Tuesday Morning Confessions

1. So this happened.  My dumb ass brother FINALLY asked the girls to marry him.  They both said yes.  Even though I'm pretty sure that Willows answer was the only one to matter.  We planned it all out on Sunday.  I have to say we did pretty well.  She was surprised.  We all cried.  It was a happy, bursting,family filled evening.  Jessica wants a July wedding up in the 518, so we have to get planning as soon as possible.

2.  ICD 10 is lurking around the corner.  I can feel it tapping on my shoulder all the way over here from Thursday.  All I can say is this... THANK GOD I WORK IN SPECIALTY.  I would probably kill myself if I ran a general practice office.  All those new codes.  Puke.

3.My eating habits are ridiculous lately.  I cant stop eating.  And I hate myself after.  I have so many things that I want to look good for in the upcoming weeks/months and yet I cant seem to get my shit together.  I wallow at the fact that I am fat and that just makes me eat more, and then I wallow in the fact that I just ate like a  pig.  Something is seriously wrong with my brain functions lately.  I need a reboot.

4. I dont do pumpkin.  Ever.  No pumpkin anything for me when the weather turns.  Everyone all high strung about the PSL and muffins and I'm over here like... no, just no.

5. I indulged in my first bowl of chili for the season.  And guess what... is was freaking awesome!  Nothing like some chili with a book and a blankie while Redzone is on in the background.  Sunday=made.

Reading Menu-Tormented

Just finished Tormented by Robert Crane.

Having read Grounded (book 4 of the Out of the Box series) recently I assumed that this one would be in continuation of it.  For the most part it was, it contained the characters that were in Grounded both old and newly introduced.  What Tormented did not do that first surprised me, was use the cliffhanger ending, the evil villains getting away.

In Tormented, Anselmo (an evil villain who got away in a previous book) returns to haunt the agency team.  Sienna is on a two week suspension and is on what she considers to be "vacation", or is she?! 

Her brother Reed is in charge of the agency under supervision of Andrew Phillips who is seeming to be a pain in everyone's ass.  Reed has the responsibility of finding a newly formed meta who is a fire burner who just so happened to blow up a wing of an airport unknowingly.  With the news of said explosion all over the media, Anselmo has decided the new meta needs to be one of his team members and too goes after him. 

In the hunt for the new meta Reed runs into Anselmo and Augustus gets hurt, leaving Reed unable to run after him.  This also leaves Anselmo a chance to scoop up the new meta under his wing.  During all of this, Sienna is buried in what seems to be a small ocean side town covered in snow from a whiteout blizzard dealing with a team of people of which do not seem to think much of her.  She is powerless, unable to use her meta abilities, unable to channel her deathly villains she carries inside her soul, unable to heal, and unable to understand the difference between dream and reality. 

She finally succumbs and reaches out to Reed in a dream walk and he finds her locked in her room at the agency in a coma.  Unable to help her, Reed calls his team.  With the help of his team, old friends and new ones, he is able to defeat Anselmo and get Sienna out of her coma. 

Now, my thoughts:
I never, ever, would have expected the ending to be like that.  I didn't for one second think that Sienna was trapped in her own worst nightmare.  I did believe that she was in the mercy of someone who wanted her to suffer, maybe Anselmo and his team.  We still don't know who drugged her enough to put her in the self deprecating coma to begin with.  Crane was so vivid in his words, not leaving any hint that it was all a dream for her.  I really thought she was in a quaint little town stuck in a snowstorm with people who were trying to mess with her head.  Going through the whole book and not knowing who exactly did it... makes me slightly frustrated and eager for the next book to come out. 

Tomorrow's the day

Tomorrow is the day that I've been waiting for for like 6 months.  Yes, it really has been that long, and yes, it certainly feels longer. 

I am going back to what I consider to be my hometown.  Not my home, but where I grew up.  Not to live, but to visit.  It is long overdue and I cannot wait.

And guys, guess what!!??  Everyone is coming, minus a few people I hold dear of course.  Jessica and Willow, duh, AND my parents neighbors.  So it's going to be a feast of sorts.  Kind of like the last cruise we went on where is was all of us, and then some.  Well not really because we didnt know Jess and Wilma then, but same diff.

We are leaving tomorrow around 7-8 in the evening.  Night driving makes me exhausted just thinking about it, but if anyone can do it, it's me and Papa.  So we driving.  We both are the only two who have to work, and we the ones driving.  I dont see how its fair, but I'm not complaining because like I said, if anyone can do it it's me and him.  I am NOT looking forward to the drive though.  I really wish I could just snap my fingers and have us all there.  Like using floo powder in the HP series.  Wouldnt that be a dream.

We going to Witherbee for the first half of the week, then migrating down for the second half.  I really cant wait to see all the people I left behind.  I mean, not to burst my own bubble or toot my own horn, but I look pretty legit right now, I have my head on my shoulders AND it's me.  So I'm excited. 

Now if only I could get through these next two days at the office and its go time.

Even in the shadows

Sometimes, even in the darkest of shadows
We can still feel the light
The faint glow of the past
Slowly fading in time
Reminding us of what was
The glimmers of the future
Bright and wholesome
Showing us what can be

Even in the darkest of shadows
We can still feel the warmth
Of a long embrace
Reminding us of what we held dear
What we can hold again
If we take a moment
To live again

Good or Evil

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”   East of Eden, John Steinbeck.


I guess we all have the battle within us.  The struggle to define the good, the evil, the kind, the ugly.  Some days, it's just easier than others to choose, some days its easier than other to choose the right side.  

Reading menu

So I haven't written about reading in what seems like forever. 

Let's see here.  Reading list:

Right now I am in the middle of Go Set a Watchman, by Lee Harper.  To Kill a Mockingbird is, hands down, my favorite novel of all time.  Was first introduced when I was in middle school and I've loved it ever since.  My copy is worn, doggie eared, and well loved.  Go Set a Watchman reintroduces all of my favorite characters, minus Jem, in a story similar to the one we are facing today with the racial differences.  Scout is still naive in everything she does and sees along the way so even though the story is set some 20 years later, she's still young. 

Yellow Crocus, by Laila Ibrahim.  FANTASTIC!  If you liked The Help you'll love this one too.  The novel doesn't have the humor so much as The Help, but it has the love between slave and master, dark and light.  It is based on a true story which gets me because who really lived like that?  It seems so foreign to me that people actually lived with slaves.  People abused slaves to get what they wanted or simply just because they could.  Mattie and Lisbeth story is one of unconditional love that was lost and found again years later after they both escaped a world that they found they didn't love.

The Cure, Angelica Kate.  Kinda sci-fi-ish.  YA.  Good.  Not something that I normally would have read, but I won it as a Goodreads giveaway (ever done this?  No?  You should.  Enter to win free books that are either coming out soon, just in production, or just came out and the author needs to get the word out.) I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.  It has scandal, miracles, love, and happy endings. 

More Than You Know, Nan Rossiter.  This one I didn't expect to like as much as I did either.  The reviews for it were mixed.  Some loved, others hated.  Three sisters try to figure out their mothers great secret after her death.  In the meantime, they find each other, themselves and others in the process.  This story has scandal, love and happy endings too.  Who doesn't love happy endings?

I've read more, lots more, but that's the gist for now.  I'd recommend any of these in a heartbeat.  Pick em up!

Lessons learned in the past few days

It's enough to last me a lifetime really.

1.  Don't ever beg.  It's not flattering, it makes one appear weak and unattractive, and most importantly, one shouldn't have to beg.  If someone (in this case a man) was kind and generous and gave even two craps about you, things, attactions, thoughts, would be given without even having to ask simply because they care.

2.  One can endure more than they think.  Last Thursday I was exhausted, mentally, physically, all around just exhausted.  I went home from work, changed into some running shorts and hit the road.  I ran, and ran, and ran... and when I thought I couldn't run anymore, I had to turn around and run home.  I am by no means a distance runner.  2-3 miles is about the max for me.  Thursday however, I found something deep inside me that kept me going.  Some need to leave it all out on the road I guess.  My father used to tease me in high school when I ran track that it wasn't a good race unless you left something on the track.  If you could stand at the end of a race, you didn't give it all you had.  Thursday I left everything I had on the road, and went to bed some 2 hours and 8+ miles later even more exhausted than I was before.  But I slept wonderfully.

3.  Not everyone can be what I want them to be and I cant change them.  I can only change me, change my perceptions, change what it is that I need.  BUT, and this is a big but, I shouldn't have to change myself.  If one doesn't want to treat me the way that I deserve to be treated then that's fine, they can take a backseat role in my life. 

4.  Validation.  I would like to think that I am a beautiful person, inside and out.  I know that I try to treat others the way that I would like to be treated.  I want to be seen as beautiful in the eyes of others, but I don't need validation from anyone else.  I myself am good enough.

5. Sometimes, doing what's right and what's needed are two different things.  Sometimes, being able to walk away is the best thing possible.