of the lectures, so I don’t have to attend all of them to hear them. I have a lot to do before the residency to get ready.

On the writing scene, I’ve actually been working on another story. I’m really excited. It’s been a long time since I just sat down and wrote for hours without having to force myself to. It’s probably not much good right now, but I’ll get better as I get back into it. Oh, and it’s a NEW story, not a recycled story.

On the job scene, I had a second interview with Gymboree, and I thought everything was looking pretty good, but I didn’t get it. :::sigh::: Oh well. I know God has a plan, I just wish I knew what it was. Ann Taylor actually did offer me a job, but they were going to give me only 12 hours a week, plus or minus with emphasis on the minus. I really need more hours than that. Maybe I should have just taken it. At least it would have been something. But Paul and I prayed about it and felt like God said to wait. :::shrugs::: Oh well.

The other night, I dreamed that I went to Mars and went to the beach. The sun was so bright there that the Martians had to get shots to inoculate them against the sun. To prove how hot the sun was, one guy put butter on his leg, and it started sizzling! I got really burned. Then we all went to see the Beatles perform because none of them actually died; they just all went to Mars. ‘Cause that’s where they’re from. That was a fun dream. :-D The next night, I dreamed I was with Hermione, Ron, and Harry and I was trying to do magic to fight off these creepy little fuzzy things that looked cute but were really dangerous. My magic wouldn’t work though because my dreams seems to have a policy against violence.

That’s enough for now! Until hopefully soon!

P.S. I just finished reading Harry Potter all the way through. That is a good series. :-D And it makes a lot more sense when you read it the whole way through instead of reading with 2 year increments between books.