Apocalypse Now

So there I was, trying to get some sleep before my shift at the ETC tonight and I'm woke up by a loud BOOM ( along with my whole house shaking). Turns out it was a tree falling on my roof. I wandered clumsily into my living room to find the house without power and under the siege of a vicious windstorm. Trees, toys, you name it, were all flying around 'Dorothy in the tornado' style and all hell was breaking loose. At least, that's what it looked like. Ominous was as close a description as I could manage and even that didn't totally hit on the feeling one got when viewing the chaos. So we packed up the kids, the dog, and an overnight bag and hightailed it to my parents house where power and cable were still intact. The kids and the husband are camping there tonight and who knows what we'll do tomorrow. According to the paper about 200,000 are without power and the powers that be are estimating it will be 2-3 days before everyone's power is restored. To give testimony to my level of concern... I dusted off both of my wheels and placed the travel wheel snugly in her padded carrying case and had my husband put Anya in our room away from any windows. I'm not losing two of my favorite toys just because Ike wants to throw his weight around. The real shocker was when I came into work. Driving the ten miles or so to the south campus was like driving through a post-apocalyptic movie set. No lights anywhere except for car headlights and few candles burning in houses here and there. It's a complete blackout. The hospital is on emergency generator power. Most of the computers are down. The lab looks like a CDC war zone and we are filled to the brim with patients. The odd thing is I just watched the movie Doomsday this afternoon. By the way, if your contemplating rentign it....don't. What a waste of an hour and a half. Every other word was f**k and the plot was along the lines of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (waaaaay beyond Thunderdome) meets Wrath of the Ring Wraiths. Basically it's your killer virus, '28 Days Later' esque, post-apocalyptic horror flick. Add in a little medieval flair just for the hell of it and place it in my beloved Scotland (the origin of the virus is Glasgow and they turn the whole of Scotland into a quarantined hot zone which kind of offends me though I don't know why). If you haven't seen it yet, wait until it comes out on cable, otherwise don't waste your money. It's okay for a bit of a "B" movie night. Right now I'm just wondering if I'll be able to get back to my house in the morning and whether the power will be back on. The hell of it is, I just went and bought some groceries yesterday when I got off work.

It Must Just Suck to be You

Ever wonder what possesses a person to try and make someone else's life miserable? I have a theory. I believe most of the time it's just plain old jealousy. You envy someone. You wish you could be them and then since it's obvious that you can't be them, you get pissed and so do whatever is in your power to try and make their life suck. I'm not sure if that's what's going on in my life now or what but it's obvious that someone wants to hurt me and my family. Because of them we now have a difficult situation we're facing and it's all ridiculous. Some of the people involved are acting hypocritically even while they accuse others of it and everyone involved is emotional. It's not fun. My husband could go to jail. If that happens I'm not sure what will happen with my schooling. I would probably have to stop. This may be exactly what the person wants to happen. It's an odd thing, jealousy. See, it eats at you and inspires you to do things that you normally wouldn't do. Once you do them it's too late, even if you come to your senses and realize what everyone else already knows, that whatever pain you cause won't change your life for the better. You'll still be the same sad, weak person that you always have been and eventually the people you hurt will recover and they may even find out it was you who hurt them (that is, if they don't already know.) That in and of itself may turn out quite badly for you, depending on how angry they are and how far their sphere of influence reaches. I don't know who started this whole ball rolling but I do know this; God is in control and I trust Him. I love my husband and this changes nothing. I will continue with school no matter how long it takes and we will reach our goals together. It may require relocating or cutting off ties but whatever it takes, I'm sure I can do it and still be okay. All I can say is this, "It isn't easy being me, but it must just suck to be you."

Well THAT sucks

So I went to my yearly eye appointment the other day and they had a new opthamologist working. My exam was going along fine as usual and then he got that look on his face. You know that look. It's the one your doctor gives you when something is wrong and he's working out how to tell you without freaking you out. Turns out I have a condition called Corneal Neovascularization. It's a fancy way of saying that I have veins growing down into my cornea. It happened because I used to wear my contacts for waaaaaay too long and didn't change to new lenses often enough. I also didn't clean them properly. He wasn't in a panic about them because he said the damage looked old and all but two of the veins had regressed into ghost veins which means that the condition had improved. The right eye is worse than the left and he told me if I was just anyone he'd take me out of contacts permanently but that he thought he could trust me to be compliant and so he put me on some strict contact lens restrictions. I had to switch to a lens that allowed more oxygen and was wetter because I also have dry eyes. I have to go contact lens free one day a week. I can't wear my lenses for more than 14 hours a day (less is better) . I have to change my lenses every 21 days (instead of 30) and I absolutely have to clean them every night. The good news is if I follow the instructions and be a good girl, the two remaining active veins will regress into ghost veins like the rest and I can continue to wear contacts indefinitely. If I don't, all the veins will fill back up and start growing down until they reach my pupil eventually causing me to go blind. So how was your day?