I’m a little shocked. I knew that it was coming and I was preparing for it but still, being behind like I am, it was a surprise that the month, for all intents and purposes, is over. January is gone (but not forgotten).

While I could ponder how something like this could have happened, and so soon, I’ll save the mental agility for something far more useful. Preparing for February.

As you may know, it’s a short one. It’s full of holidays that we don’t get out of work for things like groundhogs, valentines and presidents.

As the first new month of the year closes I am able to look back (on all 30 days) and see where I’ve gone wrong with my resolutions. Some I haven’t started yet and I feel perfectly ok with that. I don’t feel as though I failed. Can you truely fail if you don’t begin?

This month I started to brainstorm Christmas gifts for the upcoming year as well as birthday gifts and the old faithful spreadsheet? It’s been put back into action. This is awesome because it’ll really help me budget how much money I need to set aside for everything I want to do and knowing that it’ll help me put a little aside each month so that everything I want to acomplish in the gifting realm doesn’t hit me all at once like it did this year. It’s painful and really made me appreciate why I started using the spreadsheet in the first place. Kind of like a delayed Ah ha! moment.

Another thing I started this month was writing. I didn’t set some lofty goal that I wanted to write every day, but I tried to fit it in where I could, over lunch hours, in spare moments, and I spent many frosty walks across campus asking myself questions about the characters involved with my story. Why would they do certain things? What caused them to do X and what would the reaction of that decision be?

One thing I did not start was weight training. I don’t feel guilty about this. I haven’t lost the desire, but it wasn’t at the top of my list. There were other things going on like dizziness and things like that. I also didn’t want to start too many things all at once for fear that everything I was juggling would completely drop out of my hands.

February is a new month and it will be time to add a bit more to the process. I’ve got a handle on everything that I took on in January and now it’s time to add a little more and see how that goes. I think it’ll go well. I’m excited to push my limits this year and see just what I really am capable of.

Do you ever have days (or weeks) where you just feel totally disheveled? I joke about my life being weeks and weeks behind but within the matter of hours it can feel that way. One minute I can feel like I’m on top of the world and the next I feel like I get done with one task and three pop up in its place.

It’s hard (woo I’m being Jane Eyre whiney here). I feel sometimes like I have three seperate lives and none of them mesh well. It’s like water and oil and some third unmeshable thing. There is work life and home life and school life and I’m constantly through out the day switching hats and trying to stay on top of it all. It get exhausting and there just never seems to be enough time.

Recently I sent out a bunch of friend requests on Facebook to a bunch of people I went to high school with, but was never really friends with. Some I talked to now and again but a lot of them? Not so much. In fact they were people (that I assume.. I would have had to talk to them to find out I guess) that really didn’t like me. And yet I stepped out of my comfort zone and asked to friend these people.

The shocking thing for me though was that they all (and I mean every last one of them) accepted. I was prepared for one or two (I wasn’t sure which would but I thought at least ONE of them would) to accept, but I was incredibly blown away that everyone I sent a request to accepted. It was a really great feeling (even if it didn’t mean that much).

In a way it’s akward (for me) because everyone seems to have made something of themselves and oh yeah, they look 26 and goregous. When we were in high school they looked like they were 15 going on 20, but now they look more mature and still so put together.

It’s hard not to compare yourself to your peers. We’ve all had different experiences and opportunities in the 9 years that we’ve been out of high school and yet I still feel like I’m the kid standing next to the wall looking like a dork dipped in cat hair who is picking his nose while they’re all these bronzed adonises, whose outfits are perfectly pristine, that are off curing cancer or solving world hunger.

It’s ok though. My opinion is probably biased and besides, the world needs problem solves.

It snowed today. Not a lot ( a couple of inches) but there was ice involved. I always get so skiddish when the weather is like this and pray (not literally. well, kind of) that we’ll close or at the very least have a delay. It’s kind of distrubing that the area school district closes so much and we are forced to go to work without so much as a delay.

Now of course they would say that we should use our best judgement and use a vacation day if we feel that the weather is too bad that we can’t come to work. Why though? Why should we have to? I can understand not wanting to close the university. I totally get it. People are paying to come here to learn things. Closing costs a lot of money. But what’s wrong with a delay? What’s wrong with allowing the state road crews the time to make sure that the roads are safe to travel on. Isn’t that their job? Aren’t our taxes going to that? This morning the roads weren’t even plowed yet.

Maybe I’m totally off base and I just don’t understand (which is totally possible) I just it’d be neat to drive faster than 15 mph on the interstate.

During the last snow storm we had I learned why the area school district closes so much (seemingly for a few flurries). It’s because a student was killed one day that they were made to go to school when the weather was bad. It makes me sick to think that it costs such an exuberant price before administrators get their heads out of their asses and start caring about the saftey of their constituents. In the big picture, what’s so important that can’t be done the following day (or two hours later)? I can think of very little.

Unfortunately that’s the case too often. Nothing is ever done or put into place until after the fact. It’s sad really.

Seriously? Is it really the last week of January already? When did this happen? Who is responsible? Is anyone else feeling like they’re three weeks behind on their life?

I can tell that the semester is underway. I get emails that I REALLY want to sit down and respond to but time slips away from me and what happens is they end up sitting there, stareing me in the face until (weeks later) I respond quickly so that the person doesn’t think I’m ignoring them and promise to send more at a later date in time. Like maybe around thanksgiving.

I’ve been doing some semi uncharacteristic things for me lately. For example, I have a backpack. It’s seen better days. The zipper is broken. And yet I still carry it and curse it when the slider pops off and I have to fix it and I can’t close it all the way and I have to open it a certain way or everything goes kerflewy. Something snapped last week and I had enough. I ordered a new one (which should be delivered today!). Why would I carry around something that was a source of agrivation? That’s stupid.

Recently I added a megacrap ton of people on Facebook that I went to high school with. Some were aquaintences, some weren’t even friends at all really. I’d know them to see them but we never talked in high school. I wasn’t expecting much. I figured one or two would accept, but I was not prepared for the amount of people that accepted. It was a bit shocking really. And really nice. It’s a lot of fun to see what everyone is up to nearly (oh god) 10 years later. Everyone seems to be quite successful at whatever it is they’re doing and that’s pretty awesome. What’s also really neat is how far everyone spreadout.

I spent the majority of the weekend socalizing. It was really nice. We went to a new (expensive) place to eat on Friday night. I’d definately eat there again, but it would be a special occasion type of thing which I guess Friday was. It was nice to kind of break out of the January bleakness mentality.

Saturday we got a group of friends together and we went bowling. I actually really love to bowl. Please note that I didn’t say I was any good at it. I came in last on both games, but it didn’t matter. Some of the tables near us were pretty rowdy, and that caused a few in our group a bit of irritation. Surprisingly enough, I wasn’t annoyed at all. I was more amused. They were just out to have a good time (and they clearly were) and they weren’t really bothering us at all. Everyone just kinda did their thing. On Saturdays the bowling alley has what they call Rock N’ Bowl where they turn the lights down, toss some black lights on with lasers and all kinds of whacky goodness (along with music, cause of the whole “Rock” Portion of the name). They start introducing a red pin into the mix and if it’s in the very front and if you get a strike, you win a free game. Our group got that pin several times (I didn’t) but Jason was the only one to win.

Sunday was rather uneventful. It was a typical Sunday.

I haven’t started to work out yet (I was waiting for the dizziness to disappear) but I don’t really think I have too much to worry about as I am getting my weight training in. Yup, I carried a dresser up two flights of stairs from the garage and put it in the bedroom closet. Buffy strength for the win!