I grew up in the LDS church, also known as the mormons. I was baptised at age 12 because my mother and I were converts, and my dad wasn't active. I'm no longer active. I'm still feeling out my spiritual pathways. However, the LDS church is always going to be a part of who I am and, at least locally, they have a really great community of people. Most of the people helping with the wedding are members. I'm getting married in an LDS church building, by an LDS bishop. My mom is still an active member. My fiance decides that he wants to investigate the church to learn more about my background in it and to connect more with my mom, and also to attend with our roommate, who wouldn't go otherwise. This is all very nice, in theory. However, he hates organized religion. He's very liberal, politically speaking. He believes in God, but doesn't like all the dressings. When he met with the missionaries, it annoyed me, because I felt like he was there to waste their time. And he came back with snide remarks and his usual issues with the thought of organized religions- complaints about beliefs and accusations about oppression of women and just... all the same stuff. So I shrugged and told him not to do it. But he's persisted. So I tend to nod and sigh and remind him that he doesn't have to go there, and nobody's trying to force him into the beliefs. It just irritates me. He came home today ranting about how tithing is just rent for the church and they don't care about motivations and whatever. It's a freaking principle of the church. Don't act like you understand it, because you obviously don't. It isn't flexible. Organized religion has to have structure to it, otherwise it WOULDN'T BE ORGANIZED!!!
I know I need to work out more. I do. I've seen the wedding photos, and I want to be healthy. I need to be healthy.
Here's the thing. This is week 7 of 12 in the quarter. I have 6 hours logged- which is better than I've done in the past, for sure! But instead of needing 14 hours, I need 25. Here's the other thing: The lab will be open the week of Thanksgiving, but we don't get credit for working out that week. Whahuh?? And I don't think we can work out week 12, though I might be wrong. So I need 19 more hours. I kind of want them done before Thanksgiving... so I'm going to be going in every day this week and working out the full 90 minutes, instead of an hour as I've been doing. (I can only get credit for the first 90 minutes I work out per day.)
So if I work out for 90 minutes for the next 5 days that'll be an additional 7.5 hours, for a total of 13.5 hours. Then, week 8, I'll do all 6 days for another 9 hours will be 22.5... Which means I'll have 2.5 hours for week 9. Bwahaha! It's a pipe dream, to be sure. But it'd be nice to just get it out of the way.
If I'm ever going to attend a four year school, I'm going to have to take a whole lot more math than just statistics. Do I try and get some of it done next year? Or do I try and keep the focus on the sciences I need for the radiology thing and not spread myself too thin?
I don't know. I'm back in obsessive mode regarding my classes. Obviously.
More:
Ooh! I just went through the new course catalog, and the genetics class I want to take has basic math and science prerequisites, which means I should be able to take it sometime in the next school year. But there's where I run into the problem I was chewing on up above- where do I fit it in?
They've also got several spanish classes that I'm now interested in looking at. (I was essentially forced into taking 3 years of it in high school because it was practical, so I never developed a love for the language, but I think I might be able to do that now.)
More:
How is it that I can obsess so much over future classes and yet be dreading tomorrow so much? There's no reason for it, either. I like all of them. In fact, this is probably my best quarter of instructors, and certainly one of my favourite classes, as far as people in it go. I'm going to fall apart when things start getting really difficult.
I am actually in a full-blown panic over never finding a bottle of House of Mirrors. Beaver Moon to a lesser degree. This is sort of scary. I think I need some rest. But it's really, really freaking me out. Seriously, though? House of Mirrors seems to have vanished from the swaps. (I know there are a couple there, but what if nobody ever wants to sell it again? )
And it's not like I have any real reason to be afraid I'll never get my hands on either of them ever again. It's irrational. That's how I know it's a panic attack.
Thanks for pointing me in this direction, Fil. The guy called my cell phone today and told me that he wanted to know immediately if the phone line was disconnected, because they're not supposed to do anything to our line while an investigation is pending. Hopefully this will get sorted out soon! Meanwhile, we'll be able to stay online! I should go find the number, just in case. Eep. Anyway, so that's great news! And I know what I want to get for my mom, I just can't get it right now. It'll have to be late, sadly. Ah, well. And I think I need to find some more imps of MLST so I can get her a few in a roller bottle, because I think it would smell fantastic on her.
Anyway! I'm feeling better now that somebody is looking into the situation. I am so freaking pissed at Trinsic, it's not even funny, so I hope they get taken to the woodshed. Or at least get a stern talking to, and we get our phone back.
In other news, I watched part 1 and 2 of the Lost Room, and I'm bummed because I love the premise, and it's almost exactly how I wanted my NaNo to go- the things they needed to find were going to have odd properties, and there are all sorts of directions to take it. I may still use it and draw on the show- it's not like I'm going to be published or anything. (I'm going to flesh out my characters this year and then write out the novel next November. It'll be better!)
Anxiety is high again, can ya tell? My mind is just racing. Okay, gotta go figure out what I'm doing. Take care, dearies. Thank you for your support.
One of my favourite movies is about quantum physics. It's one of those mid-level films that a lot of people heard about and then promptly forgot. What the Bleep do we Know? There are little touches to the movie that I love-- glimpsing herself, the crazy mad scientist looking guy, and of course the water.
What we believe creates our own reality, says the movie.
It's also impacted by collective belief; we are not islands.
So, yeah. I totally believe that I'm filthy rich and unchanged by money and seriously, no monkey's paw clauses. That shit freaks me right out.
I'm honestly trying to change my view of myself, though. It has to start small, or it won't work with me. I have to really convince myself.
Not that I'm wealthy or that I can fly or anything; just that I can deal with life better and respond to the needs of people around me without losing who I am.
Anyway. Enough quantum physics.
We had therapy today. Things need to change, but the ways we can go about making those changes are limited. Suggesting hospitalization is all well and good, but we checked that option out months ago. Hopefully having the therapist as an advocate in the matter will open some doors, but there's a lot of red tape. We're having to retrace the steps we took months ago, and that's frustrating, because none of those steps helped at the time.
It's absurd to suggest that he start the process of moving out onto his own. He's barely existing with us prodding him to take a freaking shower. Put him into a situation where he's alone, and it's just going to end badly. Not to mention he doesn't even have a job, his credit is shot, and he's not particularly interested in finding a job. So unless we're talking about him moving out to live under the bridge, it's not viable.
So what is viable? If those two things are out, what next?
I wish I knew.
I found my imp of Snake Oil yesterday and dabbed a bit on my hand. I remembered that I wasn't too fond of it, but couldn't remember why. I actually thought maybe it was just that my nose wasn't developed enough, or sensitive enough to the scents, but it just doesn't work on me. Why? Patchouli. It's all patchouli, all the time on my skin. And I don't mean that in a good way. It just doesn't work. I don't like it. I have a dear friend who loves patchouli, though, so I'm thinking I'll send it to her.
I found a whole tin of imps that I've been missing. Silk Road and Dragon's Millk are the ones I'm really excited to find. The rest I'm all kinda meh about.
Dude! I'm going to be in art! Just a little over a month to wait. Art, math and psych. Plus fitness! I just need to make sure I'm going to the fitness lab all quarter. I know I've said that for the past two quarters, but I mean it now. Really! I'm going to do it this time. Things will be different.
I'm learning to cook so that we don't have to eat out so often. I was annoyed at spending so much money on meats, and then realized that we spend the equivalent (and often more) on fast food that's so bad for us. So instead of doing my 'stop eating' thing that's 'worked' so well in the past (because he won't let me, mostly.), I'm working on healthy alternatives.
I bought onions today!
Did I brag about my boy's tomatos yet? He planted tomato plants, and they're finally red! They're small, but they taste amazing-- and I'm not a really big fan of tomatoes, generally speaking. Except lately.
I am so sick. Aaand... I'm about to go to school.
I swear, I have the plague. Ugh. And the crazy thing is that my doctor didn't even give me a decongestant- he gave me cough syrup with codeine, which I can't take during the day, because I'm going to be driving to school, and I'm already not feeling good enough to do that.
I know.
My internet has been gone for the past week or so! I shall return as soon as the telecommunication gods decide they don't hate me anymore. Thinking of you all, and hoping you're doing well.
I will have a huge update coming when I do get back. (Possibly tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath.)
I think I just figured out a note I love! Finally! I mean, I know there are blends that work well on me, but I've never been able to really truly single out a note... and that note is white musk. I tested Katharina just now, and it was a little sharp going on, but then I noticed that it has white musk in it, and so does Whitechapel, so I figured that maybe it would dry down differently on me- and half an hour later, it smells fantastic. It's the same musk- I can actually pick it out. That is freaking awesome.
I need to lose weight. This is not an epiphany, obviously (the white musk thing was the epiphany). It's just... incredibly important to me. I was explaining this to one of my bridesmaids earlier this week. I want to go out with my husband, and have people look at us and think: "What is that girl doing with that guy?" Here's why: I think he deserves that. I want to make people sit up and take notice of him.
Please don't take that to mean I'm putting down his appearance; I'm very attracted to him. I just know that he doesn't have the physical appearance to match his heart- and trust me, if his phsyical appearance really did correspond to his heart, angels would weep and traffic would stop and there would be no more war and he'd be able to turn tap water into Shub Niggurath (the BPAL blend, not the Lovecraftian critter, because that would be seriously freaky- can you imagine? He'd have to get special glasses or something, because otherwise he'd unleash this terror onto the world... but yeah, getting off the subject here...) with a piercing glance and.... yeah. All that stuff.
He's that special. He deserves someone fantastic.
I've been putting off writing about this, but it is another thing that is weighing on me and I need to just write it out.
My dad's first wife has advanced cancer- Colon cancer, I believe, though I may be wrong. She might not last the year. I keep hoping that she won't die on Thanksgiving. Or in November at all. Deaths seem to be piling up around November. And... this is awful... but I keep thinking that it's like having a messenger preparing for a trip to see a bunch of people I love and can't communicate with anymore... could you just find Christy and tell her... and Robbie... and Paul... and... most of all, my grandmother. After you die, could you just please find these people for me? Run some errands out and about? Could you tell them that I am happy, finally?
It's awful. And I know it's hurting my brother and sister, and I hurt for them, but I keep obsessing over the fact that she could be seeing all these people I love before the year is out. All these people who hoped that I'd be happy. All these people who loved me.
I don't want her to die, but I'm trying hard to get to acceptance.
I hope she knows her kids love her. I'm going to tell her I love her. I'm not going to ask her to run dead messages around for me. A part of me just wishes I could.
Freaking Melody. Heh. I'm sorry, and I know a lot of people love her, but.... first impressions and all. If that chick knows where the Ark of the Covenant is, she needs to tellllll me. And stop filling it with water. Freak! Ahem. I'm done. Seriously.
I'm such a spaz. How did I get to be so old?
My husband is out in the front room doing something mysterious and Christmas-y for me. I'm not allowed out, and I think it's very sweet. I can't wait to find out what it is so I can brag about him here. Hee. I don't know that I say it enough here, but I love that man. He is so good for me.
SO GOOD!
In other news, my brother's mom seems to be in stable condition, and should be here for Christmas- which is wonderful, seeing as how my brothers and sister will all be here, and the last time we were all together before my wedding was many, many years ago, and I was dumb and didn't take a picture with them- so we will have to get one while they're in town for the holidays. I was so afraid that we wouldn't be together again until a funeral, so that's a relief. I hope! I just really hope she makes it. It would suck for her kids and grandkids if she died so close to Christmas. Me too, obviously, but them more.
Uh, okay. My brain is still flitting about much like a hummingbird. Hummingbirds freak me out, because some of them are so small that they resemble moths. We have HAYUGE moths out here. I'm so phobic about moths it isn't even funny. Riiiight.
I can't concentrate, obviously, so I'm going to go play Cake Mania. Seriously. It rocks. Big Fish Games is the coolest thing ever!
I'm tired right now, but I've got a lot on my mind, so I thought I'd do a brain dump here. Since I can!
I'm swapping for King of Spades with somebody I trust a lot, so yay me. Now if only I can get my hands on a bottle of Glitter. I just realized I forgot to finalize a swap! Cripes, I feel bad. I need to go leave a message now. Okay, done. I will hopefully be getting Punkie Night, which will hopefully smell pretty on me.
This year I need to focus on GC's. I am just so OCD when it comes to LE's. But I need Alice, Arkham, Mouse's Long and Sad Tale, and a few others- Bewitched. Plus I want to try a bunch of patchouli blends and a few others- Persephone and March Hare are the ones I'm obsessing over right now, as well as Depraved, Ravenous, Sin, Urd, Sri Lanka, Spellbound, The Catterpillar, Vixen and Tweedledum. Tweedledum in particular. The last are from my patchouli recommendation thread! (I want to try the others, these are just the ones that stand out to me.)
Anyway, the title. I was feeling philosophical, but now I'm not. I guess I'll leave it at that. Hope you all are doing well. Peace and love to you all!
Is Chinese musk the same as white musk? I've seen it used several times and wasn't sure. So these are white musks, golden musks, and musks of indeterminate color.
Dragon's Musk (with 5, one is bound to be white!)
Aeval (I didn't like this one the first time, but white musk warrants a re-try)
Black Pearl
Fae
Lampades (sensual musk could be white)
Lurid
Ode on Melancholy
Zephyr
Death on a Pale Horse
The Bow and Crown of Conquest
The Great Sword of War (Yeah, it's red musk, but it sounds so perfect.)
Bluebeard (I'm pretty sure I tried and disliked this one)
Imp (not white musk, but golden musk sounds so lovely!)
Kitsune-tsuki
Kuang Shi
Villain (citrus musk)
Grandmother of Ghosts
Pietho (warm musk probably isn't white, but it sounds pretty)
Queen Mab (Chinese musk)
Thanatopsis (pine, juniper and musk... yeah, those first two scare me. This is way low on my list.)
Cordelia (Chinese musk- this has all my favourite things in it.)
Juliet
Oberon (orchid too!)
Endymion (tried once already)
Psyche
Vicomte de Valmont
Berenice (if I can find some!)
Usher (as above)
Mantis (golden again, but sounds lovely)
Fallen (golden musk)
Aglaea (musk type isn't specified [except 'bright'], but sounds like it could be white)
Euterpe
Urania
Zorya
Bengal (skin musk)
I think that's all, for now!
I have about $50 in my paypal account. I really want to do whatever the BPTP event is going to be. I totally support the price increase and all that, but... I think I'm going to spend it on GC scents.
I don't have anything for my husband's birthday. I don't have any ideas about what to get him. I... may actually not use it on BPAL at all. If I spend a ton of money on myself and don't have anything for him, that's just... wrong, to me. Wrong.
My super-secret knitting project? Yeah, it's taking forfreakingever. Am I just excruciatingly slow? I think I might be halfway done with it now, and I've been knitting for a week. How quickly should this be taking shape? Am I going way too slowly, or is this average? ... I think I may go with PM's.
I don't know why, but my anxiety is all wonky right now. Like, really badly. And there's sort of not a whole lot of reason for it to be especially high.
On the upside, I'm hoping that the BPAL birthday package my mom ordered me will be arriving within a week or two. (I'm trying to be generous with the time!) I think I will positively love Manhattan! I already know I love Katharina. I'm really excited to find out what my chaos theory smells like, and I think she got me a CD. Xanthe, maybe? Or Gennivre? I know it wasn't the Organ Grinder, because I had some amount of panic about that, and then found a decant of it available. The cool thing about a CD bottle in my hands is that if I love one of my decants more than it, I'll probably be able to swap for whichever bottle I love more.
Is it silly that I get so freakin' excited about frimpage, too? There's usually 2 per bottle, so I could end up with De Sade, Severin, the Jersey Devil, Ladon, Cockaigne, Phobos, Tintagel, and Euphrosyne! Yeah, I know, the middle three probably won't happen, but they might! Really, I'd prefer Les Bijoux over the Jersey Devil.
It's amazing to me that prattling on about BPAL allows me to forget about anxiety. Heh.
How long does it take an inept knitter to knit a scarf? Or 15 scarves?
I went and got my driver's license info updated yesterday. I realized that my signature looks awkward, even for being left handed and not so good with the neat handwriting in the first place. I need some serious practice.
It feels like a fake ID. (Especially since it's that paper stand-in you get before they send you the fancy plastic) Somebody called me Grace! I updated my social security card, too. Now I need to do billing records and bank account and library card and credit cards and school records... this is a really huge undertaking.
It will be my two year anniversary for having my driver's license on my birthday.
Tomorrow is my one-month wedding anniversary!
Awesome.
It was a geography class of some sort. Everything about it was unfamiliar. Faces, carpet, desk, rules. . . Everything. It was painful. I wanted to cry all the time. It was so very hot during the day; unrelenting heat, and so early in the year. Everything was wrong. I dreamed about home everytime I closed my eyes.
A scrap of paper was delivered, and it was a small note; pre-typed and a single word scribbled out: home. I was going to be excused from the rest of my classes because I was going home. Home didn't mean the drab little tent in the RV park where we lived. I was certain to the core that home meant leaving this cruel desert and returning to my beloved desert.
As it turns out, I was right.
I wish I knew what happened to the little girl who lived next "door" to us. She was a sweet kid.
Over the course of one or two months, I lost about 40lbs. There was just no money for food. I had lunch at school. That is a diet I would fall back on several times in my life.
It didn't help.
I left that place, but it never left me.
I'm still musing over my star chart reading. I've decided to stick with art (as I mentioned previously) to try and develop that talent. I hope it turns out well. I know there are other venues of opportunity, but I've always thought it would be wonderful to be able to create art.
If art doesn't fit, I'll pursue writing-- which I think I also mentioned. I'm also going to throw myself into fitness this quarter. The reading said something about body movement being important, and that feels right. I'm wondering if that has to do with my growing interest in yoga. I hope it's offered next summer. 5 days a week! That would be marvellous. Exhausting, because it's still a 7am class, but fantastic.
I'm going to need to take some literature classes, and history. I love school. I'm so glad I get to go back!
I really need to make sure I have the focus to succeed this quarter.
I need to stay out of that LJ thread. It's making me upset and snarky and I generally try to be nice to people. I just need to take a breath, a step back, and focus on the fact that I don't always have to attack when I feel threatened. This, to me, is a safe place, and I don't want it to be unsafe... but I'm not the authorities. Yeah, I'm being silly. It's just so... irritating that people can be so freaking mean!
Gah. I need to do homework. The boys went to church.
Merry Christmas, lovelies! Even if you don't celebrate the actual holiday, I hope the spirit of the season itself brings warmth and love into your lives. You all deserve it.
Take the best care, and I shall write an entry with the scoop on my holiday swag as soon as possible.
Love to you, darlings!
