A Heart's a Heavy Burden

So, I had a really nice weekend. I took a half day on Friday for PTO and spent the afternoon and evening with the lovely Breanna and her man Lamin. Lamin is from Africa and so are the other people I met that they spend their time with. Lamin ADORES Bre and it's very obvious if you're with him for four seconds. It was really, really fun and Lamin made what he calls "African Sauce" - a mixture of an oily soup base with carrots, peppers, onions, etc. He also cooked drumsticks on the bone to the point that the meat just fell off when you ate it. They normally make it spicy but Lamin tried VERY hard to make it not spicy for me, the honored guest. It turned out very, very good. You just pour the whole thing over rice and yay! Nommy meal. Bre complained about the rice the whole time (it was very dry, I think because Lamin was concerned about keeping me too late and rushed it) while I just laughed at her because dry rice, while not preferred, is not a big deal. XD She's so funny. Lamin has a good sense of humor to match hers.

Oh, and I had to deal with lame work stuff WHILE ON PTO because that's how the job is sometimes. Bleh.

Conveniently this took until about 10pm, at which time I crashed at home for an hour and a half until I was surprised with.. GASP! Scavenger HUUUUNT! I was most thoroughly surprised/tricked AGAIN because Steve let me get all changed into comfy clothes and snuggle into bed. He kicked off the Hunt by taping the first clue to a confused Grim's cone (Grim was Mr. Freeze XD). It was Batman themed, so each person involved got be a villain for me to foil. Scott was a chilling and AMAZING Zsasz, Nick was the Joker, Noah was Calendar Man (complete with a calendar cape and shirt with an X'ed out 19 on it ahahah). Pat was the Riddler, and Faith was a nearly-nude captured Poison Ivy that I had to save (she was secluded from the boys' eyes in Pat's room and Pat was the one to write her part). Steve, was Alfred, my trusty Butler. It was so much fun.

Gifts I got include a Harley Quinn figure from Arkham Asylum, 2 Nintendo DS games, slippers from American Eagle, a full replacement set of hardcover Harry Potter books in a wizard's trunk from my AMAZING boyfriend (as my entire collection save for book 7 disappeared mysteriously a few years ago...), and a buttload of candy from my less money-fortunate friends. Oh, and Calendar man got me a calendar XD Pat went on about he had planned to prove me wrong and NOT give me an I.O.U. (I have no idea how many I've collected from him ahaha) but that the item was GUARANTEED shipping and it didn't arrive... so I got an I.O.U. A couple days later he finally checked his email and it turns out he never bought it because he entered his payment information wrong. I LOL'd. I win again!

Saturday it SNOWED. Like, 3 inches. The weather was trolling me hard that day. "Muahaha it's yo birfdai? HAVE SOME SNOW. >:D" It actually wasn't ALL that cold out and it will probably be melted by tomorrow as it's been in the mid-40's today and is supposed to be in the 50's tomorrow. Steve and I went to dinner with my parents on Sunday, and it was delicious! Prior to that Steve and I decided to hit the B-ville mall because we both needed to suck it up and buy some pants that actually FIT. Steve ended up with a good haul, including 3 pairs of "skinny" jeans from the Guys section. I say "skinny" because they're not skinny in the sense of girl pants skinny, which is what he normally wears. They are not leg-hugging like he is used to. I rather like it. Sexay ^_^ We were on our way to the Juniors section when we spotted my parents! I went BOUNDING towards them to surprise them, when I noticed they were carrying what was obviously gifts for me. I was like two feet away from them when I skidded to a halt and started shoving Steve away as fast as I could! We were able to hide from them in the slipper section, but they were rounding the escalators where we needed to be! For some reason they circled back, and Steve was like, "What if they come around that corner and see us crouching here?!" At which point I burst into quiet laughter and said that it would be hilarious. We were able to escape and sneak back upstairs and buy Steve's things and high-tail it out of there! We were very surprised when we saw August at dinner, because if he had been with them he SURELY would have seen us and ruined our noble plot not to spoil that we saw some of my gifts! Luckily they turned out to be last-minute bday gifts and not for Christmas so I didn't have to hold that secret for long. It was really fun to play Stealth Escape Mode.

I really hate spoiling surprises so if I ever do, I NEVER give it away that I knew. It just deflates the excitement the person has for the gift they're giving you! I never do it on purpose, because I LOVE being surprised.

We took Monday off as well, and while I enjoyed napping most of it away, I played a good chunk of Ar Tonelico. Steve was playing Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword all weekend. I had terrible sleep Monday night because I kept dreaming about work, all anxious and stressed out. Last night I dreamed about buying groceries and losing one of the bags with the perfect pizza in it, and going back to the grocery store and finding exotic Chobani yogurt flavors. :P

Grim hasn't been feeling well. He's not been eating, and he projectile vomited all over me and the bed this morning. He was too quick for me! So he's been spending copious amounts of time just laying in one spot. Poor guy :( But! The cone comes off today! I hope he improves then.

Wow, it feels like forever since I've really been on the internet. And with that said, I'm only partially able to be on. As I've mentioned in the past, the work computers are woefully not updated, so I can't see half the things you guys are posting (such as tumblrs, pics, etc.). D: I'll have to catch up more tomorrow - normally it'd be fine but I'm not working with Isaac tonight so I'm in a different office with internet that is apparently incompatible with my laptop.

Soooo.... we got ANOTHER death snowstorm snowpocalypse. About 12 inches yesterday. AND IT WAS IN THE 50's LAST WEEK. For like a day, BUT! It was WARM, and melty, and great. And now it's like we're back in December. UGHHHH.

I wasn't able to go work yesterday then. Like, LITERALLY was not able to leave my driveway. Actually, I left my driveway, buuuut only about a foot. Then I was stuck. And Steve and I spent a half hour unsticking me so I could get back into the driveway. It just wasn't happening. So poor Chuehue had to stay a whole extra shift. That's the risk we run working in a stupid 24-hour facility or a place that houses people who need supervision. The plows didn't even come by until my shift was completely over. Jerks.

Steve had the whole weekend off, so it was really really nice otherwise. Mostly just attending to and monitoring Grim and playing games. On Saturday we went to my parents' house and had my nephew Cayden's 1st birthday party. It was low-key and fun (with plenty of inappropriate talk by my hilarious 16-year-old cousin - the last discussion I was a part of was when she asked if any of us women had hair in their butt cracks because she does. I told her to shave it.), but apparently every person at the party now has the stomach flu, with the exception of Steve and myself. FINGERS CROSSED!

We watched a good chunk of Scrubs this weekend and finished Gangland. I've slowly been working through Final Fantasy VI, leveling my Druid (almost to 69!), I got all "S" ranks in Elite Beat Agents, and now I'm gonna finally beat SoulSilver before I get White (pre-ordered awhile ago). All I needed to do was fight Lugia and beat the elite four. I caught Lugia. Now, onward! Omg it was so funny when I turned the game on and I didn't know what to do, so Steve talked to professor Elm and he said, "You need to see the kimono girls at the dance theater." And I was like, "Buuuut I already weeeeent there and no one was hooooome!" And he was like, "You should try again." So we both hovered over the screen and when the theater was empty (AGAIN), it was lolsville.

Currently I'm tired and irritable and am worried I'm starting to give into hypochondria. Sleep the past two nights has been awful for us. We just can't fall asleep! It's broken and lame. We're hoping tonight's the night that our bodies finally give in and let us sleeeeeep.

Friday night was spent being anxious, while also having a Friends Group Fun Time for Joe's birthday. Pat really wanted to get Joe back for having to drink a really spicy blend of hot sauce on HIS birthday (it was a mugful, too), so with all this bitterness in mind, created a list of mean things to make Joe do. The only one that was vehemently put down by the group was Cat Hair Mustache as Joe is very allergic to cats.

This list of things Joe had to do were:
-Wear socks
-Boy-hug gauntlet
-Boondock Saints study and quiz
-Forced Instance in WoW
-Who's touching me?
-Passionate right-wing speech
-Singing Man in the Box on Rock Band
-30-second Rock Star Cola chug
and there were two we ended up being too lazy to do-
-10 second ultra run
-Drive around the block

So, Joe doesn't like being touched, hence the hug one and the "who's touching me" one. He had to be blindfolded for the latter, and the boys would take turns molesting him and he'd have to guess whose hands they were. The Forced Instance I would not have done, as the boys respec'd him to have terrible stats and put him as a tank in an instance, and he wasn't allowed to say anything but "sorry" if people complained. Oh, and he had to wear socks for the duration of the fun-time, because he NEVER wears socks.

The Boondock Saints and Man in the box were because he (and most in the friends group) HAAAATES those two things (Alice in Chains/93x bands aka rock in general, and cheesy-type movies). The notes he took on the movie were soooo funny. He just had to watch the intro because we were too lazy to find an actual scene. And his voice is NOT made for Alice in Chains songs. Soooo funny. He got bonus points for letting Pat "hold" his cell phone during the singing, and Pat sent texts to a bunch of people - his sister, his crush, one of his parents, a stoner, and some random person. The one to his sister (who he is NOT close to - he and his brother are adopted but the sister is the biological child) was saying they're getting older and should be closer, the one to his crush was a silly but cute like, "It's my birthday and I'm wishing I was seeing your pretty face" or something, I'm sure the one to the parent was like, "Sup bro?", the one to the stoner was saying they should totally toke up, and I can't remember what the random text said. Something like, "Happy birthday to you too I guess."

The "speech" he had to read was random copy-pastes from Sarah Palin's speeches, literally. Steve just clicked through her speeches and took sentences and parts of sentences and mashed them together. It was so funny. The 30-second rock star cola chug must've sucked. Imagine trying to quickly down a carbonated energy drink D: And he HATES rock star cola (me too). But then! Presents, and cake. He got Golden Sun: Dark Dawn from Steve, WoW Cataclysm from Pat, and I knit him a scarf. Faith and I made him an AMAZING cake, especially for literally splitting it in half and working on our respective sides.

( CAKE AND SCARF )

It was a fun time.

In other news, Grimmy's doing a lot better but he's not home-free for another week or so. He's halfway through his painkillers though. It'll be good when he's off of them so he'll be more lucid. He's been making little piddles, but still hasn't pooped at all. But he was in very good spirits when I was getting ready for work at 11:30! He even ate a kitty treat - I bought them special urinary tract health treats ^_^

Steve, Nick, Joe Waid and I are all going to see Distant Worlds (Final Fantasy music, and Nobou Uematsu's gonna be there!) on June 26 in Chicago!! In light of this, I've decided to try to play as many of the FF games that are in the program as possible (there are two different shows - the one we're going to is here.), starting with Steve's favorite - FFVI :D Eeeee! It's super fun so far.

Ah! On Friday I turned 23. So. I pretty much spent my birthday weekend doing everything that I wanted to do.

On Thursday night Steve and I went to the theater at 10:30 to get our seats for Harry Potter. Our theater was already full. We were able to snag three seats toward the front (the third for Nick). We assumed that Nick's sister would be in a different theater, and we KNEW Pat and Faith would be in a different theater, having bought their tickets the day of. We just hung out and played our DSiXLs. There were a TON of teenagers running around with wands and a quaffle playing Quidditch. And many more dressed up of course. It was cute to see other Huffpuffs. Steve mentioned to me that he thought there's no Ravenclaw love out there. I personally know a few people who I think would be in Ravenclaw (looking at you, Athena. Though I think you'd also be great in Slytherin).
 
The movie? AMAZING. omg. omg. Yes. 
***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***
Of course, I'm the only one who remembered that in the book Wormtail's own hand turns on him, and that X. Lovegood's horn thing goes off (though it WAS in the background of the scene), and that Bellatrix calls Voldemort and he shows after the kids escape and punishes everyone. Though speaking to that scene, Emma Watson did AMAZING on her tortured screams. Gives me the shivers. We all know the most awkward scene was the part where Ron pictures Harry and Hermione apparently nakedly making out after having been processed in Photoshop. And Daniel Radcliffe is far too short to be taken seriously. Ever. Ron has a barrel chest which causes LOLs but is still YES, and Emma is soooo beautiful. Very. Oh, and the humor in the movie was super great too. Nngh! Love HP 4eva.

After the movie me, Nick, Pat, Faith, Courtney and Steve went to Perkins and just hung out and chilled. Courtney made me an adorable card, which I forgot to take a picture of but will add when I get home.

Steve got me:
-A coupon for one "decision" that he must make. It was a "joke" gift, because neither of us likes to make decisions on where to eat, or what to do, or what. It was sooo cute. The background is a watermark of Haruhi pulling on Kyon. Adorable.
-A manga themed around autism which I found very funny as well as adorable, but he was serious in thinking I would enjoy it, as I find ways all the time to bring autism in discussion (such as the other night when I told my dad his dog had autism tendencies, but I can't remember what he did!)
-A sushikin stuffed animal for my car (see cut).
-The first Ouendan game (he got my the 2nd for my last birthday). I loooove Ouendan!
-A remote car starter kit for mah car!
-The Killing Joke, in hardcover and completely colored. (See cut)

Soooo good!

My friends planned a scavenger hunt for me, and it was MAX great. Steve tricked me and ditched me at home around midnight and since he knows me so well, knew that I'd hop on the computer or check my phone. Problem is, I didn't know he was leaving, so I went and futzed around doing laundry for like 15 minutes before I discovered that I was to scavenge! It was World of Warcraft themed, and I got to tank and heal and do quests all around town (as a Tauren Drood)! It was super awesome and funny.

At Nick's first station, in a park, I had a quest to retrieve his lost trinket, which took me far longer to find than it should have - I walked over it three times! XD My next quest was to buy myself some energy drink with my reward money from the previous quest (Faith ran that one). My third quest was to retrieve Snickers bars from Pat's car farm (they were actually monsters disguised as Snickers). Pat's was incredibly funny, because Steve wrote their lines, and it was all about how Pat was gay (Pat is at least bi, if not gay. It's true, even if he says it's only curiousity. I'm trying always to make him come to terms with it).

Then I had to bring Steve the heads of gummie bears (he really made me bite off the heads before he accepted them XD), and then had to act as a tank against Joe Waid to save Steve in an escort quest. Then they mixed games by making me kill 5 slimes (From Dragon Quest Heroes) and bringing their insides (tootsie rolls) to Nick.

THEN I had to go to another park and heal Pat while he fought another evil Joe Waid (moar gay jokes). Lastly, I had to go to Nicks and team up with Courtney and Faith, who were DPS, and were joined by Steve, who was our pug tank, and we had to battle Boss Nick, who somehow had a costume that looked like a sorcerer's or something. After all that, we went in the house and they had made an AMAZING Horde-themed cake for me (see cut) and Nick and Joe Waid had bought me all the WoW games! Awww! But in order to get to the games I had to open the chest they were in (they really made it look like a treasure chest).

We are nerds. And honestly, only Nick and I play WoW out of the group so it was really cute that they did that. Courtney was added in last-minute, which I really was touched by, because she was the one who told Pat that she wanted in. Unfortunately Steve had already finished all the scripts so she was tacked onto the last quest, but I was glad she was there. Pat gave me a HORRIBLY written (on purpose) IOU from him and Faith, haha.

( See?! )Otherwise Steve and I sat around playing games, watching Gangland, and relaxing. I finished Uncharted already, and am going to start Chrono Cross!

Saturday Bethany and I went to our dad's and got some mulah from him and we went out to dinner with him, Pam and Jack. It was a nice time. My dad has gotten so much more pleasant as he's gotten older.

Sunday Mom, Paul and I had to reschedule our lunch for Friday, because it rained/froze Saturday night and Bethany got stranded (she has a rear-wheel drive Lexus) and they had to jump her, take her car to the mechanic (for an unrelated issue), and then drive her to work. Too much to deal with, and Steve has Friday off YAY OMG YAY, so lunch on Friday is fine. That left Steve and I to hole up at home, order a pizza, watch the Vikings game, and play cutie games (me plugging away on Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and him squeeze in some Tales of the Abyss). 

-My work internet wouldn't let me access LJ the other day and I haven't been on the internet really otherwise for a few days.

-I presented my agency stuff yesterday in class. The professor was successfully schmoozed by my fancy words and knowledge of the agency (I did my internship there after all) and ability to talk to the class, so I can't imagine not getting an A on that. Now all I need to do is finish organizing my portfolio for Dec. 1, and I am DONE. DONEEEE.

-Steve officially gave me permission to open my presents whenever I want as of yesterday afternoon, so I'm waiting until I get home from my benefits meeting around 10am to open them technically a day early ^_^

-I beat Tales of Symphonia and started Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I loved Tales' ending. It was sweet and cute, and I'm glad I played it. Uncharted is completely different, but I watched Steve play it and it's one of those few bro games that he adored. I'm literally halfway through the game right now, earning my first-ever trophies for the PS3! I took yesterday off of work so I had the time, and I'm taking tomorrow off of work too for Harry Potter and birthday stuff.

-Had a uretie (that's my urethra's nickname, pronounced yoo-ree-tee) scare that actually pushed me to placebo myself with a prescription cipro pill, tons of cranberry/vitamin C, and even AZO, which never fails to make me want to vomit. I feel better though. All is well.

-Uretie scare was possibly the result of an amazing romp.

-I am going to be very busy this weekend, but I'll be thinking of youuu! <333

I've been absent for awhile, I apologize!

This month has been filled to the BRIM with birthdays, omg. And a couple parties, and just so much stuff!

I got 2/3 of my tattoo done and am finishing it on the 30th (provided I have the funds and it doesn't take more than an hour). Parts of it look great and others are badly scabbing. The parts that are pissed are areas where he just wouldn't let up and kept going back to. My skin therefore retaliated. Also, I don't remember my shoulder tattoo hurting nearly as badly as this one, wow! And actually the bony areas just made me feel like I was suffocating as he put pressure on my lungs and ribs, but the fatty area where my spare tire would be if I had one hurt the WORST. It made me feel like tramp stamps would actually be quite painful! Overall though it was fine, just a regular tattoo experience. It's rather large for my poor small canvas of a back. Goes from the top of my jeans to pretty much just under my bra depending on how I'm standing.

What I got Steve for his birthday:
-Suikoden II (rare and AMAZING PlayStation game)
-160GB iPod, silver (went in on it with his parents)
-Two Miyazaki movies, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro
-A homemade bento!

And then there was Pat's birthday, Joe, Lindsey and Cory's birthdays, and today/tomorrow is Faith's birthday! Ahhhh!

Tuesday was a masquerade birthday party combo and it was soooo much fun. Although I really hate that the nights that are the most fun I also have minor blackouts from. I hate not remembering! But it provided the perfect and unexpected opportunity for Bryce and I to decide to be friends. So Saturday Jorden, Bryce and I spent the day together before going to a "Welcome back to MN for two weeks" party for our friend Luna. But then it got awkward when Jorden made a comment about Bryce being mean to exes and Bryce started screaming at Jorden and stormed out. So I had to try to patch things up with a boy I used to date who I haven't truly spoken to in a year. ... And then our mutual friend Maggie called Bryce and wanted to talk to me, so we rambled together for awhile. Then my tattoo started bleeding and then I had to drive Bryce home as he was not going home with Jorden. 

It was actually beneficial for me that I had to drive Bryce home, because I've always been direct with him, so we were driving for maybe 5 minutes when I brought up our friendship issue, which turned into a very lengthy open forum where we brought up rumors and he-said, she-saids and misunderstandings all out into the open. I assume he was still somewhat drunk because he was willing tot talk about really sensitive/intense stuff from when we dated and soon after that I really feel like would be hard for anyone to admit. It was awesome then, of course. So as far as I know, everything's fixed on that front, which takes a lot of tension off!

Last but not least, I got offered that job with the autistic boy. He seems "normal" really for the most part. He's intelligent, well-spoken, and can be trusted on his own sometimes, all of which are the opposite of what I experienced in the past (not that my other kids weren't smart, necessarily, just not traditionally smart). It seems like it would be really fun, but it's really going to suck driving all the way out there 5 days a week, especially with all this damn construction EVERYWHERE. But we gotta figure out orientation stuff, because orientation is ONLY on Mondays, from 8 to 5, and I ONLY work 8pm Sunday to 8am Monday.... It's the opposite of working out. I might have to suck it up and stay up for 21 hours, but I won't be happy about it. :P

Wow. Today was I think the best birthday I've had. It was great. A LOT of people remembered, which made me smile to no end.
Then I get home, and mom says, "Quick! We gotta leave to get your eyebrows waxed!" "Mom, that is so mean! It's my birthday!" But she was like, "C'mon! We're going to a new place in town" and I drove a bit, but REALLY sucked, which freaked her out so she took over. So, we're on our way, and I am sort of ticked off. "Why are we going to a new place?! i liked Cole's! We're gonna be late. *SIGH*" I told her I had choir and she freaks out. "You do?! Damn! DAMN!" Going down 10th, then she pulls into this road, and I immediately crank my head to read the street sign but didn't get a chance. I look over at mom, and she is smiling, nearly giggling, "We'll get onto the road past here, and then we'll be there." She said it was near the movie theater, and of course I do NOT know my way around town, but we were NOT going the right way to the movie theater. Then I saw Jodi and Brodi's house, and I was like, WTH! Then she continued and started giggling some more, and slows down by Leah's which I TOTALLY predicted, no matter what Mom says. Mom said she was gonna take us out to a restaurant, (but there was very little time!) and so I jump out of the car and knock on Leah's door, feeling very very stupid. Then I hollar back, "Does Leah know we are coming?" "No." So I'm like WTH?! and quickly run back to the car, hoping to bail, because I was embarressed. Then I see Leah's face pop in the window, and run back to her house, slam the door and block the window. "Did she call you?!" "....no....." So then I try to fill her in, meanwhile the dog is going nuts and her parents were probably snickering upstairs. "hehehe, what a retard"

That was very bad. I don't know why I got so quite so worked up. Well, mom had called Leah. So then we went to school to check the play parts, seeing if we made any, or anyone interesting did. Emily is so funny. Then we went to my house while I freaked out about my choir clothes. Then we went to Perkins, which was soooo damn funny. But my stomach ached sooooo much from eating and laughing. It was great.

Life is so much better with Leah. I swear. Everything just perks up, and stuff that normally isn't all that great is suddenly so damn funny. I dove you Leah!

Then I went to choir and that was fun. Kinda. Didn't go too bad. Ha, Krissy screwed up that one part. And I called it too! *smug* I love to feel smug. It's great. Well, Mumsy missed my choir preformance! She had an hour to wait, which she spent shopping at Kohl's. I found her by the entrance at the end, and this is the conversation in the car:
Bre: "So, how did Singsation do?" (she ALWAYS has a complaint)
"Good" *smiling*
"Yeah right. that smile means you are lying."
"No, you did good"
"How did I look?"
"Good"
"WHATEVER! You'll just throw it back in my face in a few days when we fight."
"Throw what back?"
"Me being the fattest in the group. You always do that"
*silence*
"So really, how did we do?"
"Fine!"
After a long while, I finally busted her.
"Oh Bre! I missed it!"
".......what"
"I didn't get there in time!"
*me being shocked.....just sitting there*
She felt sooo bad!
"Did you catch anything?"
"Umm...."
"Oh my god! You probably just had walked in when I saw you by the entrance! You probably just got there, then leaned against the wall, then saw me: 'ready to go?' !!!!"
Then me and her laughed for a while......
But then I would look at her, and she would go, "Bre! Don't do that! Don't be mad at me!!!"
It was soooo cute. I was like, "you have problems. your shopping addiction takes you away from your kids and family functions." "oh, whatever!"
I told her I need a cell phone so I could call her next time, to drag her away from the stores.

Oh, BTW Leah, I didn't get a jacket or snowpants. I got a shower radio. *blank face, blinking* Nice, eh?