Oh yeah

Have you all heard about the rampage my sister has been on?



I sure hope someone has been giving her hell in my absence...

Last day :(

So today is my last full day in Virginia. My plane leaves tomorrow at 3ish. Today is also Rich's 24th birthday... so I'm both sad and excited. Not that I'm not excited to come home and see everyone, and to go off to school on Sunday... it's just hard to concentrate on that over this feeling of drowning I'm currently experiencing.
Right now I'm waiting for the cable guy to come... Rich is fed up with Vorizon and so he's getting Comcast. My bags are partially packed. I still have to do some laundry before I can finish. Then I get to fly home, unpack my stuff from the summer and unpack my things from the move (which I understand will be very difficult, as all my boxes are supposedly buried in a heap of other random boxes which were placed in my wreck of a new room after the garage got full), then re-pack up everything I'll need for school. I also have to do some shopping.. and I understand there are some dinners I'll be attending before I go. Umm.. I have to write a list.

Things I need/need to do:

-printer ink
-soundcard
-speakers
-laundry stuff
-cleaning stuff
-pots and pans and all that stuff
-bed stuff
-get my fridge from Mom
-decide which clothes are worthy, and buy what I'm missing
-try to find time to visit friends... hopefully something will be going on
-figure out where I'm getting my booze from (I want beer... hard liquor will be dangerous during frosh week, I expect)

ummmm.. k, thats all I can think of right now... I'm sure I'll edit more in later.

I called T last night and had a good chat. She caught me up on the
Schmidt Family News (if you can call it news) :
So I hear my dad has gone on a spending rampage. His recent large purchases include a 50-inch LCD TV, a van, a portable dishwasher (yeah... what the fuck?!), $1000 dollars worth of curtains for the new house (and might I point out that he got curtains for all of the rooms except mine?), and a fucking HOT TUB. There's seriously something wrong with him. I guess Bobby yelled at him... to no avail.
Oh.. and I'll elaborate on my 'wreck of a new room'. Well, the room that I picked out in the new house (a nice room, I'll add) got stolen by Bobby... which is bullshit. I get fucked over just because I'm not there right now. I'm sure Bobby will not be home any more than I will be in the future... but whatever. ANYWAY, that would be totally liveable if I was given a decent replacement. My new room is in the basement. It has no door (and aparently no curtains?). It's full of bugs. It's full of boxes ("a person could barely fit in it right now", says T). It is my understanding that this room was previously used to house an array of small pets. Fan-fucking-tastic. Oh.. and my awesome bunkbed won't fit in the house. Isn't that lovely? Not that I'd want to sleep on it ever again... both mattresses have been soiled in my absence. "How?" you ask. I'll spare you the details except to say that 2 of the worst things that can ever happen to 2 mattresses have indeed happened. So... I have no bed. Ah well... T invited me to share her room for the 3 nights I'll be there... which I think will be good for me. I miss the 'sleepovers' with my sister.
I hear Dad is being just as negligent as ever... always with the girlfriend. I guess not much has changed there. Why do I get this sick feeling when I think about being reunited with my family?
Oh.. and T said there is a surprise for me when I get home. She told me that it's a 'stupid little thing' but that it will change lives. Something (or someone) is going to be living with us; 'it' is a 'him', and 'he' is not T's boyfriend nor an exchange student. She said we will be affected for 15 years. They already got a new dog (and Dad hates it)... so it couldn't be that. She also told me that she *might* bring him on the way up to get me from the airport tomorrow. Fuck.. I hate saying tomorrow. Is it really tomorrow? Fuck.. yep, tomorrow. Anyway, I have no clue what this surprise could be... I guessed a fish.

Well I think that's good enough for today... an adequate glimpse at what I have to look forward to going home to tomorrow.

Rich and Leah

During Mom's visit.


At the zoo.

The happy blog

Wow! People read my blog!

Okay, so I'm going to break my rule and write a happy blog.

I guess I can expand a little (or a lot) on what's going on over here in Virginia.
My typical weekday:

• wake up and have breakfast with Rich before he goes to work
• watch a movie or go online until the coffee wears off
• sleep to a ridiculous hour
• go for a walk/ work out (which is a bitch because of my knee... it hurts whenever I try to run)
• paint (I bought all the stuff) or draw or read
• bake something (muffins/cake/brownies)... I always time it so that it will be ready right when Rich comes home

(I can hear it now... "aww!"...)

• go shopping/swim/walk
• make dinner together
• watch a movie
• sleep

[okay, so there are a few things I left out... ;)]

That's my weekday. It's a relaxing pace... I love it. I don't have to do anything... but there are things for me to do if I want to. It's just what I need. I always used to complain about not having any time to simply do nothing. This is perfect for the summer before I go off to school and have the busiest time of my life.

The weekend could be anything from hiking, to going to the zoo, to visiting museums (when we stayed in Washington), to shopping, or (coming up) travelling to Ohio to visit 'the best' rollercoaster park ever.

Umm what else? I got my hair cut. It's a bit shorter.. but not short at all.. kind of like how I always cut my hair.. anyone remember grade 7/8 (Aime)?

My mom also came up for a visit with Rob, which went smoothly. I showed her Oldtown (a part of Alexandria that has a lot of history crap [George Washington's barber lived here.. yadda yadda..] and shops and stuff) and the mall. Then when Rich came home from work we went out for dinner at this nice place called 'Clyde's'. We walked back and played cards. Rob and Rich did most of the talking... I just felt too weird with two sides of my life coming together so I never really could think of anything to say... and Mom and I kept smirking at each other.. lol.

Umm.. so I've been telling people that this summer is like detox for me. No drinking, no smoking, not even coffee until recently. Clean living. Well, that's been broken.. a little.. but still in a conservative manner. This past weekend and the weekend before we've been 'experimenting' with alcohol, meeting the 'drunken eachother'. For the most part, it's been a riot... really strange to see him drunk haha... and right now I'd say we are pretty even with drinking ability (though he says his tolerance will go up quickly since he hasn't drank for something crazy like half a year or something).

Rich's birthday is coming up on August 31. He turns 24 (gasp). I'm excited for that day.. but I'm also dreading it because I have to leave the next morning. He hates that he has to work and can't see me off at the airport. I guess leaving in the morning with me there and then coming home from work to an empty apartment is pretty rough on him. We won't have to go very long without seeing each other, though. He's coming to visit me on the weekend of September 16th at McMaster (which means we have to talk, Jasmine :P). After that he's coming on the weekend of October 7th, but we will be in Trenton for my family reunion... so I guess he can meet anyone who might *happen* to be home for that weekend (ahem). Still it's gonna be hard to go from waiting a few hours every day for him to come home from work to waiting a few weeks for him to fly up and see me. I guess we still have the phone and internet like before... but it isn't the same anymore.
(can you see in the dark?)
For those of you wondering if Rich is treating me well, without getting too mushy I'll say that he is treating me excellently... better than I'll ever believe I deserve to be treated (no matter how hard he tries to convince me). He's just.. the best. What can I say? I love him... and we both know (from our long distance situation) that it's what upstairs that counts to the other. Sure, it would be 'ideal' if I was with someone closer to my age, or someone from around where I live.. hell, even from the same country... but I know that I'll never find another like him. I truly believe that he makes me happier than anyone else could, and I know he'd do anything to keep it that way. The only thing that worries me is whether or not I can do the same for him...

Enough, enough!! Do you see how I've changed?! Even I don't want to listen to myself go on and on like that... but it's true. Now you know why I don't do happy blogs...

I'm very happy here... and I'm very excited for school. I'm just a happy girl now...

...don't you wanna smack me? :P

Still kicking in VA

OK OK.. I haven't been blogging ALL summer... and I would get caught up on all that's gone on.. but I really don't feel like it so.. fuck it. In a nutshell: it's been awesome. I don't want to confuse anyone... the summer has been great; every day I dread having to leave... but I don't blog when I'm perfectly content. I blog when something is on my mind... so don't mistake any negativity for a terrible summer. It's been great, really. I just don't write about great.

Now... to the blog:

Alright, so I'm feeling a little .. umm.. glum? It's August 9th. I come home on the 1st of September and leave for school on the 4th. That's 3 nights in my bed. Not to mention the fact that by the time I go back to Trenton, my bed will be in the new house which will contain the new dog. I have an inkling that this new house will never feel 'homey' for me... 'cause I'll only be spending days at a time in it. That goes for my family too. Things are.. friendly.. with the family; I guess that's the best I can hope for. Friendly but.. careful. It feels more like aunt/uncle to niece than mother/father to daughter. I guess it's alright. Just... when I left for Virginia (almost a month ago), I became an adult. I'm on my own now. No more parental involvement beyond a quick chat here and there. So... it feels like things are frozen as they are. I'll never be closer to my family than I am now. I guess a better way of saying it is that it's downhill (or uphill?) from here family-wise. I dunno. I'm not exactly saddened by it.. but it's something I've been thinking about.

So, I've been trying to figure myself out since I've been here. It's a lot different. I'm a lot different. I'm happier for sure. I just... never expected the transition from 'whatever I was before' to happy to be so emotionally draining.. and so goddamn confusing. Right now I feel like I'm everything I'm supposed to be... which I've always felt a void for. Now that I have it, though.. I dunno.. it sounds crazy but sometime I miss being "off". I know how sick it sounds, but depression was strangely satisfying. You always knew where you stood. Now it's like... ah.. man even I don't know what I'm talking about. I guess it's just hard to expose yourself. I'm getting better at it though. I just feel so ordinary... I still want to be different. I want to be me, but who is that? When my Mom came to visit, she said she could see the changes in me. She said I looked happy and calm. She asked me if I still had my knarly side (read: cynical)... she said she hoped I did because it's one of my trademarks. I dunno. To me, that was a part of being depressed... is that who I was/am? I mean, sometimes I can get a little critical still... just not so malicious. It's definetely not a trademark anymore... what is my trademark now? You know, I just got comfortable with who I was. I liked it. I knew it. That was my place. Now... I'm different again. I like being happy, I just feel disoriented. Enough erratic complaining.

Maybe I'll blog again tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great summer.