Casey and I made trick-or-treat bags to hand out at Halloween this year. This is her first year being the candy giver instead of a trick-or-treater Here is an example of what went into the bags.


( Click here for a few more pictures )

On Tuesday I will be taking a plane to Alabama so that I may spend time with billinaction and nocturnally lay siege to her couch. I am very excited! I am going to be on paid vacation and everything!

That said, I haven't been on a plane since I was a year old. Not only have plane rules changed since then, but I don't remember it anyway. Mike has told me that if I bring two bags I shouldn't get charged extra (that would be my purse and a piece of luggage), and that I ought to not bother with shampoo etc. because of how planes are about liquid.

Basically, the whole point of this post is: PLEASE SHARE WITH ME YOUR SECRET PLANE KNOWLEDGE, OH F-LIST!

The weekend I went to Orem with Michael just so happened to fall on Labor Day, which was unexpected and really inconvenient for the both of us. Everywhere we went there were tons of people. Grr! But we did get some nice photos during a walk we took to see a waterfall.


( Several More Under the Cut )

So, one of Michael's roomates is a very strict and religious Mormon attending BYU. Michael was able to talk to him tonight, and the roomate is very uncomfortable with the prospect of me staying over. Mike and I already made plans for me to come over early next week on my days off, but after that I'm going to need a hotel room every time I come over.

So I sat down and paid my bills tonight. Somehow my phone bill has jumped (again), and I can't figure out why. The actual bill looks like greek to me, so I'm going to have to call a phone monkey and harass them into telling me why my $50 phone bill has become $117. My first guess was that I had talked to Michael enough that I had used up my minutes, but it doesn't look that way. And he ought to qualify as long distance and I'm not seeing any charges for that either. It doesn't make sense, because other than talking to him I'm not doing anything with the phone I don't normally do.

After I get my current round of bills paid, and after the charge for my sisters birthday present goes through, I'll have just over $100 left. On that I will need to buy a greyhound ticket to return home with next week, buy new shoes because the lining has completely separated inside, pay a medical bill, and the list goes on. What it comes down to is that I really just won't have enough, and I'll be lucky if I manage to sort it to the point that I don't overdraft again. Michael and I are trying to figure out how this will work, and it's all just turning out more complicated than it ought to be. He makes more money than me, but he also has more bills and he needs his savings in case his company lays him off this winter. We'll find a way to make it work, it's just very stressful and him having a roomate who insists I not stay over complicates everything.

The worst part is the roomate only stays over a few nights a month. If his college found out he was living at the apartment he would be in trouble anyway, because it's not BYU approved. So me staying over sometimes wouldn't likely make it worse. Michael is nice about it because the guy is his friend, and also because he separated from the church recently enough that he remembers what it's like. I've been separated from the church for more than five years, and I don't remember that well. To me it just feels like his roomate is trying to enforce his belief system on us, however unintentional and well-meaning. I don't like pandering to a random stranger, and with how slow the hotel business is in the winter I frankly can't afford to.

I don't need suggestions, we have a few other options and we're just going to do our best to make things work. It just annoys me that I finally have a boyfriend with his own apartment and I can't stay over whenever I want. It would be easier on us both and save us both money. Michael says that his apartment lease comes up for renewal in November, and he's hoping to move out of Utah altogether. Ideally, if we're still together then, he would try to move closer to me. And even if he can't afford to move then, he is pretty sure the troublesome roomate will not be renewing his lease this time anyhow. So either way, we hopefully won't have to deal with this for more than 2 months.

Here is another cat video. Yay for cat videos!

Facebook drives me insane. At least I still know how to share this stuff on LJ.

So, a random cat video. I think I've made progress with the sound problems I was having.



In other news, I got up at five to make the bus at 6:15 so that I would be dropped off at work by 7:30. But the bus drove right past me. I almost cried.

I got my first tattoo today. Here are pictures of it, just a few hours old.




( click for a few more pictures )

It hurt, but not as bad as I had feared. Enough to get me to make a few funny faces, but not enough for me to make involuntary noises. After this I have decided to go ahead with my plan to get a tattoo collage of different book characters.

I will of course be posting more pictures as time goes by and it heals more.

The tattoo guy told me that he couldn't make the colors as muted as they are in the book, so he cleared some brighter colors with me. Even though it is not completely identical to the book illustration, it's still pretty close. Every time I look at it in the mirror it looks more fantastic!

Last week I didn't get to sleep in on my days off. The first day I had a 7:45 AM dentists appointment (and then a doctors visit, which in turn got me sent to community hospital to have blood drawn, ho ho ho). The next day I thought I had to work, so I showed up only to find that the schedule had been changed without my being told, and that I in fact had the day off. They of course tried to put me to work, but I went home.

Anyhow, lack of sleeping in on my days off led me to being even more exhausted the rest of the week. I have been quite the zombie. Work hasn't enjoyed my slowness either, believe me.

Called the job I had the interview for today. They said they are waiting on my background check. So I'll wait a few more days and then nag them again.

I have a youtube account, which I have never posted videos on but instead used to accumulate a large list of favorites.

So I am going to randomly share one of the videos. Those of you who haven't heard of the Brobdingnagian Bards are missing out.

You don't have to be familiar with Voltaire to appreciate how funny the video is. it does make fun of goth-ness though. The singing starts at 1:49 into the video.



And while I am pimping this musical duo, you can listen to their songs for free at the bottom of the page on http://thebards.net.

I am rewatching Garden State. Again.

It still fills me with happiness :)