downer

I know the only person who reads this already knows, but for anyone who stumbles in here by accident: My mom died suddenly last week from an anuerism that exploded deep in her brain and immediately destroyed her entire upper brain.

I know that she's in a better place, and I'm actually doing pretty well, but this has had a surprising side effect on me. Well, maybe not so surprising when I think about it. I'm lonely.

You see, it's like this: when my last boyfriend dumped me, part of the reason was that I had gained some weight and he thought I was going to end up like my mom, who weighed over 350 lbs, was wheelchair bound, had type 2 diabetes, arthritis, severe kidney disease, etc. This has been a fear that every guy I've ever dated has expressed. When my brother died, I did put on some weight, and when I got dumped, I basically decided that there was no reason to even try because I obviously have such a horrible personality that I'm only desirable if I have an hourglass figure. I essentially decided that I have a fabulous family and school to worry about, so I would forget about dating and marraige and just be here. I then proceeded to put on a lot more weight. (Not as much as mom, though.)

Now that Mom's dead, I guess it's made me realize that my family won't be here forever. Dad will die, Ethan will grow up and move away, and who knows what Josh will do. OK, he might be here forever. :) I mean, I knew all this intellectually, but they were concerns for the distant future, not something to worry about. Suddenly, I feel like getting myself in order and finding someone. Not that I've had any success in the past, but still. Maybe if I start dieting and working out, I can be attractive again by the time I graduate. It actually makes me pretty angry that I apparently have to work like a dog to get something that almost everyone in the U.S. gets like 15 years+ before me, and that I just have to acknowledge the fact that no man will ever love me unless I'm hot. *sigh*

In other news, I got on facebook against all expectation. I just got friended by a guy who I totally thought was gay. Apparently he has a girlfriend! Weird. Maybe she's a beard.

No homework!

Well the semester has come to an end and I came out with 3 A's and a B, raising my overall GPA to 3.0. Considering how in the tank my GPA was after my drinking years, I'm pretty pleased with that. I was very surprised about the B because it was in Art History and I was expecting a C.

In other news, I have developed a nasty growth. I'm exaggerating. The 5 year old girl from next door has taken a liking to me and now comes over every single day. It wouldn't be that big a deal, but my dad HATES having people in our house and insists that I hover over her every single second that she's here, and if I don't jump on her fast enough when she does something he wouldn't like, he yells at her (literally) and gets upset with me. So it leaves me feeling like I have a particularly ill behaved small child and gets me all irritated. I wish that there were any little kids in our neighborhood for her to play with. Or, I wish that my dad weren't so angry. Either would work, really. Plus, my dad worries that she's going to bring her hoodlum 17 year old brother over, which I don't see happening, but whatever.

Ethan's favorite YM advisor got released, so Ethan is totally bummed. But then he got called to be our home teacher, so that's cool. But Ethan only wanted to go to scout camp because he likes that guy, so now he's trying to weasel out of it. It's not going to work. His dad is also sending him to EFY, so that should be exciting.

Well, my cat has decided that he simply MUST take a bath between me and my computer, so this is growing difficult. Hasta!

Lady Fortune Smiles

All my life, I have never been a winner. As a kid, I was always a finalist in the TWU wildflower art competition, but never took the big prize. As an adult, the best thing I ever won was a giant inflatable hot dog, which I immediately gave away. Suddenly, the tide seems to be changing. Last month, my technical editing teacher said that a few of us needed to go to the grad school expo and collect brochures. I was one person chosen to go, and of course, when I went, I entered the door prize competition. A couple of weeks later I got an email that I had won a free meal at McAllister's. I don't care for McAllister's cause I think it's too expensive, but if it's free, hey, it's free! So that's cool, but not world changing.

A couple of weeks ago, I randomly decided to go to Recycled Books and Records, and they said that since I spent over $20 I could enter a drawing for a $75 gift certificate. Today I got a call that I won! Now THAT'S a prize I'm on board with!

I can't help but wonder if the universe has been saving up all my luck for now. I could certainly handle winning some design competitions while I'm in school cause that would really help when it comes to job seeking. In technical editing, we've been split into groups and we had to design a brochure, poster, and give away item promoting the technical writing and linguistic department, and the best one is going to be used by the school. Tuesday we're presenting our design to the committee. Keep your fingers crossed for THAT win!

Comm Design and Me

I am taking my first class in the communication design program, which is called design thinking. I'm learning a lot, and that's good, but I am having some problems. The biggest problem is that it's a pretty exclusive program. I know that doesn't sound like a problem, but the thing is...well, I know it sounds egotistical, but I'm pretty used to being one of the most talented people in the class as far as art classes art concerned. In this class I am not amongst the best. I am pretty mediocre actually. It's pretty rough on my ego, and it has me questioning if I have any real talent for this stuff. But, we're only finishing the first project, so I definitely won't do anything drastic until I've gotten a few more projects under my belt. It's just got me feeling discouraged, but I'll get over it. To top it off, in my technical editing class, I was designing a brochure, poster, and mouse pad for a group project and this other guy decided to help, and whipped up a design that was way better than mine. *sigh* Maybe I should just quit and open up a cupcake bakery. :)

Winter!

I guarantee that anyone reading this post is already well aware that a veritable blizzard has cause the entire North Texas area to come to a complete standstill this week, but I would be negligent if I didn't comment on how this crazy weather has affected me and mine, so here I go. Both my school and Ethan's school have been cancelled since Tuesday, so we've all been home. What a great time to catch up or even get ahead on school work, right?!? Well, no. I spent the first few days mostly sleeping because the extreme cold caused my arthritis to flare up and I got such a bad crick in my neck that I could barely move my right arm and was in extreme pain with every movement, or sometimes even when I took a breath. It started Monday night, and when I woke up Tuesday morning to make sure Ethan's school was cancelled I was literally writhing in pain. I took two ibuprofen, which didn't even touch it, so I ended up waking up my parents to beg for a prescription pain killer. (I know, it's illegal, but seriously, you have that kind of pain and see what you'll do!) They handed me a bottle in the darkened room, I took a pill and ate a slice of bread to avoid stomach problems and went mack to bed. Before long, I was dead to the world. Even when I eventually woke up, I was still groggy. It turned out that they gave me Oxycontin, famed the world over for being awesomely addictive. I don't see how anyone could get addicted to it, cause I would never be able to get anything done! I took more of the fabulous stuff the next two nights until my crick finally subsided to the point that I can function. Now if it acts up (which it does when I make dinner) ibuprofen does the job nicely.

Our hot water has been frozen since day one of this situation, which means no shower. Eww. I am so gross it's not even funny. On top of that, I needed to do laundry going in, so I've been dirty and wearing dirty clothes to boot. Just one hour ago our hot water started flowing in every room except my parent's bathroom, so I quickly put a load of laundry on and as soon as it's in the dryer I will be in the shower until the hot water is gone! I also set Ethan on the dishes, much to his dismay, but I think he can cope. Oh, shampoo, how I long for your sweet embrace!

Dad and I went to the store on Wednesday (which did not help my crick one bit). Dad worked for the phone company for over 30 years, which means that he had to work no matter what the weather was and has tons of experience driving in crappy crap. Man, I've never seen such thick layers of ice in all my days! In the store parking lot, the ice was literally an inch and a half thick, and solid as could be. And very slippery. Fortunately I have huge snowshoe-like feet that keep me stable under most circumstances. I did slip a little at one point, but didn't fall, thank heavens. I think if I had, my spine would have staged a rebellion and left for warmer climes.

I'm supposed to have a test in my Design Thinking class on Monday, and I don't know if my teacher is going to postpone it or if she's going to say, "Hey, we already covered everything in class, so you should be ready!" I really need to start practicing my illustrator skills, since this is the first class of my major and all. My art history teacher has postponed the due date of our assignment, so yay for him! Anyhoo. My video games aren't gonna play themselves...wait, is the washer finished? Gotta go!

Back to School

It is 11:55, Monday night and tomorrow morning I am going back to school. For anyone who didn't hear my screams of excitement, I did get into the design program. I keep meaning to take pictures of the pieces I used, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will soon, I promise! The problem is the light is crap in my house, so I have to take them elsewhere for the shoot or they turn out all pixelated. But, just so you know, I did some work on the hand one and the leafy still life and used those for the drawing choices. I also made some changes to the collage and used it, but I did not use the black with white spots. I got to looking through my grade sheets and realized that I had a black and white piece that was better, so I did a little work on it and used it. I'll show you next time.

Sadly, I didn't respond to the email telling me that I had gotten in quickly enough, so I got stuck in the 8 am class! This sucks partly because I am not a morning person, and they are going to expect me to be awake for a class called "Design Thinking" at time of day when I generally don't do any thinking. It also sucks because my son doesn't have to be at school until 8:15 and there is no bus service to our house. So my dad, who is also not a morning person will have to take him to school three days a week. Which he will probably lord over my head anytime he wants me to do anything. lol.

Since I am now a comm design major AND an English major, I am taking two art classes and two English classes. I think my brain will probably explode.

Also, Ethan had a cold last week, which he generously shared with me, so I get to start school with an annoying head cold. Thankfully his didn't last too long.