Hey, look! An update!
My goodness, where to start? I've moved to Illinois to be closer to the retail job I got back in January. I now live 3 miles from the store, in the second floor of a 100+ year old house, a small 2-bedroom apartment. Just me...and Cassie...and a bunch of fish and plants. I got my first review and raise in July, effective this past week. It only adds a couple of dollars to my check every week, but it's more than nothing. My job is hard and getting rougher, but I'm becoming hard to replace should I choose to go elsewhere. But I've got weekends free, and apart from some mental or emotional things now and again, I can leave my work where it belongs--at work. I'm not where I wish I was, but I'm further than I thought I'd be. I thought that my life would end before I reached 30. It's as far as I'd seen, and, given how my life has been, I figured something would happen to prevent me from attaining this age. This year also marks that I've been 20 years cancer free. I'm attending a Relay for Life tomorrow evening with my neighbors (the mom is also a cancer survivor). I'm also going to spend tomorrow morning weeding a lady from work's parents' flower beds with her and her family. Apparently, LiveJournal has not only taken away the font adjustments, but also the ability to make paragraphs, so this will be in a large lump sum. Other news: Dan is gone. He moved to Texas in pursuit of a job this week. Another friend gone. Now I have one in Kentucky, one in Missouri, and one in Texas. None locally. That won't be as difficult here in a few days, however. As of tonight, after a long two years, I have purchased a new laptop. It should arrive next week! Sooooo happy. I won't be cut off from the world anymore! I miss so much without internet access. Now all I have to do is talk to my reclusive downstairs neighbor about sharing her wireless...I miss gaming and being able to keep up with happenings at home. I was unable to justify purchasing an Alienware, however. I just flat-out don't trust what Dell has done to them. I looked at and was going to get a Razer, which looked like Alienware reborn the way it should be, but for being touted as a gaming laptop, it had no CD drive. All of my games are on CD--or most of them, anyway. So I dug around and found Asus listed as the top gaming laptop. I looked into reviews and everything I found from actual buyers and users raved about it--including nongaming family members. The laptop is actually sloped so I can use my wrist rest, which will be nice. It also fits the cooler I bought for my beloved old Alienware. It also has four USB ports, which is something the others couldn't say. I am finding it hard to believe I've actually made the step and have a computer now, though. It'll sink in when it finally arrives--I'm having it sent to the parents' house so I don't risk it getting stolen off the porch at the apartment (given what I paid, I didn't want to risk that). It will be wonderful to have my music back, too. I have a bunch of CDs and an old CD player, but the majority of my stuff I uploaded into a Cloud player on Amazon and I miss having access to it; it will help a lot with inspiration. I haven't been writing much--if at all--in a long time, except for the occassional section of a random fanfic or two. Haven't been sleeping because I haven't felt safe, even when I have my katana by the bed and all the doors and windows locked, so there haven't been dreams. Maybe the occassional nightmare, but mostly I don't sleep. My hours usually require me to get up at 5am, and that's hard since I'm a night owl; but I'm done by 2:30, which means I have a lot of day. Been doing a little cross stitching, and trying to read. I still have a mess of books on my to-read-and-I-own list: 140. I'm slowly gaining on it! It's nice having them all out on the shelves where I can see them now...though I'm out of room. My uncle bought me a huge bookcase, suitable only to fit paperbacks, at a family auction for $10 a couple of weeks ago--all I need to do is get it, the grill he has for me, my old reading chair that's been in the family for years, and my new ironing board to the apartment in the next few weeks. I still haven't had my housewarming grill-out party yet. Either we've had bad weather, or everybody's been busy. *sigh* Was given permission by my landlady and her husband to take over one of the flower beds at the apartment, and have done so with gusto. I've also put out three hummingbird feeders; I got one for my birthday, and when my neighbors heard I was going to put one up, they asked if it could go along our shared fence so their boys could watch the hummers as well. I added one to my flower bed by my car, and another up by my door. I've only seen two hummingbirds--a pair of fearless females that fight all the time, and bully me when I get too close to the feeders. I've found a nice little church to attend, ironically right across the street from where I live. My neighbors go there--the husband, whom I work with, used to be the youth pastor. They are incredibly friendly--never had that in a church before, it was always tight, distant cliques--and dead-on in their doctrine. They are Baptist, however, and so I have to get used to hymns only and a lot of thees and thous. There's a young woman there I get along with about my age, so we'll see if that ever becomes a true friendship as time passes. I'm so jaded with any sort of relationship it's getting increasingly difficult to trust people. I guess we'll see. I know I've been set in this town and job and home for a reason; I've established relationships with several people I know God wants me to touch. I guess we'll see where that goes. Think that'll be enough for now. Hopefully next time I update it will be from my own computer, in my apartment!