Yep, I do. At 2pm sharp I just about skipped out of work to begin my long weekend. Awesome feeling, that.

So....I got a few grades back from HTML: two 95% and a 90%. I stil owe her one case study and this weeks tutorial and case study but I am planning on getting it all completed and submitted this weekend. Come to think of it, I am planning a lot of things for this weekend. Homework is one, creative stuff is another, some domestic stuff, the Ani concert (Yay! Its finally here!), and whatnot. I feel energetic and back to my old self again. Hurrah!

I figured out my holiday time from work AT work today...for The giving of the thanks day, as well as the December holidays. Now I am just waiting for the exec. director to approve them and then it will be all set! Also, I drove to my in-laws house and spent some time talking to my father in law. See, my generous Mom is giving me her car...so I am trying to figure out stuff about what I need to do to get rid of the truck and my FIL is super smart about all that stuff, so he's helping me get my ideas together. Then we just visited for awhile, which was awesome, because I haven't really spent time with him lately. And I do adore my in laws. They rock! Also, I spent some time making some phone calls to my state case worker about my book reimbursement which I still have not recieved (not so cool) and the benefits co-ordinator reguarding my ticket back to work trial month stuff. So, its been a pretty productive day so far...and its not over. Not sure what is next on my agenda, but I'd like to make good use of my time this weekend since I have so much I'd like to get done. May be I'll work on the domestic stuff tonight.

You know, for a few days after I sent my letter I felt a little unsure of myself...second guessed my decision and all that. It was finally recieving her reply...more of just a confirmation that she really did recieve it than what she said (what she said kinda really just rolled off my back), that made me feel better. I feel lighter than I have in so long. Its fabulous!

Tomorrow night I am going to see my friend Serena to discuss one of my new creative ideas with her. I need her valuable input and expertise. I love that I have a wonderful, cool, and creative friend near me now. Its been awfully good for my own creativity and creative thought process. She is also a super fabulous friend. By the by...she makes crazy, wonderful jewelry. Check her out on Etsy!!!! She's really talented, and a great gal, too!

OK, gotta run. Love ya lots.
xoxoxoxoxo

OMG! I am so inspired today! The creative ideas are just whipping around in my head! I don't know where my creativity was hiding, but it seems to be back in full force. Now...to find time to execute things I want to do and learn to do.

Gotta start writing all my ideas down. I lose a lot of them if I don't.

I am feeling better despite the email from the recently divorced friend. It wasn't that bad, I actually was expecting worse. She said some things that I think anyone who has hurt feelings would say, so I am not really taking them to heart and letting them make me feel bad about my decision. I did not reply, and have no intentions of replying. It is done, and that is good. I can move on now. And so, I shall.

I worked my 6 hours today, and got home about a half hour ago. No school tonight makes me super duper happy! I am going to take some time to do some general house keeping of my desk and art area I think, since both are way out of control. I also want to watch some art journal videos on youtube.

Well, I'm gonna go and try to get started. Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

I declare this writers block too damn hard. Hopefully, I live a long time, and, if I do I'll be damn thankful that I do not have to limit myself to one CD for the rest of time.

And I am. My Husband loves me, my Mother loves me, my bff's love me (Serena and Jen), my neices and nephews love me, my friends love me, my LJ and FB pals love me. I am loved, and feel grateful. It helped so much to know this today.

I am feeling better. I made it through psych class tonight and then came home and talked to Chris about the work situation, then my Mom called and I talked to her as well.

About work? I don't really know what I want to do. I have to do some thinking. I enjoy the money, but am not sure that that is enough to keep me there. But I have also been thinking about just not working and focusing on school...carrying 15 credits a semester until I am finally done. It kind of behooves me to stay there until after spring semester since they are flexible with my hours around school...but if I make it that far along might be a different reality.

PROS

2 minutes from home (I am not joking)
money
enjoy the consumers/not the co-workers
only need to work 21 hours to recieve bennies
flexible schedule


CONS

environment/co-workers
stress from said environment/co-workers
feeling attacked and on the defensive all the time
doing the work, getting none of the credit
no positive feedback what-so-ever

OK, that did not help. Poop.

In other news, here is my spring schedule:
Tuesday- Programming Concepts-3 credits
Wednesday- Graphic Design II-3 credits
Thursday- Programming Concepts
Thursday- Intro to Animation Software(Flash- 1 credit course for the middle 5 weeks
Saturday- English Composition I-3 credits
TBA-Intro to Windows (sadly, this is required- 1 credit distance learning first 5 weeks

Total=11 credits

Should be interesting. I swore up and down that I would never ever take another Saturday class, especially in the am...but the class times for this course during the week were too crazy and impossible with everything else I am taking and trying to work at some job...so I took what I could work with. I am happy that one of my courses is a distance learning course. Normally I am not the type who should probably take a distance learning course, but c'mon..its Intro to Windows! I'll ace it, I'm sure. I would have liked to take Advanced animation software after Intro, but I figured I should give myself the last 5 weeks of the semester to concentrate on all the other classes/finals. There is always the summer and next fall.

Mom and I taked about the holidays. I am going home for both December holidays, and I am really looking forward to seeing my family. I haven't seen anyone since last Thanksgiving and I miss them. I am also in a completely different space than I was last year, so it will be nice to be able to relax and enjoy everyone. Plus I have a new cousin that I cannot wait to meet! And I'll see my peeps in PA! Yay!

OOOOhhh! I just got an email from my new meetup group! There will be an art journal group meeting soon! I can't wait to go!

OK, gotta hit the hay~

love, love, love

Its only Tuesday, but man....I have thus far had an awful day. Work is the main culprit. It occurs to me that I am working in a very hostile environment still. Why can't people get over themselves and just be nice to one another? At the very least being civil would be an improvement. I don't know...the more and more I go there, the more and more I think about not working there. In fact, thats all I think about when I am there. Its definitely not a healthy place for me to be. I don't know if I should look for another job or just continue to act impervious to it, and cry when I get home, as I have for the past two days. I have tried to justify all this yuckiness and my seeming inability to deal with it on my very recent divorce from someone in my life...thinking maybe I am just a little over sensative and vunerable right now...but then I think, no. They are just mean.

To make matters worse, now I look as if I have been crying (I totally hate that!) and I have a 2 1/2 hour class of listening to my very dry and monotonous psych Prof lecture to look forward to next. Oh boy.

I need a hug...or a million hugs.

I work from 8-2 tomorrow and Thursday, but since its Veterans Day tomorrow I do not have school. I am going to try to clean up my "art area" and perhaps do something creative to make myself feel better. I need something to make me feel better, goodness knows. Then, I'll hit the books on Thursday afternoon and Friday. Saturday I am hoping to check out some trees somewhere around here with Chris, and then we are going to see Ani DiFranco in MA Saturday night. May be I'll get my head together somewhere in there but I am not making any promises that it will remain together when the work week begins again.

Bah!

I kinda live for the weekends now days. Luckily, my weekend starts when I step out of work at 2pm on Thursday afternoon, and goes all the way to Monday morning when I wake up at 7am to get ready for my work day.

I do my homeowrk over the weekend mostly, but I also try to spend some sort of quality time with my husband and friends. And I am hoping to work in some creative play time here soon.

I guess I don't really dread school or work. I just try to keep focus and get through things that are unpleasant yet serve my goals or purpose in some way.

I took a drive today to get my cell phone fixed, which took me to the sothern part of the state (because Verizon makes my life all sorts of inconvenient). But, it was a nice day out and I felt like just getting out and scouting some potential new places to take pictures. I left a bit later than I intended, and so while my afternoon was pleasant, I lost the light quickly. As I was driving home I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a beautiful sunset. I was kinda peeved that I wasn't somewhere pretty that I could stop and take a picture. Oh well.

Chris and I watched some Californication episodes, and now I am waiting for him to finish up getting ready. We are going to go chow down at Marchetti's. Its this awesome italian restaraunt that we love. They give you tons of food, and they have the best salad in the entire world! I could eat just salad the entire meal and be satisfied.

I managed to avoid any homework activity today. Go, me. Have to get off my ass, or rather, plant my ass in this very chair tomorrow and make myself trudge through some serios HTML homework assignments. Ugh. But, for a little while, its still Saturday night so I am not going to think about it until tomorrow.

Bye!

Its Saturday afternoon and I've been up since about 9am just chilling and sort of procrastinating on homework.

I did a little google search looking for art groups in Rhode Island, and I happened upon a meetup group for art journalers in MA, about 30 miles away from where I live. So I thought, what the heck? and joined. Im anxious to feel that community give-and- take thing that comes from sharing ideas with other artists. I need a shot in the arm of my creative self since I feel so seperate from it right now. I know the creative process brings me nothing but good things, so I need to get back to a place where I am creating consistently again. May be this will help.

I've not yet heard anything from the person I wrote the letter to. I am not sure that
a. she recieved it
b. she is not going to respond
c. what to expect
I'm really hoping she will respect what I have said and not respond. But on the other hand, I know her very well, and sort of expect some sort of backlash from it. But overall, I feel good that I have done the thing that I have been afraid to do for the past 4 months. It was definitely something I needed to do to take care of me.

Thinking about school stuff the past several days. Had a good meeting yesterday with my mentor. I am considering taking 11 credits next semester. I'm not sure if that will be too much or not. I added up the credits that I still need for my degree. Things are kinda f'd up since I switched my major last fall and there are not a lot of credits I can transfer to my new degree program. But what I am left with is about 35 to go, which includes the dreaded math I failed last semester. I am not pleased with that high number of credits left to go but I have no choice but to move forward with it all. Potential class selection for Spring:

Programing Concepts 3 credits
Graphic Art II 3 credits
Eng Comp or Speech elective (req. courses) 3 credits
Intro to Flash 1 credit
Intermediate Flash 1 credit

=11 credits

I really need to think seriously about this kind of course load. I don't want to overwhelm myself and know already that Programming Concepts will be difficult for me because of my lack of mathmatical aptitude. There is also work to consider. I'd like to continue to work 21 hours a week.

I also need to start working on my annual holiday cards! Its never too early to start on the planning and creation of them. And I don't want to be rushed into doing them the day before I need to mail them. Oh, for those of you who are new to my LJ...I make my own holiday cards each year. If you'd like to be on my mailing list, just private message me with your address, and I'll put ya on the list! Holiday love from me!

Well, I should probably get off my butt and get my ass into the shower. Not to mention do something constructive with my day!

Love to you all!! XOXOXO

I think its natural to gravitate toward people who have similar intrests/goals/commonality on some level. I have always been drawn to people who I share common intrests or circumstances, etc. with. No one will have all the same intrests, and I have often developed intrests because a friend has introduced me to something I would not have found on my own. To me, it doesn't really matter if we have common life experiences, political beliefs or religious backgrounds. I think our differences make us beautiful and individual.

So, I guess I do believe there needs to be something in common for a successful relationship. But I definitely don't want to be in realtionships with clones of myself. Diversity is a wonderful thing.

-I wrote my letter. It was painful and yucky, but had to be done. I had two close trusted friends read it just to make sure I was being clear in not only my writing, but my intent. They both said go for it and are being the super supportive people that they are.

-I made plans to see my friend Andrew tomorrow for breakfast, which will be really nice. Its been a bit since I have seen him so I am looking forward to it.

-I also see my school mentor tomorrow to discuss course selection for next semester. I am going to look over the catalog and see what I have left to complete to drag myself ever forward toward this endless degree I am persuing.

-My gyn. called me back the other night. He got my bloodwork back, and my hormone levels are all normal. He says I am nowhere near menopausal. Is that good news? I don't know. I was sort of hoping that this would be the determination of whats going on with the hot flashes. But, I guess I shouldn't be super suprised since its never that easy when they are trying to figure things out with my body. He suggested that I have my Endocrinologist (who I convieniately have an appt. with next Friday) run a thyroid blood test to see if things are in order on that front. I have been on thyroid medication since I was 16. I guess that could be it. I hope its that easy.

-I am trying to install a trial version of Adobe InDesign on my old computer. I have the brand spanking new Adobe Deluxe suite, but know if I try to install it on this old dinosaur it might just explode. The installation is taking forever, which only serves as a reinforcement that it would not be a good idea to try to install the entire suite of programs. I need to get my ass in gear and get a new PC.

-I've run out of things to say for now....but just you wait. I'll be back.

I should go to bed. Just one thing though. I totally feel better just after figuring out what was wrong. I imagine after the initial unpleasantness of doing the actually deed, I will feel like a huge burden has been lifted. At least I hope thats how I'll feel!

ONWARD!

Welcome to the newest member of my family...my 4th cousin, Maddox Slater Ehling. 7 pounds 9 ounces, 21 inches, born 12:52 pm! Welcome to the world, little man!

love,
Aunt Julie

I had therapy today, but also got the results back from my depakote level. It was high. Not obscenely so, but yeah, higher than it should be. So, I am to decrease by 500mg starting tonight.

We talked a lot about my interpersonal situation and my feelings about it. She told me that I was being extremely hard on myself for not dealing with things sooner. She said there is no stop watch, and that I probably should not do anything until my emotions about the situation have settled down a bit. She said that it will be painful, not just for the other person, but for me as well...that endings are always hard. It made me feel better. She suggested that I use my DBT skills and try to write out something with the DEAR MAN formula, and that she and I will take a look at it at our next appointment. In the meantime, I am to be as gentle and nonjudgemental of myself as I can manage.

I have a metric ton of homework for Graphic Art to complete tonight, but right now I am waiting for Chris to get home from the market. We are letting Stop & Shop cook a roast chicken for us tonight! Sweet!

This guy to the right was really cool. He saw Chris and I and swam over to us...probably thinking we had some morsels for him, which we did not. But, he did hang out for a while and let us take a kazillion photos of him. Magnificent!!!!

OK, so I am a little late with the Halloween like post, but hey! Better late than never as I always say.

If you clicky on the picky it will take you to my flickr page and you can see the pics from my Cape Cod weekend with Chris.

I should email this pic to Neil!