Happiness is...

A bag of marshmallows

Finding a childhood story come alive

Graduating with your best friends

Achieving a life-long dream

Celebrating with a Birthday buddy!

Reuniting with old friends

Seeing a butterfly emerge from a cocoon

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Playing with old toys

That first bite of birthday cake

Dressing up for Halloween

Spending time with sisters

Happiness is knowing that you are loved no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter what.

Thank you to everyone who reminds me daily how lucky I am to be loved, to know true happiness.

My latest poem

It has no title, but was inspired during class this past week.

His words bounce around my mind like bubbles: pretty, yet elusive and meaningless.

This is how I feel...

"My Rules"

If you want to marry me, here's what you'll have to do:
You must learn how to make a perfect chicken-dumpling stew.
And you must sew my holey socks,
And soothe my troubled mind,
And develop the knack for scratching my back,
And keep my shoes spotlessly shined.
And while I rest you must rake up the leaves,
And when it is hailing and snowing
You must shovel the walk... and be still when I talk,
And -- hey -- where are you going?

From Where The Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein.

Today's greatest definition

this is the given definition to a term for one of my courses:

"the agreed amount of time between when a content creator creates content and the time the content creator allows for the content to appear on the content provider's system."

What is it about that statement that makes sense to anyone?

Crazy librarians.

House-sitting is wonderful. It's so quiet here - so removed from things I know and am used to. I hadn't realized how restorative absolute quiet can be. Only the dogs' snoring beside me infringes, and that, even, is more organic than 12-year-olds screaming or rock music blaring from bad speakers or muted Arabic accents through the walls, and therefore more palatable.

After putting 300 miles on my car yesterday (for very good reasons, I might add), I was relaxing in front of a movie when Maddie called. Because her parents were leaving for a Halloween costume party, she told me she was calling to find "some entertainment on the phone." We talked about pre-school and the Halloween party they are throwing on Monday - complete with live ponies for riding and candy give-aways and costumes.

As clothes are her current life's passion, she began describing in extreme detail the ensembles of her "Around-the-World" doll collection. But by the time she got to Doll #5, she wondered aloud if I wouldn't be more interested in talking about something else. "There are so many dolls left," she said. Her second passion is reading and storytelling, of course, and I was grateful that Kelly had some kids' books behind the couch that I could read to Maddie over the phone. Kinda lame, but when a 4-year-old asks for stories over and over, rehashing the childhood memories you've told her a million times is boring. And on-the-spot creativity has never been my forte.

But tonight I'm distraught. The mother of one of Maddie's friends died today. She had a premie about a month ago--the baby is at home; stable, but watched closely--and they thought everything was fine. She was home with the kids when she had a heart attack, somehow related to her pregnancy. And she's gone. 3 kids. One barely even alive itself.

I met her in August at our princess tea party. Lovely woman. So sweet, so kind.

It's incomprehensible. And there's nothing I can do.

Did you know?

that according to the Oxford English Dictionary spaghetti is the plural form of spaghetto.

That means, when I was a kid and my mom would hand me a single strand of raw pasta to eat while she was cooking, I was munching on a spaghett-O.

In other news, I got a nifty button-up sweater at Goody's yesterday for $14.31. It was 40% off along with an additional 20% or so for shopping on that particular day. What a nice surprise. And I was warm, today, because of it.

It's true that my work schedule isn't ideal. I work on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. Which means I have few opportunities to leave town.

However, I have so many "fun" things going on this semester, that I have been able to finagle other into switching shifts with me several times so I can have a weekend away.

When I do that, sometimes it comes back to bite me. For instance, I just looked at my schedule and realized that I will have worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday beginning this past Thursday. That's five days in a row with a one day break before working three days in a row.

Who am I to complain? Real people with Real jobs have to work 6-7 days a week.

True.

But I'm not a real person with a real job just yet. I'm a disgruntled student.