TTFN

There's a lot going on here now in real life, so I won't be updating the blog.

I'm not going to delete it; I'm just signing off for an indefinite period of time.

It's been fun.

The Answer

Not only is the answer not yes, the answer is not no. Seems the question has been taken off the table. The end result is that I've spent the past 2 1/2 months excited about the possibilities only to find out the possibilities were yanked out from under our collective feet. What a miserable feeling. Oh well. On with life.

I Still Pray That The Answer Is Yes

The waiting is eating me alive. I've learned the sound of the mailman's truck as he leaves my mailbox, pulls up to my neighbor's, and goes off down the road. I can usually be at the bottom of the hill to check the mail before he's even out of sight. But it's killing me. The nervous energy is just too much to take on a daily basis.

My husband had a really good idea last night that I'm going to start trying to implement today. He suggested it was time that I just assume the answer is no, and then if I hear otherwise, it'll be a nice surprise. I really would have liked to have heard something definitive by now. Part of me wants to say I'd rather know the answer is no than not know at all, but that's not really true. It just feels that way because the waiting is so hard.

So that's the end of the vague updates about the vague appointment and Mr. Smee (thanks, Tara). If in the future I hear an affirmative answer, I'll post an update. Until then, I guess I'm going to assume the answer is no and try to go on to the next thing I need to get done.

She Should've Kept It a Secret

Tuesday afternoon Heather and I were talking about what we were going to do when she's hear this weekend-ish. I told her I was completely flexible and willing to do pretty much anything she chose. She had something in mind already for us.

We'll be meeting for lunch at Everest on Grand. It sounded lovely when she described it: Tibetan cuisine, kind of a cross between Indian and Chinese, which we noted made perfect sense because of the geography.

I wish she had just surprised me, maybe called me up a couple hours before we met just to give me an address, because this is the third straight day I can't stop thinking about how wonderful this food will be. It's the perfect place for the two of us to go together, too, because Heather has this way of making me relax in unfamiliar situations. I'd probably be more timid trying new foods like this with anybody else.

They have yak on their menu at Everest on Grand. Will I be that adventuresome? Only time will tell.

You're welcome to join me in my droolfest:

The Cuisine
Everest Menu

I'm counting the days, Heather. Meanwhile, stay sane on your trip. Speaking of sane, if you want me to pick you up at your inlaws' house and drop you off afterwards, I do make a terrific designated driver. ;-)

Heather's Trip Trippin'

Heather, braver than most, is making her way across the country with two little ones and no other adults. You'll definitely want to follow her progress, as she's blogging along the way.

Connie, luckier than most, is anxiously awaiting her lunch date with Heather in St. Paul this weekend-ish. I'll post an update afterwards. I can't wait to see her again.

Vague Update

Just a quick vague update from the new home of cryptic messages on the blogosphere. Yesterday's appointment went as well as I could have hoped, and now I'm waiting again. Have I mentioned how much I love waiting? Maybe I'll write about that sometime. ;-)

Confessions of a Math Geek

I'm a math person. I've always been a math person. In middle school and high school I won all kinds of math contests and had a blast doing so. I still have the trophies and plaques and ribbons in a box somewhere.

When I worked at Disney World, we had a 40% off discount on merchandise in the two months leading up to Christmas. My friends would always want to go shopping with me because I could look at the price tag and tell them the discounted price instantly. (It's really quite simple. 40% off is the same as paying 60% of the normal price. Just multiply the price by 6 and move the decimal point one place. A $20 item would be $12.)

My current hobby/job is getting us great deals with coupons and rebates. I often earn money on products that I "buy" this way. Really it's just a math game with prizes.

My favorite class that I ever took was Differential Equations. I want to go back to school to take Calculus III so that I have the prerequisites to take Partial Differential Equations. That would be a fun class.

But....

I stink at ordinals. I don't know what my problem is with them, but I stink at them. Maybe I'm allergic to them. Maybe I try too hard. But I always mess them up. My parents were married in December 1966. Last year, in December 2005, I sent them a bouquet of roses. After all, their 40th anniversary was a big deal. Sure, except it was their 39th anniversary.

For this past Father's Day, I gave my dad a present that said on it "Happy 30th Father's Day." That's great, except that this is his 31st Father's Day. He was a father the summer before I turned 1.

Oddly enough, if you ask me what century the 1800s was, I can correctly tell you it was the 19th century. But I think about it longer than I should have to before I answer.

Don't tell any of my math teachers; I'm too embarrassed. If you see them, tell them instead that I want to take Partial Differential Equations for fun and when I get bored I work systems of algebra problems to kill time. X's and Y's and derivatives and integrals I can handle. But man, those ordinals are hard.

Mandatory F.U.N.

Friday I have an appointment of sorts -- of vague sorts, if you've been paying any attention at all to what Mr. Smee and I have been telling you -- at 9:30 am. I'm a little nervous about it. Not so much about whether it will go well or not, just that I'd rather it be today so I could get it over with. Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep myself busy so that I don't dwell on it too much. Idle hands and all that.

The summer after my junior year of high school I went to a 4-week-long summer program for those of us on the top of our academic game. One of our recurring activities was called F.U.N. I don't recall now what the acronym stood for, but it was very contrived, and it was a mandatory activity. It quickly and not-so-affectionately became known as Mandatory Fun. In that spirit, I'll share with you my to-do list for today:

Time of Your Life doing the laundry

Barrel of Laughs straightening up the living room

More Fun Than a Canned Ham putting non-perishables away in the pantry

Squeal with Delight cleaning out the kitty litter

Giggle Like a Schoolgirl washing the dishes

Fall Down from Laughing So Hard paying the bills

Jump for Joy making a shopping list for tomorrow

See you on the other side.

Signed as slowly as possible to continue putting off the inEvitable,

Cinderella Connie

Doses of Perspective from Kansas City, MO

Yesterday I was cruising via the NEXT BLOG button, and I happened upon waterandclay by Tara from Kansas City, MO. She gave me a dose of perspective that I have been needing, especially over the past week or so. You should check her out.

Then this morning Tara visited my blog, and in the process proved that she should be the Mad Libs champion of the universe. Go back to my post from 10/18/06 "A Vague Post About Vagueness" and read the comments. I laughed so hard I cried. Welcome to the blogging world, Tara. Please do stick around.

And Tara, you really should check out my friend Heather's blog: Moncks Corner Moments. I think you two probably have a lot in common.

Thank you, Ryan Boe

This is an example of a fine young man. Great job, Ryan.

The Joy :::cough cough::: of Waiting

I'm in a holding pattern now, in regards to that/those thing/s I can't talk about without being very vague (or as Uncle Ben mentioned in comments on yesterday's post, talking in code). I'll have to work out a code later. For now, I'll just be vague.

I wonder if God is telling me it's time to learn to be a little more patient. Okay, probably a lot more patient. In a world where communication has become instantaneous, I'm left twiddling my thumbs for minutes, hours, days, weeks, and even months about this. I want my answer/s now, but the person / people / powers-that-be that can get me the information doesn't/don't happen to use email. At this point I think I'd settle for smoke signals along the horizon in Morse Code. I'm not fluent in Morse yet, but I do have a cheat sheet that I could use for a nice short message like this one:
_ . _ _
.
. . .
Is that too much to ask?

Don't answer that yet.

I'll wait.

A Vague Post About Vagueness

One phone call earlier today may very well change my life. I won't know for a while, but there's that possibility. The problem is that I can't talk about it here.

Blogging seemed like it was going to be a great little pasttime for me. Then I realized that most of what I want to talk about isn't appropriate for such a public, permanent, searchable, traceable-back-to-the-real-me forum. Not that I have inappropriate things to talk about, just that this isn't really the place. For instance, if I were going to ____ for a _____, it would be inappropriate to talk about that here. If I did _____ _ ____, I shouldn't talk about that here, either. Or if I happened to _____ ___ ____ _____ ___ _____ ___ ____ ____ _____ ___ __________, that is most definitely not appropriate for discussion on my blog.

It's tough sometimes. I want to come here and write about ___ __ ____ and ___ ____ to get it off my chest, to help me sort through my feelings, and to get some feedback on the situations, but I just can't. I know at least one of you out there have had the same experience. I even know who you are, but mentioning your name isn't appropriate either. And I know at least one blogger out there who should seriously consider censoring him/herself once in a while, but that's another story for another day.

So what do you guys do when you have stuff to write about that you really shouldn't post?

The Most Overused Word in the English Language

I love God.
I love my spouse.
I love my parents.
I love my friends.

I love my neighbor.
I love my cats.
I love the United States of America.
I love reading.

I love autumn.

I love traveling abroad.
I love The South.
I love chocolate.
I love the way my hair looks today.

It's a boy

Congratulations to my friends

in North Carolina,

R & M,

on the birth of

their newest little lad.

My Own Personal M*A*S*H-a-thon

Do I want to spend another $30ish on this?



Or do I want to spend $140ish on this and get all the bonus discs as well?



Yeah, I've already decided, too. So in the meantime, does anybody want to buy my M*A*S*H Seasons 1 - 10 DVD collection? I've spent over $300 so far, but I'm willing to let it go for $110 plus shipping. ;-)