My head works in strange ways

On Friday night, I was teasing my husband about how fast he falls asleep. Seriously, I've never met anyone who falls asleep as fast as he does. It's usually "Good night," and two breaths later, he's out. I, on the other hand, apparently think so much and it sometimes takes hours to get my brain to shut off.

My husband jokingly suggested that I should count and see how long it took for him to fall asleep. I laughed and decided to do just that.

We go to bed. I start counting in my head. My mind started wandering and I'm pretty sure I was starting to fall asleep. I then realized that my mind was wandering, although I was still counting in the background... except the numbers didn't seem quite right to me. I was a bit confused and thought maybe I'd jumbled the numbers up or gotten out of order. I'm still counting as I'm trying to figure out what it is that's not quite right.

I count the next number... silucius. Wait a second. What? Silucius? I don't think that's right...

So, I have a new word. Silucius. Not sure where it came from, but apparently it means "how many seconds it takes for April to fall asleep."

Speaking of new words, I was writing a report earlier today and one of the people involved had a last name of Smith. I apparently got my fingers on the wrong keys, because when I went back and read what I wrote, the last name said "Snorg." I kinda liked that.

It's FRIDAY!

Happy Friday!

I had a really nice break yesterday. I went with two co-workers and our supervisor to a statewide department meeting in good ol' Salina, Kansas.

"Salina?" you might be thinking, "where in the world is that?" (If you're extra sharp, you might be thinking, "Where in Kansas is that?" since I already said it was in Kansas...) Salina is in the middle of nowhere. It's not quite in the middle of the state, but pretty close, and it's a little podunk town... about the only thing it has going for it is the fact that yours truly made her first appearance in the world there almost 29 years ago and lived there for the first year and a half of her life.

It was a nice break because I didn't actually have to work, I enjoy hanging out with the people I went with, and the meeting (shockingly enough) was actually kinda fun.

It was a really nice break because on the way back, we stopped at the Russell Stover's factory. I am almost convinced that this is one of the best places on earth (definitely in the top 10 Kansas-wise). They have lots and lots of free samples of very, very yummy chocolate and caramel. They have all kinds of surplus chocolate they sell for very cheap. (And I'm talking about cases of chocolate - 8-12 boxes - for under $10.) And they have ice cream. Very good ice cream. Which I got for free because their freezer had broken about an hour earlier, it was very hot, it wouldn't be repaired until the following day, and they were trying to get rid of the ice cream they had out before it melted.

It missed being a great break though, because since it was in Salina - 1/2 hour drive - we had to leave at 6:45. Which meant I had to leave my house at 6:15. Which meant I had to get up at 5:30. That was not cool. Not cool at all.

And now, it's Friday. And if that weren't good enough, it's also payday.

Life is good.

Lawrence is out to get me

It's a conspiracy. I'm pretty sure it is. Lawrence is out to get me.

Traffic in Lawrence is not good at its best. And when it's bad... well, any of you big city people who like to sit on freeways for hours and hours would feel right at home.

If the traffic in Lawrence were not bad enough on its own, the problem is also compounded during the summer months by a lovely thing called "road construction." (They have this crazy idea that they need to fix everything during summer break [although they never get it all done and it lingers on until spring], since a good portion of the University of Kansas students are gone for the summer and supposedly this makes for less traffic. I, however, am firmly convinced that only the students who don't have cars leave during the summer.)

I've already bemoaned the closing of our bridge many, many times, so I won't go there. But now I'm pretty sure that it's a conspiracy because they are slowly cutting off all my routes to work.

There are three roads on one side of town I could use to get to work. One has been closed for about a year and a half. The other was closed a month or so ago. This dumps all the traffic from three roads onto the one road remaining open and makes it generally miserable to drive on. On a normal day, you can make it down the entire stretch of road without touching the gas pedal... just let off the brake for a second, roll forward a few feet, and stop again. Just in case I didn't get the idea that I was not to drive that direction, the road leading to these three roads is now under construction. It's closed down to one lane for 3 1/4 miles (thus says the sign posted as the construction nightmare begins) and any drivers brave (dumb?) enough to embark upon this terrain must sit and wait... and wait... and wait... and wait... until the traffic from the other direction finishes their 20 mile an hour crawl from the other side.

I found an alternate route. About two weeks ago, they tore up one of the main stretches of that route, squishing all the traffic into one lane on either side and making it more miserable than normal to drive up.

So, I find yet another route. As I drove to work this morning, I came to what it always a busy intersection. Apparently, they discovered my new route to work and were therefore in the process of gleefully demolishing a good portion of the intersection.

My only construction-free path to work is now to drive all the way around the city and come in from the opposite side. Of course, if I do that, it will be under construction within the next few days.

I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy.

And so it begins.

I have an addiction. Blogs. Not blogging, persay, but blogs. If I were to sit down and count how many blogs I have created during the 10ish years I've been wandering about online, I'm fairly confident that I would rapidly run out of fingers and toes.

And so, yet another blog begins. A first blog post is a funny thing. You always want it to be brilliant and witty, to draw the reader in so that they just can't wait for the next post, to set the standard high for all the posts that will follow in the days, weeks, maybe even years to come. But at the same time, do you really want to waste all that creative energy on something that quite possibly no one will ever read?

You'd think that with the number of blogs I've started, I would have figured out a perfect balance by now.