I've got it!

My job, most of the time, is fairly mindless. Except for when I have to do simple addition I just listen to music and let my brain wander a little as my fingers type claims automatically.

Due to this I have had ample time in the past few days to contemplate my book. THE book. The one I know many of you are waiting for (and you'll probably be waiting kind of awhile, unfortunately...).

At first it was suggested that I chronicle Mom's life, from beginning to end, like a biography. Well, that would be kind of hard and a little too pragmatic for my artistical imagination. So I thought about it, and then I thought some more, and then it hit me. What I want to do is take my Update posts, Mom's thankfulness status updates from the month of November, and stories about Mom for all 16 months of cancer, from beginning to end, from Dad, the nurses, people who drove her to radiation, my aunt and grandmother. Through this I hope to show how one woman coped with this illness even though she knew it would kill her, how she never complained and rarely let it get her down. I know for a fact that her joyful, peaceful spirit through the entire ordeal ministered to not only her family but also to every nurse, friend, acquaintance, student, etc that came into contact with her.

This idea, in my head, feels much more manageable than the overwhelming task of chronicling everything people can remember about her without her here to give her own view of things. Of course, if she were here she would be embarrassed that I'm writing this story in the first place. In either case, I intend to start as soon as I can once I've outlined things a little. I'm very excited, and I really hope I can live up to the expectations I feel everyone has for me and this book.

In other news, work today gave me no time to think about and refine this idea at all. Systems were malfunctioning at work today, so much so that I actually got to chat with the people sitting around me for a good hour and a half because none of us could do any work. Eventually we were all given paper claims instead of using the electronic system and things went on as usual, though due to needing to catch up two missing hours of stats I was cranking out claims like there was no tomorrow and had little time for extra thought. Hopefully this little problem will be fixed by morning.

And I went for a run!!! My first real run since before my knee surgery back in September, and boy did it feel great! Technically speaking I'm not supposed to run anymore due to degenerative cartilage and an aversion to being bionic by the time I'm 35, but by golly it makes me feel good. Unlike power walking I really feel like I'm doing something good for myself.

Whoa. My brain suddenly went into wedding planning overload. I know, seems random, but I took a break from what I was writing above when I got three phone calls in a row and then called back my fiancé, who was the first caller. Two hours later I'm exhausted and full of to-do lists so I'm going to go now. Oh, and PS, if anyone has brilliant ideas for making a wedding cheap and pretty and fun, please fill me in!

Adulthood: It's all in the power tools.

My weekend was lovely. Not only did I successfully teach my friend to skate well enough to eventually make it around the rink twice with only one minor fall, but I also did all of my laundry and had a wonderful time with my Johnny. And as an added bonus, I had a short breakfast on Saturday with a good friend and got my ears candled (for those who don't know, this means I went to a little boutique spa where they lit the ends of beeswax funnels on fire and stuck the small end inside my ear to suck out all the build up). It was amazing what a difference that process makes on my hearing! Plus I got to chill at SpaGirl and chat it up with the owner and the mother of a peer from my grade school days all about my upcoming wedding (in just over 193 days... ah! Panic!). Speaking of which, Johnny and I start premarital counseling on the 13th. Finally!

I made it back to Cincinnati on Sunday in time to catch the end of the Oscars. As I do not have cable tv because I don't have the money, I bought one of those digital converter boxes.

After I brought it home and read the directions I realized I should also have bought a TV antenna. When I told Johnny my mistake he said "Oh, I have one you can use". Then we forgot about it when I saw him, so two weeks or more after I bought the darn thing I finally got the antenna. The moment I got in the door of my apartment last night I was hooking everything up.

 The antenna hooks into the box, which plugs into the tv, all three have to be plugged in, and then I had to steal the AAA batteries from my guitar tuner to make the converter's remote control work so I could program it and find all the channels. I get 19 channels, including the one that was showing

The Oscars!!!
I know, that is a terrible photo.
The picture kept skipping and pixelating and I realized I had to adjust the antenna to fix that. Totally new concept to me, since I've had cable my whole life, but it's good to learn new things!
All of this I did on my own with no major problems except for the one where I didn't have any AAA batteries... But it was all worth it to see Colin Firth win Best Actor in a Leading Role and The King's Speech win Movie of the Year. Completely and totally deserved.

Just to make sure I continued feeling like an adult after my converter box achievement, I went into the office today for the first time in two weeks and I actually have a cubicle. My own cubicle, for the first time ever. Then I blew my own stats out of the water by completing 255 claims, 22 claims past the required 233. For the past two weeks working from home has made it so I was only able to finish anywhere from 165-200 so this was a big deal. Of course all of this adult-ness was ruined when I went for a power walk around the neighboring church parking lot for 25 minutes as the beginning of my Denise Austin regime. Power walking always makes me feel stupid, but I'm not supposed to run so I guess I'll have to deal.

Then I came home and paid my bills.

**sigh** Being an adult is so lame. After this I'll be doing my workout, writing a grocery list, and cleaning up so I can stand my apartment tomorrow. At some point soon I'm going to start canvassing the Goodwills in the area for a coffee table. It's amazing how quickly being a kid ends and responsibility starts.

But feeling adult doesn't mean I have to dress and act like one! Peace, homies!