Forever.

I know that it's been forever since I posted last, but life has been so busy lately!

We helped Dad and Aunty move into their new place a few weekends ago, I had a birthday, we had games night, there's been a ton of snow... And my writing has been going pretty well so I've been spending as much time as I can on that.

I'm actually really happy with the way my writing's been going lately. For I think the first time in my life I'm happy with what I've written, and I can see where the story is supposed to be going. It's very exciting.

Now I'm not saying that when I go back and read over my work I think...

"Man, this is great and I'll get a publishing contract right away and everyone will love it and I'll sell millions of copies and be bigger than Harry Potter,"

but at least I'm not thinking...

"Urgh, this is horrible! What was I thinking?!"

which is more what I'm used to thinking, to be entirely honest.

But it's exciting to think that it's not half bad, to actually like my own work. Like I said, I don't know if that's ever really happened before. With my poetry, maybe, but not with my fiction. I've even been looking into a self-publishing site that does Print on Demand, printing each copy as it's ordered and payed for instead of me having to put out several hundred dollars to print like 500 copies that I wouldn't have a clue what to do with! Of course, I have to finish writing before I can publish.

Umm... There was something else I was going to say... Oh! I remember!

Duncan and I are going to see Phantom in September! NAIT had a deal for it's alumni and employees that they could order Phantom tickets before they became available to the public and for like a 10% discount! We ordered 2 tickets the other day, and the seats are really good! Main floor centre, rows D-F!

There was a bit of a scare just after that though, when I was on the Jubilee's website. I guess some sites are selling individual tickets without authorization, and so we had to go back to the e-mail Duncan had gotten from NAIT to make sure that it was an authorized dealer. Thankfully it was; there are a few sites (mostly connected to Broadway Across Canada) that are authorized for group ticket sales, and NAIT is using one of them. That was a real relief!

So yeah, writing is going great and I get to see Phantom with Duncan in September.

I guess that's all for now... I promise to try and write again soon!

Changes again, and brand new ideas!

Well, the update on Brian to start...
He's home! He got out of the hospital on Friday, and is home now! It turns out that the infection hadn't spread after all, and he was just having a reaction to the penicillin! He's glad to be home, but is still very tired. He needs to take it easy for the next few weeks at least, and I think that's probably the hardest part right now. But he's home, and that's a step!

As for the new ideas...
I've got a story idea that I've been working on that seems to be moving along very well. I'm working a little every day after work (even if all I do is stare at the paper!), and I'm feeling very good about it!
But I actually had a very peculiar dream last night that gave me an idea for a story some time in the future. It was about the evolution of vampires... See, they had decided, as a race, that they just didn't have a strong enough hold on the world only being able to come out at night, so they made themselves evolve. If they first changed during the night, they became a more traditional vampire. If they first changed during the day, then they had a choice to be like a traditional vampire of to work during the day. The sunlight wouldn't burn them like it did the others, it would just make them feel very cold.
It was a very strange dream, and a lot of the characters in it were people that I know (or that I knew). Maybe next time I see you all, I'll tell you more about it! It was very interesting!

Anyways, talk to you soon!

Spoke too soon...

Well, it looks like Brian will be in the hospital longer that we thought at the end of last week.

I guess they had switched his medication to a couple different heavy duty penicillins, but they've had to switch him back to the antibiotic he was on before. While he was on the penicillin the infection started to spread again, and has now climbed above his knee. The swelling has been increasing again, and now he has a spot on his arm that seems to be starting this all over again.

In short, they're not happy with the way he's been responding to the medication, and want to keep him in the hospital until he's getting better and can be switched to oral medications instead of the IV that he's on right now.

Susie is getting very tired right now. She's in the city most of the day, is trying to make Brian's schedule is clear for the next few weeks since they don't know when he'll be getting out of the hospital, as well as working full time and trying to keep the house going. Thankfully both Matt and Steve are older now and can help and take care of themselves. Steve has been driving everyone into town in the morning, and picking them up again later, and I'm sure that he and Matt both know how to feed themselves sufficiently. I'm sure that makes everything a lot easier for Susie; I can only imagine what this would all be like for her if the boys were younger and still in school and such.

On another note... I'm home sick today, with what I'm sure is a touch of food poisoning. I think our sour cream (which I had liberal amounts of on my perogies last night) was a little off. I'm the only one who ate any, and I'm the only one who's sick. Thankfully I'm starting to be able to keep food down again, so with luck I'll be better tomorrow. I felt so bad having to call in sick at work today... They have 5 doctors in, and must be really busy. I can't help it though, and my office manager was really great about it when I talked to her. For the most part, it's a really good place to work.

Anyways, I will keep updating as we hear more about Brian.

Improvement!

Well, it's almost amazing what can happen in just a few days! Brian is suddenly showing a lot of improvement, and it now looks like he may (if this weekend goes well) be out of the hospital on or around Monday!
I guess that he's up and walking around (doing far too much, and if he's not careful he'll cause himself harm!), and the swelling is down, the fever under control, and the coughing clearing up! He really is overdoing it though; walking a lot farther than the doctors are suggesting, and then he can hardly move later. I guess that he's already talking about being back to preaching in a week or so, but Susie's not so keen on that idea (not that I blame her)!
So that's the most recent update!

Not a good week either.

Well, Brian is still in the hospital, and there has been little improvement. He's on the antibiotics, and the redness has decreased a little, but the swelling is still about the same. There's been some swelling in his other leg, actually, and we're all a little confused as to why at this point, as cellulitis doesn't jump around the body like that. His fever is still present, and they're having problems controlling it. Sometimes I guess his temperature is almost normal, but I guess that there has been a few times where it's spiked to the point that Brian was almost hallucinating. Now he's developed a cough, which the doctors say is because of how much he's been lying down. They're trying ot get him sitting up more, but he's coughing so hard he's having a hard time keeping food down.
Keep him and the family in your thoughts. We're calling Susie tonight and if anything has changed I'll update.
Also, I got stuck with something sitting on the edge of one of the sharps containers at work on Valentines Day. There's a good chance that it was a needle, so I've been in contact with the needle stick response team and had a bunch of blood work done. I have to be retested twice, in 3 months, and again in six. So far it's okay, and the risks are low, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll keep you updated on this as required too.
Speaking of Valentines, how did it go for everyone? Duncan and I had a quiet evening at home (after we got home from the lab anyways), where we had dinner and some wine and watched a movie. He got me these beautiful leather-bound notebooks that I've been looking at forever. They're really nice.
Oh! Our car has an antifreeze leak again! We broke down on our way home from Saskatchewan after Christmas, and had to get a hose replaced on our radiator, and now we're leaking antifreeze again! We don't know from where exactly, but dad's going to look at it on Monday when we have a day off. Hopefully it's nothing serious!

Not a good weekend.

Well, this week started out not too bad. Work was busy as usual, but nothing out of the ordinary or anything. I was feeling a little under the weather, but nothing serious; just a little stuffy and worn down, my chest a little tight and a bit of a cough.
Then I got off work early on Friday and was talking to Matt online, and everything changed.
Duncan's dad is in the hospital right now. He started having problems with his leg on Friday, went to the family doctor, who sent him straight to the hospital. They did blood tests and ultrasounds, checking for gout and a blood clot (or DVT), but both tests came back clear.
They sent out cultures, and at this point it looks like a skin infection called cellulitis. He's on IV antibiotics right now, and should hopefully start showing improvement either today or tomorrow. If the antibiotics don't work, I suppose that they may have to look at other possibilities.
It's been a little difficult. Honestly, I think the worst part for both of us is being so far away. With the long weekend coming up we're trying to determine if it might be feasible to go down there, but I think we're going to wait and see what happens.
Susie is keeping us updated, and I'll keep the blog updated. Just keep all of us in your thoughts right now.

I know, I know, and I'm sorry...!

I know that it's been forever. I really do mean to update more regularly, but it never seems to work out that way.

Work has still been really busy. Today was quiter though, which was nice. I'm still doing reception on Thursdays and Fridays, and helping with reception (as well as the filing and scanning) on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Thankfully they've been very good about making sure that I get Wednesday afternoons off, and I'm going to be looking into taking a full Wednesday off in the next few weeks. I've been learning a few new things lately too. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about some of them, but learning new things can't be all bad. And they say that stepping outside your comfort zone a little is a good thing, and this is definately outside my comfort zone!

Duncan has been really busy lateley working on an entry for a contest. If he wins, he'll get an interview at a company he's wanted to work for almost forever. Like I said though, it's kept him busy for the last few weeks, and I haven't seen too much of him in the evenings. The entries are all due in tonight though, so then we'll see what happens. I'm really hoping that he'll do well. The idea is really good, and I'm sure that his writing will be great too.

So we got that DVD that I was talking about before... The musical. It was really good! We didn't watch it all in one night, cause it's really long, but there's an intermission in the middle, so that made a good place to break. I really recommend it!

So our games night was this past Saturday, and it was so great! We had about ... *counts* ...9 people, and everybody had tons of fun! There was a game of Munchkin, and of Apples to Apples (which Matt brought... It's a really interesting game, and I think we'll look into getting it sometime!), and then Cranium. I didn't play much, but I had a lot of fun watching everyone else play, and helping out once in a while. There was also another really fun game, called let's figure out how you get your piercing out! And then, once we got them out, we played lets get it back in again! See, Lindsey has a lip ring, and I've got my right helix done. We both wear rings with balls in them, but nobody had ever explained to us how they come out! We knew they didn't screw in, but other than that we were lost! Thankfully Rob and Dano have both had rings like this (Dano in her eyebrow, and Rob in his helix), and so they showed us. Lindsey's ring needed to be bent out before we could get the ball back in again though! And then we lost her ball and everyone spent almost 10 minutes crawling around on the floor tryng to find it! It was actually kind of fun!

I had kind of a miserable day today though... For some reason it was just one of those days where you feel like bursting into tears and you don't know why. All I wanted to do was come home and go to bed. I don't feel so bad now, but I felt pretty down earlier. I couldn't really focus, either... Anyways I feel better now, at least a little bit. Just sitting around and watching "The 10th Kingdom."

But I guess that's all I know for now... If I think of anything later I'll come back.

What a life...!

Well, here I am with a seriously stuffed up nose, living on cold and sinus tablets so I won't have to miss any more time at work. Honestly though, they say that they want me to have more time off so I don't burn out, but then they tell me I'm taking too much time off! Not only that, but our Saturday girl is going to be away, and so they asked me if I could fill in. I said no and they seemed really miffed! I don't know what's going on, but somedays I really don't feel like working there any more. I know that I should probably talk to someone about it, but I don't know how to go about doing it. I don't want to sound like a raving bitch, cause then I'll lose my job!

I got this cool new program for my computer. It's called Skype, and it lets you talk to people (with your voice) over the computer! I talked to a friend of mine in Japan for like an hour and a half the other night. Thank God Skype is free, or that call would have cost a fourtune! Anyways, I think it's pretty cool. Kinda useful actually, so long as you have a head set with mic of course. You just download it for free from the internet, and then install, and then talk!

So I've got Duncan started playing Chuzzle on popcap, which is really kinda funny. It's just this mindless little game where you makes rows of 3 and the chuzzles explode. I think it's kinda fun, but he's never really been into that kinda stuff. He's made it farther than I have even. I've only made it to level 10, but he's made it to level 12. He seems to take it very seriously.

Anyways, dinner is ready.

Oops...!

I know that it's been a while, and I'm sorry. Work and life has been insane, and in all truth I haven't felt like doing all that much.

I still don't feel quite comfortable with my new responsibilities at work, and to be honest, I almost feel like I'm letting people down. I hate letting people down. I don't know what to do about it though... I'm not as comfortable with the new office managers as I was with the one who retired, and I don't know why. I guess I could call her and talk about it, but I feel like that would be telling tales out of school.

I've finally been working towards finishing the cross stitch pictures that I started for my step mom and for Duncan's parents for Christmas in '04. I feel like they're coming together, even though they're both a lot of work. Once I'm done those, I'm not sure what I'll do next... Maybe something for my grandma Vance... Even though, to be totally honest, I'm a little uncomfortable about stitching anything for her; she's just so good at it herself I feel like anything I do will be like drawing a stick figure for DaVinci, or giving Tchaikovsky the sheet music for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!" I know she won't see it that way, but I feel that way.

Duncan and I use this online DVD rental service, where we get DVD's sent to us by mail (up to 4 at a time with the program that we use), we can keep them as long as we want, and we can see as many as we want a month. I just signed up to rent one called "Into the Woods," and it's a DVD that's basically the Broadway show on film (from what I understand). I really hope it gets here soon! See, I basically fell in love with this show when my older sister's high school did it. I think we saw it twice during the run! Then, it came to the Citadel, and my mom and I went to see it. I've seen the DVD in stores, but because it's a low numbers printing, it's really expensive (like $55 or something, which is fine for a box set of several movies, but for one that doesn't even have special features, it's a little pricey). Anyways, I've wanted Duncan to see it, so when I found out that this DVD service carries it I put it on our list and ASAP'd it right away!

Duncan and I are trying to have another games night soon... on Jan 28. I really hope that more people come than last time. The good thing is that 2 people have already said they'd be there, barring unforseen circumstances, so it should be lots of fun. Then I'll have to think about if I'm gonna do anything for my birthday.