Hi Sis!

I sent the link to this journal to my sister today. She's the only family I've told about it. Hi sister whose name I won't use unless you tell me its okay to do so! I hope you enjoy reading what I've written here, and don't think I'm too weird for posting this stuff online.

My classes will be over in one week and one day, and I CANNOT WAIT. I am so looking forward to not having classes to take for a while. I need the break so desperately, I can't even tell you. Although of course, I might be giving that free time right back away, because I'm up for an editing job for a quarterly journal. But that would only be about 20 or 30 hours per issue, so that's not bad. And the money I would make would cover my fuel oil bills for the year, so cross your fingers for me on it. Also, thank you, Sally, for putting my name in for it! I appreciate it so much. You rule.

So, my water pump broke the other night. I have had problems with it before (that I may have written about here, I'm not sure), and I'm getting so sick of it! I have been showering at my sister's house for the last couple of days, and I've been using bottled water to fill the animals' water dishes, and it is just so inconvient not to have water for two days! I mean, I just want to turn on the tap and have water come out. Is that too much to ask? Also, I'm pretty broke right now (at least until I get my editing money, but that's already earmarked for home improvements of other kinds, like a roof and/or windows), so I'm not looking forward to seeing this repair bill. I love my house, but I would love it a lot more if I didn't need to keep putting money into it.

In fact, just for fun, I'm going to list out what I've done to my house already, and what still needs to be done. Feel free to zone out if you don't care.

What I've done: replaced the water softener, replaced the pool liner, had insulation blown in to the walls, replaced the floor in the living room, replaced four windows and done general painting/cleaning up.

What still needs to be done, in order of importance: new roof on the living room extension and the porch, replace the porch, replace the rest of the windows, replace the main roof, replace the siding, re-replace the living room floor and level it first this time, remove the panelling in the living room and dining room and put up wallboard, replace the flooring in the kitchen/dining room/bathroom, replace the carpet in my bedroom, gut and re-do the room that I used to sleep in upstairs, remove the paneling in the upstairs hallway and put in wallboard and redecorate/clean out the storage room at the top of the stairs.

Whew, that's quite a list. And I could also include: insulate the garage, have the stump removed from the front yard, have the half dead trees taken down out front, before they fall on my house, and clean up and beautify the area around my pool. And open the pool. And add a second bathroom upstairs.

Yeah, that might all be done sometime before I die. Or if I ever (start to play and then) win the lottery. But I love my house! Really, I do!