Sweet Catastrophe

So it’s been an interesting week. Sunday night Grandma Lott had a few heart attacks and they actually ended up bringing her here to Valdosta by ambulance to the cardiac center here in our hospital. Long story short, she’s got 4 stints in her heart right now and while they’re still not sure what the cause of all the problems were, she’s starting to get better and they’ve just finally moved her out of CICU and into a room on that floor tonight.

All week she’s been in CICU and only allowed two visitors at a time so the Lott family has all been crowded in a small family waiting room. It’s been…well lame as hell, really.

This week has just been a huge reminder of how few real ties I have to my dad’s side of the family. For me, it’s just him and Grandma. Maybe a small thread to an aunt, but that’s about it. As for the rest of them, I dunno, I just wasn’t raised as closely as they all were. They’re all around the same age or they have common histories and interests and I just don’t fit in any of all that. And it’s weird because they just can’t sit back and let me read my book and wait, they’d keep trying to pull me into conversations that I wanted no part of. An hour of that and I’m ready to ship them all out on an all inclusive Mexico vacation.

Just another reason I wish Daddy could find someone else to settle down with. I feel certain once Grandma is gone, I won’t really see any of them much anymore and I don’t think he’ll put a ton of effort into seeing them either. I’d hate for him to be alone.

Meh… [/ end depressive thoughts]

Today is my Kristi’s Birthday!!

I asked what she wanted and her only request was a million dollars. I was few bucks short of a million though, so instead I’m thinking of something that can never be a bad gift for my Krizzle– dvds! It’s actually surprising to me that she doesn’t own more dvds than she does, so it’s time to beef up her collection!

The Big Bang Theory, The Office, and The Doctor Who Christmas Special (haha, jk!)– are at the top of the list. And I couldn’t ignore the sale on television dvds for 70% off.

And oh! Away We Go is up, too! You can’t go wrong with John Krasinski on your Birthday!

I think this year I’d focus on a Neil Patrick Harris collection. I’d love to pick up all seasons of Doogie Howser & How I Met Your Mother and top it off with Both Harold & Kumar films and a DVD copy of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog!

He’s hosting the Emmys this year! Which means I’m actually going to watch! There’s been hints at some possible Dr. Horrible action during the Emmys and that would pretty much make my night.

So I could deck out her NPH collection and then go spend a few weeks on her couch and watch everything with her =) That okay with you, love? Got an extra Snuggie for me?? Really, I’m honestly surprised you didn’t get one before now…

So anyway, Happy Birthday Krizit, Kristi-lyn, Krizzle, Grilled Krizzle w/ Cheese; you make my days brighter and I dunno what I’d do without your television/movie commentary filling up my text message inbox and aim message screen. And I hope I never, ever, ever find out! I wish I could give you everything in the world, but you know if I ever won the lottery I’d spend a huge chunk of it on you. Ya know, at least a hundred bucks or something ;)

Ryan’s sister Vanessa is engaged! Happy for her, but the bigger news is where she plans to get married. They’ve set the date for next September (I think that was it) in Italy…. So you’d assume they have some tie to Italy, right? Maybe something to do with his family, their past together, anything? Nope. Or maybe this is just a rich family on one side or the other and they can afford it all? Again, nope.

Yes, Vanessa can afford the wedding she wants– she works at a casino and makes great money, but neither his or her family can really all afford to travel to Italy for a wedding. Especially immediate family since they’ll be involved in the wedding plans and will need to be there for a significant amount of time. Plane tickets, hotels, food, travel, not to mention the amount of time everyone would be losing at work with or without vacation pay, and then when you’re traveling outside of the country there are extras you have to add into travel expenses like passports, calling cards, electrical outlet adapters, and you’d certainly want to check out travel insurance online for such a big adventure, ya know?

No one understands her thinking on this. There’s just virtually an unlimited number of places more accessible to everyone that would make for an absolutely beautiful wedding and they could honeymoon in Italy.

And bless his heart, Ryan keeps coming up with possible ways he could get the money and make it happen, but the bottom line is that he’s working on paying student loans right now, how can you really justify spending so much money on his sister’s whim? How can she ask this of people when she knows they can’t afford it??

We’ve actually known about this for a little while and I still just can’t wrap my mind around it…

Customer: Do y’all have any of that tie stuff to keep these together?
Me: err you mean string??

Remember, I work the LUMBER registers—
Customer: Did some guys check out here with some lumber?
Me:……I’m gonna need a little more to go on there.

I get witnessed to fairly often at work; it’s just a part of working with the public, ya know? I don’t mind, while I’m very much not a fan of organized religion myself, I understand where these people are coming from and what they’re doing.

Of course, occasionally I get a serious fanatic who makes me uncomfortable and has me wishing for a pain-in-the-ass customer to come along and steal me away.

I also regularly get those folks who think religion, the government, and anything else you could refer to as an institution– is a crock of shit.

Today I got one of each. At the same time.

Religious Guy comes through first and in the middle of me explaining to him where he should look in the store for something he interrupts me and starts questioning me. I always just go along. It’s the easiest way to deal when I’m at work because I’m obligated to stay pleasant and this way they generally go through their spiel and go along their way. Anyway, I realize this one is a little eccentric when he gives me his card and starts in about empowering my possessions by giving them up to save others *raised eyebrow* Mercy you should just check out the poorly-designed site and look through a bit of the crazy. You can see by the url this is one of those ‘the end is here’ type deals.

Anyway, while he’s off shopping I get the other guy, we’ll just call him Angry Guy, comes through my line. This guy isn’t so bad, honestly, but he’s fallen on some seriously hard times himself so his thoughts are leaning on the angry side. He comes through and he’s chatting with me and JJ about who to talk to about a job in the store because he’s already put in an application. Religious Guy makes it to my line and tries to begin his spiel with Angry Guy. Angry Guy politely says no thanks but Religious Guy is pushing and I’m paraphrasing, but Angry Guy says something to the effect of, “Ya know, when people like you knock on my door I come to the door with my gun aimed and tell them to get the eff off my property.” Religious Guy is confused! But then they each start babbling about random stuff and I hear Religious Guy say something about how he’s seen 6 possessions *raised eyebrow* and all these other random things. He finally gives up and finishes paying for his stuff.

JJ has to go outside and help Religious Guy load a few pieces of lumber. Angry Guy stays at my register chatting. Again, Angry Guy wasn’t so bad. He told me about how he got stuck in his current crappy situation, he explained his thoughts on what Religious Guy had to say, and we chatted about some things he does on the internet (some articles he’s done and such). At the base of it all, he’s more where my thoughts lie with everything, but he was still a little extreme, deciding that those who claimed to have seen Jesus walk on water were high on something and he was really just walking on a wet road….anyhow, the issue was this: he stood at my register for almost an hour. It was a little slow, but still, even through other customers coming through he stood there continuing to say whatever he had to say. All the while, JJ is stuck outside with Religious Guy doing the same thing to him!!

Finally Angry Guy decided to leave about the same time Religious Guy drove off and JJ came in and we just looked at each other and cracked up. JJ asked what the hell just happened there and I said, “I don’t know but I feel like you and I just got caught in the middle of some epic battle between good and evil…I don’t know who won, but I’m pretty sure we lost.”

It was just an honestly mind-boggling experience to get them both at the same time and watch them interact before they split up and stood around talking for an hour…my mind is still reeling a little.

Andrew and Keri are coming this weekend! I’m excited to hang out with them–I just hope I’m not too exhausted! We’ll be driving through the night on Friday so I imagine I’ll be sleeping a good bit on Saturday, unless I somehow manage to sleep well in the car.

We need to round up some more cardboard boxes so Andrew can take the rest of his stuff with him. I’m sure William would like to get all his stuff out of his room and I’d like to get rid of the stack in the kitchen.

There will definitely be some Wii time needed, though we’re gonna have to get controllers from somewhere…hmmm…I wish you could rent controllers when you rent games; I’d love to play Mario Party this weekend!

A HUGE congratulations to my Krizit for landing the job she really wanted!! She had an interview and follow-up for a job as a special education paraprofessional and this afternoon she got the call that she’d been given the job!!

I’m really, really excited and totally proud! She’s been trying so hard to get a job and had rally had a rough time of finding someone who wouldn’t severely underestimate her! I’m so proud of the work she’s put into finding a good job and how well she’s handled the disappointments. I know this is a job she was really excited about and I know having steady income is going to be great for her in so many ways!

Of course, I’m a little sad too. For those of you that don’t know, Kristi and I live about 5 hours apart so we don’t get to visit each other, but we talk online daily. Her new work schedule is definitely going to change that! I’m going to miss having her around to have truncated conversations with no need to explain random absences. I might have to make up an imaginary Krizzle to discuss television, neighbor annoyances, bra malfunctions, hot lingerie, celebrity gossip, weird ailments, and my desire to never go to work again. *sigh* Congratulations Krizzle-bear! I’ll miss you very much, but I’m so happy for you!

Andrew and Keri officially left yesterday. I missed them actually leaving since they made it out of here while I was at work, but I shed a little tear when I came home to find a few roses on my desk from them.

Andrew will be back sometime to help move William in and to get the rest of his stuff. He just really couldn’t get moving so there’s still a good bit here. I’m finding the most random things around. There’s a toaster oven, some shoes, random computer components like Keri’s extra laptop memory, x-box stuff that I’m sure he’s missing, books….you name it, it’s probably floating around here.

I’m definitely going to miss them. Andrew was really like a much less annoying brother to me. I really hope William fits me as well as his older brother did.

Mhmm…it’s concert time! I’ll be seeing Lifehouse in Atlanta on April 12th and then in Jacksonville on April 14th. Oh what a weekend it will be!

We’re having a little Lifeho union/reunion in Atlanta and I can’t wait!! (Read: If you haven’t been around long enough to know what a Lifeho is, well, it’s not derogatory, it’s just a nickname, kthnx.)

I’ll be reuniting with Kristi, Katie and Trinity, and finally meeting Dara and Cayte. [Yes, that's right Dara, we'll get this all sorted out and you will be present and accounted for. Feeny demands it.] There will probably be others when the time gets closer and there are others already confirmed, but these are my fellow Lifehos that I’ve ‘known’ for umm…ever sounds good. That’s what it feels like anyway.

It’s all coming together pretty quickly now that I officially paid for my ticket! We’ve even got hotel arrangements covered and preliminary mastication plans! Of course, our hotel is nothing like the hotels Las Vegas has to offer, but we’re going to watch rock stars, we have no need to party like them in the hotel. Just somewhere to sleep and shower without getting diseases…that’s pretty much the extent of my requirements haha–besides, it’s only half a mile from the venue and that’s perfection! Half a mile is less than what I walk to classes every day–I’m set!

I’m gonna see if Mom and Roger will let me borrow the Garmin again for that weekend just so I definitely won’t have to worry about getting lost. I’d hate to let driving anxiety ruin my weekend. That’d tick me off.

And since this is the “Disarray” tour, here’s Disarray for your enjoyment…and mine. =)

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This is Catie. She’s pretty damn awesome. She’s been that way all her life though, see?

But this post isn’t about how awesome Catie is. It’s about how amazing she is. In June of 2007, Catie joined Weight Watchers. With an overall goal of 100 pounds, on February 26 Catie found that she had surpassed her halfway mark–reaching 50.8 pounds lost.

I’ve watched Catie count her points and turn down the best junk food–I’ve seen her exhibit self-control I could only dream of. I’m so proud of what she’s accomplished thus far and I look up to her for what she’s doing. I mean, just look how far she’s come!

I’ve been so amazed at how she’s even been able to soldier on through times when what she’s eating should be the last thing on her mind. She’s stuck through it in times anyone else would just want to drown themselves in ice cream. Right on!

It’s so inspiring to watch her as the pounds fall off and her clothes get baggy….I so don’t know how to say that without it sounding weird! lol

Kt-kins, I love you, and I’m so proud of you!!