It’s January 27th, and where’s the monthly present?

First, HAPPY NEW YEAR. Like, 27 days late.

So you’re worndering where the promised Monthy Present is, right?

And where have I been for the past two months.

Allow me to explain:

Well, it’s a long story, which you may or may not be interested in, but it boils down to the fact that there is a reason I don’t usually have a decent journal. I suck at keep up with daily or even weekly things when I am hyper stressed or sick, and I was both over the last two months.

My parents are undoubtably one of my biggest stressful points in my life. Probably because I have so many official issues thanks to them, and I honestly would like to keep them at a distance. In two different states, we get along great. On top of each other, it’s a whole different game. They were supposed to be here for like three days, mid december. Nope. It turned into a week long visit. Things I don’t usually have to worry about, I suddenly had to worry about again. Including one of the major holidays I celebrate (Yule, as a neohellenistic pagan, it’s a major deal and I couldn’t celebrate it at all with them here). Stress overload in general.

Then, at work, my coworkers started falling victim to the dreaded winter plauge, the FLU. Every week, a new coworker went down with it, and one week it was a couple of different people were down and out. And then, for the first time in my twenty four years, I got the flu. And I didn’t go down lightly. I was a huddled ball of sickness for over three days, until the drugs started to kick in. Then, I could manage to function, and stop losing weight because I wasn’t eating. (Which, I still need to lose a few pounds, but alas, not like that.)

Then, the next weekend after the flu, my roommate and I had decided that we were going to look into adding another furry creature to the household. We ended up adding three lovely kittens. Tsar Nicholas (an adorable silver tabby), Laird Inkspot (a jet black cuddle monster), and Princess Diana (whom is a brown spotted tabby, but looks like an Egyptian Mau). They’ve been keeping us busy, and keeping the household lively. (Angel, my first real furbaby, absolutely LOATHS them; and Ashley’s original furchild Julia Child tolerates them, as long as Nicholas is behaving at a nice distance from her.)

I also got a second job, as a nanny to my great neice. Yes, you’ve been reading correctly. I’m a 24 year old with a great neice. I have half siblings that are much older than I am, so that should explain that. I guard over princess chubs, as my roommate and I affectionately call her, four days a week. According to everyone in that part of the family, the Princess likes me more than she likes anyone else. It’s because I talk to her, and I cuddle her, and I pay attention to her. And, most amazingly, I watch TV that is more suited to her than her parents do. (At the moment, we’re watching Cardcaptor Sakura on DVD; subbed, not dubbed, because it honestly doesn’t matter at the moment, and it makes her laugh so hard when try to sing along with the theme songs.)

Over the next day or so, I should manage to get the kittens pages up, and get a page up for Julia Child as well, since she deserves a page. I should even be kind and give the roomie a page too, because she has been one of my best friends for 13 years.

I write this from one corner of my normal full time job, on one of the guests computer, because the Brad is awesome. Eventually I’ll convince him to make a post here; more than likely it’ll be his other half Libster making that post, honestly.

With much love and lots of apologies,
<3 Adrienne aka HGL