Keep on keeping on

I've got nothing new to share, even though it's been nearly a month since I last posted.

Kaylee's grown bigger and often runs to the top of the cage when I call her name but nothing really new or exciting with her.

Work is... tolerable. I'm generally busier now so even though work is no longer fun, it at least generally goes by quickly enough to not be excruciating.

I guess one thing that happened was driving up to St. Cloud on Feb. 13 to meet Tom's family at his stepmom's birthday party. That was interesting. His sisters and everyone seemed pretty nice, although I didn't spend too much time conversing with them (other than his older sister, her husband and son). The night was really long though - we had to watch a chef make our food before they brought it out to us - the dinner lasted about 3 hours. Afterwards we then immediately drove down to just outside Madison, WI to spend the rest of the 3 day weekend (hooray for President's day) at Tom's friend Julie's house. What was supposed to be exciting and fun turned into starving and extremely boring. We did nothing there but sit around and watch movies or sleep for a day and a half. And the entire time we were there we had 1 meal. It was horrible. The best part was eating at the first-ever Culver's on the way home.

Besides that, I can't even think of anything else that's happened. I guess we went down to Rochester for the superbowl. That was also kind of boring but I guess I had fun because it was my family.

Figured out my taxes as well, so should get some money for that one of these days. Been wondering what to do with it when it comes. I should probably just dump it into savings but there are a couple of things I really want. The first is a car. Mostly for convenience because really it is freaking cold here in the winter and because of that I never want to go anywhere via public transportation. Waiting outside in the cold is no fun, so unless Tom's willing to drive me somewhere (which he usually is, he's so nice) I just don't go anywhere. A car would change that. It would let me get crap done, go home to Rochester whenever I wanted, go on roadtrips, whatever! Granted I probably wouldn't do any of that but the possibilities seem endless from this end of the timeline. Of course then I have to consider how much I'm willing to pay for a car (it would definitely be used), not to mention if I can even afford it what with insurance etc. The other thing I desperately want to do is go on a vacation somewhere. Preferably somewhere warm, with a beach, but right now I'm open to suggestions. I really just want to get out of Minnesota (and by that I don't mean to Wisconsin) and relax for a week. My considerations have gone everywhere from a week in Florida with my grandparents to a week down in Texas surprising old friends to 10 days in Europe tracking down ex-best friends. That and of course flying back down to Oz (probably never to return). So what should I do? The responsible thing would be to save it or buy a car with it (practicality) but I'm really sick of always taking the responsible actions in life. That's what brought me back from Oz in the first place, my stupid sense of responsibility (or reality, whatever you want to call it). But I'm open to suggestions.

There was something else I wanted to share here...

Ah yes. I had a breakthrough the other night about what I think I really want to do with my life. More and more I've been leaning toward scientific illustration, because the more I think about it the more it sounds like something I'd actually love to do. The problem is I'm not sure if it's because I actually would love doing art for a living or that it just sounds uber cool. Since I've had this revelation I have been telling myself to just start drawing, maybe work on a portfolio for applying to schools, but haven't actually been motivated enough to start yet. Not sure what that means. Maybe I just grabbed onto this idea because it sounds cool and would get me away from my current job situation or maybe it would actually be a good fit for me, I'm just not sure. And maybe me not being sure is telling me that it's just a fantasy on my part that doesn't really fit for me. UGH! I hate my indecisiveness. And I am very surprised that "indecisiveness" is a real word.

Tom's in AZ this weekend, running some sort of relay marathon type thing (200 miles divided between 12 people) and so I've spent the weekend finally watching Castle, the series that Nathan Fillion is in these days (Mal from Firefly). It's really fun and entertaining to watch, but I had weird mystery-related dreams last night so I should probably stop watching. Kind of too late now, oh well.

Tomorrow I'm going to go see The Princess and the Frog with Hannah at the Riverview. I feel so bad, apparently her car broke down. So now, since I'm borrowing Tom's car while he's away, I finally get to sort-of repay her for all the times she's driven me by picking her up for the movie.

That's pretty much it, I hope you all have enjoyed this brief glimpse into my thoughts.

Kaylee!

Well my deadline has come and passed and I still haven't figured out my life.

I guess it's kind of stupid to put a deadline on that, figuring out your life, but still. It would have been nice to have known by now.

As far as the weekend goes, not too much has happened.

Tom got back on Friday, I picked him up at the airport, we ate lunch at Burger King, and then he dropped me off at work and went home (I said a tearful goodbye to the car I'd been using all last week). Because he's so nice though he actually got all his stuff done in time to come back and pick me up from work so I didn't have to walk home. We then hung out at my house, ate dinner (mmm sandwiches) and then went out to the Downtime (bar) in Dinkytown to watch Jordan's brother's band play (the Jason Shannon Band - original eh?). They were supposed to start at 10pm but the group on before them didn't get off the stage until 11:30pm (they weren't that good so it was really frustrating having to wait). It also sucked because the place was kind of tiny and packed so there was mostly only standing room. So that was my Friday.

On Saturday I slept in, ate food, played on the computer, was pretty much just lazy until late afternoon when Tom consented to drive me to a pet store. We went to Petsmart first, and looked at the selection of rats only to be disappointed. They were all in one cage and all looked pretty full grown. When I asked how old they were the guy looked a bit lost and seemed to make up his answer of 6 months. To me, for an animal that only lives about 3-4 years, 6 months is a bit too old to start off with. So then we went across the street to the Petco, which had a much nicer selection. The rats were separated into 3 cages - small, medium, and large; and the size pretty much directly correlated with their age (what I thought and was also confirmed by one of the workers). I hemmed and hawed for a long time but eventually decided I wanted one. Tom helped me pick out bedding, food, water bottle, wheel, and a cage topper for it (he gave me an old 10 gallon aquarium to use as a main cage) and I picked out the little rat. I picked the smallest of the smalls - she has a white body with a black head and a black stripe down most of her back. We drove her to Tom's house to get the aquarium and everything and on the way home we tried to think up some good names for her. I knew I wanted to name her something from either a book or movie I liked (I like using character names) but couldn't think of any. Finally, Tom mentioned 'Kaylee' (from Firefly/Serenity) and I thought it sounded perfect. So Kaylee it is! (If I ever get a sister rat for her, its name will be River - FYI). Saturday evening was then spent setting up Kaylee's home, playing with her, and watching her.

A lot of Sunday was spent doing that as well as playing on the computer and being generally lazy. I also started laundry on Sunday but kept forgetting about it so it still needs to be finished (hopefully tonight). Jordan's birthday was on Sunday as well, but didn't see much of him until late.

Back at work now, and not looking forward to another ridiculously slow week. On the plus side at least Tom is here to occasionally ease the tension at lunch.

I'm looking forward to getting home today and playing with my new baby (rat).