Pretty Good Year

I'm going to quit posting if you guys don't at least tell me how stupid a post I've put up, but of course, I haven't given you any opportunites this month yet... barely. Maybe one.

So, not much of a public nature has been going on that's of any sharing importance. The only thing I can think of is the fact that this month marks a year since we've moved out here. In just this year, the county has grown so much. I can drive around and be like Deborah Clasky who has lived here twenty years now, and say, "I remember when that wasn't here," or "There used to be a gorgeous old house right where that building was." I do it all the time when I drive thru Snellville and Loganville now. I lived in that area for thirteen years and it's changed so much that you wouldn't recognize it if someone had moved away around the time I moved there. It's not that way here yet, but someone that visited us when we first moved out here would see changes now, especially where we live now.

We moved twice this year. Twice. I had only lived in two houses my whole life and then we live in two in one year. That's quite a shocker. I'm used to having new cars around every few years, but a new house every few months... I can't imagine living like that, but I know some people do. It was hectic enough. The second time, we did most of the moving ourselves, but it worked out well. We had a lot of help from our congregation. Everyone was willing and offered to help. Plus, the house was twice the size of the rental we moved into, so there was plenty of space to put boxes. The rental house. Was that an experince. Roaches are not the bugs to mess with. I'm sure everyone has heard my mom's story about the roach being on her at night... yeah, we had some unwanted guests. The house was cute and adequate, but thank goodness we snagged our house. I'm still quite in love with my room AND bathroom. My bathroom was recently painted a sea foamy green. Very spa-ish and all the fixtures are up and in place. Towels aren't for the floor anymore. My room will soon be a soothing grey with my old favorite, navy blue, and what I always wanted, lime green, accents. I can't wait. Overall housing worked out great in the end. We're going to be able to have a bookstudy in our basement once it's finished and there's plenty of room for grandparents as well. Plus, there's very little yard to take care of and the neighborhood is great, but moving back to Atlanta is still my ultimate goal.

As far as I go in this pretty good year, a lot changed too. I wouldn't have ever dreamed I'd move into this congregation and fall in love with it. I was immediately welcomed by three wonderful sisters who haven't stopped caring for me since. In the course of starting to pioneer, one has become my partner and always supports me. She makes it even easier to attain my goal of regular pioneer service by this September. Though her sons have thrown me for a loop this past year, they've come to be just like my brothers. I got my driver's license in April of this past pretty good year and I've used it and abused it. Hopped a few curbs. Almost been tagged with a few tickets. Used it to go to Atlanta and back two dozen times. It's the ultimate freedom. I started babysitting, which I will be free from on March 31, 2007 when her father gets married (the wedding of the year: Mountain Man to Totally Like Nineties Woman). I've come to adore the little brat I babysit and give her the hardest time about the stuff she does. At least I can keep her mouth and hands clean. New glasses, a recent addition in this past pretty good year, but they're still included. Then there's the friends. Within one year, only two of my "best friend" slots remain occupied by the same people. Some left the truth. Some I left. Some I gained. Either way, my current circle of friends from all ages is probably the best group I've had in 10 years. (I really appreciate all of y'all- including my family!) That's the thing that makes this past year pretty good. I've got a life! Once in a while, I'll get it together enough to have one, so I enjoy it while it lasts.

So I leave you with a picture of my new glasses. (Click Me!...except mine are the blue ones)

Half-way thru my vacation

Nothing much has been going on lately, I guess, that's really been of importance for the blog, or it's been stuff I've wanted to keep from the blog since most of it has been related to my personal life. Plus, I've been on kinda a "vacation." I got my time in for December like a week before, on December 22 I think. As a result, I have not gotten my usual dish of pioneer gossip, which we aren't supposed to do and I've gotten much better at it, but still can't seem to keep my mouth shut about somethings. I only share most of the time because I'm defending someone. Today, it was gossip about every family you know and tell their business. I successfully kept my mouth shut as far as spilling beans on a few situations that came up that I knew stuff about. If I were out in service back in the O.C., other things might be happening, especially since Bubbles broke up with Andy (drama I'm not going to discuss), but I'm not. I've been in the ATL since Saturday. Visited "Drama-ville" on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. Population: 2- Hickler-Stickler (aka- Barbie) and Froggie. I'm not even thinking about starting with THAT melted marshmellow mess. I switched over to the new blogger a few minutes ago. Yeah... see how boring things are right now? I was thinking about starting instead of "Affie Recommends" when we get DSL this month (YAY) an "Albums of the Week" thing. I've finally got all my music on my zen (2,995 songs- so close) and I'm in certain moods that influence what I pick for the week or what I buy for $7 at Wuxtry's, and although most of it is stuff y'all have heard of, I think I'd rather do that, though it would tie me to the computer once a week instead of once a month, but with there only being three of us blogging (besides P. June, but she's on a different site), that's not such a bad thing.

Blogging from my e-mail

Here H.n.B. I'm not doing this begrudingly. I actually have been wanting to try this since I asked you how to do it months ago and totally ignored the e-mail with the instructions until it mysteriously disappeared on me. Since I'm in my e-mail, I'm copy+pasting something from an e-mail Easel sent me since she's the only one that really does forwards anymore and I seem to enjoy getting the ones like this. So here's the part about November Babies:

NOVEMBER BABY

Trustworthy and loyal. Very passionate and

dangerous. Wild at times. Knows how to have fun.

Sexy and mysterious. Everyone is drawn towards

your inner and outer beauty and independent

personality. Playful, but secretive. Very emotional

and temperamental sometimes. Meets new people

easily and very social in a group. Fearless and

independent. Can hold their own. Stands out in a

crowd. Essentially very smart. Usually, the

greatest men are born in this month. If you ever

begin a relationship with someone from this month,

hold on to them because their one of a kind. repost

in 5 mins & you will excel in a major event coming

up sometime this month.

Mindless TV

I'm forever getting on to Poly about his mindless TV, whether it's Deal or No Deal or Parental Control (but that one's pretty good, I must admit. I'm a sucker for MTV reality). This time, I've found my junk reality TV. It's called Beauty and the Geek. I slightly remember when they first started advertising this show on the WB and thinking it was a bunch of crap. I think most reality shows are a bunch of crap. A few weeks ago, Mehsha was down sick and missed the Sunday meeting. When we came home, she was veging watching Beauty and the Geek. I got sucked in. That quickly. All of five minutes had passed since I walked into the house and I was hooked on the show.

The concept is pretty basic. Eight "beauties" are paired off with eight "geeks" and they are supposed to benefit from the experience. Most of them say they do. I don't know how sincere the first couple that gets eliminated can say that, but I know the last two couples have definitely learned something. Each episode, there are two challenges. One for the guys to learn more about etiquette and dating, girls in general. The girls' challenge is supposed to help them learn more over all. The winner of the girls' challenge protects herself and her partner from the elimination round and the winner of the guys' challenge does the same. Each group gets to pick who they want to go to the elimination round. In the elimination round, the girls are tested on the things that they were supposed to learn and study for their challenge and the guys are tested on things that they did for their challenge. Overall, it sounds fairly boring with me just explaining it, but when you put the ditziest and prettiest girls in with the brainiest and dorkiest guys, it makes for quite the entertaining show. There are tons of funny quirks that accompany a reality TV show, like the fact that after the guys walk out and present themselves to the girls, a girl must pick the guy and then they have to pick a bedroom. The weird thing about the bedrooms is, some of them have two twin beds and some of them have a queen bed. That makes for some interesting points in the show. (Not like that. Shame, shame...) Of course, there's the unavoidable reality show drama, etc. Typically, you have to shoot me in the head, tie me to the chair, and sit me right up at the TV to get me to watch reality shows, but this one is so much fun and I really like to watch it.

At this point, MTV is playing reruns of the show daily. They play two episodes at 5 PM and 6 PM. Now, the CW (UPN and the WB meshed together) is embarking on the third season Wednesday, January 3rd at 8 PM. I've finally found some Wednesday night TV, and it's quite hilarious. Check it out.

The first supper

I'm still quite excited about this, so I'm going to give a quick shout about it on the blog. I cooked dinner for the first time from scratch last night! It's pretty miraculous considering I cooked, it was edible, and it didn't involve rice. I made spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli. It was tasty. I was in EarthFare yesterday and I looked in the frozen foods case and saw ravioli. I asked mom and she said that we could have them for dinner. So I started pulling them all out and looking at the ingredients. Well, everyone of them said "may contain nuts." I can't stand that. So I was bummed for a moment and then mom said that we can make our own and she would teach me. You guys wouldn't believe how easy it is to make pasta from scratch! Though we had a mishap where the egg mixture broke through the flour dam and went all over the counter, we fixed it and I did it by myself. Mom supervised and helped with the filling since there was no recipe for it. It was absolutely cool to cook my own dinner, and it not be beans and rice. It kinda gave me the idea that if I had the resources, I'd like to make my own food completely nut free and like market it places. There are tons of people with peanut and nut allergies and I'm sure they get just as frustrated as I do, and my mom for that matter. She told me I had to start learning how to cook my own stuff or I won't ever get to eat anything but rice when I move out on my own.

I'm no longer opposed to learning how to cook. It's actually fun.

P.S.- I'm babysitting until 11 PM tonight. Just had to share that too.

Can't wait til April

So I've been planning on this since I had my phone for a year on July 4th (yeah, national holiday. We thought it would be a good day to renew our service). Shortly after I got my phone, maybe six months, I was steeped in txting. It's probably a hobby of mine by now. Definetly a habit if not a hobby. I would say habit because it costs me money- a lot of money usually, but it's too much fun to quit. When I started I knew that I would need something with more of a key board than just my 12 button number pad. So I started looking at the different multimedia phones with the full or extended key pad. Well, I'm all for cute, and none of the ones Cingular had were cute enough for me. Blackberry. Cute (and yummy) name. Not to cute phone. A few weeks ago, I stopped in the Cingular store to just look and see if they were cuter in person or something wasn't on the web. There's no getting me to leave Cingular. We've been with them since "Bellsouth Wireless." Whatever the motivation, I wanted to look and see about new phones. I'm slightly lost and the guy behind the counter can see that but he was really nice to me and asked me what I was looking for. I explained that I was looking to get a new phone (duh. Why else would I be standing in front of a display of phones?). I gave him some details of what I wanted, and that my biggest requirement was that it have a key pad with all the letters on it and I didn't have to press multiple times to get the letter I wanted. He showed me the few that they had and I said I wasn't too keen on Blackberry because they just weren't quite me. ( I didn't tell the clerk they weren't cute enough. I wanted him to take me a little more seriously than that.) He then tried to win me over to the Blackberry side. I am easily swayed. He showed me his and was bragging about sending paragraph long txts. I said I did than anyway, it just took so long. He knew what I was talking about. He let me test his out and try some different features. It was so WAY cooler than my little flip piece of junk that has begun to look like a piece of junk. Although the Blackberry was very alluring, I told him it just didn't seem to be what I was looking for. He must have been able to tell that I was looking for one cuter and told me that Blackberry was coming out with a new phone. The Blackberry Pearl. He showed me that website on the Internet (on his phone) and I was quite taken. This phone is so for me. It doesn't have seprate keys for each of the letters of the alphabet, but it meets every other criteria so the fact that some letters share keys doesn't matter to me. Its smaller than the other Blackberry products and that's a big thing for me. I didn't want something so bulky, even though I carry around bags big enough to put a file cabinet in. Plus, it would be perfect since I don't have Internet at my house, I can use it on the phone with a usage plan. It's just exactally what I want. It's just going to take some saving on my end, but I'll be there by April.

It's it loverly?

Out of his element

Well, I'm doing the whole blog at the library thing right now. Can't seem to get in touch with mom for some reason, so stopping here didn't seem like a big deal, though I'm starved and mentally exhausted from going on Eliza Jones' studies with her this afternoon.

Severly disappointed I'm missing Easel's first recital in a very long time tonight. Severly. It's all around free and any concert she's ever done has always sounded wonderful. Totally severly disappointed.

Now for a quickish blog:
Today we worked some territory in Athens, since that's where we meet on Wednesdays. Once again, Andy and I were put together. It's been some time since we were put together two days in a row, so it doesn't bug me that much, but it's either making Deborah Clasky mad as heck or it just tickles her because she always brings it up. Anyway, he has territory in the elite part of town. It's the equivalent of Buckhead to Atlanta. So we're back there working and we go to this one house. It was a fairly nice old lady, but she didn't want us to come back- ever, so we told her we'd make a note of it. Turns out, it's already on the back of the card. Andy had already made a mental note of it, he told me as we walked away from the house, and that he had forgotten in the whole 60 seconds it took him to get up to the door. Bless his heart. So for the next few doors we talked about ailments and he's so an old man when it comes to aches and pains. It cracks me up since lately, I've had the immune system of a horse. (Watch me get pneumonia this winter...) Well, we round the corner and the prez of the homeowners association asks us to leave and says that they consider the work of the lord to be soliciting as well. We finished that street and moved on to one further back on a boundary. Again, someone mentioned that we were considered soliciting in their neighborhood, (which you can't really call it a neighborhood. They just put a sign out front and want to keep us out but it's still all city owned back in there.) So then a cop comes down the street and asks us if we were soliciting anything and that he had gotten a few calls. Andy very diplomatically says that we aren't selling anything and we aren't asking for money, just sharing a scripture. The cop says fine and goes along. He really didn't care anyway. We finish up the street and leave, just to keep the peace for those old windbags back there. Andy who was head of the group despite having two elders with us, decides it's time for a break. We're awfully close to just about everything back in that area, so he suggests Race Trac. Dimwitt excitedly asks if we can break at Earth Fare. Andy looks a little worried, but we give him directions and we all get out for a snack. Everyone else is inside, and Andy and I are walking in and he stops me and says, "You gotta help me. I didn't want to tell Dimwitt, but I've never been here." FINALLY! MY ELEMENT! We're in downtown Athens at the health food store, where we shop weekly. It's like being in some parts of Atlanta and if I close my eyes I can imagine I'm in Five Points or the Virginia Highlands and I'm not so homesick anymore. So like a little puppy dog, I take him around the store and show him where the drinks are and snacky type stuff and tell him that I'll be at the coffee counter getting a latte. He wanders around for a while and calls me on my cell saying he's kinda lost. So I go get him and he pays while I finish waiting on my drink. When I'm done, I find Dimwitt has walked out the door and so I follow to see Andy in the van. I asked him how his experince was. His exact words were, "I felt like Joe Dirt when he messed something up and all he could say was 'I'm new here! I'm new here! I don't know what to do!" We busted up laughing and I told him that now he knows what I felt like in Race Trac. It was quite funny, but I guess you had to be there.

Still two more things to blog about, but I guess those will have to wait.