stuff.

One day of bowling and I can hardly get out of bed or walk across the apartment if I've been sitting still too long. This is about the saddest thing ever. BOWLING! Took a whole day to figure out why I was sore, too because I couldn't think of anything I'd done out of the ordinary, until Aaron mentioned bowling. DUH.

No classes today, none on Monday, this is going to rock. Except for the cleaning and laundry and homework. Oh well!

More Minneapolis pictures

Well, after finding Brandon's website again with the epic journey told in amazing detail. You can read the hilarity for yourself, but if not, here are some pictures that Brandon took of us and the trip. There's actually some pictures of me in here, so I figured I should post some.

snow, deer, the lottery

Last night we recieved our first snow of the season. I was at work when it started, but really it started out as heavy rain, then sleet, then snow. By the time I got off work at midnight, there was about four to five inches of thick, wet, slushy snow covering everything. It really wasn't that cold outside, but having to unearth the snow scraper from my trunk was quite the task. The drive through the hills wasn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be, although there were only ruts in the snow to follow, and it's a very windy, hilly set of hills to drive through, so that was thoroughly frightening.

When I got home, Aaron had dinner ready for us, and as we sat down for dinner, the power went out. Then it came back on. And then it went out again, for good this time. We found all of our candles (three of them) and my camping lantern that I "borrowed" from Mom and finished our dinner. We roamed about the house, not bumping into anything because only our part of the powergrid was out, and the rest of the city was lit up, reflecting the light off the snow and the clouds, making it pretty bright outside. All we had to do was open the shades.

The trees in the town are completely devistated. They still had the majority of their leaves, and the snow was wet and heavy and stuck to everything it touched. Driving around town today, we could see many large branches, as thick as my leg, had snapped under the weight of the snow. I can't imagine what it's going to look like in a few days when (hopefully) all of the snow clears up.

When I got home from work, before the power went out, I had a message on my computer from Ashley, my sister. I guess she'd hit a deer on her way home from work last night. By the time I got the message, it was 1:30am, and she didn't answer her cell phone when I called her, so I called her today and got the story. It was snowing badly and the deer was in the road. She didn't see it until it was too late, and didn't have time to hit the brakes or swerve (thank goodness), so she hit the deer, but didn't go into the ditch or wreck. Fortunately, the deer was crossing the road, and she just hit its tail-end, knocking it off its feet. Mom said she didn't see a deer in the ditch this morning, so I think it's okay.

Also because of the snow, it was so slow at work last night that I had time to calculate the most frequently drawn Powerball numbers in the last year. Yeah, I even made a chart to show how many times each number was drawn. How sad, eh?

The power was still out this morning, but in a very strange way. Non of the lights in the ceiling would turn on. Light switches had no effect on them. But we found out that anything plugged into the wall, the the exception of the outlets in the bedroom, worked just fine. After a couple of hours it was all sorted out, however.

more of them

Spiders, that is. This one was in the computer room, on the floor, nestled up to the phone book I have sitting in front of the mirror with my curling iron resting on it (too lazy to stand up the whole time it takes to curl my hair), so I Pledged it almost to death, but when it wouldn't die, I caught him in Kleenex and flushed him down the toilet. I seem to find them all over the place, whereas Aaron never sees them 'til I point one out. The weird thing is, they're almost never the same kind of spider. Almost all of them have been a different color or size. At least I know they're not makin' babies or anything in here. OMG I would die, reincarnate myself, and then move out. And now I've started dreaming about them! Dropping down from the ceiling and landing in people's hair! Gross. Maybe I should see if spider symbolize anything in dreams...

I didn't win the lottery last night, as you can see, since the jackpot went up another 3 million dollars. I guess that just means I'll be able to win more next time, eh?

the best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and the bees, i want money...

Well, the bank finally came through and now I have my paycheck from over three weeks ago. Life is fantastic. And now it's only one week 'til the next paycheck. What am I going to do with all this money? Besides pay rent and bills and stuff? We'll find something suitable for it.

So this morning after I get out of the shower and am heading towards the closet to get some Q-tips to clean out my ears, I look over to the frame of the closet and see a freakin' spider! It was two inches from my face because I hadn't realized it was there when I was reaching in it. I made some kind of noise that will hopefully never be replicated. It was a combination of choking, gurgling, and supressed scream (Aaron was still sleeping). So, being the MacGyver girl I am and not having any bug spray or a man about to help me, I do the next best thing: hairspray and Febreze it to death.

On the way home from work this afternoon, I was almost rear-ended by the red car behind me as I'd stopped behind a car making a left-hand turn on the 4 lane road. Well, I guess the guy behind me wasn't paying too much attention to his immediate surroundings (he was pretty close to me), and all of the sudden I hear squealing brakes behind me. I look in my rearview mirror and see how close he was to me, then give him the ol' "good work, buddy," look in the rearview mirror, and speed along my merry way (because I have a lead foot and I wanted to get as far away from him as possible). He also lagged behind me quite a bit, so that was nice, too.

The fall colors are starting to spread around here, as a trip through Spearfish Canyon proved the other day when I was feeling particularly cranky. I only took one picture, though, because I was too made at the driver in front of me going only 20mph.


Bowling starts on Tuesday. This should be interesting/half exciting.

Also, tonight they draw lottery tickets. Wish me luck! 167 million dollars!

crabby

So I've been kind of a grouch the last couple of days. Aaron can vouch for that. Yesterday, I wasn't entirely sure what was wrong with me, but today it was more dealing with my bank. You see, after I cancelled the check, they told me the money would be back in my account in two to three days. Well, it's day three, and there's still nothing in my account. Which officially makes this three weeks since my paycheck was issued to me. It also didn't help the other day that I looked at my bank account online and saw that instead of having a $.45 balance like I had before, I had a -$10.05 balance. They had told me they weren't going to charge me a stop payment fee, but here I am, looking at my checking account, and I've been charged 10 and a half bucks. I call the bank, ready to rip someone a new one. Turns out it was just the charge for the box of checks I ordered, and that I wasn't going to be charged a cancellation fee. Whew. That's the one good thing I've heard from this bank the whole time.

Then today I called the bank because there is still no money in my account. The girl who answers the phone gives me the phone number of someone else who can help out more, so I call the 800 number she gives me. The number was for the Copy Shop. I don't even know where that is. I call back, a new girl answers and gives me the right phone number. I call that, looking for Amber, but get Jill instead, and then get transfered to Theresa. And someone else, but I don't remember their name. She says she's going to do some research, and she'll call me back in 15 minutes. Which means she should have called me back before Aaron and I left for Rapid City, but I didn't hear back from the bank, even after we spent 2 hours in Rapid, so I had to call them back.

Now I'm talking to Maggie, who's manager is busy right now, and who says the woman who usually deals with this stuff is gone right now. She says there's a chance that it could come in later in the day, and she'd give me a call if that happened, or call me if she found anything out. I leave her my number and lay down for a nap. I wake up, two hours later, no call. It's 6pm, so they're all gone for the day.

Then on the way to Rapid, Aaron asked me why I'd been so crabby lately, and I didn't really have an answer. He started to pry, asking if it was school, money, or work related. He knew obviously how I felt about my money ordeal right now, so I just reiterated a few things about that, like how I can't just start screaming and yelling at the person on the phone, because they're trying to help me and it's not their fault. I don't really know who's fault it is, but I seem to have created just the right circumstances (money gets turned into a paper check, sent to my home address which has a forward on it that's expired, and sent back to Rapid City's bank), where I'm just not going to get my money for a very long time.

I explained to him about my classes, how they all seem like classes I should have taken back when I was a sophomore or a junior and they now seem so basic and boring. The computer class is the worst, as you all have heard about in previous posts, but I have three other classes, two of which are taught by the same teacher and have similar guidelines: no text books, read random things and do reports on them and turn those in, no finals, no note taking, group activities, 15 page papers for an A in the class. I know what you're saying - "No final? No notes? No tests? What are you complaining about??? That's awesome!" Yeah, it kinda is. But I don't remember things unless I write them down, unless I have things to study off of. It all just kind of falls out of my head at the end of the semester when I don't need or use it anymore. Just like Sign Language; I took that two years ago, and now that I don't use it anymore, I pretty much only remember the alphabet. Then there's my class that's for people who are going to teach in middle schools, not elementary. We're required to take it because there's a chance we might teach in a rural school and have to teach middle school. Or junior high. Supposedly there's a difference in the way middle schools and junior highs are set up, but I'm not entirely clear on what that is besides the grade level difference. Also, all we do is take notes off of Power Point presentations in that class and make lesson plans.

I'm just having a rough time of it all, and really hate going to classes and dealing with my bank and not being able to do anything about it. And everything I'm doing in school or work is so weirdly spaced apart that I only have between half an hour to two hours between classes/work that I can't really accomplish anything, so I spend my days off running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get laundry, groceries, cleaning, dishes, and homework done all in a span of two days, because I'm too tired to do it any other time.

Sorry for such a whiney post, but I don't really have anyone to talk to right now because Aaron's at work and I really should be doing homework (aka learning how to add a new Web page to a site on FrontPage). See ya.

Lotto

On Sunday when I got off work, on my way past the gas station, I saw that the Powerball jackpot was up to 148 million dollars. Why not? So I go in and buy one of each kind of lottery ticket (Powerball, Hot Lotto, Wild Card, and Dakota Cash), in hopes to win a cool 148 million dollars. Or $78,000 or really anything over $50 would be great. So we'll see how that goes tonight.

Also, new "Lost" is on tonight. So excited. I actually haven't made it through my DVDs of the first season 'cause I don't want to get too behind on sleep or school work, 'cause I know that's what would happen.

This is going to be an awesome season, I'm so excited.

In other news, I've been avidly tracking my tip dollars from work with Where's George? and have found quite a few Where's George? bills in the cashier's cage that I've entered into the system. Hopefully they travel long and far and someone enters them in. I guess it would help if I would spend them, first. I feel silly paying for $20 worth of stuff all in singles. All with purple www.WheresGeorge.com stamps on the front and back, too...I know, I know...NERD. But it's entertaining, and you learn lots of new things, like about serial numbers and series and stuff like that of bills. I'll post some currency facts here soon.

OMFG

Alrighty. Remember the whole paycheck ordeal with the online SmartPay system? Well, I've since gotten paid on the 22nd, and still haven't recieved my paycheck back from the 8th. I took my paycheck from the 22nd and PERSONALLY took it down to my bank in Gillette and deposited it, so I at least have THAT money. But, I still don't have my money from the 8th. Why? I'll tell you why.

The first time you use SmartPay, they turn your electronic money into paper money and send it to Virginia (from South Dakota) for shits and giggles. Then that takes seven to 10 business days, which in real days, turns into 2 weeks, by which time I had recieved my next paycheck. Well, for whatever reasoning of mine, I sent the money to me at my home address in Gillette. Big mistake, because two years ago when I lived in the dorms, I had all my mail forwarded from Gillette to Spearfish. Great idea at the time. Apparently that forwarding service has been canceled, so the check ALMOST made it to Gillette, but not quite, because it got sent back to South Dakota. Not sure WHERE in South Dakota, but somewhere.

So, I can either change the address and try to send it to the bank's address, which will take five to seven business days (ie: another week), or I can cancel it and have the money put back in my Spearfish account, which will only take one or two days, which is what I did, as it was the fastest way to get my money back.

It took them two weeks to tell me all this information! Nobody told me that the first time I would do the SmartPay system it would be turned into a paper check and take 2 weeks to show up at my house. No one let me know that my mail had been returned because of an expired forwarding account, which shouldn't matter anyway, because my parents are still recieving a piece or two of mail for me at my permanent address!

I'm so freakin' mad. When people ask me, "Well, why don't you just close your account in Gillette and do all your banking here in Spearfish?" I know exactly why I'm not doing that. STUPID!

toothpaste & sweaters

For some reason, when Aaron moved in, he didn't bring his toothpaste with him, so he started using mine. No big deal, until he starts leaving the lid open by not flipping down the cap. So for a bit, I start just closing it for him, but it keeps happening, and the cap is getting all gross and crusty. How can boys live like that?? So I confront him and ask if he could please start closing the cap when he's done brushing his teeth. "Sure," he says, and that's that. Two days later, cap is open. I bring it to him, and he closes it. Again, the next day, the cap is flipped open. I bring it to him again, he rolls his eyes, and flips is closed.

This incident doesn't happen again for another week or so. Then it's open. I don't even remember him brushing his teeth, to be honest, but I take the toothpaste to him again, and he closes the lid. Then I said, "Sometimes I swear you don't close the lid just to destroy my mind." To which he replies, "Sometimes, I swear I just flip the cap open, even when I'm not using the toothpaste."

OMG. I almost killed him, but it was kinda too funny to actually kill him, so I just called him names instead. He claims he only did it at the beginning, when I first started asking him. Mmmm hmmm...

So that's my mean boyfriend story. Wonderful, eh?

Not to mention the fact that shortly after this happened we were getting ready to go to Wal*Mart to pick up some food (it was too late to go to Kmart...drats), and he's putting on a sweater 'cause it's cool outside, and I look at him, and stop, mid-sentence, mid-word, even, to see him in the most hideous sweater that even Bill Cosby wouldn't be caught dead in. Hand knitted, bright red with a huge yellow stripe across the upper stomach region, line with thin, blue stripes. After making sure he never wore that in public again, we were off.

Twice in one night, trying to destroy my brain.

People Bag

No, it's not as creepy as you're thinking. I'm not stuffing dead bodies in a bag or something. It's a project we had to do for my Human Relations class. We had to take a bag or box and fill it with things that represented our life. Last week the first half of the alphabet presented theirs, and this week, the second half presented, and my presentation was this week (thank goodness, or I probably would have forgotten about it last week).

In my bag I brought my iPod, because my music goes with me wherever I am. I bought my Jalan Crossland CD from the last concert of his I was at, along with the guitar tuner I won at the concert. I brought license plates from New York and an old golden/brown colored plate from Wyoming, along with my license plate purse, which everyone thought was pretty cool. Then I showed my "I love NY" shirt, and explained how I'd scoured New York trying to find it, two months before the attacks on September 11th, but then how the next summer we were there, those were the only shirts you could find. There was also my skydiving certificate from my first tandem jump when I was 16 years old (18 years old for the day), and some pictures that I passed around the classroom of my first jump. There were some books and movies, as well, and my digital camera, even though I haven't taken a lot of pictures of anything lately.

I was shaking like a leaf when I went up to present. I've always hated giving presentations or speeches, but after taking a Communications class and having a couple other classes where I have given presentations, I've gotten a lot better. I thought it was going to be easier this time around, but I'm pretty sure everyone could hear it in my voice and see it in my motions when I was holding things up. I think that the fact that nothing I had to say was pre-thought out had a lot to do with it, really, because I didn't know exactly what I was going to say, so I was kinda winging it and grasping for words. By the time the professor asked me about the skydiving, I loosened up a little bit and was more calm, 'cause someone was interested in what I was talking about, so that made it a lot easier.

Whew! Glad that's over with!