shalom in the home.

1. my mom just called. our roommate moved out. didnt know we had one? 3, actually. she has kids too. but i dont much talk about my family so i dont much talk about the others in the house either.

my mom's been kind of annoyed on this woman, who she worked with and saw hard on her luck 4 months ago. she'd make comments about my dad being around as if my mom still wanted to be with him. they've been apart for years but are still friends. and, hello, they have two great kids! case you didnt know i will always need my daddy and he'll always be around, no matter how grown i am. not only that, but roommate and her kids are a bit sensitive. my fam is one which doesnt tolerate whining and says what we mean. but her kids cry over nothing and it drives me nuts. it also wakes me up when i'd rather be sleeping.

top of the list: not very hygienic either. and that's where the drama began. last couple of weeks my mom had been asking about our face towels. where are they? joy do you have any with your stuff? (i do my laundry separate) she even purchased a cute lil set. they disappeared too. so today my mom wrote her a letter before church- they dont go; my mom is a youth minister- asking if they could take the towels out of their room so she can wash them and open the windows to air out the room. she also wrote out the money she'd given us the past few months and stated that she was writing to keep the records straight. i kid you not there was a basket and a half of just towels. ew! this is probably every towel they ever used while staying with us. i'm not gonna make this a laundry list, no pun intended- cuz there's more i could say.

so apparently the letter offended roommate and i was awakened by them once more, packing. no skin off my back. i'm still pissed about buying food i never get to eat. she and my mom got into an argument where she once again brought up my dad and how her kids dont have that support. not to be mean, but that's not our fault. she also listed "all she's done for us" and my mom said that it was never discussed that those things were to replace the money she owed because all we needed from her was money. i'm sure she cried, and i'm sure my mom was unphased. except that she called me to tell me what's up. she was really trying to help this woman get ahead. but you cant help someone who doesnt want it. i felt like i couldnt move freely in my own house sometimes. and mikey got blamed for the fruit flies. i didnt like that.

2. Speaking of mikey, i noticed the cutest thing today: sprouts. i dont know what they are, some kind of berry- he eats them once a week at least, but i know how they got there. the tank is pretty warm, and i tend to spray water daily. and seeds dont digest... i dont know how to take care of plants. i'm hoping he'll eat them before i have to find out. he'll need a bigger tank soon.

3. this star is driving me up the wall. i want to be done with it already. i'm almost to the tips of the star, but then i have to do the background til its 6ft long. i have another project lined up after that which i'm excited about, which is making the current one more of a pain. i'm gonna keep going though. gotta get that dough.

Week one with the turtle

so lets go back. way back... i havent always wanted a turtle. i actually was gonna get fish. but my brother in law, keem, said in his deep but nasaly voice, why dont you get a turtle? and i said why not? and he said you could call it donatello! and kesi said no michaelangelo! and i said hell yeah! and thus the idea was born.

but the ones they had at the store were expensive. and i got sad. then people wanted to find turtles for me. what great friends i have! but just when it seemed they forgot to look out for my first pet, B calls to tell me C pulled one out of the creek for me. aw! and thus the turtle in my room was found.

first it wouldnt eat. i went to petsmart and spent $70 on food and books and environment, and it wouldnt eat. turns out, according to turtles for dummies, anorexia is common in turtles when they are stressed. eh? my turtle has to go visit mary kate, or ashley or whichever. so i put a variety of food in the tank. bananas, blueberries, letture... back to petsmart.

"Babies only eat live food. you need crickets." seriously? ok. i buy crickets. it eats at least one. awesome! we have contact. now we go to the vet because the petsmart guy says it may not survive. pessimist.

the vet was a whole new issue. by the time we got up the day after kesi's birthday, called many an animal hospital only to find they dont have a reptologist, find one and drive there, the vet had left for the day. we have to come back monday. ok. monday comes and dr thurbert is a nice guy. he asks questions and gives good advice. the least of which is that the turtle needs worms to survive. i did notice it burrowing, but i thought it was cold. also it needs to have more water than i'm giving and that its a 6 month old male. it will need a bigger cage eventually. after the vet we head to the bait shop.

upon arrival to the bait shop, i notice one big thing. there are no cars here. just pickups. i feel the presence of old white men and tell kesi we'll surely be the youngest, most negro things going. we walk in and what's on? all my children! this calms me a bit. old white men watchin stories. cant be so bad. i get my worms and head out, after the guy behind the counter shows us photos of the young buck he caught. wow.

so little mikey is great. i get to nurture something, which is fun. its been an adventure already. and i got a pet! yay!

retail therapy only works when you have money

so next weekend i was supposed to go to a white party but despite my nag- ahem- asking kesi to request the day off he didnt and he cant go. i was very disappointed because if you notice, everytime i mention going out he's not in those posts. we find it very hard to get the same days off. i still might go, but that's not the point of this entry. the point is i was let down.

today, my day off, i was supposed to get a turtle. i have a $20 petsmart card ready to go but, did you know turtles cost hundreds of dollars? i didnt. i've never had a pet of my own and i was really excited about it being something cool, not like everyone else's dog or cat. i dont have hundreds of dollars and so my sadness continues. i still might get a fish- a few tiny sharks- but once again, not the point.

so i decided to go shop. i also had a $10 target card i was ready to get rid of. but due to my sullenness i spent a half hour wandering around with an empty cart and no real need to buy anything. i had planned to use the card on tank decorations.

i could help one of the problems i was having. at lauren's wise advice, i texted kesi and told him how i was feeling that he didnt listen to me, and that it was part of a bigger problem that had to do with us never going out together. long story short he told me he was sorry and that he loved me, and despite the fact that i might still be spending a night of fun without him, i'm not so distracted by things i didnt say.

with that, i went on a search for work pants. i cant believe things cost more at target than at marshall's all i wanted was black pants. $30! i didnt find pants there, but i did buy my brother some school supplies and get hit on by a guy with a gray beard.

on to marshall's. found a cute skirt for just $3 and an electric blue v-cut sweater that was perfect but too big. i dont think they were supposed to be such a display in the shirt. i sadly put it back after hoping i could find it in my size. i also spied the cutest burgundy pumas, which were so devastatingly hot i took a picture of them. i'm hoping they'll be there when i come back.

i finally found some work pants at ross. stretchy, which is good and bad. they stretch right around my butt and leave nothing to be imagined. but they only cost $8...

after all that i forgot to get bus fare. luckily kesi works really close by.