Terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad day.

I feel like I just got kicked in the stomach. I found out some extremely distressing news, and though I'm not as shocked and hurt as I was when I first found out, I still have that awful feeling in my stomach and chest. No, I am not saying what this distressing news is, let's just say it's right up there with family members dying and having your identity stolen by a terrorist.

So, whilst we wander away from that subject (my stomach is in knots again) I have fun news to report. This week my parents in law went on a week-long reunion in the Tetons. Normally we all go, but this year we couldn't afford it, my and my hubby both had work, and he had school. His finals are next week, so blowing all that off wasn't an option. Anyway, it was just my little family and my two sisters in law. Well, the week went pretty ok until Wednesday night. It was my best friend's birthday, and she wanted to hang out.

Long story short, due to unforseeable dinner circumstances that I wasn't told about, I ended up coming home almost 2 hours after I planned. This caused a rather explosive and immature fight between myself and my sister in law, which we got over fairly quickly, but for the good of everyone's sanity we spent the rest of the week in separate houses. (This isn't the fun news, by the way, we're getting there). So, on Thursday, my other sister in law went to join her parents camping for the rest of the week so all night Thursday and all day and night Friday we had the house to ourselves!!! Anyone who has ever lived with relatives knows exactly what I'm talking about when I say that it was so different and delightful and relaxing.

Anyway, we're finally at the fun part. We built a tent in our front room out of sheets and bandanas! We had two big sheets stretched over the sectional and tied to chairs and pinned to the walls, and another one covering the gap over the back of the couch and another for the door. It was barely three feet tall at the tallest spot, but it was so fun! We got ice cream and chips and watched movies with our daughter under it, and she thought it was rather the coolest thing ever! I wanted to leave it up until everyone got back from camping, but we figured they would probably want to put their stuff on the floor right where our little tent was, so we reluctantly dismantled it last night. :(

In other news, that same sprained ankle I had, like, a month ago is still not better. I was at my mom's house last week with all my siblings and two cousins and we all did an impromptu performance of the Boot Scootin' Boogie in the dining room (long story, involving internet karaoke, my dad imitating John Travola in Grease, and EFY dances) and I discovered that I am incapable of jumping or skipping without pain on that ankle. Still! How stupid is this! I find it quite inconvenient. I guess it's a good thing that librarians don't often find themselves in need of jumping on one foot.

Ooh, I thought of another fun thing! My little family had a water fight on Thursday. It started out with me filling up the teeny blow-up turtle pool that Sammy likes to play in, then I decided to brush our black lab and got out enough hair to make a whole 'nother dog, then decided to give him a bath. Well, if you have a running hose and a mischievous husband about, you're just asking for it. So, after taking turns with the hose and the bucket, all three of us were completely drenched (except for the dog, who after having his bath steered WAY clear of the water). Then we turned the sprinklers on in the front yard and got drencheder (I know it's not a word, shut up). I'm so ready for summer to end now, we've gone swimming and had a water fight and all that summer stuff. Please bring me autumn!!!

Ok, I'm running out of things to say, so I'm gonna go and try to figure out what to make for dinner that doesn't require cheese, potatoes, hamburger patties, oil, milk, or prefferably an oven since it's almost 80 degrees in the house even with the AC on. Have a lovely day, I sincerely hope yours is a billion times better than mine!!!

Discovering, Deliberating, Drooling, Shuddering, and a Happy Dance too.

I'm having fun blogging right now. I just did the Librarian one and I have all sorts of other stuff I just though of that I wanted to blog about. Or just have a one-sided conversation about, whichever you prefer.

One thing is Elvis. So, for a few years when I was a kid, my parent's favorite radio station was oldies from the 50's, 60's, and 70's. I grew up on those. And until recently, I didn't realize that a few of my favorites were by Elvis! So I am sort of an Elvis fan. I don't like all of his songs, but I have 7 or 8 on my computer on my favorites list, so I think that counts as being a fan. It's his earlier stuff, when he was hot and sexy and it was completely understandable why every woman in America loved him.

My next topic is classical paintings. Personally, I'm not a big fan. The Mona Lisa? It's a fantastic painting, but I don't like it much. I don't think she's very attractive, and those facial features were pretty much the norm for a really long time in paintings. But recently I was on a cross stitching site trying to find free downloads (yes, I cross stitch, and I quite like it) and I found a section that converted classical paintings to cross stitch designs. I fell in love with some of them. I need to go back and get the artist names for them, but there was one in particular that had not artist name or date attached. It's called The Bride, and it's the one above. I love it. It is so beautiful, and for some reason it just jumped out and me and I was enthralled. She is so lovely! So yeah, I found my secret painting passion.

I'm almost done watcing NCIS. I'm on the sixth season now and I'll be done soon, which is good because I've really been wanting to watch some of my movies recently. Like The Duchess and Julie and Julia, and several chick flicks. I won't let myself watch them til I'm done with NCIS, though. I think I'll watch the 7th season online while I watch movies, because the only site I know of that has whole episodes to watch for free only allows you to watch about an hour and 15 minutes at a time, then you have to wait an hour. A couple months ago we did their unlimited access option for one month, and it was great. It was $10, so we won't do it every month, but I'm considering doing it for one more month so I can watch NCIS and one more show that I've been trying to watch for awhile. It was a pretty darn good deal! I actually really want to do Netflix, but we need to be a bit more financially stable before we do that.

So, my sister-in-law went on a British Literary tour this past month and she went to Ireland, Wales, Enland, and France and she brought back some of the coolest souvenirs for us. I got a gorgeous necklace that I can't do justice describing, and shot glasses from every country (I collect shot glasses. I don't drink, but I collect shot glasses, go figure. I do root beer shots when I'm in a mischevous mood sometimes). I also got a knight in shining armor figurine and an Irish post card. My husband got a felt Robin Hood hat (think Disney's Robin Hood), a shirt with a picture of a knight on it that says Dressed to Kill, a Robin Hood archer tie tack, and something else that I can't remember right now. Our daughter got a William Shakespeare picture book, a glittery cup from France, and a book of Irish fairy tales. We also got to try English toffee and Kinder Buenos, a European candy bar. They were very tasty, hazelnut cream inside a crispy rice wafer and all dipped in chocolate. *Drooling*

Ok, I'm having an emotional dilemma. The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers. I have had some people insist that it is wonderful and I have to read it and that it is just life-changing. I have had other people insist that it is a few thousand pages of nothing but fluff and crap and they would rather vomit nails than read it again. I'm on the fence. I absolutely cannot stand the lead actors they chose for the movies, I think Robert Pattinson is fugly (that's ugly with a significant F at the beginning) and Kristin Stewart constantly looks grumpy and drugged and never ever smiles. However, I am of the opinion that Taylor Lautner is very hot and he would trump Rober Pattinson in looks any day. I would not mind watching a movie with him in it, if only the other two weren't there. Anyway, I'll have to let you know if I ever decide. I don't know if it's worth reading 500 pages just to see if I like the first book, but I don't know if I can stand watching that ugly man-boy and that emotional-vacuum girl for two hours. *Shudders*

I had a pretty tasty hot dog for dinner. It was not remarkable, by any means, but it worked in a pinch. It was Oscar Meyer, which is my all-time favorite hot dog brand, with Bar S in the runner-up position, and even though it was reheated it was still pretty decent. And I had it with ketchup and spicy brown mustard, but unfortunately no fries. I was too hungry to wait for the oven to heat up and then wait 20 minutes more for my single serving of fries to cook. Maybe I'll go grab a handful of my Chili Cheese Fritos instead. Now that's something to look forward to!

Ok, I'm going to upload all the photos I found for this post and continue watching NCIS while I munch my Fritos. I'm going up to my mom's tomorrow to hang out for a couple days, but maybe I'll write up my "Things Your Waitress Won't Tell You" post while I'm there. Yeah, I've been a waitress. Have I mentioned this? I've also been a photographer, a customer service rep, a chocolate shop clerk, a house cleaner, and a babysitter. And I'm only 22. Hopefully librarian will be my last job title, I really really really like this job! I keep having awful nightmares that I get fired, but I'm actually doing really well at work, so I think I'm just freaking myself out. One of the reference librarians (they know more than the ones that check the books out, like me) has even said a couple times that I'm doing great and that I will be a good candidate for a promotion. I did a squealing happy dance inside when she told me that. And she doesn't give out praise like that often, so it's extremely significant! Ok, on that happy note I'm leaving now! Farewell, my lovely imaginary audience, I bid you adieu!