Merry Christmas

Diplomas

I finally got my diploma from Eastern which was this whole drama. They
sent it to me via UPS but they required a signature. I only got the last
notice of a final delivery. Luckily I found the other notices in the
bushes because I was all set to call UPS and bitch them out. There were
some pretty wet and windy days so the notices must have blown off my
door. I ended up having to stop by campus to pick it up myself.

I kind of wondered why they insisted on sending it signature required
because who would steal a diploma? I mean, it isnt like it would have
any kind of value to someone else. It has my name on it after all. That
got me thinking so as a joke, I xeroxed it and then whited out my name
and wrote my name back in with a black sharpie so it would look extra
fake. But that was just something silly to do with it.

I ended up throwing the thing into the trunk of my car. That is where it
is now. I cant think of a thing to do with it. I suppose I could throw
it into a drawer or something. That is what I did with my high school
diploma. It seems kind of pretentious to display it although part of me
wants to because I get happy every time I look at it since it means no
more school for me.

Anyways, I am just curious. To those of you who have earned some sort of
diploma, what did you do with it. Where is it now? Do you think it is
pretentious to display it?

I know...I know...

Yeah I know I said that I was going to blog every day in November but after a while, I found that it became a chore and since blogging is supposed to be a hobby, I decided to give myself a break. Truthfully, I still dont feel much like writing so I am just going to share some pictures instead.

This is one of my new dog Tasha. She's pretty wiggly but managed to sit still just long enough for a photo:



And of course, this is my favorite dog, Brooke:



This is one of my sister's dog, Buddy:



This is a photo of the dinner table at Thanksgiving:



And finally, this is my mother, my cousin Catherine, my cousin Anna, my Aunt Nancy, me, and my sister-in-law Katrina modeling some hats that belonged to my grandmother who died in September. She had some pretty interesting hats!

Your mission, if you choose to accept it.

Years ago, my aunt brought my sister back a present from Paris. My sister teaches French. My aunt is a retired teacher. She knows about kids and what interests them. She knows that teachers often have to come up with creative bulletin boards in their rooms. Her present to my sister was toilet paper from the bathroom in the Eiffel Tower. (My present was a bottle of overproofed rum from Jamaica).

My sister used that toilet paper on a bulletin board with great success. It turns out that middle school age kids *are* interested in exotic Eiffel Tower, Parisian toilet paper.

Anyways, over the summer, I told this toilet paper story to my friends who have since moved to France. I told the elder daughter that I think my sister could use some NEW Eiffel Tower toilet paper. I told her that if she happened to find herself in Paris, she should go to the Eiffel Tower, find the highest bathroom, and get me some more toilet paper.

My friends called me yesterday. They are going to Paris. That nine year old girl seems to be taking her mission very seriously. I think someone I know might get toilet paper again for Christmas. haha

Oh Yeah!

We got a pool table at work today.

Fire?

While I was out walking the dogs this evening, I noticed a whole mess of fire trucks on Prospect. There is this one house there that I walk by all the time. Every time I walk by it, I always think that it has a fabulous porch and sometimes I wonder if I could build up a little wall around my porch too but then I remember that I dont have enough money to do it and the historic district people would probably be against it anyways.

I think I walked by at the tail end of whatever excitement there was. I didnt see any fire, just a bunch of fireman crawling around the house. They had a ladder too and looked like they were paying close attention to the chimney. I am guessing that the people who lived at that house probably got lucky.

It is shame that we have to cut back on our fire protection. I really hope that something changes and cities like Ypsilanti can have money for such niceties again.

Aging

Sometimes I cant even keep promises to myself. I skipped blogging yesterday but I dont feel bad about it. Well...not too bad. I wasnt feeling well. I had a headache and pretty much spent the entire day in a dark room sleeping because anything that had to do with light hurt my eyes. I think it was either a brain tumor (very unlikely), a migraine (still pretty unikely) or else my vision is going bad and I might need glasses (much more likely). This headache came on after I worked all day on a computer and then came home and read for 6 hours or so.

Of course, I dont have a vision plan so if I do need glasses, I'll have to pay for them myself. I am going to wait and see if I get any more headaches though before I decide to spend any money. The funny thing is that I dont know how much of that is because I dont want to spend money and how much of that is because I dont want to admit that my eyes, or any other part of me, might be aging.

I am not entirely sure why I dislike seeing the signs of aging in myself. It isnt so much that I am worried about losing my looks because I never had conventional beauty in the first place and in the second place, I kind of think that older women *are* beautiful in their own way anyways. No...I think what bugs me is that aging is a reminder that life is finite and I figure that around half of my life is over. I just feel like I want MORE time. Half over already? It can't be!

Oh well. I hear that when people get really old, they sometimes feel done. I guess that is my wish: That no matter when or where I die, I'll feel done living.