lotto

i know it's silly & fruitless, but i often daydream about winning the lottery. i rarely buy a ticket & i almost never go to the casino, but i just can't seem to help myself. oh, how satisfying it would be! first i'd pay off all my bills (private college loans! grad school!), then quit my job, pay off a friend's school debt (we have a pact if either of us wins), take care of my parents & do a bit of traveling (a couple months?). i would be one of the few well-adjusted powerball millionaires. unlike those who succumbed to the lottery curse, i'd live the rest of my life on $50-60k per annum with a few splurges here & there.

yep, i've got it all planned out. but first i 'spose i have to buy a ticket.

recap:things to do before i'm 30

i posted this list a while back on my co-blog and now it's just a smidge more than a year off that i'll need to accomplish these things!

balance my checkbook (for at least 6 months in a row)
fall in love*
get healthy
go skydiving (tandem or solo)
hit the slopes (for the 1st time in over a decade)
make out with someone older than me*
travel to the uk again (can't break my stride- 4x in 11 years!)**
finish my bip (book-in-progress)
submit an article for publishing (any publication qualifies)
attend a broadway show (big apple, london theatre excluded)
see my brother home from iraq (actually see him)*
throw my 'rents a birthday party (they deserve it & they're only a week apart)
return to italia (hint, hint amanda)
reunite w/ my ascsa or caesarea friends (it's been too long)
see tt exchange vows with his honey (they're so cute!)*
watch my cubbies get a w @ wrigley (is it asking too much?)
become an actual member at zion (i've only been attending for 5 years)*
attend my 10th hs reunion (w/out reverting to the person i was then)***
visit becky in florida (are you happy now?)
continue my thanksgiving tradition ('06-nashville, '07-woodruffs?)*
pay off my credit card debt, completely


*accomplished
**i'm leaving in february!
***too little too late-didn't really want to go

this list will continue to grow & change. some of these items are significantly more frivolous than others, but that doesn't mean i don't want to finish them all.

war torn

oh g-d. i am going to die.
tonight, in the middle of dinner, s told me that he would volunteer to go back to iraq if his old unit were redeployed. you see, he switched to a local unit this year. he'll drill here in town starting next month, but they've already been called up, & since he's not trained as a medic yet & their roster is filled, he's not going back. but if the unit he went to iraq with in 2004 gets called any time this year, he's going to volunteer even though he's supposed to be out january of next year. they're family. i spent about an hour crying & calling him mean for doing that to me.
i don't think i can handle him being gone, in danger, for 15 months. i'm not gonna pull the 'be strong' mentality. i missed him terribly when he was gone for two weeks at annual training last may. it'll be an infinite number of times more difficult if he's gone for over a year. and it's not like this war is going to end any time soon. in two months, it'll have been going on for FIVE years. five whole years! can anyone believe that? and have we really achieved that much in such a period of time? it's definitely not that i don't support the troops; it's the war i have a problem with. my brother is also a decorated veteran. before i ever met s, my brother had my support & prayers, no matter what i thought of the events over in the 'big sandbox' as they call it. i just don't know how i can deal with this when, if it does happen. the likelihood is greater than ever with this whole idea of stopping troop cutbacks from w recently. how i wish richardson had stayed in the race & won, so someone would actually get all the troops out. not for me, but for all the families of soldiers. okay, yes, for me. because i'm selfish & don't want s in danger again. just because i didn't know him when, doesn't mean that i don't freak out thinking about what he went through, how he's still suffering from things that happened. if he has to go again, how can his luck hold out? and how am i supposed to deal with it?

travelin’

this morning some friends leave for a month in asia. i am so jealous, even if i do leave for london via nyc in…47 days. that sounds like a lot more than saying 6 weeks. i've truly missed traveling. the last time I went abroad was 5 years ago. that's the longest time in between trips since i started my trekking at 16. as previously mentioned, this will be my fifth trip to london. it's nice to have the familiarity of a big city that you’ve seen once or twice (or fice?), but knowing that there’s always more to see, and what you’ve seen before may have changed ever so slightly. i'm looking forward to the national gallery, the new tut exhibit and eating at my favourite london restaurant-my old dutch. can't wait!
my coworker just got back from her first trip to london. she thought she was getting a tour with some other people since she went by herself. nope, turns out they just gave her some vouchers for things like a play and a bus tour of the city. she was there for new year’s eve & her birthday, all alone. i don’t think i’d mind & she said she didn’t. makes me reminisce about my first trip. there were eight of us from my hs. 4 guys, 4 girls, plus our English teacher who’d arranged the trip under the umbrella of the drama club going to see Shakespeare & other good theatre. 2 of the guys, one being my best friend’s older brother chad, & his best pal at the time, dan, had actually graduated. ahhhh, memories. my roomie & friend since kindergarten went on the trip with her bf at the time. i can't say i appreciated paul peeping in our window in attempts to get nikki to come outside to make out or whatever i thought they might be doing in my innocence at the time.
with any luck, this trip will be the best one yet. my mom will have more than 3 days to explore the city & i'll be able to revisit all my favourite haunts (st martin's crypt, my old dutch, national gallery) & maybe catch some new ones.

it's on!

oh, my guilty pleasure!
lucas, haley, nathan, peyton, brooke, mouth, skillz
how I love the hs (now post-college) drama that is one tree hill.

and it's so much better knowing i'm not alone. glad to have you on board, a.

omg! i am so fat!

okay, not really fat at all, but not feeling particularly healthy. i'm actually a couple pounds over my default weight of 150. that’s the weight i usually rebound back to & on me, it’s not so terrible. technically within the normal bmi range, depending on how tall you think i am. (i maintain that i'm 5’6”!)
well, my willpower is not helping me through & i'm too shy (read-antisocial) to join a gym. i would like to take up swimming. good exercise, low impact. we'll see how things work out. maybe i can convince s to go swimming at the rec with me. he keeps saying he wants to lose weight, too.

clearing the air

so, on to my emotional spring cleaning. i went back to church today. for the first time in, well, months. and it was good. i hope i can keep it up. i really missed the feeling of being there. (despite the awkwardness i always feel while sharing the peace-where to turn?!? who to shake hands with next?!?)

with that part down, i just need to take control of my insecurities in my relationship. it's not any tangible thing; just me being an idiot & worrying about what could happen, losing s. if anything, i think things are even more amazing between us, but this is all such uncharted territory for me that it scares me sometimes. a lot. and yet, he's still here, telling me he loves me, even when i'm being a complete & total idiot. especially when i'm an unrelenting moron. i guess that should be a sign. i'm such a lucky girl.

spring cleaning

today s helped me clean out my closet. not exactly spring, but when the time is right. it's been years, no exaggeration, since i've been able to fit everything into my closet. it's kindof sickening how all my clothes spill out, as if i even need that much. s wasn't nearly as brutal about getting rid of things as i thought he'd be. still, it looks a million times better. i'd planned to drop everything off at goodwill, but the mil (mother-in-law) suggested to s that i bring it to the women's shelter. didn't even cross my mind because i always bring things to the consignment place or goodwill.

now i've got the storage space under the stairs, my computer desk & hall closet. heh, it's only taken 5 years. tomorrow we'll tackle rearranging s' apartment. then on to the emotional spring cleaning.

off the wagon

so, what? i lasted all of two days at my writing quota? just because i didn't blog yesterday or write elsewise doesn't mean i should quit altogether. back on the horse, or the keyboard as the case may be, right?
well, last night i let my anxiety of crowds & people in general overtake me once again. s picked me up from work & suggested dinner. i asked if i'd be home in time to caucus. sure, not a problem. we ended up at peking buffet for chinese. (yeah, that helps any healthy eating plans go awry.) it was definitely tasty & i hadn't been there in a long, long time. when we got back to my apartment, i wasn't up for going out in the frigid weather to a rec center & i talked myself out of it. *sigh* i gotta get over this whole misanthropic tendency of mine to stay sequestered at every opportunity.
g'night for now!

write more!

how's that going for me, you ask? oh, here i am, just getting around to making a post or at least some little blurb. hmph! at least i forced myself to do my daily 20 minute workout a few moments ago.

perhaps tomorrow i'll have something of interest to post. in case you were unaware, it's the iowa caucus thursday night & i inted to be a first time caucuser (is that what i'm going to be?!?) i'm still feeling quite torn on what i'll do. i've been leaning obama for the past few months, but in all honesty, i really like bill richardson & his stances, even though i'm afraid he doesn't have a snowball's chance in... new mexico. admittedly they aren't terribly different from barack's take on the issues. i've been terribly lax on researching those issues, even the ones i consider important to me.

if i weren't so anti-social, as s oft tells me, perhaps this wouldn't be such a big deal. the fact that it's so icy frigid is not much of an incentive to go out of the house after spending all day at work. but this is a democratic privilege to take part in the process & hey, it's only a couple hours out of my evening. i wonder if my vote will make a difference?

resolute 2008

here we are! a new year again & how many people are making their cliched resolutions. bunches! myself included.

i resolve to do my best to write daily (blog, writing class or bip, one or all three) and i'd like to get in shape. lose weight, but mostly focus on toning. i really liked the weight i was when i left the hospital, just not the weakness involved.

to everyone: best wishes on any resolutions you make & here's to a happy, healthy (if not wealthy), loving & loved 2008 for all.