Last Friday, I had a small dinner party for my BFF, Di. I baked and cooked all day. I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting from Scratch, as her birthday cake. I even toasted the pecans that were in the cake and the frosting. Seriously, it is an amazing recipe- totally scrumptious. For dinner itself, I made baked butternut squash, coated in olive oil and spices, topped with parmesan cheese; a roasted sweet pepper salad- in which I actually roasted the peppers in the over; baked sweet potatos; and steak. What makes all of this so striking is that I don't cook, not very often at least. I live by myself and my mother is an amazing cook and lives next door. I don't actually need to cook very often. Let's face it, it isn't very fun to cook for one's self. If I can get by with chopping up veggies and whipping up a quick batch of hummus, then I'm pretty happy. The thing that I discovered last Friday is that I do, very much, enjoy cooking. Tonight, for no other reason than I felt like it and I had the ingredients, I made Snickerdoodles. They'll be fabulous with a lovely cup of tea. All of the sudden, I want to bake- everything! It's very bizarre. Is this what barely working does to a person? I don't know....

On the agenda for this evening 1. drink tea and eat Snickerdoodle (it is fun to say!) 2. grout tile downstairs in family room ( I laid it two days ago, it's time to grout! Fun wow.) 3. Talk to Boy

Can you stand the excitement?

I have finally decided upon a new user pic. I loved the old one, and I am still "SpringFaerie", will always be SpringFaerie, but even I am tired of my "sweet" persona. No one is *THAT* sweet, even me! And so, I am unveiling my new user pic. It definitely captures more of the frame of mind that I'm in- still sweet, but also sexy and little naughty. What can I say? It's been an interesting Summer! ;)

Do you have any idea how much it sucks to download music with an Old-School Dial Up Connection? It truly blows. I feel like centuries have passed since I began this quest for new music for my Ipod.

And am I the only one who misses the halcyon days of Napster, back when it was just a "Shared Music Community" site? *Sigh* Ah, the good ol' days...

I don't know how much I mentioned what's been going on in my family life over the past oooh, year or so, as I haven't been the most consistent of E-Peeps since grad. school began. Last year, my dad had a couple of very minor strokes which stymied the doctors at both Buffalo General and Gates. We wouldn't have even known that he had the strokes as, it seemed, they affected his balance. He was the healthiest person in the ICU, which was actually pretty funny. He was in the hospital for two weeks, in a rehab facility for two weeks and was back at work a month after that. And the panic had abated. This time last year my usually incredibly stoic mother was freaking out, had put their house on the market, and was planning on moving back to Lackawanna. My dad got better, things calmed to near normal levels, they took the house off the market, and were talking about when my dad retires, in a couple of years. And then in December his foot started to swell. And he went to his doctor who didn't really think much of it. And it continued to swell to the point where it looked like he had developed Elephantitis, so swollen, it was uncomfortable to look at. You would assume that my father would have been in great amounts of pain. And he probably would have been were it not for the fact that he has Diabetic Neuropathy and can't actually feel his feet. So, his foot was swelling, the foot that had been his good leg after the strokes, and his doctor isn't really concerned. Finally, four months after the swelling began, and my mother haranguing him, he went to a podiatrist who initially diagnosed his foot as a wicked case of gout. We all thought, great, Gout. We can deal with gout.

It wasn't gout. My father, due to his diabetic neuropathy developed a condition known as Charcot Syndrome in which the bones in your foot suddenly soften and begin to fracture and because he can't feel it, he kept walking on these fractured bones fracturing them further. Then, the foot got a blister and an infection. He has been hospitalized twice since May 31st to be put on I.V. antibiotics. Now, my father is retired and a stone's throw to being an amputee.

To help my parents, who have once again put their house in Colden up for sale, my fabulous Uncle and Aunt have offered my parents to move into their house in Colden because it has an open floor plan which is better to accomodate a wheel chair and have contracted to have a ramp built and the bathroom remodeled to make it handicap accessible.

Truly, my Uncle Stan and Aunt Jackie are possibly the best people I know- everything that they've done for me and now everything that they're doing for my parents... Although, this does mean, my parents are moving in with me and I have no idea how that's going to work...

I just wish that I had some sort of personal direction right now. With everything going on I'm trying very hard to not feel lost. In my family, we all do right now, we all feel lost. It's hard to feel like you're not drowning.

Rock me, Rock me, Rock me Sexy Jesus! So, last night, one of my best friends and I went to see Hamlet 2. I can't remember that last time that I laughed- genuine belly laughs!- in a movie! D. nearly peed herself- TWICE! It was just a warped, twisted, high-man-humour kind of movie, with, arguably, the BEST Musical score in History! After the movie ended, we decided to turn our evening into a double feature and went to see Tropic Thunder which was very funny, different than Hamlet 2, but still very funny. Not nearly so many belly laughs, However, that being said, Handsdown- Tom Cruise' best roll EVER! I can't stand Tom Cruise and I was actually totally impressed by him. He played with such gusto and such vigor, it was really refreshing to see him play such a balls-to-the- wall comedic character. It almost makes me not mind his crazy Scientology-ness. If you haven't seen either of them, I absolutely recommend them, especially Hamlet 2!

I'm so downloading "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" into my Ipod!!! :)

So, after all of the drama, and yesterday's post, my prof. finally, FINALLY graded my project and I got an A!!! I'm so stoked I can't even stand it! That means, E-peepers, I will finally get my diploma! Oh happy day!

I have no idea what to title this post. So, here's the scoop on my whole issue with my degree, which, I still don't have, which means, I am still uncertified to teach, which, as you can imagine, has hampered my ability to search for a teaching job, ANY teaching job. Okay, this last semester, I bit off more than I could chew. I had to take an incomplete for an extraneous class. Even though it was an extra class that was not part of my degree program and was not listed on the contract of classes that I needed to complete for my degree, which I fulfilled with flying colors, Buffalo State College will not give me my degree until I finish the incomplete as, and here's how they got me, "You cannot have an I or an X listed on your transcript." I did not know about this little rule. So, even though I completed the contract for the degree itself, I have an I on my transcript. Now that I am calmer about that, I do understand the school's point about the I on my transcript. Had they handed me my degree without completing the class, I might never have completed it. They weren't to know that I do need the class to obtain my extension on my certification. I am fine that and worked on the project that I needed to finish. Now, I have finished the project that I needed to finish and have handed it- on August 14th. My Professor has still not corrected it and has not submitted my grade to the Graduate Office at Buffalo State. I have e-mailed her. I have called her. Clearly, she's not in a hurry. Honestly, as it's too late to try to find a teaching job for this school year, I don't know how much of a hurry I should be in but I am really pissed. It's the principle of the thing, you know. The upside is that the Graduate Office has been very good about this, especially considering that the onus is now on my instructor. I have done what I needed to. I just really wish that she would do her job and tell me what the hell is going on! More on this later

Okay, well, you know how I wrote that I graduated- blah, blah, blah... Well, today, I received a certified letter. (Is it just me, or do those things NEVER bode well?) My lovely school has decided- a month later- that I don't get my diploma- at least not with a May Graduate date- due to my incomplete class. Mind you, this incomplete class is extra and not needed for my actual diploma. This incomplete class is for an EXTENSION on my teaching certification- not even for my regular Elementary Ed. certification- which, incidentally, I can't even apply for until I get my God Damned Diploma! And, of course, the person that I need to talk to about this is not in the office until Monday. Fuckers!! You know, I even woke up this morning with a feeling that something like this was going to come down- that this incomplete for this G.D. extra class was going to haunt me. Fuck me, I was right! ARGH!!

So, "Boondock Saints" is playing at Bacchus tonight. Anyone going?

• I need to post and get some thoughts out of my head but my fear is that these thoughts will come across to everyone as incredibly arrogant. Arrogance in not my intention. I just need to state facts. And that was my little caveat.

I have a good life. I've been privileged in a way that I could never have possibly envisioned for myself. As a writer, it's something that I would write for a character but two + years ago could never have seen for myself. That's when I became "That girl"- you know, the one that you hear about who has something happen that is so amazing that you think, "Why can't something like that happen to me!? I've written before about my fantastic uncle and the incredible opportunity that he and his wife have given me- mainly, asking me to be the caretaker of their house in Colden. I live here, in this lovely, private, log-cabin, chateau style house- rent free- and have only two real conditions- I can't have a pet and when my uncle and my aunt come out to visit together, I have to move back into my parents' house. The last time I actually had to go back to my parents' house was May of '07. And he's the uncle who, unexpectedly, sent me an 8 gig Ipod nano when I graduated. And that turned out to not actually be my graduation present! He's currently in town, just for a very short stay and yesterday he took me on a shopping spree- he, with his impeccable taste (truly, he's a straight guy with impeccable taste and design sensibilities! They do actually exist, ladies!) outfitted me with, as Tim Gunn would say, "Wardrobe essentials." He paid for everything. I'm not going to lie- it was awesome and fun as hell- as fun as I imagined that a shopping spree would be, better because I was with my super fun, really cool uncle who has amazing taste in clothes. The shopping spree was my graduation present. And the most extravagant thing- the thing that makes me feel actually guilty (but that I absolutely love!) is he even bought me a Burberry trenchcoat! A fucking Burberry- me!- this girl from Lackawanna!

And I can't help but wonder why have I been so blessed? What did I do to actually deserve this life? Why am I so special? And then, and here's the heart of the matter for me, as I have been so very fortunate, is it right or fair that I should want more? I don't mean that I want more in the materialisitic sense I mean in the "I'm Still single and would love to be in a relationship" sense. I'm beginning to think that, perhaps, I just be happy with what I've already been blessed with and just stop wanting for more. Maybe I've tapped out on my good fortune and trying to find that perfect love too would be like Iccarus flying towards the sun. I'm beginning to think that I should stop all of that wanting and just be happy with the life that I have- say "thank you!" to the Universe (which I, literally, thank God everyday) and just accept that, perhaps, my life is as good as it gets- alone, just me and be fine with it. What do you think?