knic26

1. HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that those of you that had a pretty good year will continue in good fortune and the ones that had a craptacular 2011 get to turn it around.

2. Happy Holidays! I didn't get anything up for Hanukkah, Solstice, or Christmas this year and I think I am barely in time for New Year...oops.

3. I did a ton of holiday baking. I think I am just getting to the point where I'm no longer tired. Names are links to recipes, and the Whoopie Pies and Pretzels went into my annual Holiday Baskets for families.

( Things Baked )
I will be doing the 2011 meme later, but on the whole this was a pretty good year. I bought a house and an new car yesterday, the family is pretty healthy, the young man is as tall as me, and the job is getting to be pretty rewarding. All in all, a good time.

My goal in the new year is to WRITE MOAR!!!

1. Family is safe and houses are (mostly) fine in the immediate family.
2. Trees are down everywhere. We were able to get out of the house today and go to town for gas.
3. Needed gas for the generator b/c the power is STILL out! No air-con since Friday night at 11pm. It rained and we had gusty winds (up to 75+ mph) from 6pm Friday to 2am Sunday morning.
4. Very thankful that it was relatively not bad around home, because we saw trees in living rooms and roofs torn off hotels like plastic tarps. If this thing had been a category 3 as predicted, rather than the category 1 it came on land as, this would be a very different post.
5. I am so TIRED of playing Gin Rummy right now!!!!!
6. My job goes along with (local county) government as far as closings. How come (local county) was the ONLY school/business on the list that said OPEN for business as usual? WTF? the local university shut down Monday and they were open during the majority of Hurricane Floyd in '99. I was a very pregnant student at the time, I know!
7. I am very thankful for all the power people that have come from other states to help NC. I know that there are several places where the posts that power lines were on were ripped out of the ground. A friend called and said he has power, but his mom's may be out for another 3-10 days. I have no idea about mine, but it has been reported.
8. I think I am going to take Monday off and do some community service by going over to my brother's neighborhood to help out some of the older residents get the trees/twigs/branches/shingles out of the yards and some tarps over the roofs where there was serious damage. I have no trees in my yard and had no damage to the house.
9. If power isn't back by tomorrow, I will be descending upon SOMEONE for a hot shower soon!
10. I will give another update soon (hopefully).

Hi there!!!

I am still here and still kicking and working with Health Services (though I am cautiously optimistic for some other job offers in the next couple of weeks).

I am still reading, though with that whole *real job* thing going on, time is so limited that I rarely comment on anything. I have officially reverted back to LURKER status, I think.

iPad users on the flist, what are some good, preferably free apps? Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies are a favorite with my son and my dad, but I want to get some things for me, and also some educational apps for the young man to have a good summer enrichment going on while he isn't in school.

What kinds of things have I missed? Let me know what's up.

K.

Oh, Oh...ETA:

I bought a house. They laid the foundation today, and I should be in by July 1 at the latest. I am in the country...like real deal COUNTRY, but if you are in my neck of the woods, I have an extra bedroom and acres of yard and a tent! I'm thinking about using the iPad to have a virtual housewarming. I will keep y'all posted.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

( My Goals for 2011 )

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful day and has a prosperous and happy new year!

1. I put up my Christmas tree last night...then it promptly fell back down. It was an artificial tree that I've had for 12 years and the ex got it for $25, so I think I got my money's worth. I ended up propping it up with a present.

2. I have a 'business trip' tomorrow. Well, I get to drive 4 hours to learn how to draw blood from fake arms. A certain local nurse named cephalopinguin would have done it for me here without the state spending the money on 2 nights in a swanky hotel, mileage and days of meals, with real arms!

3. In my frantic *Must wash clothes and pack* evening tonight (after putting the fallen Christmas tree carnage into big black trash bags) I happened upon The Sing-off. It's a show for a cappella groups and I have fallen in love with 4 of the top 8 groups. Here are a couple of videos, one from the show and...one other.

The Whiffenpoofs singing 'Grace Kelly' by Mika



On The Rocks singing 'Bad Romance' by Lady Gaga



Please don't break the interwebz while I'm away! I will have to catch up on about 40 ongoing fics as it is!

Now that I have tugged on your heartstrings, is anyone available for a lightning fast 1500 word Harry/Ron Beta? The story is due in about 28 hours, so it's only slightly pressing.

Thanks in advance!

k (your sad sick puppy)

I don't talk about current events or politics much in this space, but this one I can't pass up.

( Cut for those who don't care about what some 'famous' guy said on his twitter nor my comments about the situation. )

To be honest, how many people were surprised when they heard that some rapper said something stupid? Honestly? Doesn't that happen everyday? We do realize that he is a friend of Eminem, right?

As you know the Southern Accent comes out when I am excited.

1. Thank you all so much for your lovely Birthday wishes, messages, virtual gifts and texts! I appreciate all of them!!

2. I went to NC Pride this weekend as usual, but this time we made it to *the* gay club in NC, LEGENDS. This was not the first time, we just don't usually make it to the club for pride for some reason. I was brought up on stage and a lovely drag queen wished me happy 31st! I was also told by a man that I was the most beautiful lady there (he was v.v. drunk) and while we were talking another man walked by and said "Don't you have some pretty titties". That made my night.

3. It is raining elephants right now. Though I live a stone's throw from a river, I am not worried about my car or apartment flooding, but there is some craziness around the ENC! This is the first time I have ever seen school closed for RAIN! To be fair, we got about 10-12 inches overnight.

4. I GOT A JOB!!!!!

I just got a call that I got the job with the NC Dept of Health and Human Services. For lack of a better description, I will be keeping an eye on HIV and Syphilis cases in this part of the state. This one will not be boring :-D

5. ( A pic or 3 from Pride/Birthday Weekend. )

I just went through and cut dead and deleted journals. If I cut anyone by mistake that shouldn't have been, let me know.

I ♥ my F-list!!

Ummm...Is a public post no longer an option?

Edit: NM, I had to post it, then when I went back to edit, public was an option.

Hi. I'm Curious. Have we met?

Seriously, as many of you know, I am trying to change this small corner of the world through sex and sex education. In a paper, due on Dec. 3rd, I am going to look at teenage sexual habits and I am going to try to take a global perspective. I already have some sources from the last big paper I wrote, but in this one we have to do some *unofficial, informal, qualitative* field work. These are the questions that I asked some of my former students that were willing to help me, as well as my niece in the 8th grade (her questions stop @ #10).

So, for the sake of me being nosy (any responses I get from LJ friends will not be included in my paper) I would love to get some responses on these from my flist. Under the cut are 18 fairly personal questions. If you choose to answer, comments will be screened. If you would like to answer, but don't like the screening skillz of LJ, feel free to message me or email knic26_at_yahoo_dot_com. If you don't want to answer, that's cool too. I am just curious as to the sex education in the schools** across the country and the world.

*these statements cover our asses for right now in doing a little project for this one class so that we do not have to ask permission from National Boards of Something or Other to use actual human participants. No names or identifying characteristics will be assigned to anything in my paper.

** Take the term 'school' to mean any time that sex education was or could have been taught in a formal classroom-like setting

***If anyone is interested, when I figure out how to get my school webpage up and running, I may post the final paper for you all to point and laugh at :D

( Sex Education Questions )

Thanks a bunch for taking a look at what I've been up to.