Excited

Even though lately I've been in a constant state of worry, I do have something to be excited about.

I post my pictures on Deviantart, which is a website for all kinds of artists to showcase the work that they do.
Someone saw my photos and asked if he could do a pastel portrait based off of one of them.
I said of course, thinking nothing would come of it.
But then I saw some of his previous work...(created by bazzathe on Deviantart: http://bazzathe.deviantart.com/art/Pastel-Blue-Eyes-96496765)

I knew I just had to have my portrait done.
I asked him if he could send me the actual portrait so that I could frame it and hang it up.
I wanted it for my mom, since she loves my photography.
He gladly agreed, and now I have something to look forward to.

I haven't taken any pictures the last couple of days. I've been too tired.
My mom's in Tennessee now, so I'm the woman of the house.
I made dinner tonight, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and now I'm just relaxing for a little while.

My mom says my grandma isn't doing too well, but I knew that.

Hopefully things start to pick up. I'm going to see Avatar tomorrow night in 3D with my dad, and we're going out to dinner.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow my mom is flying to Tennessee to finally visit my grandmother.
A week or so ago they moved my grandmother from the hospital back to her house, under hospice care.
Her kidneys, lungs and other organs are all failing.
Instead of subjecting her to dialysis, my family decided that it was better for her to pass on in peace at her own home.

She has been crying out for a while now about wanting to die. She's been asking different family members to "open the door".
She thinks heaven is behind the door, and she wants to go through it.
My mom will be gone from Wednesday until next Thursday.

In any other situation I wouldn't be advertising someone going away, but my dad will be here with me instead of my mom.
So no, the house will never be empty.

I figure I'll just throw this in here since I haven't said anything in almost a week:
For Christmas I got a sewing machine, new camera, and a few other knick-knacks.
It was a quiet Christmas, more stressed than anything because of the situation with my grandmother.

Hopefully once my mom sees my grandma, she'll be able to go in peace. (She's been crying out my mom's name the past few days.)

So that's how things are.

Oh, I re-dyed my hair.
Before:After:I missed my dark, dark red. Put me in a better mood to finally get rid of my nasty roots.

Also, final grades for the semester were posted.

	NAME	CREDITS	GRADE
	---------------	---------------	---------------
	INTRO TO CULTURAL ANTH	3.00	A
	U S HISTORY I	3.00	A-
	INTRO TO JOURNALISM/MEDIA	3.00	A-
	GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY	3.00	A

Oh, here's another picture, if you haven't seen it already:

My New Camera

Needless to say, I had a Merry Christmas.
Want to see more? http://www.cosmopolite.deviantart.com

Holiday Greeting

Happy Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas!

2 Things...

My post from yesterday was made the day before.
This post was made... yesterday.

So let's go with that.
Sunday night, my cat at tinsel off the Christmas tree.
Late Sunday night, my cat projectile vomited all over my room.
And then flung her head around and vomited on me.
And my sheets.
And my floor.
And my wall.
And my cellphone.

EARLY Monday morning (3 AM), my cat woke up to vomit on me.
(5 AM) Said cat woke up to puke on me AGAIN.
And my sheets.

She is the devil.

The smell was so horrible that I plugged my nose, ran into my mom's room, and yelled about how "Tiffany is puking EVERYWHERE. YOU HAVE TO HELP ME!!!!"
I felt bad for the cat. I bundled her up and slept with her in my arms. She felt so sick she just passed out.
I, on the other hand, got no sleep because I was waking up in intervals to clean up her vomit.
So that was great.
Sorry if that was gross.My day wasn't great, since I was exhausted.
Until I bought markers.
I bought expensive markers for the soul purpose of coloring.
I wanted to color, and damnit all if I wasn't going to color!
So now I'm sitting here coloring like a child, but you know what? I like it, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.Twelve dollars well spent. (They are NICE markers.)

Shameless Promotion? I Think So!

My dad's website is officially up and running.
It took a couple of weeks of planning, and coding, and editing, and blah blah blah.
But the website is up, and so far I think it's off to a good start.

We got him a digital camera so that he could take pictures of all of the stories he decides to cover.
I posted the "grand opening" link of his website to his facebook page, and even created a fanpage for it.
So far it has 24 fans, and it's only been up about an hour.
I feel accomplished.

I went with my dad today to cover his first story for the website. I was the designated photographer.
I took all of the pictures, and the videos, that are seen on the website. Pretty nifty, huh?
I'm posting about the website everywhere I can. If we want to receive advertising money, we'll need a website that's actually got traffic coming to it.
So far I think we're doing pretty well. I'm hoping that people will come back, though. Not just visit it once and be done with it.

So if you guys want to help me out, which I really bet you do, visit my dad's website:

I designed the whole site by myself, with a little help from borrowing certain codes from certain templates.
"Borrowing" is probably "stealing", but I'm not taking their graphics... so I don't exactly know the etiquette behind that. Still took me so many hours to design.

Once you're done there, hop on over to his fanpage on Facebook:
FAN PAGE!

Really, I'll appreciate it so much. Every since my dad was laid off he hasn't been doing any reporting. This is his outlet, and hopefully a new way to supplement our income.
Thanks for the support!

Website Startin'

Since my dad was laid off from his job, we decided to create a website for him.
I bought a GoDaddy domain name for the website, and I'm in the process of buying a few more tools from GoDaddy to get the website off the ground.
I'll be using blogger as the main site, because Wordpress is too confusing for me.

I'm hoping that I can easily get the site off the ground.
Because of freaking ADSENSE I can't put ads on his site.
Because I have my own account.

And you can't call them for customer service.
So I'm going to ask the GoDaddy guy what he thinks I should do.
He talked to me for like an hour and a half trying to get me off the ground and situated. They're a great company.
The domain name came with a free email account, which is actually really neat.
I hope I can do this successfully.

I'm off to make a gingerbread house... I'm SO EXCITED!
(I love Christmas, don't judge me.)

p.s. I just spent another hour on the phone with the guy. I now officially have my own domain name, another for my dad, and another for me. Because I'm shpecial.
I almost spent $50 on some kind of website software.
It goes over my head, but the way the guy said it made it sound great.

Politically Correct

I really want people to post their opinions on this post. It's something that I have noticed and been thinking about a lot recently now that I am in the workplace. No opinion will be singled out and scrutinized, so say whatever you'd like.
I don't know if this post will really cause that much of a problem, but I never know how people will react.
And I honestly don't care.

Now for the post.

I am tired of people getting so bent out of shape if I tell them "Merry Christmas".
You could easily say thank you, or not say anything.
But do you really need to give me a lecture about how you're jewish/atheist/whatever?
Yes, I get it. I could say Happy Holidays. But I celebrate Christmas. That is the holiday that I choose to acknowledge.
And Hanukkah. Hanukkah is also completely legitimate to me.

Atheists are the ones that get under my skin, and this is where the real problem comes from.
If you are an atheist, you do not believe in a higher power. You believe that this is it.
(Which is ridiculous to me, but that's a completely different story.)
So why is it if I say "Merry Christmas", you feel the need to get COMPLETELY OFFENDED about it and tell me in detail about why Christmas is stupid and there is no God?
Why? Who am I hurting by saying Merry Christmas? If you don't believe in anything, then there should be NO issue there. You are honestly just trying to fight and cause a scene when you cuss me out for saying Merry Christmas when you don't even believe in God.

When someone tells me they're atheist, I don't lecture them on it. That is their belief. I don't agree with it, but it's not my place to try to thrust God into their life.
We disagree, that's it.
So why is it when I tell an atheist that I'm a Christian, they feel the need to tell me exactly why I'm "wrong" in my beliefs?
I don't tell YOU that, why do you need to tell ME that?

The billboards popping up around the country are very offensive to me. The pro-atheist billboards.Why are you trying SO HARD to convert people to atheism? What does that achieve, other than hurting the people that do believe in God?
I actually cried when I saw one of those billboards. Not because I'm some crazy Christian, but because with my doubts and fears of death, seeing something telling me there is no God sucked all of the hope out of me.
Whoever organized those billboards should be ashamed, because they are very hurtful and even terrifying to people that have a crippling fear of death/doubts about their faith.

So during the holidays, stop shoving your atheism down my throat if I say "Merry Christmas". Say thanks and walk away, or else you're just trying to cause a scene.

My Plans... Foiled!

I woke up today determined to eat healthier.
While I weigh as much as a cloth bag of feathers, I still need to keep my cholesterol down.
Plus everyone hates stomach bloat from overeating.

So why is it that my mom brought home Krispy Kreme donuts?
And why did the office have an ever-refilling plate of homemade cookies?
And why oh why did my co-worker bring in a homemade meatball sub and beg me to eat half of it?
And why did I eat all of these things?

They tasted great, don't get me wrong. But the whole "pregnant stomach" look isn't sexy to me.
Yes, when I bloat it makes me look pregnant.
It is not attractive.
Pregnancy is attractive, but I'm 17.
Not attractive.

So please everyone, stop tempting me with these ridiculously good/fatty foods.
I want to be a good girl.
Is that so wrong?

...Oh god my mom made brownies."Heeeeeeeeeeeey, stop biting my wire!" Me, in that picture, to my cat Tiffany.

Finals Fall 2009 - Part I

I missed 20 out of 100 questions on my journalism final, giving myself an 80% (B).
In total, my final grade for the class is...
90% (A-).
I will take it, thank you very much.

As for psychology, on my final I missed 6 out of 33, giving me a 90% (A-).
My overall grade in the class isn't completely calculated, but I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that it is an A.

Anthropology final wasn't graded today, but I have a feeling I didn't do particularly well on it.
It was harder than the last one. Want to know how I know I'm not the only one that jacked it up? When the guy next to you says "Holy shit" when he first looks at the test, and he studied for it ALL WEEKEND, you know you're in some serious trouble.

History final isn't until Wednesday. I have a feeling I'll pull an A, or at least a solid B. In the class I'm hoping I'll pass with an A. I think that I will, but I can't completely guarantee it. There's very little room for error in the grading scale. VERY little.

It's 7:49, which means I can clock out in a couple of minutes, come home and crash.
For those of you that've taken finals this week, how'd you do?
For those of you that didn't, I hate you you lucky bast... I mean, you guys are the greatest.

I Wanted to be a Working Woman...

And then I got laid...
Seriously, sim-version of me. Would you please keep your legs closed? You'll never become a star news reporter when you're constantly knocked up.
I don't care if "woo-hooing" is fun for you.
Knock it off.

Thanks a LOT Sheri!

I blame you for this, Sheri.
Because of your review of the Sims 3, I went out and bought it.
And now I can't study for finals, because I'm addicted.

Oh well.
I've done the math. I can miss up to like 40 questions on my Journalism final and leave the class with a passing grade, a B+.
But I refuse to miss that many. 20 at the most, but his questions are HARD.
I have done studying, by the way. Just not the crazy sitting there staring at a book for hours on end kind of studying. More like I read my stuff once and then considered myself done.
It actually works more for me than intense studying.

History is an essay, and I feel plenty confident about the material, so I'm not worried.
Anthropology we get a double-sided page of notes that we get to create. So I'm really not worried about that. She also gave us a review guide.
I love my teacher.

Hopefully I don't start answering all of my questions in simlish...
Have any of YOU ever played the Sims?

Also, if you still need gifts for Christmas, check out thinkgeek.com.
I had issues with certain products that came, and they were happy to let me send them back and refund me my money.
Then I had an issue where I had to receive store credit (through no fault of theirs). I found that I didn't have enough money to replace the item and pay shipping with the store credit, so they gave me an extra $10 to pay shipping.
How cool is that? They were super helpful and resolved my problem in a snap, so I would highly recommend them.
Plus they have some REALLY cool stuff.

And if you just happen to want to get your favorite blog-girl a gift...
https://www.thinkgeek.com/brain/gimme.cgi?wid=81dd96a44
;)

Where were you guys yesterday? 4 comments? Jeese! You guys must've fallen off the face of the earth! (I'm not offended, just wondering where ya'll went!)

Note to Self...

If you're going to bring your gifts to school to give to your friends, don't show your other friend something you know they'll love that's going to someone else.
Because then you'll feel compelled to give it to them instead and pretend you never got the first person a gift to begin with.
I couldn't help it. When I saw Houston squeal at the plush microbe I got for my friend, I knew I had to give it to him.
I'm a bad person.
Not a big deal, though. I'll just buy something else when I get the chance.

Other than that, school was boring and I have all weekend to study for finals.Yep, my mom made a cameo in my photo.

Things I Hate...

I hate when you ask someone "Can I help you?" and they stare back at you as if you're speaking an alien language. And choose not to step forward until someone else asks if you can help them.

I hate when you order something, wait over a week for it to come, and open the package just to find that it was broken in transit.

I hate when you buy something for yourself to eat, and find that after you've had only a couple of bites someone has eaten the rest of the bag. Without asking.

I hate when you spend hours cleaning up your workspace only to have it trashed within a few minutes.

I hate when I get my cat nice and comfortable on my lap to go to sleep and the air conditioner screeches on outside of my window, thus terrifying my cat and making her dig her claws into my legs as she goes to run.

I hate when you wait all day for an email from someone, go to sleep, and find out the next morning that they emailed you right after you got into bed.

I hate when you hold the door for someone, they don't say thank you, and then they proceed to walk through the next door and slam it in your face. (And a PROFESSOR did this to me.)

I hate when you tell someone to "Have a nice day!", and they don't say anything back.

I hate when people just hang up the phone instead of saying some sort of departing words. (Goodbye would be nice.)

I hate store credit only returns.

I hate a lot of things when I'm tired. I need some sleep.
(seriously though, why are people so rude?)

p.s.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/womens/6388/action/2138f63/

Lazy Monday

Haven't really done much lately.
I went over to Drew's house on Saturday. We played games for a while, I got a piggyback ride.
I made him a biiiiiiiiiiig cake, and took pictures.
But I'm at work right now, and I can't really download all the pictures to upload them.

I've set up my hours for the Christmas holiday at work.
9-5, Monday-Thursday.

28 hours a week. So that's more of a workload than I'm used to.
And yes, we are working through Christmas. Christmas Day off, but that's it.
It's going to be harsh, but if I request a couple of days off they won't freak out or anything.

I showed off my new hair and outfits today.
Oh, yeah. I went shopping this weekend. Bought a bunch of new clothes (while we still have the money.)
Everyone said I looked grown up. Which was what I was going for, so perfect!
I'm hoping that I can get home tonight and sleep well before work tomorrow. I haven't been sleeping the greatest.
Drew's been trying to comfort me at night, but it hasn't been working as well as I hoped. Usually I pass out before he can even call me. He's been working until 12:00 am every night.

I've got my classes for next semester sorted out. I'm excited about the radio class. I've always been interested in radio. I would much rather hear myself reading the news than see myself. Television is a no-go for me.
I got 50/50 on my interview project, so that's a load off my shoulders.
Hopefully things start looking up for me.

My grandmother has been rapidly declining. Overall she has suffered 3 heart attacks and 15 strokes within the last couple of months. We don't expect her to last much longer. She's a fighter, but she can only fight so long.

That's been my weekend and a bit of a ramble if I do say so myself. Hope it wasn't too boring.

A Shirt We All Should Have...

I don't know about you, but I'm never taking it off.
Or the matching underoos I've got on.

The Short of It

So I decided to cut my hair again. I cut it 6 days ago and just got it trimmed, but I decided I wanted something completely different.
I looked on the internet and picked out 3 pictures and took them in.

I told her, "I want it a LOT shorter."
I showed her three photos. I showed her one and told her if she did it, I still wanted it shorter, not shoulder length.She said okay.

So she cut it. It was shoulder-length, and maybe even a little past that.
It didn't look that great. It looked like my old hair, just a little shorter.
I told her this, and she started getting huffy.
Gee, I'm sorry you can't follow directions.

So I told her to just modify it to match the other picture I had with me, since it was as short as I wanted. Since she apparently CAN'T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS.
She pretty much yelled at me in front of everyone. "I wish you had told me this before I did a WHOLE haircut. Now I'm doing a WHOLE SECOND ONE."
Okay first of all bitch, I told you what I wanted. You didn't do it.
Who's fault is that? Yours. Secondly, it's not a completely new haircut. Cut it a little shorter, snip some layers in.
TADA!
I felt like she was intentionally trying to embarrass me in front of everyone by raising her voice and acting exasperated.
The customer is right, not the whiny hairdresser from Supercuts.
So I had her do the second picture that I had.If she was a good hairdresser she could've told me that the first cut wouldn't be short enough. That was her fault, and she wasted her own time.
But at least I got my hair done.For the record, me and Drew have been dating for 2 months. I just didn't think it was the biggest deal to tell ya'll. We go back and forth so much it's just easier to not announce it anymore.