Patsy!) So, starting the end of the month, I have 17 weeks off on leave, yet I'm still getting paid 30% of my salary - yippee doodah. I'm so happy I could skip round the Old Stein in a pair of neon pink hot pants shouting my name is Mary!
Everything is ticking along so nicely now, we've got the apartment over in Illinois, it's not far off the main highway between Marion and Carbondale, so it's fairly central to everything Southern Illinois has to offer. I've already checked out the local area thanks to google maps and it has everything I could need. Within 2 miles of the apartment there is a pub, a bottle shop, a bowling alley, a Dairy Queen, A Subway, A Pizza Place, a Grill kinda place and a bottle shop! Plus a short walk away and there is a massive nature reserve the size of Sussex!
Matt's got a job, well done him, no easy task in this economic climate, I've given notice on the flat, I've told the folks, I've arranged storage of belongings, I've started packing. The only thing I've got left to do is inform the utilities providers that I'm leaving this place and I can't really do that until I have the last meter readings anyway. So it's all sweet and happy, and Stateside here I come.
Less than 5 mins after my call from Storrm and whilst I was still skipping around the room singing at the top of my voice my mobile danced the Hawaii 5 o theme! James was calling, James from the land of Scot, yes that land north of the border where the big yin and nessy live. I answered it, shocked that he was calling, I was even more shocked when he informed me that in Glasgow he was not and in Brighton he was! The short version of the long story he came down here on a date and a promise and the guy he was doing that with turned out to be an arse and basically dumped James. James as you will appreciate was not the happiest bunny in the warren, and called me up. So, in a little time later, I was meeting him outside The Amsterdam, for what turned out to be a whirlwind of pub crawling. Drinking pints of lager at a rapid pace, I let James chew my ear off about the situation, sympathising in the right times and giving him a metaphorical kick up the back side when the need arose. It was actually good fun, we sunk a few pints to say the very least until I waved him off in a taxi some time after the hour of two in the morning. I can't remember all the pubs we went in, all I remember is it wasn't Legends or the Bulldog, but we had a good time in them all!
I was sooooo hungover on Saturday that even turning my head hurt, my mouth felt like the bottom of a parrots cage and my guts were on the Waltzer on the pier. I stumbled around and wondered my my jeans where on the coffee table and my shirt draped on one corner of the telly. My head hurt so much that I had to be a s still as possible, so I lay in the bath for a while, that while was just a tad over the hour! I felt better after breakfast, just. But it was a cracking night, well given the circumstances, anyway.
James came over Saturday night were we sank a bottle of wine whilst chatting and watching Sex & The City the movie, just a little bit of escapism, to easy the mind. Plus we were both feeling a little jaded after the previous nights hazardous behaviour.
Today, well I'v
e done hardly anything except potter about, doing this and that and catching up with blog reading and that sort of thing. Plus, I've started packing things up a little bit, mainly clothes, bedroom stuff and kitchen stuff. It's been wonderfully amusing, especially the wardrobe part, you know the thing, pulling out a silver lame shirt and wondering why the hell I ever purchased that. Or the tight black synthetic leather shorts with a 28' waist and an easy access patch! Those items, along with others have been consigned to black bin bags ready for depositing at the local charity shop. I've not got the hard task of working out what to put in storage and what to take with me, hummm, anyone want a sailor boy suite complete with dildo whistle?
And on that note, it's over to Matt! Yes, I have gotten the job as Jason said. It's not a glamorous job in the world, but hey at least it is still a job, Right? I am working at Wal-Mart, or as you Brits would call it, ASDA. My job is to push all those carts that everyone uses back into the stock bin, to stock food items, and other stuff inside the store, and to lift heavy weight items and put them where they belong. So yes, it's not too terribly exciting, but it definitely has it's perks. I don't have to mess with the customers unless they specifically come to me for something, and I can wear anything I want to on the job, since the only uniform I will be wearing is a yellow vest. I would have preferred doing an inside job where I worked with computers and in an office setting, but hey it didn't happen. All I can say is they lost an excellent office worker.
I am so glad that everything has fallen into place. I absolutely cannot wait for Jason to get here, even though I still have a ton of work to do like setting up the apartment with everything, and getting it all looking like a home instead of a room. I just know that it's going to be so much fun. I know that we are going to be picking out a whole bunch of different things to either paint or make look better than they are. It's all so exciting and fresh and new. I want to make it our home. Our little squizzle nest.
It's not going to be too terribly long before Jason is here, and we only need a few things here and there for the apartment now. Particularly I really need to get up there tomorrow and take the measurements to see if the sofa we are going to get is going to fit or not. Also I want to see if we can paint anything or make it look a little bit better and more like a home than an apartment. Hopefully he will be reasonable as I imagine he is. All I can really think of that we need furniture wise is the couch, and an entertainment center. Just two things on the list. However I know there will be tons of little things here and there that we will find out we need. Like getting a bottle of wine, and having no wine glasses, or getting a tin of baked beans with no can opener. (And nothing to eat them with - that sounds familiar!!)
It's funny how you uncover a part of your life that you have forgotten for a long time. I was going through a lot of boxes and things, and found some familiar items that made me think "Whoa Nostalgia". Mainly what I found and remembered were old games from systems that had long since died, some old comic books, and some trading cards that I used to play. It was a right old laugh and giggle when I opened them all up and smelled the age on them. The smell that old library books get after a while. I thought about selling most of the stuff, and even threw the cards on ebay. They didn't sell, which was a bit of a disappointment, but also a relief in a slightly weird sense. I didn't want to part with a particular deck that I had made on my own, and played with in tournaments for quite a while. I decided to keep the deck just a few minutes ago while talking to Jason, because they will increase in value with time (Hopefully), and threw the rest of the items from my past back into the boxes they belong in. It's almost like Christmas when you go through boxes of the past. Is it a trap with things that are going to spark up a bad memory? Or is it going to be a right old laugh with a piece of clothing you wore, that you would never go out in public with now?
gy professor Dr. Joanne Davila and her colleague, Lisa Starr. A year later, the researchers followed up with the girls, testing them for depressive symptoms. The results of their tests, recently published in The Journal of Adolescence, showed that the girls who talked with their friends online had significantly higher levels of depression. Says Dr. Davila, "Texting, instant messaging and social netw
orking make it very easy for adolescents to become even more anxious, which can lead to depression." So if you're feeling down? Blame Facebook!
2 People had their say.:
i am so excited for you that you will have such a nice holiday. illinoise is so pretty this time of year. keep this updated and take lots of pictures.
The note about Facebook is interesting.
I've been feeling like shit for the past few weeks! Now I know who to blame! :)
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