Me update

I had to be mean mama and separate the girls. I put them down to take a nap an hour and a half ago. They've been messing around squealing and jumping the entire time. I went in to tell them AGAIN to settle down and go to sleep, and Chloe gave me a bunch of attitude, so she had to go to her bed (they were both in my bed. They like to sleep in my bed). She is currently yelling and screaming and hitting the door. I have a sneaking suspicion that nap time is very soon going to be a thing of the past. Which is very unfortunate. It's nice to have an hour or two to myself during the weekend. Oh well.

Anyway, I haven't actually written much about my life here or on facebook in quite a while. The good news is that drama from Miguel has calmed down considerably. Of course, the instant that he discovers that I'm still seeing Shane, I'm sure that will change. But he has no right to dictate who I can and cannot date. And Shane is so great to have around. So helpful with the kids. Helps around the house. Doesn't do drugs or have an alcohol problem. And he's good company. So that's just too damn bad for Miguel and he'll have to get over it. (and if you're wondering why I included a random picture of some guy right here, that's a photo of Shane).

In other news, I had thought I would be attending grad school this January. My work has an available assistantship doing research with the bait shrimp that I've been working with since this spring. When I heard about that, I jumped right on it. But I filled out my fafsa, and if I go now, I'll only be able to get unsubsidized loans. The stipend doesn't cover tuition, and it would actually be less money per month than I'm making now and I'd go even more into debt with student loans. So I was unable to take the assistantship position. So for now, my boss is working on creating a full-time position for me that would include a raise and health insurance. Hopefully he can get that through all the A&M directors, accountants, etc. in a reasonable time. Sure would be nice to have health insurance again! But I'm not giving up on grad school. I'll re-apply for financial aid in February, and hopefully I can get grants at that point. And although I'll miss this assistantship, my boss said there are always grad school assistant positions coming up, so I'll have another opportunity.
Oh, here's something I forgot to write about. My half marathon! On October 16th, my dad and I ran a half marathon. I thought that I'd done two 10 mile runs and a bunch of shorter runs as part of my training, but I had a sneaking suspicion that my nike+ pedometer was being generous. I took it with me to the half marathon to test my theory. Oh my. I was correct. At mile 1, I looked at my ipod, and it claimed I had already done 1.25 miles. Which means, the furthest distance I had ever run before the half marathon was only 8 miles. And of course, I had some bladder control problems. Why wouldn't I? But I did finish. Took me 2 hours and 2 minutes. And dad suppressed the urge to run fast and win the race and stayed by my side and finished with me. It was a quick visit from dad, but a good one. The girls had fun with their "paw-pa," as Leyla calls him.
We have a new kitten. There was a stray kitten living in the bushes at our apartment complex. After about 5 days of luring her towards me and my apartment with lunch meat, I was able to bring her inside. She became socialized very quickly, and her and Pistachio get along great! I don't enjoy twice the mess in the litter box, but I do like kittens, and I love how friendly she is and I like the fact that Pistachio has company that she seems to enjoy. We haven't exactly settled on a name yet. Leyla calls her Baby. Chloe calls her Squeaky. Shane calls her Zippy. I usually call her either Stinky or Kitten. Hopefully something will stick soon.

Ooh, I also found some cool bugs! I have found two of these beetles in the past month:
One looks just like this photo, and the other one looks like it, but it has a short horn. Pretty cool. Eventually I'll mount them properly and hopefully put them in a little shadow box. I would love to give one of them to one of my favorite aunts ;)

That's about it for now. My mom's probably the only person who actually read the whole thing, and she already knows all this, but that's ok. This kind of post is actually more for my record keeping anyway.