Life and Other Nonsense

I know I was going to try to blog more often but let's face it, I'm never going to do that.

But here's what's happening in my life now...

Summer Reading - The Summer Reading Events are in full swing. Events have been set, plans are finished or in progress, prizes have been arranged, and my life has officially been taken over. With events one or two times a week I've been keeping very busy. Check out everything that's going on for the teens with our Midsummer Knight's Read Summer Reading theme.

Facebook Slack-off - In other news, I am currently a huge facebook slacker. I stopped playing all the games and now only go online once a week if that. Usually, though, I will be posting via twitter or facebook from my phone. So if you message me, tweet me, write on my wall, whatever, I will usually respond back if I can do so from my phone.

Dental Drama - Coming up this week is some added drama of a tooth issue. I broke a tooth while on vacation in Florida in March (stupid carmel corn). Since I have not had an issue with said tooth I decided to wait until I could actually afford to go get it fixed. Unfortunately the tooth is now causing me problems so I'm going to have to get it taken care of and add yet another bill to my never decreading pile. It seems like every time I pay one off another bill takes its place. Ugh! So at 8 AM tomorrow I will be meeting my dental fate - hopefully it will be a quick and inexpensive fix as I really can't afford many more bills.

Summer Trips - Since Kelly and I took a Spring trip to Florida, I've been taking little day trips here or there when possible. After talking about money issues above it probably sounds dumb to take trips but none of them are that expensive or the tickets are already paid for so there's no going back now.

• Trip 1 - Memorial Day Picnic - Kelly, her friend Chrissy, and I went to Turkey Run in Indiana for a picnic with some friends of ours from when we were little. The Bobos lived in El Paso for a time and our three families were fast friends. Kelly and Chrissy were the same age as their kids John and Mary, Amy was the same age as Sarah, and my friend Beth and I were the same age as their youngest, Bekah. The Bobos have invited us to their Memorial Day Picnic for the last couple of years and we were finally able to make it. We filled the time with talking, hiking, eating, and fun. It was so great to see them and I am excited to go back again next Memorial Day.
• Trip 2 - This Is Teen Event - Wednesday, my friend and co-worker, Erin, and I will be headed to Naperville, IL to go to the This Is Teen event with Anderson's Bookstore. I'm really excited to see some of my favorite authors at the event including Meg Cabot, Libba Bray, and Maggie Stiefvater.
• Trip 3 - July Tubing Trip - Beth and I will be going on a tubing trip in Northern Illinois with her former roommate and other friends. Should be fun!
• Trip 4 - Katharine Hepburn/Lucille Ball Roadtrip - Kelly and I plan on taking a road trip to Kent, Ohio during the first week or so of August to see a display of Katharine Hepburn clothing and what not at Kent University Museum. As this is as close to me as I've ever seen Kate items, I am going for sure! In addition, we dedcided to add on Jamestown, NY to visit the Lucille Ball sites (Kelly's a big fan) in her hometown. As an added bonus, we found out that they are having a 100th Birthday celebration that week so we plan on getting in on some of the festivities.
• Trip 5 - KINGS OF LEON CONCERT in Indiana at the end of August. I am beyond excited. My first rock concert! And Kings of Leon!!!

Other than that, life is pretty normal. Kaden is getting too big (he's three now!), my other jobs are normal, I've been reading a lot and watching movies, catching up on Gilmore Girls (we're now on Season 4), sleeping, and seeing my friend, Chip's band (The New and Slightly Used) play.

Why, hello blog. Remember me?

"That's a Dealbreaker!"

A friend of mine told me about a recent date she had been on. I thought these kind of situations only happened in books, movies, and tv shows. I have never heard of anyone I actually knew encountering this particular circumstance.

My friend has been chatting with a guy that comes into her work at least once a week. He's a nice guy and they always talk about movies, news, and other light topics. The other day he asked if she would like to meet up at a coffee shop and then hang out while they ran errands around town. As she was talking to him on their date she found out that he is married and has two children.

But not to worry, he told her they have an unconventional marriage. Apparently, once he reached the age of 30 he was determined to have children. Somehow, he found a woman who was willing to give him a child without all those messy emotions and whatnot. She had the baby and he decided he might as well just marry her. About a year later he decided he wanted another child. So, the two have two children, are married, and live together but don't love each other or even share a room. He mentioned that he explained to his now wife when they got married that he did not love her and never would. He also informed her that he would also not be faithful to her.

By this time my friend was wondering what she had gotten herself into. When the date was finally over, she said goodbye, hopped out of the car, and headed to her own vehicle. As she was walking away, the guy rolls down his window, and (from his car - he didn't even get out) asked, "Hey, don't I get a kiss?" To which she replied, "No."

Needless to say, she will not be hanging out with this man again.

Snowpocalyse!

The weather reports are in and the snow has been falling for the last couple hours.

FINALLY! Central Illinois will get a snowpocalyse the likes of those in New York, DC, and other parts of the east coast! More Info

DANGEROUS ICE ------- HEAVY SNOW

I'm super excited. Here's the forecast...

Issued by The National Weather ServiceLincoln, IL 1:24 pm
CST, Mon., Jan. 31, 2011
... BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM TUESDAY TO
NOON CST WEDNESDAY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LINCOLN HAS ISSUED A
BLIZZARD WARNING... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM TUESDAY TO NOON CST WEDNESDAY.
THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.
* TIMING... SNOW WILL
INCREASE ACROSS CENTRAL ILLINOIS LATER TUESDAY MORNING AND THEN BECOME HEAVY
TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT... THEN DIMINISH WEDNESDAY. SIGNIFICANT
BLOWING SNOW WILL OCCUR TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH WEDNESDAY.
*
ACCUMULATIONS... SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 12 TO 18 INCHES ARE EXPECTED...
ESPECIALLY ALONG AND NW OF I-55.
* WINDS... NORTHEAST WINDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH
WITH GUSTS TO 40 MPH WILL OCCUR TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND TUESDAY NIGHT. WINDS WILL
REMAIN STRONG ON WEDNESDAY AS THEY BECOME NORTHWEST.
* IMPACTS... BLIZZARD
CONDITIONS WILL CAUSE EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS TRAVEL TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH
WEDNESDAY... OR LONGER.

Central Illinois - check
NW of I-55 - check

I'm hoping for the 18 inches. BRING IT ON!

PS How pretty (ane exciting!) are these maps!?!

Bucket List

Recently I was thinking about how I've been doing a lot of things in the last couple years, and planning to to things in the future, that I have always said to myself, "I would like to do that in the future." So.... I decided to be a couple years late to the game and make my so called "Bucket List". Hold on to your butts.

The Bucket List

• Visit New York City
• Visit Hollywood/LA
• Travel in Europe (i.e. Paris, London, Rome, Venice...)
• Marry a man who adores me and whom I adore
• Have 3 kids (preferably 2 girls and a boy)
• Always have a cat (so far so good)
• Visit Disney World
• Visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (I'm headed there in March!)
• Go skydiving
• See the Pacific Ocean
• See the Atlantic Ocean (Also in March)
• Swim with Dolphins
• Drive a motorcycle
• Visit Japan and/or China
• Visit Washington DC
• Visit every state in the USA (24/50 down)

I know there are things I'm forgetting (especially as I write this at almost 1 AM) but basically, I want to experience life. I want to travel, have a family that always included a cat, and see and do as much as I can. I don't have aspirations to be someone rich and famous but if I can experience as much of life as possible I would be happy. And to be happy would be a pretty good life.

The Mystery of the Time Lapse

A weird thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago and I have no explanation for it. I'm going to tell you the whole story and let you decide because I really have no clue and am slightly disturbed by the whole situation. Obviously, if it's still on my mind a couple weeks later.

On Wednesdays I work at the church office in the morning and at the El Paso Library at 3:00 pm. Usually I work, get lunch, maybe run a few errands, head home for a bit, then go to work in El Paso. The drive between Bloomington and home is 20-25 minutes and the drive from home to El Paso is only about 7 minutes. Easy peasy. No problem.

A couple week ago, I left Bloomington at about 2:15. I took the county roads which still had a bit of slush on them so I had to go a tad slower. The trip home should have taken 30 minutes at the most and I would have been able to go inside, pick up a couple things, and sit for a few minutes before heading into work.

However, when I got home and walked in the door my mom looked up and asked, "Shouldn't you be at work?" I replied, "In a little bit." To which she said, "It's 3:15."

I was a little shocked at this news and obviously rather confused because there is no way that drive should have taken me an hour! NO way! I didn't run into any obstacles other than a bit of slush for a couple of miles and I didn't stop anywhere once I was on my way. I was going the speed limit (or slightly under on the slushy parts) the entire way. So what happened? I lost a half an hour of my life with no explanation of what happened.

And before you say, maybe you looked at the time wrong when you left, I also called the pastor and asked him what time I left and he told me about 1:15 or 1:20 as well.

The situation is really confusing me. Did I get abducted by aliens? Did I hit some kind of time portal? WHAT HAPPENED? Thoughts? Hypotheses?

An Observation

I like working at the reference desk. It's peaceful, unless school is out or we are busy, and the questions are generally easy. And while you have to answer the phone every time, it is usually something easy like, "What time do you close?", "Can you renew my books?", "Do you have such and such movie/book on the shelf?". So, you can usually get a lot of other work done while working the desk.

However, when a patron does come in, you can usually tell which ones to dread. It's that person who is not walking directly to the desk but meandering and taking their sweet time getting to where their going. Sometimes they make eye contact but more often then not they just slowly trudge along observing everything going on around them. The quick, eye contact people generally know what they want and the question can usually be met with a quick answer. But those meanderers.... they have the questions you despise. The ones you try to avoid like, "Can you help me with my resume?", "I need books on an obscure topic, can you help me?", or "What is the value of this stamp?" More often then not the question really means, "I have this project to work on but don't want to put forth any effort. Can you do it for me?"

Ugh... meanderers.