I don't know what's going to happen now

so I gt a call from my cousin. it was just to chat (though she had ulterior motives that soon came to the surface). She's getting married so her and the fiance are taking pre-marriage counseling classes. that made me laugh. I honestly thought I'd be married with kids (or at the very least married or with kids and not married) before she would. In the relationship field I was more advanced than she was, but boy did she prove me wrong! She's engaged to her first boyfriend and it's like O.O to me.

She also told me that our cousin Brenda (I went to her baby shower a couple weeks ago) is 9 months pregnant and in the hospital with swine flu! I got the chills and my heart stopped. people are dying from this and to know that my cousin is sick with it (and they aren't delivering her baby tho her due date was yesterday) it scares the heck out of me! I can't imagine what her 3 other kids are thinking! She's basically in quarantine and only her husband & mother can see her. Pray/think positive healing thoughts for her and (unborn) Baby Ebony Lovette.

Then my cousin tells me her mom is going to some women's meeting and asked if I wanted to go. this was the ulterior motive I knew she had. the only time she calls me is to invite me to church stuff. first I accepted, then I got a call from the husband of one of my college friend's Bonnie. She was in her 2nd week of being sick and she had a seizure. she hadn't had one in over 10 years. they have a 10 month old daughter and Bonnie's mother wasn't off work so he asked if I could watch the baby until Bonnie's mom got ff work. Watched the baby for abt an hr, Bonnie's mom came, we talked a bit and then Jennifer came over to use my laptop.

now for the fun news. I'm going to be Aunt Jemima for Halloween! well I'd like to be if my mom is able to help me pull it off. And I called one of my friends to tell her and she was like "Oh! I can be Mrs. Butterworth!" haha! if we go to a party on Saturday, it's going to be so much fun! I hope we don't have to explain who we are tho. lol

sometimes I do miss the stuff I toss away

today was an emotionally and electronically crappy day. I found myself staring at a picture of a guy I broke up with 3 years ago. He was a good guy. didn't do anything wrong to me, but he had no ambition to finish college, I couldn't deal with that. some may remember me mentioning him. I used to call him 'my love', then it was Brad, then it changed to 'Dick-Brad' (as to not confuse him with the other 2 'Dicks' in my life), now it's just Brad. Haven't seen or heard from him since that time he said he wanted to see me, made arrangements then flaked. *shrugs*

Also, the Angels didn't make it to the World Series. someone posted this on Twitter and I'm passing it along. "Now we all have to root for the Phillies. The saying is " I love the the ___, but my 2nd favorite team is whoever is playing the Yankees!" so yes. Go Phillies! make all those against the Yankees proud!

I went to the Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center [Columbia Memorial Space Center for 'short'] (it's a 10 min walk away from my apt) on Sunday with my dad and 2 of my bosses. we got free tickets as the place had it's grand opening on Thursday and Friday, Saturday & Sunday were free with tickets you get at City Hall.

This place makes me wish I was in elementary/middle school again! it's so much fun! lots of space stuff, there's a space shuttle/space station simulation room (in January it'll be fully operational like the real things!) there's lot of computers, videos, interactive tv things lol Pictures sorry they kind of suck. taken w/camera on cell

In case I didn't post them, here are the pictures from when I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific with Lora, Colleen & John on the 17th. They were also taken with the camera on my cell phone, but I think they came out a bit better than the ones from Sunday...

eta Also went to the Pastoral Installation of the new pastor of the Hispanic church (they rent the facilities where my church has it's services). we were going to stay for dinner but it was something like 70-80 people and of those, 50 of them speak English. My Spanish isn't up to par to hold a conversation, plus I was with my dad and he didn't want to stay so I had to go or I wouldn't have a way home. After the way the baseball game ended, I wish I would have stayed at the dinner...

I now pronounce you man and wife...or are you?

Imagine if you will...It's the late 1980s or early 1990s, you're at a church, among all your friends and family and you're standing next to the person who is soon to become your husband or wife. The ceremony is beautiful, everything has gone off without a hitch and now you're married to the love of your life. You go off, have some kids, get a nice house, all that stuff married couples do...

Fast forward to 2009. You're going through official important papers, looking for something or whatever. You come across your marriage certificate. you'd been looking for it for one reason or another. You do what you need to do with it. But...something is not right.

The minister who preformed your wedding NEVER FILED THE LICENSE! for the last 20 years you've been living with your husband or wife, filing taxes, filling out insurance papers AS A MARRIED COUPLE, but legally you aren't married. Spiritually you're married, but according to the government, you aren't.

~~~

That, ladies and gentlemen, is not fiction! I get a call during the week from someone who was married by a former Pastor some 20 years ago and they leave a message saying I need to talk to the Pastor about a wedding he preformed. I was thinking oh they need a copy of the wedding certificate. I called and left a message and went about my business. about an hour later I'm packing up to leave and something tells me to call back again. so I do and the person answers. I explain how that Pastor was no longer at this church and the lady then tells me her story (the one above).

Part of me thinks, oh wow that sucks, but what do you want him to do? you already went through and redid your vows and you're legally married now, but another part of me was like oh wow! their lives could have been ruined while they were filling out some important papers or whatever.

I just got off the phone with Colleen and she said to e-mail the Pastor the information and let them deal with it. What good would that do? They already redid their vows and are now legally married, albeit, it looks like they've been married a short time and not the 20 years they thought they were. Colleen also told me this Pastor had done that a few times in the past! That he was late in filing her license.

Then I thought of my sister & her husband. This pastor preformed her wedding in 1990. Is she legally married to her loser husband?

Have to figure out how to word this e-mail to the Pastor to let him know. I'll do it when I get home.

I was a good neighbor

my neighbor doesn't have a computer (or at least one that works) and asked if I could help her daughter practice typing. she was just transfered to a typing class. school's been in session since the beginning of September so I was surprised they transfered before the start of new semester in January. I have nothing else to do during the week so I agreed.

For about an hour and a half I taught the girl some basics, what I assumed she would have learned had she been in the typing class since the beginning of the school year. She picked up things rather quickly.

So I let her go to type and then my laptop over heated before I could get her to save so we took a 20 min break while it cooled down and I got the document back. Luckily all of it wasn't lost and she was able to pick up where she left off. I told her to save after she typed each sentence so if something happened, she wouldn't have to start over from the beginning.

Her total typing time, had we not stopped, was 30 mins. That's VERY good for a beginner typer! I told her to save the paper again and showed her how to print. She accidentally printed 2 copies but I told her that was ok. She'd have a copy for herself and one to turn in and if the teacher lost his copy, she had the other copy.

when she left, I told her that if she ever needed to type something to come over and let me know and I'd set her up so she could do her work. Another neighbor mentioned to me that she was getting a new computer at Christmas and would be giving this family her old computer. she said it was too slow for her, but it would be something this girl could use the practice with.

That was my good deed for the day. I felt good being able to help this girl.

In other news...any time the topic came up of people moving, I always mentioned that I had all my dishes & silverware save for drinking cups. How was this possible? I claimed complete dishware sets that my mom had but never used. This included Coventry fine China service for 8! It'd been sitting in the side China cabinet for years and hadn't been cleaned in I don't know how long. Well, a few months ago I got my own storage unit and I've been slowly filling it with this from my room and my things out of the garage. I also said that I'd wash & pack the China that I claimed but never actually got around to doing it...until today. I took everything down, washed & dried them and now I'm packing & labeling the boxes so they can be taken to my storage. when my mom gets the chance, she's going to go through the silverware that's in the kitchen to make sure there's a full set and I'll wash & pack those away in storage as well.

now all I need is my own place to put all this stuff in and maybe I'll feel like a grown up lol

I told you that I can't do anything that involves spending money

So why am I going to the Long Beach Aquarium with John, Colleen and Lora? Because Colleen had a free ticket from her job and invited me. All I would need is spending/lunch money.

I don't have spending/lunch money. So I asked my mom for $10 because I didn't plan on buying souvenirs and that was more than enough for lunch.

Why does fun always happen the day BEFORE I get paid?!

My mom also told me that I can't stay in my room all day. It does me more harm than good. Fine! To avoid argument, I'll find something to do during the day that doesn't require spending money. When I get my next paycheck (at the beginning of November) I'll be able to buy a monthly bus pass and then they won't be able to keep me in the apartment! HA!

My horoscope today made me laugh "You need to resist the impulse to spend much money today -- it doesn't solve any of your problems, and you might find that people are all too willing to let you throw down more than you can afford."