elvenavari

Why not celebrate the 4th with a little whine/rant?

It’s been 8 months since my last “journal” post. I’m posting this to LJ because I figure no one will really see it. I don’t really know anyone who still follows me that actively checks LJ. Yeah, I could make it a private entry but there’s something very freeing knowing that it’s out there.

So this weekend is the 4th of July. I have been invited to my uncle/aunt’s place on the river to celebrate and watch fireworks. I went last year and it was fun, my favorite part was going out on the pontoon. I don’t think we’ll get to do that this year though, we’ve had a lot of rain this past week and I’ve heard the river is quite high. When I was invited, I asked my aunt if it was okay for my Dad and his gf to come, I know the gf is a tough subject with my Mom being gone and all, hell, it’s tough for me and they’ve been going out for over a year now. But, I didn’t want to step on any toes. My aunt said it was fine and two days later my Gran called and said it was okay with her, which was a pretty big step for her. So earlier this week, I asked my Dad if they were going to come with me and he said probably not, that he just didn’t feel comfortable. In a way, I get this; it’s weird without my Mom. But in other ways I think it’s dumb. This is Mom’s family sure, but my parents were married for over 30 years, these people were Dad’s family for those years. By the end of the conversation he said “I don’t know, we might”. I hope they do because I honestly don’t want to go alone. But, I haven’t pressed it. If I have to go alone, so be it. I’ll just feel awkward by myself.

Why would I feel awkward you may wonder? Well, things changed since my Mom died. Of course they did. Some things though…not for the better. I’ve never had a good relationship with my gran, I would call it strained at best. I’m not a favorite grandkid, that honor goes to my two of my uncle’s kids. When I was younger I was in T-ball, I think my gran came to maybe one or two of my games. My uncle’s boys? She went to every single one unless it was too far away. My uncle’s girls? They have lived in St. Louis for the majority of my life but my gran would take off 2-3 weekends a month to go see them. Why does this make me feel rotten? Because I live 30 minutes away from her. A 6 hour drive vs. driving 30 minutes across the county, yeah it left me feeling like I wasn’t loved as much as them.

So, this week, Thursday to be exact, I called my great aunt (my gran’s sister who is more like my gran than my gran is) because she was supposed to have had a doctor’s appointment that day and I was calling to make sure everything was okay. Turns out it was just blood work but I didn’t know about that. So when I asked what she was doing she said she was sitting there talking to my gran and my girl cousins from St. Louis, who are in for the 4th. My response? “Oh.” Yeah, it immediately hurt because they have to drive by my house to get to my great aunt’s house and yet they didn’t bother to stop. I don’t see my cousins from St. Louis much because…well, they’re in St. Louis and they have lives there, I saw them Derby weekend for a couple of hours but before that? I don’t know. I didn’t even see them at Christmas because they were here and gone before I knew it.

Anyway, in the background I can hear my gran talking and she’s saying how she tried to call me but I didn’t answer. No one called the home phone, #1 it didn’t ring, #2 even if it did I would see it on the caller ID. I had no missed calls or voicemails on my cell phone. Now, it’s totally possible that a call wouldn’t show up, typically this happens when I don’t have service but I have anywhere from 3-4 bars where I was in my house at the time she said she tried to call. But whatever. She said they would come by on their way home. Okay. So I went around, cleaning up a little bit. Just before 7 I get a call from them. They “stayed too late” at my great aunt’s and won’t be stopping. I honestly wasn’t surprised and I tried not to be disappointed but you know what? It hurt. It still hurts. When I talked to my great aunt yesterday she asked if they stopped and I told her no, she didn’t have very nice things to say about my gran.

It’ll also be uncomfortable because I’m suspecting my other aunt will be there tonight. Hopefully she won’t confront me about my political opinions, which we have gotten into two arguments about on Facebook this year. The biggest one being over abortion and how I’m pro-choice. She thinks this is wrong and “worries for my salvation”. I will probably just say hi and move on. I’m not going to change her mind and she’s not going to change mine.

Alright, enough with my family drama. I wasn’t able to find a job for the summer this year. I’ve actually been applying for jobs that would get me away from teaching since February with no luck. I still like being in a school setting but students just don’t have respect for teachers anymore. I get so frustrated with the kids asking why they have to be in school, other than it being the law. So many aren’t interested in learning, or rather they aren’t interested in putting work into learning. I’m pretty sure most kids want you to just give them the grade without them doing the work…sorry, not how it works. At least my Dad knows that I’m trying so he hasn’t pushed the issue too much.

Back around April, my ex-boss, who I haven’t really talked to since she didn’t show up at my party last year, emailed me and told me about a English position that would be opening up at a school in a nearby county. I’d already decided that I didn’t want to teach, it’s just not for me. And, after talking to the principal at the school I was subbing at, who had taught at that school, decided it was not a place I wanted to be. Well, my ex-boss got pissed at me. She told me that I needed to move out of my Dad’s house and make my own connections. She asked me what would happen if I wanted to have “an overnight date”. #1, why would I move out to somewhere I have to pay rent when my Dad lets me live with him for free as long as I pay on my student loans and take care of things around the house? #2, that is none of her business.

As much as I don’t want to, I guess I’ll be subbing again this year. At least it pays pretty well. After just a month I should have enough to pay off about $5,000 of my loans, then I’ll just have $28,000 left. By the end of the school year, I could have enough saved up to pay off that $8,000 if I’m smart with my money.

I feel like I’ve been losing friends like crazy. I live in a very rural area, most friends I had in HS have moved away and my college friends all live at least an hour away. One person I considered a best friend stopped talking to me and I don’t know why. If I go in where she works and we see each other she acts like nothing has changed and laments on how we haven’t been able to get together. Well, I’ve texted and she never replies so at the beginning of the year, I put the ball in her court, I’m not going to beg to be someone’s friend. Another person I’ve been friends with since middle school, well, I found out she was talking about me behind my back and saying very mean things. So, I broke ties there. She’s been trying to contact me, claiming she did nothing but I can’t say anything back without giving away the person who clued me in and they’ve asked me not to. Beyond that, it’s hard to remain close to someone who lives hours away. My bestie and I make it work but I really wish we could hang out more than one day every three months or so.

I’m still watching Free! and Sailor Moon Crystal. My internet is super slow at home so it takes about 2 hours to watch one episode, averaging 3 refreshes. Of course, putting off watching for the past couple of months works to my advantage. If word is correct, SMC is going to have 26 episodes and 25 should be posted either this week or next, so I might just switch to Free! for a bit because I think it’s complete, or at least the second season is. I finished Legend of Korra, it was awesome, though I didn’t love it as much as ATLA.

I’ve finished Once Upon a Time up to S4, been waiting for it to be available on Netflix, looks like it’ll be out in August so not too much longer to wait. My cousin and I have been watching Teen Wolf; I think we’re ready for S4. I couldn’t get into Hannibal so I took it off my list. I really need to watch Sherlock.

I ended up challenging myself to 150 books this year. I’m currently on #81 for the year.

So yeah…my life isn’t too happy right now. I can only hope it gets better.

I finished student teaching guys!

Last Friday was my last day. Though, I have been back in the school to sub every day since then. I don't mind...I was looking forward to sleeping in though...at least I'm getting paid now.

My boss is supposed to let me know if I can have my summer job back this summer sometime this week or this weekend. I'm having a celebration party at my house to celebrate being done with student teaching.

I've applied for a position at the school I student taught at, hopefully I'll get an interview and maybe even the job. If not I guess I'll stick to subbing and if they still have the AWA program in the fall, maybe I'll keep that job too. Not ideal but money is money.

I've been watching Once Upon a Time season 1 when I have time. I'm just getting started on season 2. It's not bad so far, though I think some of the acting is quite stiff. I look forward to seeing what season 2 brings.

I've read 23 books toward my reading goal for this year, almost halfway there! I'm nearly done with 24, probably another day or so and I will be.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my cousin and I will get to go to DC for her grad trip, but right now it's looking like a no. Sigh, I really want to go!

So that's my life right now...not much going on.

My mom passed away early this morning.

I love you mommy.

Well let’s see… it’s really been September since my last life update, other than pics of my house after the fire, and since I had a request for “how things are going” I figured it was time for an update.

My mom has been in the hospital since September the 18th. She has undergone numerous surgeries, one extremely major one, and is finally (we think) on the road to recovery. She is getting one of the two wound vacs she has removed today. We expect her to be moved to rehab sometime next week. She will be on a feeding tube until sometime after Christmas, probably the first of the year. There has been a lot, and I do mean A LOT of prayer, going on for my mom and I believe this is one of the reasons she is finally on the mend.

Now onto our house. Insurance is taking care of the rebuild since we have a replacement policy. If you or your parents don’t know much about your policy/coverage I highly recommend looking into it. Replacement means that insurance has to replace things for the amount they were at the time they were bought, not what they were worth at the time whatever something happened. Insurance had hired this one company to do the rebuild but this company doesn’t pay overtime. The boys got paid from the time they left Louisville to when they got to us, usually 2.5 hours later…which is crazy because it only takes about 45 min to an hour to get to Louisville from us, so they must have stopped somewhere along the way. They would work about an hour and then take 1.5 hours for lunch, work a couple of hours more and then head back to Louisville to be back by 5pm. This… was not working to say the least. It took them 3 weeks just to frame the garage! Something that should only take a day.

So the big boss man came, saw their progress (or lack thereof) and hired an independent guy to come in to do the work. This guy has brought a camper for he and his boys to stay in during the week and they work from sunup to sundown, though they had lights on last night and were still working when I got home from work around 9:30. They got the roof completely off a couple of days ago so hopefully it won’t take as long for these guys to make progress.

Work, lovely, lovely work. Please note my sarcasm. Usually, I enjoy my job. I don’t love it because I hate teaching but I do love the paycheck… Last night was not a good night. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my longest days out of the week. I get to work around 9:00, teach class at 9:30, might have a meeting or two from 11:00-12:00, teach class at 2:30, and then host study tables from 6:30-8:30. Well, last night we moved my study table location so that we would all, with the exception of one other PSL, be centralized. They didn’t give us keys to the house we were in so around 7:45 we had to call one of the supervisors who lives close to come lock the place up so we could leave. He said to call him about 15 min before we were ready to leave but we called early, just to give him a heads up. Study tables are over, as I mentioned, at 8:30. Since we called at 7:45 that gave him 45 min to finish whatever he was doing at home and get there. At 8:30 he was not there, 8:40 not there, 8:50 still not there, and by 9:00 we were pissed. Not to mention he wouldn’t answer our phone calls or texts. So we tried calling other supervisors, who also would not answer their phones. The campus police basically told us that we weren’t on campus anymore so… tough luck. I finally got ahold of the secretary to works for my boss and she told us to just close the house up and she would come in a few to lock up. So that’s what we did. Just one of the joys of working for this campus/program.


This is the same job that I had over the summer so I knew going into it how much work was involved. But… given that the fall semester is longer than that of the summer you pretty much have to double the workload. I have 4 reports due a week, plus lesson planning, making assignments, and posting helpful things that my students probably don’t even use. It’s very time consuming and by the time Thursday rolls around I’m exhausted. I usually leave myself open to sub on Fridays, since I don’t teach on Fridays, but since September I have only gotten one half day of subbing in because I have just been too tired…

My tiredness has been my excuse for not writing more, plus a fair amount of writers block. I’ve really wanted to work on this Jasper/Seth multi-chapter I’ve been planning but I believe my notebook with my notes for it was packed up and put in storage by the cleaning company that cleaned our house out after the fire. I also want to finish A Couple Takes Two by the end of the year. I don’t know if this will happen or not, we’ll see. 40 some pages in I finally got to the consensual sex and writers block hits with a vengeance. I’m trying my damnest not to force it because then it will suck, so I’ve just been writing four or five lines here and there, just to say I’ve done something.

So… there’s my life in a nutshell right now. I’m off now to be productive and run tons of errands!

Well it’s been awhile since I did an official journal post. I’m not counting that Magic Mike post… that was just a bit of fangirling.

Since my last post, in which I had 5 weeks of school left, my grades were posted. A’s & B’s so that means another Dean’s List semester under my belt! I did get a D on my paper for my Poetic Shades & Shadows class… not really sure why but given the prof who gave me that grade is one of the toughest prof’s I’ve ever had I’m not sure I want to know. I still came out with a B so it’s all good.

Friday of finals week found me, my grandma, my mom and my great aunt headed to FL for a week. I-75 South was closed due to part of the mountain sliding off so we had to take 25W around for miles and miles. At first this was fine, the scenery was beautiful and my great aunt kept gushing about the trees and these huge rocks. And then… she got car sick, horribly, horribly car sick. We ended up putting up for the night just on the other side of Atlanta much earlier than we ever have just to get her out of the car. It’s funny looking back on it now, due to the fact that she was praying and telling Jesus that she was ready to go… just a testament to how sick she was. Thankfully, after a night of rest and some motion sickness pills from Walmart she was much better and we were on the road again.

We got to FL without further incident. Our condo unit wasn’t the best we’ve ever stayed in but it wasn’t awful. The worst part about it was the internet wouldn’t work. Other bad part was the TV in the main room was really old and you had to turn it up all the way just to hear it. But as far as the view and stuff goes it was wonderful.

starry_nights88 came to stay with us for 3 days and that was a blast! We scoped out these super-hot guys that were staying in the condo next to us. I took lots of “stalker” type of pics. We laid out on the beach, by the pool, got sunburnt and talked about slashy goodness. I was sad to see her go home, hopefully she’ll get to come back to stay with us next year or come visit me in KY!

Just before school got out I found out that I had gotten a job at my college that I had applied for. It’s a 6 week job teaching reading seminar to kids who will be college students come the fall semester. Now this job is almost over and I’ve seen students who will make good college students and others that won’t make it out of this 6 week program. Only bad thing? I haven’t been paid for the first time yet. I should have been paid twice already but my college fails at just about everything, this included. My boss is keeping on top of the issue and says if we don’t get paid next week we will all go to the labor office together. If it were just minimum wage I wouldn’t be so put out but it’s not. I’m making $20 an hour at this job.

My boss has offered me a similar position for this fall and depending on the schedule I’ll probably take it. You can’t beat working 5 hours two days a week, 2.5 hours two other days and making the rest up in “planning” to equal 50 hours a pay period. I’m looking forward to this eventual check from this summer, hopefully I’m gonna get lasic surgery to correct my horrible vision. Money that comes from the fall job will go toward paying off some of my school loans. It would be nice to be out from under at least one of them.

My mom had to have another surgery since her infection came back. She’s home now but has to give herself 4 packs of anti-biotics via IV 4 times a day. She has a wound vac attached to her open wound to suck the drainage out. That thing is a source of frustration for her but hopefully this time she’ll be cured and this will be the end of it.

I haven’t been doing much writing lately, been too busy. My goal of finishing A Couple Takes Two by the end of June didn’t happen. I’m having a friend take a look at what I have to give me a fresh set of eyes on it. Thankfully the story that follows it is mostly written and just needs a few minor adjustments. In the meantime drabbles is about all I have time for. Someday I’m going to write this Jaspeth story that’s been in my mind for ages. Someday.

Alright then. You’re now caught up on my life. I don’t anticipate much happening in the next few months.

5 weeks.

5 loooooooong weeks. That's how long I have until my summer vacation. And believe me, I am counting down every minute. Come the end of that 5 weeks I'll be on my way to FL for some much needed relaxation on the beach. Plus I'll get to see starry_nights88 :D

In the meantime... this is my to-do list:

-8-10pg. paper on "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
-5pg. paper for Shakespeare
-2 lesson plans for this week
-5 lesson plans for unit
-Discussion board posts
-ENG 433 stuff
-Grade homework for ENG 089
-Finals

FML. Totaled my car this morning. I'm okay, sore.

I was getting ready to turn onto the highway to go to class this morning. I looked to the left, saw nothing, looked to the right and saw a white truck but far enough down the road not to worry about. I started to turn and BAM. This really nice woman in a van hit me. I pulled out in front of her but she had to be going over the posted speed limit to hit me so hard. Both my airbags deployed.

All I could say when my dad got there was "I'm SO sorry!" I did the same to my mom when dad took me home.

I don't think I ever posted about it... but my old laptop died. So I was without easy access for two weeks. I kidnapped my mom's laptop pretty much. But I got a new one yesterday so I'm back!

Those of you who have requested drabbles, I'm working on them promise! My mom's laptop only had Notepad and I'm sorry but I can't write on NotePad.

<3

My mom does not have cancer!

-dances-

I've never been so happy for someone to have an infection.

So what was it? A vegetable.

Yeah, you read right. A vegetable.

At some point she got choked and somehow the piece went into her lung. It rotted, set up an infection and it went rampant.

I don't like to say much about religion...anywhere because I never know who I'm going to offend. But there are times, like now, that I just need a little help.

For the past couple of months my mom has been coughing up blood. It varied from small amounts to large. She's had multiple tests done to find the cause... well today we found out.

My mom has lung cancer. At least the doctor is 80% sure. They were going to schedule her to see a surgeon before she left the office.

I'm asking for those of you on my f-list who believe in God, or even if you believe something different, to please say a prayer for my mom. I'm a big believer in the power of prayer. Please pray for her to have strength to make it through this ordeal. Thank you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:26