Worry, why should I care?

Methinks it's about to storm.  I'm really hoping it waits until about 3:05, at which time I will have made it to my car and headed home.  Because I totally forgot to bring an umbrella/rain jacket/rain boots today.  And I have a laptop and a cell phone that would probably prefer not to be soaking wet.

I'm so close to being done with this college foolishness, I can taste it.  I can also taste Disney World.  It tastes like turkey legs and sweet cream pretzel bites and Mickey Mouse ice cream bars.  And it's pretty much all already paid for.  And the whole month of May seems so surreal.

Yesterday The Captain and I did a whole lotta yard work.  We replaced yucky lava rock with nice, smooth river rock in the rock bed off of our back patio.  I'm happy it's done, but y'all, shoveling rocks is exhausting.  Especially when you pair it with also shoveling tons of garden soil and cutting the entire yard.  I was a bad girl, and I didn't wear sunscreen.  I'm paying for it today, believe you me.  (Why do people say that?  It's odd.)  Our shed expansion is coming along nicely, as well.  I MAY be able to do some demo when I get home from class today.

We're having my mom and her boyfriend over for dinner tonight.  Should be interesting.  He and TC are super similar in a lot of ways.  He talks a lot.  TC loves talking.  Seriously, the dude could stay up until sunrise just talking with his buddies outside on the swing.  He does on a regular basis.

OH!  This past weekend, we went to TC's cousin's fishing camp to make deer sausage.  I didn't think it would be so much fun to grind raw meat.  I had a blast!  There may be a meat grinder in my near future.  (Sorry, bank account.)  We also picked POUNDS of blackberries.  Beautiful, juicy blackberries.  Needless to say, I'll be making fruit cobbler for the first time tonight.  And probably again tomorrow.

WOW!  Teacher just came in and said we can go home!  Yes!

He's been gone for such a long time.

The Captain comes home in two days, and I can't even stand it.

I'm not even stressed out about it like I usually am when he comes home from the river.

He just forwarded me the dinner reservation he made for us for Friday night.  He's finally taking me to a place downtown that I've been wanting to try for a while now.  It's my reward for holding down the fort without him for three weeks.

Caught up in sorrow, lost in a song.

Emotional day today.  I miss TC a whole bunch.  I'm very fortunate to be able to talk to him virtually whenever I want (given he isn't napping), but I really needed to come home today and lay in silence with him until I fell asleep.  But that's just not possible today.

A good friend from high school (and beyond)'s little sister died yesterday.  I don't know exactly how, but I think it's getting to me more than I thought it would.

I've also had a lot to think about the past couple of days.  I guess I'm asking for prayer.  I need God's wisdom and guidance.  Badly.

Please come to Boston.

Today was the Boston Marathon.  It was bombed.  At the finish line.  How in the world could someone have a desire to say, I know!  These people just ran 26 miles, a feat not many even healthy people can accomplish, but it'd be a great idea to kill some of them and injure a lot of them.  I just don't get it.   Terrorism or not, why, why?!

The Captain and I were there last year.  We actually flew out of Boston the day of the marathon, a few hours after it was over.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be there as a out-of-towner just on a vacation when this happened.

As a result, I will not be on Facebook or Twitter this week.  In just a few short hours, the disturbing photos and insensitive conspiracy theories began making their way to my news feed.  I'm friends with a lot of stupid people on Facebook.  A lot of them.  I can't handle STUPID people taking really serious, tragic happenings and turning them into that.  It's like these folks will re-post ANYTHING they see.  Whatever happened to credibility?  Do people not realize how easy it is to just make something up that's completey ludicrous and put it on the internet?

In completely unrelated news, I have my last pre-finals test tomorrow.  And I'm so over it.  I haven't even studied until today, and I don't even want to study now.  But I have to.  It's an essay test.  And it's basically impossible to pay close attention in this class.  And the only way to study is just read the material.  No PowerPoint, no outline, nothing.  Lord, help my brain soak this stuff up.  

Take me far away from here.

Maggots.

If that word creeps you out, read no further.

We have two outside garbage cans at our lovely home. One of which has no lid. Now you'd THINK that one would not put garbage bags containing foodstuffs into said lidless can. Apparently this is not always the case. Because this fine, chilly morning, I go to place some scraps into the lidded can only to find a mountain of maggots inside the lidless can atop one scrawny bag.

I had a TERRIBLE day at work today, but I knew I had to do something about this situation when I got home. I got myself a bottle of bleach and poured a good amount into the can. Then I took the hosepipe and sprayed...and sprayed...and dumped...and sprayed...and dumped...and sprayed...for probably a half hour. I can basically guarantee that there were THOUSANDS of maggots in there. And now they're all in the grass. And I'm sure that's not the last of them I'll see.

I need some ice cream.

Maybe this mattress will spin on its axis and find me on yours.

The Captain (yes, Steph, he's okay with being Uncle Captain--someday) would have come home today had he not taken a week of overtime.  So that means one of three weeks without him is done.  And it's not as hard as I'd expected.  Perhaps it's the fact that I've been so busy with school work, or maybe it's because I've been mentally preparing for it for a couple of months now.  You'd be surprised how much I can put up with when I mentally prepare for it.  Plus, I haven't had time to clean the house, and I'd hate him to come home to be disappointed with its disarray.

From May 18th to June 18th, I'm going to three separate destinations.  Disney trip with the ladies has also become a jumping-off point to long weekend in Miami.  I'll let the girls take my car home that Friday, and I'll rent a car, drive to the airport in Ft. Lauderdale to meet up with TC, and then get picked up by his uncles to spend Memorial Day weekend at their condo in South Beach.  Then just a couple of short weeks later, I'll take a long weekend with my mom in NYC to see her beloved Tom Hanks in Lucky Guy (I think that's what it's called).  So I've got a pretty packed summer ALREADY.

In other news, my best friend from high school (who is still one of my best friends) is having a baby!  Like, today.  Like, RIGHT NOW.  I'm hoping to be able to meet him Saturday morning, providing Lauren is okay with a pit-stop in Mandeville on the way to New Orleans.  I can't wait!  As adorable as both she and her brother were as babies, I can only imagine how cute he'll be.  I'm just so sad I can't be there with her through the labor.

I will carry you there.

I got to go see The Captain yesterday (for less than a minute).  He came down with a cold on the boat and needed some meds (and an extra cookbook to read).  Driving to his fleet always gives me a panic attack.  All the loopy, narrow, high ramps I have to drive on is not nice to my nerves.  But it was worth the drive.  I got to give him a bag of stuff and one quick kiss.  Worth it.  Now for the next two weeks and two days... His buddy told him that the weekend after he comes home they could go fishing.  He seemed really into it.  He told me yesterday, though, that he told him he just wanted to stay home that weekend.  :))) Which is fine by me.  By that time we will have not had a weekend together in a couple of months.  I'm looking forward to it.  (Also, we'll see if THAT sticks.  Not many men turn down fishing trips.)

So my biggest assignment of the semester, my English research paper, is done.  I'm also almost done with my History translation project.  I still have an Excel project to do this week and another research paper due in a few weeks, along with reading and studying for tests.  But, funnily enough, I feel like I'm already done.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I have too many things to do on Saturday.  I wish that were not the case.  I'd really love to clean my house.

It's good.

I JUST FINISHED MY ENGLISH RESEARCH PAPER!!!

They're trying to wash us away.

I'm taking this impossibly boring Louisiana History class, right?  Well, one book we're reading is called The Accidental City, and it is actually NOT impossibly boring.  Last night during my reading, I found this quote about New Orleans and what made it go BOOM.

"During the city's lush decades, just about everything the Mississippi Valley sent to eastern markets had to pass through New Orleans, as did all the buttons and textiles, shoes and wine, that mid-America received in exchange.  It was as though the city were the drain plug in an immense bathtub."

I love this state, and I'm excited to learn more about it from this book.  I already have two people who want to borrow and read it when I'm done.

Who knew that love was so cruel?

Yeeeeeeeeeps.  Sorry for not blogging for almost a solid week.  I guess I didn't expect to soak up as much time with TC as I possibly could.  He left today for his three-week work venture.  Of course, it's just that he's working a week of overtime, so it's not really that big of a deal.  He hasn't done this since we first became official last year.  He was gone for Christmas AND New Years that time.  But, you see, now it's much harder.  Our lives are exponentially more intertwined these days.  And we are exponentially more blissfully in love.  And we never fight or argue or get annoyed with one another.  (Just kidding.)

The day before Easter the first of the baby boys that all my friends seemed to be pregnant with right now were born.  Sweet twins named Clint and Douglas born to one of my greatest friends.  I went to visit them at a hospital I've never been to on Easter Sunday before I went to my mom's house for lunch.  I held them both at one time, which is something I had never done before.  (I mean the holding two infants at once thing.)  Clint was not fond of having the light on and kept trying to tuck his little head into his swaddled blanket, whereas Douglas was just passed out regardless of light.  And they looked quite different, even for infants.  Douglas looked much more like his big sister.  I think I should try to visit them this weekend again.

That is, if my life isn't sucked into a black hole of assignments.  I have semester projects due in three of my classes next week.  Aaaaaaaand I have hardly begun any of them.  Aside from Buffy night Friday and babysitting Saturday evening, I will be a shut-in this weekend.  But if I can just get through this week, the rest of the semester should be relatively smooth sailing.  Right up until graduation.  And Disney World.  Ahhhhh, 43 days.