Finally Relaxing

I'm feeling better. A lot better. I'm such a roller coaster.

I'm relieved to be better able to focus on assignments for school. I don't know what was wrong with me for a little while. I just couldn't make myself do what I needed to do. I have one more week of my current class, which is really two weeks because next Monday is Labor Day so we're out. I'm excited about my last team assignment. It should be fun. The instructor I have now is very...unstructured...I guess. She doesn't really like powerpoint presentations so she encourages us to find more creative ways to present our assignments. For this week, we're supposed to pick a problem and determine two main decisions that need to be made to solve it. One of my teammates suggested the idea of a couple trying to decide whether to buy a house in the suburbs or rent an apartment in the city. I threw out a few of the issues that the couple would need to consider and we decided to present using a role play activity. So I'm going to be a real estate advisor and inform the couple of the pros and cons of each option. One teammate will be the one in favor of the house and the other in favor of the apartment and we'll show the decision making process through acting it out. Neat, huh?   So, yeah...feeling better about school. For now...lol

Work is ok too. Lorenzo is on vacation right now and the manager we have in his place is turning out to be pretty cool. I didn't like him at all at first. He's a big black guy named Conrad. The first couple of days he was there, Lorenzo was trying to show him around and give him a run down of how we do things in our store. Those days, Conrad just sort of stood around and observed so I got the impression that he was lazy. Then when Lorenzo left for vacay, Conrad stepped up to the plate and he's doing awesome. I won't say that he does more than Lorenzo because I really don't know what all Lorenzo does, but Conrad does do things more efficiently. There's more organization to everything and stuff gets done quicker. Normally I feel like I don't have enough time to do the things that have to get done before I leave and lately, like today, I was walking around looking for shit to do. Part of that could be that business is slow. Extrememly slow. But even if things had been busier, it would have been more orgnaized than I'm used to. There's not as much prep going on during the lunch "rush" anymore. I'm wondering if Lorenzo is coming back. He mentioned to me that he wasn't planning on it. I guess we'll see.

My Bai has been sick quite a bit lately. A couple of weeks ago she and Jacob were both kinda sick, coughing and fever. They went to the doctor and it was just a virus, no biggie. Well then Josh got sick. He had croup, pink eye in both eyes, an ear infection, and some other viral infection all at the same time. Poor baby. He's feeling better now, but Bai is sick again. This time it's an infection in her throat. There are little pus pockets all over the back of it. She got sent home from school yesterday because of it. Her temp got up to 101.6 at school. William took her to the doctor today and they gave her some antibiotics. I'm just glad it's not strep. If there's anyone with strep within a mile from me, I get it. I avoid that shit like the plague.

Jacob is acting weird again. He seems depressed sometimes. Not always, but often enough to bother me. Sometimes I feel like I might have done or said something to upset him because when I ask him what's wrong, he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't say that; he just says there's nothing wrong, but obviously there is. And then when I tell him that if something's wrong, he can talk to me about it, he just says "I know" and goes on about his business all mopey. I know that his medicine can cause depression as a side effect, but I wouldn't go as far as to say he is actually depressed. Most of the time he seems perfectly fine. I don't know. I can't wait to get the doctor bills paid off so he can go back and see Edith (to check on the meds) and Gayla (just to talk).

Speaking of paying the bills off, that should be happening very soon. I'm anxiously awaiting my refund check from my student loan. I'm going to pay off both my and Jacob's accounts at EFC. Bai still has an ambulance bill I've been paying on that I'll be able to take care of. There are a few other bills that need attention and then my car needs some minor work. The idle air sensor control valve doohickey thingamabob needs replacing and I need a new tire rod. I'm pretty sure that's it for now, but I'll have good ol' Ridgetop Auto give the whole thing a once over just in case. I need to take the car through emissions testing, which it'll fail until I have the thingamabob fixed, so that I can get a temp tag until I can pass emissions and get a permenant one. My shit expires today. Oh crap! For some reason I thought I had more time. Damn, the end of the month just crept up on me. Well I get off work early tomorrow so I'll go then and just hope I don't get pulled over on the way there.

Heather and I are doing really well. I know I don't talk about her much and that's mostly because our business is our business, but the fact that I'm happier with her lately than I've been in a long time makes me want tell people how happy I am. Our biggest problem was that I wasn't putting enough of myself into the relationship because I was (unknowingly, or accidentally, or something) putting too much of myself into other things. She said something one night that finally made me see things from her perspective, which I had been failing to do since we got together. It was a comment that she had made countless times before, but for some reason it hit me that night and I changed what I needed to change. We're sooo much better now. What I've been thinking was us just not being compatible was really just me being stubborn and blind. She's no saint or anything, but since I've come around about what I needed to do, she's putting more effort into things from her side too. I'm happy.

Jacob's birthday marked my two year anniversary with Heather. At the time, I couldn't afford to do anything for her to celebrate. Anticipating my school money, though, I've been making plans for an awesome gift for her. I won't say what yet, just in case she happens to read this, but it's gonna be AWESOME!

In a few weeks Heather and I are going to Pigeon Forge (I think. Maybe Gatlinburg? Something like that) with her mom and stepdad. They were planning a trip up there and asked us to come along. I haven't really spent time with them in forever. We did get to hang out with them for a little while last time we went camping, but the past several times Heather has gone to West TN to visit them, I haven't been able to go. It'll be nice. I hope we get to see Jace, Heather's baby nephew. I haven't met him yet. He was born on Easter. He's a cute baby, but not in a cute baby sort of way...lol   

That's pretty much my life right now. Nothing really going on. No big issues to stress over. I'm sure that'll change in time because that's what life does. Ups and downs. But for now I'm just enjoying being able to relax. That's right, I said relax. In fact, when I close this up, I'm going to play a video game. Then I'm going to attempt to cook dinner and have it ready right about the time Heather gets home from work. It's breakfast stuff: sausage links, bacon, eggs, biscuits...but I'm a really lousy cook. In fact, I think I'll let her do the eggs because I still haven't mastered frying them. I can scramble them all day long, but even that I don't do the way she likes them. She likes them light and fluffy. I like mine to be kinda browned in places. So, yeah, she can cook the eggs.

I'm gonna sign off. Don't know when I'll write again because I never know when I'll have time. So until then...