Saturday, April 21, 2007

Crossroads

So here I am at a junction of life again. Technically I’ve graduated this semester (still have finals to take), but I postponed my “actual” graduation until August so that I could finish a research project I started (not necessary for my degree). Here’s the catch; I didn’t get the grant money that I was hoping for which means I can’t really afford to do the project now. All in all, what this breaks down to is this:
The life I thought I would be living this summer turns out, that I won’t be living it (most likely). The original plan was for me to keep my part time research job, get the grant, do research and have lots of time this summer to spend with the kids. I haven’t had the time available like I would have liked to have because of full time school, part time job, and a household to run so…I was really looking forward to have the summer with the kids before I had to go find a full time job.
Now, R is still looking for work (which means the only income we’ve been living on is my measly part time salary). He is eligible for unemployment but due to technical red tape it has been held up, possibly for another 7 weeks. He has said that if he gets a job soon that he wouldn’t mind me keeping the part time job I have and then also having the time to be with the kids this summer. That would be wonderful but….there’s always a but. Without some other income (job, unemployment, something) we’re screwed so…
Here I am at a crossroads trying to decide which way to go. If I take a full time job it means I have to give up the part time one, and goodbye summer. If I hold out and hope that R gets a job, or his unemployment comes through and neither happens, we’re screwed, So…I just don’t know. I hate uncertainty. I hate not knowing what’s going to happen. I always have goals and plans, and the like; but now I’m just left hanging in the air.
I could put my resume out there and then turn down a job if things come through for R, but I hate to think of doing that because I may end up turning down something that might turn out to be a really good thing. I don’t know. I guess I’m venting. Anyway…I think I’m done now. I still have two weeks to finish up papers and finals so I guess I’ll cross the bridge when I come to it.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Sorry I haven’t written Ma

Ok, so I know that I haven’t written in, like, forever. It’s because I dropped off the face of the earth. It was really quite painful. Really. I’m lucky to have survived at all.

Alright so maybe I didn’t quite drop off the face of the earth, but I had a completely, totally, f*ed up week last week. It’s too painful to talk about. Let’s just say it was one of those weeks when everything that could go wrong did.
I’m trying to get past it all this week, but yesterday didn’t help set things into an easy flow. Our 7 year old fell down playing jump rope (in the house) and bashed (and I do mean bashed) his little face into the floor; bloodied his nose and mouth, knocked two of his teeth loose, one of which fell out last night. Luckily they are still baby teeth but I had to take him into the dentist this morning just to make sure he was ok. He is. The tooth fairy just gets to visit before she was actually supposed to
So, parents out there… you know the dreaded “crash / thump / thud” sound that happens the second before the horrific scream that lets you know, this time it’s serious? I hate that sound. That’s what I heard as I was trying to get dressed yesterday, followed by his sister screaming, “Oh my God! There’s blood everywhere” while I’m trying to cover myself with my robe and run up two flights of stairs (stairs that I normally have to use my cane to get up) and get to him before it’s too late. Aye, what a freakin’ day.
So, I’m beginning my week today, on Monday. This way I can say that what happened yesterday was a horrible end to a horrible week. Thank God it’s Monday!

Sunday, April 8, 2007

DandD Update

So it occurred to me that I haven’t really mentioned what was going on in our games lately. I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about it, so here goes:

Last night’s game (the one we call the regular game, as opposed to the alternate game next weekend) found us back in Waterdeep. We have apparently escaped Ravenloft for now, but not without a price. And well, honestly speaking, that price was sort of my fault. You see, we were battling this very wicked Death type Lord in Ravenloft and well, being the Neutral Good Cleric that I am; I decided it would be a good thing to cast Holy Word, (and this was really an innocent mistake) the spell worked wonderfully; that is, it had the desired effect of blinding any opponent that hit anyone of my party members but… well being as Ravenloft is actually my home plane it has a second effect as well. (Let me first add this too, depending on the level of the character effected by the spell it was also possible that they could have gone deaf, been paralyzed, or outright killed) Getting back to the second effect; because I was on my home plane, the spell also banishes any NON-Good being from another plane back to its home plane. There is a catch; this is Ravenloft, nothing, and I do mean nothing, necessarily works the way it should when it comes to any type of transportation spell (in other words, you never actually know where you might end up). That said…it turns out that three of my party members were of a Non-Good alignment (unbeknownst to me) well, because they were not originally from Ravenloft guess what happened to them. Yes, I banished all three to different planes of existence, oops. You see, they didn’t go back home to their planes because of the whole problem with Ravenloft transport spells so, they are all now, well shall we just say, MIA. (The players will now have to make new characters, because the ones they had, won’t be coming back from where they ended up, yeah, they’re all dead meat). I look at it this way though. One of the characters was actually Lawful Evil, perhaps placed in our party by a powerful enemy, or whatever, but he was bad and certainly up to no good. He was apparently hiding his alignment from us, so I think I did the group a favor there. Now, our prize Samari fighter, who was much beloved and valued in the party, was also banished. This came as quite a surprise to everyone because of his whole lawful calling to nobleness and honor. It turns out though, that at some point during our adventures in Ravenloft, he was bitten by a werewolf and never told anyone, hence the non-good. So, eventually he would have turned on us too, most likely anyway. So I think perhaps the banishment was a good thing there too. The third party member well, he was kind of just unlucky, believe me par for the course. See, he chose a lawful neutral alignment, not good, not bad, in this case though; bad. He really hasn’t had much luck with this character though. Once he cut his own leg off in battle, which really sucked for him. He also lost an arm in battle, lucky for him we were able to piece him back together, because yes; I am just a badass cleric that can do that sort of thing *snicker snicker*. So, maybe I did him a favor after all. I mean sooner or later he was going to probably cut off his own head anyway, right? So there you have it, the latest update (on this game anyway) and my justification for killing three of my party members. Don’t get testy about it, I still have another Holy Word spell prepared, oh yes, oh yes I do.
I guess I’ll have to talk about the other game at yet another time since this post is getting quite long. It also occurs to me that I went a bit off subject here and never actually related how we got back to Waterdeep and what has been occurring there since, hmm. I guess the plot will thicken during my next update.