Long Time, No Blog July 3, 2008

I have realized that I have been siriusly neglecting this blog.  Yes, that was a Sirius pun.  Anyway, I haven’t posted anything in over a week, which is rare.  This time it is not due to any Plurking.  I have not Plurked in over a week either.  Life has just been utterly chaotic.

My twin cousins’ graduation from high school was last Saturday.  Graduations at their school are quite different than at mine.  Theirs are quiet and the students are respectful.  At my graduation, we were loud and obnoxious and did not shut up even during the speeches.  Beach balls, silly string, and bubbles were all over the place, despite the principal’s long lecture about not bringing them.  Then there were the loud shouts of ‘06!’ and the loud horns that people had stationed outside the building to sound when their friends names were called.

My cousins’ graduation was quite different.  The students were all quiet during the speeches and I did not see a single beach ball.  There were some bubbles, but they were being used by someone in the audience.  I was impressed that someone brought some horns and sounded them a bit, which was something that didn’t happen at my other cousins’ graduations years ago.

The party was fun and the food was good.  The biggest difference between their party and parties where I live was the lack of gnats.  At outdoor graduation parties where I live, pretty much everyone has their hand in the air waving away the gnats the whole time.  There was a noticeable lack of hand waving at my cousins’ graduation.  My family found this kind of funny.  Of course, there was also a lack of little black ’sprinkles’ in the cake.

We arrived home on Saturday night and I went to a friend’s graduation on Sunday.  That one was fun, although it did rain and we had to go inside.  Then, yesterday started my five days of work without a day off.  I worked yesterday, today, and have to work tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.

Then, a week from today, we are getting our carpet redone upstairs.  This was brought on by my brother’s fish tank leak a couple weeks ago.  So I have to spend Monday and Tuesday moving all my stuff to the basement.  That will be a tedious job.

Other than that, not much new has been going on.  Benny is fine and he helped my mom clean out the refrigerator today.  He cleaned the vegetable drawers.  Sadly there are no pics since I was at work at the time.  Weasley and Moony are good as well.  Weasley will have to spend a couple days in a fish bowl during the carpet project since his tank is in my room.

Oh, and I am pet sitting my neighbors two tortoises for a couple days.  They’re pretty interesting.  I’ll get some pics sometime.  It was pouring rain when I went over today so I didn’t get any pics today.  They live outside.  Their names are Zander and Rocko.

Do You Have Dry Cleaning? June 26, 2008

Most of you probably know that I work in a grocery store.  Last week I was talking to someone I work with and she told me that some guy came into the store with his suit and asked her ‘Do you have dry cleaning here?’  Wow.  The store is big, but it never would have crossed my mind to think a grocery store would have dry cleaning.

The day before this happened, someone came through my line and asked me if we had a service where you could call ahead with your grocery list and someone would shop for you.  Then you could come and pick up your groceries.  Nope, don’t have that either.  If you call ahead with a deli or sub shop order, they can have that all ready for you, but not your entire list of groceries.

I must say that it was a strange week.

Gotta Love It June 22, 2008

I am thoroughly enjoying my summer and not having to drive to school everyday.  Gas just keeps going up and is about $4.15 here at the cheapest.  I am happy to report that I just got gas for $4.10 at a gas sale today.  It cost me about $57, which wasn’t even a full tank.

You’re probably wondering why I am happy about this, but the thing is that I have not purchased any gas for my car in four weeks.  Yes, I went an entire month without filling up my car’s tank.  It is a pretty big tank at 18.5 gallons, but still.  I hadn’t realized how much gas I was burning going to school.  During the school year I would fill up my tank every other week.  It took me about 20 minutes to get to school during good traffic.  Work is half the distance at 10 minutes.

If things keep going with this, I will only have to buy 2 more tanks of gas this summer before I leave for school in August.  Of course, with gas going the way it is, it will be $4.30 the next time I buy gas and it will cost me over $60.

Why Must You Do That, Saab? June 16, 2008

My car stalled on the way to work on Saturday, although I didn’t know that’s what it was doing.  I was driving down a hill and all of a sudden the steering wouldn’t work and neither would the brakes.  It was scary.  There was a curve coming up and I managed to steer it around the curve, but then the check engine light, the warning light, and the change oil lights all came on the dashboard.  The steering was getting worse so I decided to try and pull onto a side street.

I managed to get it onto the side street and pull over, but the brakes weren’t working at all.  I actually remembered that in Driver’s Ed my teacher told us to pull the emergency brake if that happened.  So I tried it and it worked and I stopped the car without crashing into anything.  I was freaking out at that point, but very happy I didn’t crash.

I called my dad and told him what happened and he came to check out the car.  I called work and told them I’d be late.  That was the second time I was late this week.  I thought I didn’t have to work Tuesday, but turns out I did, so I was 45 minutes late that day.  I hadn’t ever really been late before Tuesday and now I’ve been late twice in one week.  I didn’t get in trouble or anything, though.

My dad came and he restarted the car and none of the lights came on.  Of course it worked then.  Nothing appeared to be wrong with it, but I didn’t really want to drive it.  I took my dad’s car to work and he took mine home.  He drove it around a few times and nothing happened.

Turns out, it just stalled and I didn’t know it since it has never happened to me before.  I’m just glad it’s nothing that needs to be repaired.  I took it to work today and it was fine.  It was just scary because nothing like that has ever happened to me before.  I just hope it doesn’t happen again.  Come on, Saab, behave nicely.

Blame It On The Plurk June 14, 2008

I too, have been caught up in the new online addiction that is Plurk.  My blogging friends, Baja, Tortilla, Yoon, VaZ, and PrincessGinger have also joined in on the Plurking.  I blame Yoon for my addiction.  However, since it is summer and I have no homework to do, I don’t really mind the new addiction.

Not much is new in my life since I have started Plurking.  I am currently working on a new fan fiction and reading The Warrior Heir, by Cinda Williams Chima.  It is very good and I highly recommend it.  I have also been working a lot.  My siblings are almost done with school and I have been out for over a month.  The summer is flying by.  I am actually going to start shopping for my dorm room tomorrow, so that just shows how fast the summer is going by.

The insane heat has finally come to an end, although I would prefer it to be cooler still.  It is in the 80s today and although that is better than last week’s 90s, I want it to be in the 70s.  Benny has been laying around like a lazy dog ever since it got hot.  He is still pretty crazy, but hasn’t really made much trouble lately.  Although, now that I wrote that, I’m sure I jinxed it.

800 Words of Awesomeness! June 11, 2008

JK Rowling has written an 800 word prequel to the Harry Potter series!  It was written for charity and auctioned off.  A bunch of authors wrote stories and they were compiled together into this book that was auctioned off.  You can also buy a copy of it online.

However, the stories are also online!  I just read Jo’s story and it was great!  Funny, detailed, and just plain awesome.  If anyone wants to read it, here’s the link.

http://www.mugglenet.com/app/news/full_story/1684

BaO, BaO, Wherefore Art Thou BaO? June 11, 2008

Broomsticks And Owls, the first Harry Potter forum I ever joined is not working.  It’s driving me crazy.  I’m thoroughly addicted to that forum and rarely go a day without visiting it.  It stopped working last week and was down for a few days before the administrator fixed it.  But it was only fixed for a couple days and now it’s broken again!  Come back to me, BaO, come back!

Five Pounds of What?! June 8, 2008

I just thought I would share something funny about work.  There’s a certain kind of potato that comes in a five pound bag.  When I ring it up on the register it says ‘5# Idaho Pot’.   It makes me laugh every time.  Then when the receipt prints out, it says ‘5# Idaho Pot’ on the receipt.  I’m very curious as to who decided that, and why.  I’m guessing whoever did it has a sense of humor.  Either that or my mind just works in ways other people’s don’t.  My siblings found this very entertaining as well.

Fun At Work June 6, 2008

Yep, today was pretty fun at work.  They had this event going on for employees to get everyone to live healthier.  They had a bounce house set up in the parking lot, along with basketball, power walks, whiffle golf, and a Wii set up in the break room.

An hour and a half into my shift one of the managers asks me if I want to go do the bounce house.  Of course I do!  I got paid to shoot hoops and go in the bounce house for 10 minutes.  And the best part was that they’re raffling off the Wii!  So I got four raffle tickets (completely free) and entered to win it.  That would be so cool if I actually won it.

Plus, they had free water, yogurt, granola, and fruit in the break room.  I went and got some once I was done with my shift.  It was quite tasty.

Of course, it had to be 90 degrees today.   It got so hot and humid that they decided to hold the power walks in the store.  I was all sweaty from my time in the bounce house, so that was kinda gross, but it was fun.  Not your average day at work.

Go Obama June 5, 2008

One of my neighbors has a sign in his yard that says ‘Stop Obama’.  This same guy had a ‘I support the second Wal-Mart’ sign in his yard a couple months ago.  Then he put up a ‘McCain 2008′ sign.  That has now been removed in order to put the ‘Stop Obama’ sign up.

I personally am an Obama fan and so is my entire family.  I’ve decided that we need to put a ‘Go Obama’ sign in our yard to counteract his sign.  Perhaps a ‘Stop McCain’ sign as well.