I Friggin Love Fall

It is officially my favorite season. And has been since Frodo's birthday (any Geek or literary nerd worth their salt better know this). Honestly, what's not to love about Autumn?? Ok besides the ever shorter days, that I will agree is a bummer. I'd love to have an Autumn with the sunset around 8pm. But besides that, why complain? GORGEOUS scenery, especially if you are lucky enough to live in New England and get to see foliage out your windows. Perfect temperatures - sunny and warm during the day but cool in the evenings and early mornings, giving you the perfect excuse to curl up in a blanket, next to your sweetie, or with a beloved furry pet whether they are willing or no. There's apple picking, apple cider hot and cold, pumpkin everything, hot cocoa or tea. Fall fashion is the best. Fall is the blessed season for academics such as myself, with schools back in session and all those pens, pencils, planners, notebooks, and textbooks begging to be used! I love nothing better than walking on a university campus. I can know not a soul but still feel entirely at home.

This scrumptious photo brought to you by Lonely Planet

So I'm sitting here, doing my homework *writing my blog* and listening to Pandora, which of course I keep referring to as Pandorica. If you don't get the reference you don't watch Doctor Who and need to immediately. It will change your life. If you hate the show, stop reading this blog because no doubt I won't be much more likeable. Anyways, I'm not even one month into class and I'm behind in the readings. Not that it's vital since there's no exams, but if I don't do the readings I don't learn as much. So I'm trying to be good and catch up. Unfortunately there are so many things on the web to distract me. Like this new discovery of epic cuteness:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/meet-sir-stuffington-the-cutest-pirate-in-the-world

Oh holy hell I get distracted so easily.

Speaking of distractions, since this is too long to post on Facebook I'll post my rant here. I went out to Amherst today for some errands and fun me-shopping and on my way back home I ended up stuck behind a semi truck whose driver was clearly either new to driving huge trucks or just completely inept at his job. Every damn hill we came to, and there's a lot on Route 9, he slowed down just before the hill and then continued to lose his speed up the hill. Normally cars are doing 50mph on this road but everyone behind him was doing around 30-35. We barely hit 45, which is the posted speed limit. I had this witch pass me AND the semi just to get away, while I decided to be a law-abiding citizen for once and only pass in a passing zone, which of course every time I reached I had oncoming traffic preventing me from freeing myself from the Bumbling Behemoth. At one point I was sandwiched between BB and another semi who knew how to drive and negotiate hills and was therefore eating my bumper. Clearly we were playing a game of turn the compact Jetta into a more compact 2-seater, and without my consent. I was finally able to pass when BB figured out how to pull off the road a bit and let me zoom by. I was ever so grateful.

For those not in the know: tomorrow is my birthday. Oddly, I find myself more excited by birthdays the older I get, even though I now want to be in denial about my age. Not that it matters, since I still look several years younger than I actually am. Last year I had someone ask me if I was a sophomore in college. I responded "Um, actually I'm in grad school." They were embarrassed, I was embarrassed, it was all good and awkward. I'm still in grad school FYI, and will be at least another year. Oh and I'm turning 26 tomorrow. Which freaks me out, but there will be gifts and cake, so I'll be fine. Part of my freakout is that by tomorrow I will no longer have any health insurance. I've thus far been covered by my parents (which is awesome since my husband uses his student health insurance and is just never sick), but will no longer be eligible and like the good procrastinator I am I have not applied for state insurance. Thankfully I just refilled my prescriptions so I have a little time, but still. I need to get my arse in gear before I run out. I don't want to deal with me off my anti-depressants!
Aside from the major bummer of no health insurance, tomorrow is gonna be good. The only gift I know about for certain is my brothers - he's giving me Iron Man 3. I can't wait to watch it again.

Ok off I go!

Oh My God I Did It Again

Oh good, you're awake. Feed us.

This is how I spend most of my mornings - waking up in bed to see my furry little monsters staring at me (not always from the bed of course, sometimes lurking on the floor), waiting for me to open my eyes so they can start talking about how hungry they are. Literally, talking. Not English, because frankly that would be too much for my caffeine-deprived morning brain, but in chirps and meows. Incessantly, mind you.
The rest of my mornings, since my summer class ended, have been spent either reading or browsing the Internet (I.E. Facebook or Buzzfeed) until I happen to notice several hours have passed and I've done nothing productive. Again. I seriously need to be paid to procrastinate, I do it so damn well.

Soooo, yeah, I apologize for never getting back to this poor deprived blog. What with all the time I've wasted, plus sleep, and other necessities, I've just been swamped. And now it's the start of a new semester! I am back in another class - World War I - as well as starting my graduate assistantship for my university's Center for Teaching and Learning. And I've jumped in with both feet, not really knowing the waters or how well I can swim. My job for the next 2 years is working as the assistant editor for the Center's online magazine; I'm in charge of email correspondence, arranging for reviewers and submissions, setting up meetings, and actually publishing the magazine to the internet. My assistantship calls for 15hrs of work each week but I have a feeling I will be pulling extra hours at home. This as well as staying on top of my readings and research for class. I'd really like to not BS my way through my first few assignments, which means I need to actually read the books I'll be citing for my paper at the end of term.

In other news: Husband and I recently celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary. Definitely a lot more squabbling this past year, but I still love him and couldn't survive without him. And in our defense, this past year was horrendous. A lot of stress from school and all its lovely demands on both of us, sudden deaths in the family, and I lost my jobs. Yeah, jobs. "Let go" from one (which at least gave me the grace of quitting and sending in a letter of resignation) and fired from another. In their defense, I had taken advantage of their leniency towards calling out, and did so way too often. Usually because I was actually sick, but often because my depression had become bad and I couldn't even get out of bed. And I never divulged this to either employer. And honestly I think the one that fired me didn't really believe me when I told them I had lost another family member the same week as the first one (2 grandparents, 2 different sides of the family, and within days of each other). Oh well. Live and learn! (Such as, I will never call out again and just give my coworkers whatever plague I've contracted. I love to share.)
But I digress! Our anniversary we spent the whole day in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Got some sun at Plum Island and walked around downtown. Husband couldn't take more than the day off, and since we're saving for a house neither of us wanted to spend money going somewhere for the weekend, but the day trip was wonderful. A whole day where we acted like newlyweds once more. It was a nice break from the norm!