April showers in my world consist of a shower of random activities and apparently a lot of slippery slopes. I remembered to wish my darling Aravan a Happy Anniversary on Friday, so don't worry, she still knows how much I love her. So Friday night started with me slowly trying to clean up a few things around the house. People actually came to visit this weekend and I had to make my house presentable. It's a hobbit thing.

Then I had my first battle with double booking. We had an activity at the church, but one of my friends was in a talent show. I decided to go to the talent show since I didn't know when he would be performing and wanted to support him. It was my hope that I would be able to make it to the other activity. The Mrs. went to the other activity and showed up as I was walking out having supported two of my friends, since one of my favorite Malkavians was also in the talent show. Apparently, it would have worked better to go to the other activity and cut out without the after activity chats.

Then it was off to support the C.O.Z. Yes, it was another exciting night of me in a bar. They invited another band to open for them. I believe they were called the Bad Oranges or perhaps I didn't quite catch it correctly. I admit that I still have no idea what type of music that band was playing. They were bouncing around. They had a megaphone. I wanted to call it a cacophony of discord, but that sounds too pretty to describe what I was hearing. They brought their own mobile mosh pit that bounced around looking more excited than a sugar junkie in a vat of brown sugar, which left with them. This led to a noticeable drop in the population of the bar when the main attraction took the stage.

The lead singer gave me the drummer as a door prize, so I will claim him and call him Steve. As always, I enjoyed myself despite the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke that lingers in such places. I always enjoy people asking if the beer under my nose (that I am glaring at speculatively because I don't know why people must deposit their glasses under my nose) is mine. The response of, "I don't drink" tends to send them wandering away. Not sure what that should tell me.

Of course, this also means I was driving home at two in the morning. Upon reaching my home, I snuck into the shower and then brought relief to the worried minds of the cats by dropping into bed and staying there. Upon reawakening, I realized I was missing the Saturday sessions of Conference. As I was supposed to go to Pittsburgh again, I was feeling a bit stressed with my need to make food for my Sunday double booking, that would be a church pot luck and the party at my house this evening. So we went to dinner instead and had a special dessert on our way to pick up some ice cream at Cold Stone. BTW, I recommend going there and making them sing to you. Anyway, the weekend has been long and my cat wants to snuggle.

Sometimes I look at my reflection and don't quite understand what I see there. Like this morning when my dark eyes were peering back at me wearily and my hair had decided to poof on the wrong side. Other times I look in the mirror and can't help but smile. Sometimes I just love the way I express myself with my clothes. Today was not one of those days, but for some reason that is on my mind. It is probably related to me finding lots of unfinished little doll's clothes in the collection of fabric in the spare room. I have no idea what use I can possibly find for them if I bother to assemble them, but maybe something will occur to me. If you would like them for some reason, I am sure we can reach a bargain of some sort. It is a well known fact that I can use as many pennies as I can acquire.

I also made it to my lunchtime class. At one point, we had about six people coming, but now we're down to just me. In other words, if I don't show up, there is no point to having the class. I find this a little disheartening. I guess other people don't need the help as much as me. I can also use as much help as I can get. Just ask my cat. He thinks I need help because I don't wake up at six in the morning for the sole purpose of feeding him.

Of course, I also spent some time with the Boys and Girls of Spring. We had family home evening again. It involved the fabulous joy of talking about television (that foul-mouthed stranger in our homes) and pictionary. I live for pictionary. I should not be permitted to draw, especially not when it is quick. It takes me three weeks to create something I can feel okay about looking at. Then another couple of weeks to convince myself to show it to someone. Which reminds me that I lost a very cool picture I drew. Maybe I'll find that before I need it to fill out the content of my new website.

Anyway, night falls down and I must sleep. If I don't sleep, I can't come up with great ideas. Great ideas for me include such thoughts as the creation of Hominy, a transformer chick with the voice of a southern Belle who has the traits of a hobbit (oil guzzling) and transforms into one sexy Omni when she becomes a car. Isn't that a hot thought.

Another busy day in the life of Bella. Of course, as the healer of hearts and a budding philosopher. I spend a lot of time thinking as I play with my fiche. In fact, I spend lots of time thinking. I am not even going into that. The day, like all my days, was not long enough. More on that some day when I find time, perhaps.

The worst battles ever fought are fought for love. Not battles fought for one beautiful woman or gorgeous man, but the ones we fight inside ourselves. No one ever really wants to fall in love. To love is to leave yourself open to the unsheathed daggers of rejection and longing. Love itself is not the problem, just our perceptions of it. If we can't have it, we lash out. We run. We scream. We weep to see others in love and wish that no one else had attained what seems so far from us. And in the end, we only hurt ourselves pushing away people who truly care simply because they are somehow reminders of that love. I've lost more than a few friends to such lost battles and, even years later, my heart still aches a bit at the remembered pain.

Not born of my blood, or raised in my home,
But you are the sisters I have always known
Would be there for me, never leave me alone
To fight my battles or my pain condone
Simply because you did not have the time
To hear me rant, to inspire this rhyme
To give me a moment, a second of speech
To open the gate when my keys will not reach
The lock to free me from false gardens of hope
In which I allowed myself to be lead on coarse rope
You are my sisters, the ones honest and true
May nothing persuade you that I do not love you.

Aside from sleeping in unique places like the couch at the Institute and on my cat who didn't go off on time this morning, which negates him being a backup alarm, I have found time to reflect on the people who surround me. I find that like most people, I tend to compare others to myself (which is not so bad) or my own expectations of myself (that is not good since I am my harshest critic). I just don't get how people can continuously take advantage of me, overlook me, ignore, and insult me and then expect me to jump to do them favors and feel bad for them.

Now when I hear that one of my friend's brother is ill and it is making them feel bad as well, yes, that makes me feel bad, too, and wish I could somehow make it all better. The healer of hearts is, by nature, not fond of the pain and suffering of others. The pain and sympathy I feel is magnified when I care about some or ALL of the people who are affected by this. On the other hand, when someone is obviously begging for attention in multiple ways, one of which is writhing on the floor before me as if in the throes of death, that tends to not get as much sympathy. (In this instance, the aforementioned person happens to be a drama queen, and other people with equal or greater pain have been able to remain standing while explaining said pain.) Thus I judge myself harshly for caring in one instance but not the other.

So I feel a bit punchy right now. Not sure what is wrong with me. It is, hopefully, something a bit of sleep will cure. I can't afford anything else. Got the information from the federal government that I am don't deserve to get tax money back because I am not rich. You know how the rich need more money. This information brought me great joy, as I am not having enough fun trying to scrape together enough money to pay off my bills. Ah, but such is life and I have no need to worry about that. As long as my cat still adores me.

Well, I meant to post yesterday and had an entry all typed up for the day before, obviously. However, angelfire felt that I didn't need to access my site. In fact, as of this moment, I still can not log into my actual account. I was working on slowly migrating my site over, but now I feel I have just been given reason to make the move go a little bit quicker, so bear with me as I work on this. I am rethinking where things should be stored and what I wish to add, so content will be filtering over slowly but surely and new things will find their way here. Of course, if you just can't wait, you can always offer me some money to take a vacation and migrate more of the site over at a time. (It's always worth a try).

So it's Friday. Shouldn't I be out partying and making a wild fool of myself instead of working on this site? Well, I took my laptop out to see a movie tonight. I went to see Napoleon Dynamite with some random church groupies. Of course, I was the first to arrive as per usual. This wouldn't bother me, but I was not in charge. The movie arrive about fifteen minutes after it was supposed to start. I, being in a foul mood and despising angelfire, spent my time peering through old online journals and other files. Now I am off to clean up some more.

Console yourself here.

So I spent the day wandering around the track. I didn't know I knew so many people who are into doing good works. They seemed to be milling around the track and me in great numbers. I even saw the beautiful bride who allowed me to be part of her wedding party over a year ago. This kept me from feeling too alone. I did make the mistake of spending too much time in the sun though, so I have a burn like no other. Perhaps, you will hear of a new band called the Burned Tomatoes who raise money for cancer research. More later.

As a representative of the red-faced Oompa Loompas, I must start us out with a little ditty, "Oompa Loompa loompaty doo, We did the Relay for Life for you."

Among the other great happenings at the Relay was the Ms./Mr. Pageant. My friend Amy dressed up as the dashing and debonair Wesley West of Texas. He was quite a gentleman between rescuing orphans at the tender age of ten years and protecting the damsels of WVU from credit card salesmen and rabid librarians. Anyway, me and Wesley made some rounds to collect some extra donations for the American Cancer Society. We did a good job and even entertained some of the old people at the smoker's table who so adore the hobbitmobile.

We also walked around the track over and over, had a cookout, and best of all, got to spend time with great people, helping out a great cause. Anyway, not much else to be said at the moment. I went to church today, of course, but what sorts of things are there to chat about after church. I came home and took a long nap to ignore the burning pain of my Oompa Loompa face. I was awakened by a guest visit by my brother and his lady love. She's managed to hold onto him for this long, and they seem to make each other happy, so maybe Bella will become ab Auntie to blood relations before she is forty after all. I don't believe in rushing anyone, except maybe me off to bed, so sweet dreams.

So I am a horrible hobbit who skipped work yesterday. I didn't feel justified expecting my employers to pay me for what would equate to me slapping aloe on my face every five minutes. In fact, the first thing I did when I woke up was to go purchase the aforementioned aloe, a huge sombrero, and a box of cheese. Okay, so I bought the aloe and a few select items from the clearance aisle. I am ready for three small parties or three small Family Home Evenings. It depends on my mood and how motivated I feel over the summer.

I did manage to accomplish a few things in my downtime, however. I have got another baby quilt started down the right path. It isn't exactly perfect by my standards, but imperfection does give it that special touch that most people seem to crave. I also cleaned some of the paper off of my desk. Some day, I may even find out what it is like to have actual space on my desk, but I am not holding my breath on that one.

Today, I got to spend a wonderful lunch excursion with the fabulous Miss Kewl. We ventured down to Subway, which apparently now toasts their subs. So maybe you all knew about that, but I didn't. I found this to be an intriguing new feature. We even made time to snuggle up to some Dairy Queen food before seeking out free pens and technological enlightenment. I do enjoy the annual collection of free pens.

I did get to sit in on a discussion with next month. That was actually a really good experience. She is a sincere and sweet girl and I can't help but wish her the best. If such sincerity and sweetness pervaded the rest of my evening, I think I would not feel a little lost at this moment. I still haven't figured out how discussing the book of Revelations led to a discussion on mental illness. That is only one of the things that weighs on my heart and made and makes me wish I was not completely aware. Though I do have a warm, fluffy cat loving my foot right now, so I guess things could be worse. Sweet dreams and for the sake of your happiness find a cute cat and a good book to cuddle. (Advertising in today's journal entry by a crazy cat lady and an affectionate librarian.)

So I think that I should randomly celebrate something today. Why? Well, why not? I have so many accomplishments to be proud of. For instance, I can tie my shoes. This is quite an accomplishment for a hobbit. I have to convince myself to pull them on and then consciously bind them tight. In order to celebrate this, I think everyone should do one a couple of things: a) buy me some cool shoelaces, b) make sure they can still tie their own shoes, or c) send me a congratulatory e-mail. Shoe-tying is an important skill for hobbits in this day and age. Admit it.

It has been another average day in my world. This is why I celebrate being able to tie my shoes. I could celebrate another lovely day with the microfiche, but I know that makes people jealous. That was about the extent of my day. I did bump into my co-hobbit during lunch, so I got some hobbitting in today. I also worked on my quilt some more and accomplished little else of note, I fear, but I still have my shoelaces.

Today, I wish to celebrate the wondrous joys of blueberry muffins. They're short, they're cute, they're kind of sweet and between those and the cake mixes in my cabinet, I can be made happy for millenia to come. It is a little known fact that latter day hobbits are compulsive shoppers. We are apparently so afraid of not having enough food for every meal that we toss things into our carts that we then take home and hide in our cabinets. I discovered the muffin mix I have been happily eating while trying to find some super cheap macaroni and cheese in my cabinet. I am not sure why I buried muffin mix next to boxes of scalloped potatoes, but there it was. Go ahead, go out and buy some muffins and remember to enjoy them.

I frequently make jokes, giggle, make merry, make a farce of the English language, but there are moments when every word has been carefully chosen. In those instances, I don't like it when my words are mangled and then mis-repeated to other people. If you want to tell someone that you have no respect for them, don't try to use my words to say it. For one thing, it accomplishes nothing and for another, it does not make me have respect for you. In fact, though I judge others less harshly than myself, I do expect people to at least try to live up to what they pretend to be and I tire of them expecting me to treat them like great people when they have the confused impression that they have control over me. In the words of someone my Aravan admires, "You have no power over me."

So anyway, last night I got to go to the third Sunday fireside. The main participants were from two families. This means that a million adorable little children were running around. Well, a dozen kids seems like a million. I managed to not massacre the four pot roasts, but I dumped juices all over the hobbitmobile. My car is now most popular with the dogs in the neighborhood. It just had an irresistible aroma. The Stake president spoke to us about the importance of listening to promptings. Had you shown up, you would have got a much better version of the talk since I can not recap someone else's words.

Today was filled with the normal excitement for the most part. I did get some shoelaces. Well, it was pictures of shoelaces, but I was greatly appreciated. They were even colorful like the language Ziggy uses when addressing Lil' Guy. I even got to spend some time scaring people with my erratic driving Then I pretended to play basketball. Do I even have to point out how this doesn't work well for hobbits? Our height advantage doesn't work so well for that game. Anyway, stay happy and eat a cookie or three. *munch*

Just go here! As an aside, I prefer the KJV to the NIV, and the comment they make about Catholics is so much better if you contemplate a Mormon quad. Miss Kewl, it's a song for you.

My brain woke up this morning and decided to unearth some snippet of a story I read many years ago and find embedded in my mind. "Consequently" my brain has been awash with thoughts of sentence diagramming most of the day. It is quite a change from the other things that have been and just as inexplicable, but less entertaining. Something about saying the word gerund and knowing what it means and how to stick it into a sentence diagram is very pleasing today. While I was hoping for other pleasant surprises (like a check for 20,000 dollars to randomly appear in my mailbox), they have yet to manifest themselves. I feel like curling up in bed and staying there though I probably won't.

True to my suppositions, I came home and watched some television while slapping some more stitches into my latest quilting masterpiece. This one was actually requisitioned by someone, so I will be getting some money for my efforts. This is good because I really need a few extra dollars to pay my bills. Don't we all? Anyway, after a little walk to wake myself up and send more of my money away, I took some time to clean part of the disaster that I made on Sunday.

Then I took a mini-vacation. I decided to skip a church activity in the interests of taking an actual bath and reading a book written by Gordon B. Hinkley. I have strange priorities, what can I say? And now having accomplished very little on my to do list, I think I shall try to turn in early.

My cat awakened me early this morning so I could feed him as well as my car. My car always loves a healthy dose of gasoline in the morning. In fact, my car always loves gasoline, but I believe that is the way of cars. I received an e-mail today about not buying gas from Exxon and Mobil. That leaves me with a Sunoco, Sheetz and Dairy Mart. The last two places are notorious for not being healthy gas, however. This could make for an interesting proposition. Of course, the person who sent me this e-mail seems to think that the gas companies in and of themselves are completely at fault. I just have noted that since around December the prices started to climb and made dramatic leaps at the end of January. Does this correlate to something else? Don't think about it too hard.

So anyway, I mentioned dancing. I know that drew all eyes to this entry. You want to think about me dancing. It is not my dancing that I wish to speak of. I found a new friend today. He is Patrice the French dancing platypus. Miss Kewl thought I needed a sexy dance partner. He is pretty sexy. Even Lil' Guy wanted to play with him. This resulted in an interruption in his dancing, however, so I had to ask him to stop. Then Patrice proceeded to dance again. Somehow my roomie failed to be amused by this.

Then I sat down to work on my website some more. I so adore trying to transfer everything over. That alone should take me forever. Then I will finally be able to add new content and make the whole site usable and lovable like me. More on that later, but for now I leave you to work on more marvelous things.

I got called a Sweet tater, though the person declares this is not the case, so I thought I would share.

So, it is Monday and you know what that means. That means that I went to work again. I can just feel the envy. After all, everyone wishes they had my job, but we'll get to that later. As can be imagined, I spent some time today with the now famous JPRS reports. These ones deal with Sub-Saharan Africa which means they are only slightly less dry and hard to digest than the ones for Saharan Africa. Please refrain from trying to eat them until I have returned them to their drawers. I would recommend a light buttery sauce to liven up the inherently delicious flavor of the fiche.

Today was also the second to last day of the Book of Mormon class for this semester. That means we are going to try to squeeze everything else into Wednesday's class. This should be incredibly exciting and I will probably miss half of it. I was almost late getting back to work as it was. You stand up to leave and suddenly you are asked to pray. How can you say "No", to prayer. Seriously, that is not what Nancy Reagan was telling people to say "No", too. Ah, I remember those cheesy little books, but do you?

I also have been hearing all sorts of interesting updates on the lives of my friends. From engagements, to fellowships (no, not of the rings), to birthdays, to potential job opportunities that require state hopping, I feel that my life can be a bit dull, But I am not worried because I am a web diva and web divas can always stir up some excitement. Come on, boys, admit you love me. In the meantime, I had a thought on my way out of work that amused me so much that I thought I'd invite an old friend back into our world of words.

TOP TEN THINGS THAT COULD BE A PERK OF MY JOB BUT AREN'T

10. I have the means to barcode everything I own.
9. I can acquire any book I want with a conversation with the right person.
8. My boss is tall enough to make me look like a hobbit (actually, he may be too tall, I feel more like, well, an Oompa Loompa.)
7. I could ruin people's day by telling them the internet is down.
6. I can read all the witty commentary that is sent out on the listserve.
5. I could sleep under my desk at night behind a box of microfiche.
4. I could photocopy my butt and sell copies of the copy.
3. I could receive tips from my co-workers whenever I help them keep from embarrassing themselves before the all mighty and wrathful system administrators.
2. I could have vacations at the same time as the students (but then I couldn't enjoy the relative peace).
1. I could use the fax machine to send my credit card information to the man from Nigeria who found a rich, dead relative of mine and addresses me as, "Dear Sir".

So I may or may not have mentioned the fact that my sexy car draws a lot of attention. Most of this attention comes from the denizens of what I have dubbed the smoker's table (because they sit there and smoke). For months, when it is warm out and they are all gathered there happily, I have noted a certain stir when my car pulls in. At first, I thought it was fear and then one day, I noted that the hobbitmobile's red cousin sits in the neighboring parking lot, so I decided one of the fascinated patrons of the smoker's table must be the owner of that other sexy beast of a car.

Last night, as I pried myself out of my car. Somehow, the perfect sized car for me can sometimes attack my hip quite violently as I slip out from under the steering wheel. I don't get it, but that isn't the point of this story. Then I stood there as I tend to do and did the normal stupidity checks, "Did I turn off the lights? Do I have the keys in my hand?" As I was closing the door, the denizens of the smoking table got brave, perhaps encouraged by the fact that I was already talking to myself. (If I am talking to me, I must be harmless, right?)

"Is that a standard?" Male denizen inquires.

"Huh? What? Oh, no, it's an automatic."

"Oh," as he nods thoughtfully.

"Oh my, Terry, that looks just like your car." A eureka of knowledge from the female denizen of the table.

I am suddenly feeling a littler disturbed by all of this, but my whole family is disturbed, so I decide to be polite, "Ah, you are the owner of the red Omni. Nice car."

Now anyone who knows me would have felt the sarcasm. In fact, anyone who has fought an Omni in the morning would feel the sarcasm, but he looks pleased. The woman is now chortling happily. I have no idea how the hobbitmobile is that amusing to strangers, but such is life. The only other interesting tidbit from this conversation was that my car sounds like it runs okay. I can't deny that, I guess. If the sound of its engine changes in the slightest though, you can bet I'll be driving over to the smoker's table to see if it still sounds okay to them. I'm more worried about the smells it makes, anyway, though the pot roast smell has faded out a bit. And, from there, where can this entry go?

Not much else to report. The month draws to a close, the semester draws to a close, and another quilt has drawn to a close. In the meantime, I have a cute cat to cuddle my feet and nothing else for you, my darlings. Maybe later?