Oh how they grow...

Then at 4 months (top) and now at10 months (bottom) and for anyone who might be wondering her name is Gus. Not Oliver or Twist or Enkidu or Gilgamesh... although, most were great suggestions ;) And she is the only kitty still here. Also, for anyone who might have worried, she is all recovered from her visit to the Vet. Took almost a full week to get her back to normal, but last night she finally ventured her way up to my pillow last night for bed time and I caught her napping in my bed--all signs of a full recovery. :)

what you never knew about genetics

time for a new quote:
talking about a brochure that could be used year after year for camp: "well if you take out the dates, this brochure is pretty genetic."

nice. (it would just be a funny slip, but when it's repeated, one has to wonder if the person really thinks that this is the word they were looking for... pretty funny.)

I was a fashion disaster tonight and loved it!

A quick thought: I was tired enough tonight that I made a huge fashion statement. The statement: It's ok to wear completely different and unmatching colors together if they are representative of the same sports' team. Above is a picture of me sporting my Kelly Green Shamrock Red Sox Hooded Sweatshirt and my brand spaking new Red Sox Flannell Pajama Pants that Athena gave me for Christmas! Speaking of Christmas... I look kinda festive there, don't I? :)

My usefulness :)

An email from my friend Melinda demonstrating the importance of blogging, or something.

I wanted to tell you the funniest thing. I was reading your blog and I read the entry about your car's catalytic converter shield falling off. Well, the other night Jon got home from work and said, "Look what fell off my car!" And I said, "I bet it's the catalytic converter shield!" So he took it to the garage and they said I was right=) And not to worry about it. Thanks for the educational blog entry!

(see the original story)

resolutions

January 2 is the official holiday in Massachusetts--therefore these resolutions are not late :)

I don't remember ever being one to make a resolution. I'd just break it anyways. Can you honestly imagine me giving up, say, soda or caffeine. I could make all my resolutions attainable--giving up coffee or to go to church. But, unfortunately for me, that's exactly not the point of resolutions. Also, I would say I did fairly well for myself last year without a resolution. I made some serious progress health wise--conquering some major fears and pushing ahead despite the large levels of suck involved :) That all being said, here are a few, real-life resolutions for 2006:


1. ** **** ****** *** *** *********!
That's right folks, a resolution even too personal for you all (by you all I mean the masses of people few people one person who reads this. Besides it being a little more personal, I don't deal well with failure, so to safeguard myself from having others know that I failed, I just won't tell you. It will still bother me if I don't succeed, but let's not squash all hope.

2. Make more of my time.
I'm a procrastinator. Some things, when you procrastinate, aren't actually put off but they're missed out on. Such as, spending time in the word--if you've put that off until tomorrow than you've missed out on something today. It's not like doing the laundry, etc.

3. Sleep more.
This piggybacks on resolution number 2. Seven hours of sleep or less just doesn't cut it. Back in college I was lucky to get 5 hours or any sleep during finals, but the Melissa that now works 40 hours a week and is getting older just cannot handle it. It's really the end of an era and also a more unachievable goal.

New Year's Resolutions

well, instead of coming in a little bit too late with
a resolution, i have decided to post ONE resolution
now and think about others later :)

resolution 1. To post my resolutions here.

Ah, hopefully the satisfaction of having completed
a New Year's Resolution will inspire me to complete
the upcoming resolutions.

Time will tell.

Thanksgiving

Hebrews 7:24-25 "but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."

Before the Throne of God Above

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!

Syringes and such

It has been over 24 hours since I last gave myself a shot AND my blood sugars have been mostly normal! This has not happened in 18 years. As a matter of fact, I have given or gotten upwards of 16,000 injections of insulin in those 18 years and I've hated every single one just as much as the one before it. You never get used to it--so if I ever told you that-- well I straight out lied. Sure they don't hurt in a physical pain sense so much, but they do hurt sometimes. And they always suck internally. Now, I still have to think about what I'm doing and each time I eat there is a consequential action--however, there are NO shots :) I've thus far missed 3 injections. wahoo.
3 shots/day v. 1 shot/3 days. sweet.

Next step- new pancreas (wish it were that easy!)

:)

for matt.

a photo tribute to Matt and his "Southern Bell" :) ah. (check it out)

hmm

well aren't I negligent. Not that anyone reads this per se. But oh well. That's not entirely the point-- and this may be why I don't write anything. Nothing of interest has happened to me recently, nor has anything happened that could be misconstrued in story form over the internet to make it sound more interesting...

Tom Brady

And he did not deny that he even surfs the Internet for pornography."It is not worth explaining. It sounds worse when you explain it, so I won’t explain it. It is what it is," he [ Tom Brady ] said.


hmm.

see full story: Tom Brady

waddles...

my new pet. why?? because I can (and
I've always wanted a penguin!)




if you click to play with him and then click on him a
bunch of times you can knock him in the water :) tee hee)

frustration, car woes, and a little anatomy

Well Things have been fairly frustrating lately. Work makes me sick-- not that I don't like the principle of my job, but just circumstances have made the thought of being at work and my time spent there cause a lot of anxiety for me. I really thought I was going to be sick today. I'm being optomistic though to think that the feelings will pass as time passes. I did recently have a few days off from work and just relaxed which is never a bad thing. I've read two books in four days--don't worry, I'll be back to my ever so busy self soon enough.

I think I'm going to be getting rid of the kittens. They are cute and all, but if I'm only going to be keeping one, then I need to only have one around. Being away for four days did not go over well with my mom's idea of caring for them. I came back to quite the set of circumstances around here--and three cats go through an awful lot of kitty food!

I have nothing of terrible importance to state. Mostly I'm just bored and restless. Didn't sleep well last night in anticipation of the morning's arrival at work-- kept feeling as though I had something important to do that was going to take me all this extra time before work. I did get up a little early because of all this anxiety and good thing! Here's my exciting story:

Lately, my car has been rattling ever so slightly and rather sporadically. Of course, I fear the worst, but don't make time to get it specifically checked out. Well, it's 7:45 am and I'm on my way to work this morning, just rounding a corner about half-way between home and work, when THUD! and chinckkkk.... (or whatever the correct spelling is for the noise a piece of metal makes as it's being dragged along asphalt). So I slowly pull my car over and think to myself, "yup, just my luck-- on the positive side, I did over 6 hrs of driving this past week and nothing happened, but the negative-- my dad used to get me AAA and because we never used it, he cancelled it recently"). Great. So I reluctantly get out of my car to go and start the terribly embarassing process of looking underneath my car while traffic passes by at a EVEN slower than normal speed due to my pulling over and using my flashers near a busy intersection. I hear a voice (thank God for the voice) saying, "You got something hanging from your car." My honest to goodness (I'm going to hell) first thought, "Well thank you Captain Obvious. I had actually pulled over on this fine and lovely early Friday morning to take a pee in front of your house." However, I was slightly revealed, because, heck, I'm not car genious and there is somethign hanging from my car. This man, continues to walk across the street, crouch down alongside my car, reach for this hunk of metal, and ever so gently rip it out from underneath my car stating 'looks like it's just your cadalitic converter shield." Well that's not so scary, I mean, if he knows what it is and doesn't seem worried about it, then it must be safe to continue driving-- mind you, I can't stop thinking to myself- "it must have been shielding something from breaking the car." Anywho, I thank the man, and go on my way. Now besides all of my sarcastic, less than stranger-friendly thoughts and comments, I am extremely grateful for this man to take time out of his morning to very cheerfully assist me with my car! So thank you Capt. Obvious :) (oh and the other great thing is that the auto repair guys put the car up on the lift and took out all the left over scraps of Cadalitic converter shield that were unnecessary and didn't charge me anything! yay, auto guys.)

Interesting fact o' the day: If you happen to lose your Cadalitic Converter shield, the auto companies tell you to just get rid of it and not to worry. The auto guy explained this to me as a safety precaution-- but apparently not one that needs to be followed through after the first one falls off. While speaking to the auto guy I simply stated: "hmm, so the shield's a lot like an appendix..."

name the kittens

Alright, so the three kittens are staying. One is Alicia's his/her name is Muffin (the kitten formally known as Tiger). The white one currently has no name, but used to be called 'fluffy' (I personally dislike cute-sy pet names-- my dog is Charlie/Charles/Chuck, etc). The one with the cute little brown splotch on his/her face was called Patches, which I'm not 100% opposed to, but still it's kind of generic. So I'm enlisted you, my myriad of readers (insert wild laughter from my two actual readers), to name the two kittens. I kind of like the name Oliver, just so you can get a sense of my tastes and remember gender doesn't really matter... although I could not name a female cat- 'Sally.' Check out www.shutterbook.com/albums/

These are the new kitties, I am kinda hoping no one claims them -- does that make me evil?
One is sitting at the keyboard now-- one on the drive home rode most of the way on the dash board. Very funny kittens- problemo= they don't really like charlie much. we'll work on that.

This guy cracks me up! Have YOU ever seen a turtle open up its own cage and look out at the crowd? I can't remember if this was the box turtle or the snapping turtle-- I want to say it's the snapping turtle and he's quite old. funny guy!

I haven't much time/energy/desire to write anything of any importance at the moment :)

lattes & frappuccinos

my days at starbux are gone... but I still appreciate the comic strips insulting the company :)

Quiznos, moving, & Jehovah

I was pleasantly surprised today-- My father and I went to Quiznos for lunch following church and I've never been to Quiznos and gotten a fountain drink, but today I did and they have options! I mean, normal people have options everywhere they go, but I've rarely experienced options when choosing a DIET fountain drink- they have both Diet Pepsi AND diet Mountain Dew. I don't even care much for Mountain Dew, but because of my newfound choices, I had to try it. Ah. Finally. So this is my thank you to all you low carb dieters (ironically, no one reads this blog and therefore there are no low carb dieters present to accept my gratitude).

I'm currently in the process of moving again- just upstairs this time, but it's not much fun. I think I need to have a yard sale. I'm 23 and I need to have a yard sale; i'm lame. But it's true. After living alone for 9 months and four years of college, I just have a lot of stuff (read: a crapload, several extra truckloads of stuff). I anticipate by my next move, there will still be stuff to be moved stuck in some dark corner of the basement.

Quien es este Rey de gloria?
Jehova el fuerte y valiente,
Jehova el poderoso en batalla
Salmo 24:8

Wally the Green Monster

Yup, Wally came to camp and I got to meet him. It's a little weird seeing a mascot outside of costume before he comes out in costume. I never would have pictured Wally quite like he was. hmm... makes you wonder.

wow. I guess it's been so long since I put anything up here that I lost all of what I had put up here! hmmph. I don't remember it being anything earth shattering or exciting even.

Life's busy right now- the first week of our day camp is almost finished and I haven't been to bed later than 9 (by choice) all week. It feels incredible to be getting a decent amount of sleep and to be in bed so early. Camp is great too. I like kids a whole lot when you get to hang with them then send them home! :) Does that make me an evil person? (I'm not sure I'd be all that upset if I was evil becuase that statement is true).

As I read other people's blogs I realize how much time people spend talking about their single-ness and whether it's a good thing or bad thing, wanted or unwanted. I'm mostly indifferent right now. I can see both sides for myself of why I am single, why I should be single, and why I don't necessarily want to be single. But it's not an obsession--least I don't think it is.






Speaking of marriage/dating/relationships--
Mike and Kelly got married this weekend. We're on schedule for a wedding each summer with no prospects in site. It was a nice little wedding-- Best wishes guys!