dog adoption and druggie parents

I need to stop looking at the Craigslist pets section. I miss my doggies dearly and I think the only thing that will cure it is another doggie. But I can't adopt a doggy right now. I can't afford to keep it couped up in my apartment all day while I'm working. Maybe when I move to the farm ehh? But the farm is already loaded with doggies. Maybe they will ease my burden. A little wet dog nose always does the trick (or in my case Cleo's rank breath!) she really does have the worst!

So I was just googling blogs and looking into adoption sites and I came accross this blog. This girl tells her story of trying to adopt a rottweiler. It's kindof crazy. It boggles my mind how easy it is to bring a life into this world; a mother and father that have no business raising a child but yet they can bring this wonderful little baby into the world and then completely screw it up and when the state wants to take it away it's a huge battle. Adopting a dog is harder than creating a human being! And we all know dogs don't pay taxes or collect wellfare or social security. And dogs don't rob banks or sell drugs or kill people. And if they do kill people, it was probably the pet of the child who was brought into this world through druggie parents and got this dog so he could use it to fight other dogs to get money to pay for his drug habit that he got in his mother's womb. UGH!!!

Can you TELL that this rubs me the wrong way!?

I really gotta figure out some stress management! haha. j/k. Although my stress level is probably pretty high I've always been good at managing it. But I really am getting tired of some of these foster parents who don't answer their phone calls. You would THINK that a FOSTER parent is responsible right!? They are the temporary PARENT of the child who's real parents can't care for them... so they must be responsible right!?

wrong.

They don't return phonecalls. I'll tell you that much.
Okay, to be fair it's not everybody. There are some fabulous foster parents out there, but they are NOT the norm.

But that's another post for another time. I'm already cooking it up.

Later y'all!

April Fools!

I've posted my goals for April. check it out!

I'd love to post more but I gotta get my butt to work!

what happened to the hot water!?

Why oh Why do I live with children. The hot water in the shower is on and won't turn off, so I turned the hot water off. This is the second time we've had this problem. I am the only adult in the house. I'm the only one that calls the office when there are problems with the apartment, like the hot water. They just let it run for days and days like it's no big thing. No worries! we all have billions of dollars to spend on hot water wastage. So I turn the hot water off and they get all freaked out. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HOT WATER!? IT'S BROKEN!! CALL CIARA!

And then I get the text, "Ciara did you do something to the hot water?!" yes stupid, I turned it off so that we don't spend an extra $50 on the water bill because we let it run nonstop 24/7 for 7 days straight. Okay so that's not what I said verbatim, but whatever.

Thank you for letting me unload this on you. Sometimes I feel like I just need to let the world know that people like this do exist. Not just in movies and books.

They exist! Be careful out there people!

By the way... I'm onto a new book on tape. It's called "The Gargoyle" by Andrew Davidson. It's quite good. There are a few things that may be uncomfortable to read; like for example the main character's previous line of work was in pornography and he talks a bit graphically about it here and there. It's about this guy (also a drug addict and alcoholic) who gets in a car accident and is burned all over his body. While he is in the hospital recovering in the burn ward this woman appears and claims that they were lovers in medieval Germany. Of course he thinks she's crazy.

It's about their relationship, past and present. It's quite good because the story is told both in his voice, but also in the voice of the woman (Marriane Engel) when she tells him stories of her past. I am liking it a lot. It's capturing. He's kindof a womanizer but ends up falling for this woman.

I like the way he writes. He weaves things together without pointing everything out to you. You just kindof start to realize how things relate in his present life and his past life. Here's the link to my shelfari page where I have it posted on my shelf as "currently reading". You can check it out there along with a lot of other amazing books.

don't you love the library?!

Oh how I love a good book on tape. And the Library! Oh what a wonderful thing a library is. I just finished The Strangler by William Landay. A wonderful murder myster, set in Boston in the early 60's.

It's about this family; one's a police officer (a bit crooked), a lawyer (a bit crooked) and a theif (hmmm, just a touch crooked) and all the stuff that they go through with the gangsters in the city, building the new boston, crooked cops, gambling, the family dynamics... and it's also about the stranger; I think it's loosely based on The Zodiac. Or at least they take some from it; the feel of it. It's quite good. And the guy who reads it does a great job of mastering the Boston accents and everything. Anyways, it's a good book. . . but there are some sensitive scenes in it that make you a little squirmy. It is a murder mystery after all.

So I gotta go turn it back into the library today and get another. William Landay has another, Mission Flats. I might see if they have it and if it looks good. I drive around so much in my two jobs that it just helps to have something to listen to. I highly recommend books on tape.

soooooo...... what have I been doing lately? same old same old. I just work work work. I'm trying to figure out when to tell my boss that i'm moving to Alabama in October. I just don't want to tell her. I think they like me here so that's kindof a bummer. I think I could really work my way up here. But I just can't afford an apartment by myself out here. I do like the city though, even though there's a lot of driving. There are a lot more oportunities. I think it's gonna be hard to find a job when I move back to Troy. Ugh. Not looking forward to that at all.

I'm feeling the pull to get back into learning the art of calligraphy. I got some books from the library and i'm gonna get back to practicing. I stopped because I felt like I wasn't doing it right. I wanted to take lessons and have someone really teach me. I didn't want to form bad habbits. But I couldn't find anything, even out here! There's one that's in Washington but it's just too far and I don't have the time to drive all the way out there. And they're more about appreciating the "real calligraphy" and not so much teaching newbies how to begin. I think it's more for the professionals.

Anyways... I've been convinced that it's not such a big deal. I just need to practice practice practice til I make perfect. So that's what I'm going to do.

I found this website today... if you like Shelfari you'll like this one too.

my real blog

You may be disappointed to hear this but I do not consider this a "real" blog. It's just a diary type thingy...

My mother recently directed me to this website. It's for the person in search of a career, or maybe someone who is trying to market him or herself; trying to look good to the person who's doing the hiring. As we all know, it's hard to find a job. Supposedly writing helps you "find yourself" and supposedly if you're in the process of finding yourself maybe you find a job along the way. As you probably know I've always been a writer so blogging isn't such a hard concept for me to accept. My brother on the other had has a hard time accepting blogging as anything more than, well, stupid... possibly narcissistic?

The girl who runs that website has her own blog. Basically, this website that is her "business" is a networking type of thing where you can connect with people like you and get ideas for your career field. So anyways, it may sound all far fetched that blogging can actually help you find a job, but I don't have a problem with honeing my writing skills. Maybe some strangers will even read my blog.

So anyways, I'm keeping this blog because I like to write about "stupid stuff"... the stuff that goes on in my life, like how I just drove 14 hours to Troy Alabama to see my family and introduce them to my boyfriend :) Sometimes I just like to rant about my roommates and post pictures of snow and animals and whatnot... So I'm keeping this one for you guys.

But Clicky me here! If you want to stay up to date on my "real blog". I'm going to try to actually attempt to write well and write about things that are important to me. I'm going to try to have some sort of purpose there. But this one I'm gonna keep so that I can write and you guys can read and I don't have to worry about writing anything specific. So there.

a much needed rest

I am taking a much needed miniature vacation. We are driving down to Alabama for 4 days; taking 6 days; gotta add those extra 2 days for driving time. We're packing some extra stuff to take and leave with my mom so that when I move I have a little less stuff to move. Although it's still gonna be a pain in the butt because I've got a lot of furniture.

[I just misspelled furniture and had to spell check it. Where has my education gone!?]

The only downside to all this? I'm fighting a headcold and a cough. It's one of those dry coughs that ends up really hurting after a couple of days. I've been taking some mucinex, it helps a little. And I'm drinking tea like there's no tomorrow. Jonathan convinced me to just drink regular old hot water... I thought it would taste bad. Suprisingly it just tastes like hot water. hmmm.
So I'm hoping that I feel okay enough tomorrow and don't fall asleep at the wheel. It'll be his job to keep me up.

So we're supposed to get more snow tonight! WHAT?! I thought it was over. Seriously. At least I'll be out of town. I hope it's not so bad that driving out tomorrow morning is difficult. I'm just tired of it being so cold. It's not helping me get better; being inside the warm building, going out in the cold, in and out, in and out... and my job is such that I'm always in and out of the car and the house. I'm just trying to stay warm.

This break is coming at such a good time though. Gonna get away from my horrible roommates and see good friends :)

A White Valentine's Day?

One of the trees in the complex. The snow was piled up so high! And this is only the 3rd snow of the season! The 2nd snow was even worse. The roads were so bad! I got caught driving in it and I couldn't go straight home because it was for work and I had to take the kids home and they were 20 miles from each other and then 45 miles from my house so I was out in it for a long time and the roads were not cleared or salted at all. But I did a pretty good job driving in it! Being from Montana you'd think that I would be used to snow, but Maryland snow storms are completely different from living in Montana. For one thing Montana is always prepared for the snow. Maryland doesn't really have the man power or all the right equiptment to pull off constant cleaning. It took 4 days to really get the roads driveable.

This is our back porch, I don't have a picture but that giant icicle keeps going down to the next apartment below us. You can kindof see the cars below, like I said, this is from the 3rd snow. The storm before this one completely covered the cars. You couldn't even see where one stopped and the other began! I'm not even kidding. There are still giant mounds of snow everywhere.

This is a picture from the third snow of the year. I have some pics on my phone from the 2nd snow; the one that was the big one. My car was completely covered and piled up to the back window and it was at least 5-6 feet deep behind the car that we had to dig out. It was rough! We had to borrow shovels. Luckily people were nicer than they were during the first snow.

This is the walkway from the apartment to the parking lot. Luckily someone made a path; you can see how deep the snow is.

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*update* 2/18/10

ohmygoodness! That giant icicle that is pictured above is getting bigger and bigger! I think it's because it's melting from above and keeps freezing again at night. It's crazy! I'm afraid it's gonna take down the the whole balcony! I've gotta get a picture of that today!