Hadn't meant to take so long to update. Things are really good with work, school, and life. I love working at the Bossier Library. It's so much busier than the Benton Branch, which keeps me from staring at the clock all day. The time seems to pass by quickly. I've taken on a lot of little things since starting at Bossier. For example, it used to be that only one person at Bossier handled ALL of the holds - calling patrons to tell them the holds are in, pulling holds, canceling holds, etc. But at a lot of the other branches, everyone does those things, so I know how to do it all. I talked to my manager, and she talked to the hold person, and between the three of us, we agreed that I would help out with those. I don't see how one person did it all before anyway, as Bossier gets a LOT of holds. I've also been assigned to do a couple of reports each week, on missing books and books that are marked as "in transit" but haven't showed up. Everyone there seems to love me and they're always telling me how wonderful I am. I shrug it off and tell them they're crazy. I keep thinking it'll fade as I'm there longer, but I've been there for a month and it's still happening.

One of my favorite things is that I feel like I belong there. I did from the start. At Benton, I felt like an outsider, and that was partially because I was only part time and missed a lot of stuff when I wasn't there. Plus I didn't feel like all of the staff made me feel welcome - okay so only one person on the staff didn't. Anyway, at Bossier, it's not like that. Everyone welcomes me, and from the start, we always acted like I'd always been there. It's so busy there and all that I've almost forgotten what it's like at Benton, because I feel like I've always belonged at Bossier. I admit, I was worried about the feel of it when I first applied, but it's turned out wonderful!

I'm still in school, just finished my fourth class and started my fifth. For anyone who doesn't remember, the online college I'm doing works where you take one class at a time for 5 weeks and then immediately start your next class. So far I have a 4.0 gpa. Yay! I've been able to balance everything so far, so that's good.

Well, it's time to go to work. We're having a big staff meeting this morning. Not sure what that's about. I'll try to post more often!

I'd love to know if this comment was left by one of you that I know! Come on, if it was you, don't hide. Told me to grow up, so please do the same. Least you can do is be open about how you feel. =P And if it was some random person that happened upon my journal, don't be such a coward. If you can put comments like that out there, then surely you can face up to them.

I borrowed some money from Bryan's parents so that I could get new clothes for the new job. I only have a couple of outfits that I wear to the Benton Library, and so I needed for since I'll be working 5 days a week now. Anyway, Lane Bryant was having an awesome "Buy one get one free" sale, so I was able to get three pairs of pants, seven or so shirts, and two camisoles.

I then went shoe shopping last night, as I need a brown pair. I have a lot of trouble finding shoes that fit. My fit are really wide. Anything I found that fit had a sole that taper at the heel, and I just don't have good enough balance for those. I need a strong, thick heel to be able to walk, or even stand, without falling. I found one pair at Rack Room Shoes, and I wore them for the rest of the night, only to discover that they crush my toes and that I won't be able to wear those all day at work. I'm going to try to return them and see if I can get something else from there.

After buying the shoes, we went to Joe's Crab Shack for supper, and then we went and saw Iron Man. I still had $13.50 on a gift card that I got as a reward for doing online surveys, so it only cost us just under $3 to see the movie. So we had a nice little date and then I crashed when we got home. I was more tired than I thought, and ended up sleeping way late for a Sunday morning paper delivery. >.>

I'm excited about the new position, and definitely about only having one more week of paper delivery! It's gotten really hard for me to wake up in time to get the papers delivered by 6 lately.

This morning, a lady stopped me and asked if I was her normal paper carrier. She fussed that she hasn't gotten her paper three times now, and I apologized and told her that I knew. I told her that it's an ongoing problem, that The Times has not been giving us enough papers lately. She said that she's been calling and they tell her that it's the carrier's fault. That pissed me off! I told her that I could assure her that it's a problem with the paper itself, and that I'm not the only carrier it's happening to. I told her that some nights we're 16-20 papers short, and there's nothing we can do. I explained about the new inserter machine that makes it where we don't have to do the inserting ourselves, and how ever since they started using it, we're having a lot of instances of just the inserts, with no paper. I also told her that The Times tells me to just go ahead and throw that, but that there was no way I would do that to the customer. She seemed to appreciate that and believe me. She asked what can be done, and I told her to just keep calling, and talk to the supervisor I guess, so I think she's going to do that. She also commented on how late they've been - part of that is my fault, part of that is because the paper is late too. Three times in the last week, the papers haven't gotten to the warehouse until almost 4, which doesn't affect me that much, since that's when I get there, but it affects everyone else. And one night, when it was pouring down rain, the papers didn't get there until almost 5. So yeah, the paper just isn't doing so well lately.

I'm not mad at the woman for complaining, as I completely understand. I'm mad at The Times for putting me in this situation and creating a problem so that the customer has to complain and thinks that I'm the one at fault. I'm so glad to be getting away from that company!

Problem is, they say I'm going to have to pay for a sub, $75 a night, until they find a new carrier, since I didn't give my thirty day notice. That sucks majorly and I don't know what we're going to do about that, but there's no way I could keep doing it. Never mind the fact that gas prices keep going up. It took $60 to fill up our impala the other night. >.<

My next class, Computer Literacy, starts on Tuesday. I expected it to pretty easy, but once I actually downloaded the course guide and looked over the assignments, I started to feel intimidated. I have to write an 8 page paper by the end of the class, and do a powerpoint presentation to go along with it. Eep. The topics aren't exactly giving me a lot of confidence either. I did work out my homework schedule though and I think I feel better about the class. Planning out the schedule always makes me feel a bit better.

Hey, the four of you that I emailed and told you to come read my journal, I was actually refering to the entry just before this one, so make sure to read that too please!

I've always hated my name, Tonya. At times I grow more comfortable with it, but more often than not, it unsettles me, and just doesn't feel right.

I believe that most of us has alter egos that we perceive as being parts of us. I have quite a few of them, at least four that I can think of right now. These are different aspects of my personality, that I have names for, and at different times, I feel a stronger connection to each of them.

Do you have alter egos and/or other names that you go by? Which do you feel suits you best? Which do you feel the strongest connection to?


I would offer cookies to those who can guess my alter egos, but the people who really know them probably won't read this anytime soon. Well, anyone can at least guess the names by looking at my icons. If you do look and want to know more about them, let me know.

I've entered the writing contest at thebrenljidol because I've been wanting to do more writing lately. Writing essays for school got me motivated to write, but now I'm wondering if I should have gotten into this. First off, I've never really let people read what I write, other than in my journal, except for a select few that I've gamed with. So what am I thinking, entering in a writing contest?? At least it'll be done anonymously. The real problem is whether I can take the topics given and actually come up with something good about it. My mind doesn't really like to be limited, but then, it'll be good practice for sticking to a topic, which I'll have to do for school essays. Hopefully I won't be kicked out in the very first round.

My ten year high school reunion is next weekend, but I'm not sure about going. They're doing a meet and greet at Buffalo Wild Wings Friday night, which I'm not going to. Another classmate is hosting an after party for that, at another restaurant, which is a little odd to me. Saturday afternoon there's a fish fry family picnic out at the lake, which is the only part I may or may not be going to. Then Saturday night there's the main reunion at the Hilton downtown. I couldn't afford to go to that if I wanted to. I just can't make up my mind about the picnic. I already planned to take the day off from the library, but I don't know if I want to go mingle with my former classmates or not. If I decide not to, then at least Bryan and I will have the day together.

Speaking of, I took off yesterday so that we could go to his company picnic. Afterwards we did a little shopping, and I got some more things to plant in the yard. I want to put in a smallish flower bed behind a certain part of our fence, and I wanted a bush there with some celosia behind it. Home Depot had a good deal on the celosia yesterday, so I got a big flat of it in yellows, oranges, and reds, and a few extra containers that have yellow and light pink. I got a pretty sage bush to go there as well. I also found a container of carnations at Big Lots, which was unexpected. They were for Mother's Day, but I've been looking for some to plant in my yard in memory of my mom - carnations were her favorite flower. But no one has had any around here yet, so I got those and shall be planting them in the back part of our fenced in area.

I bought a flat iron yesterday, so I can try and get some control over my hair. It's getting really bad again, as far as the coarseness, split hairs, and frizz. The warmer weather does this to it, and if I don't do something now, it'll only get worse as the weather gets hotter and more humid. If I can get it to behave, I'm thinking about cutting it off just above my shoulders. Once I see how it does at that length, I'm considering getting a longish A-line bob. I have to be careful though. My hair really poofs out when it's in a shorter cut like that. Hopefully with the flat iron, I can control that.

I've been wanting to play D & D again for so long, but don't really have anyone to play with, much less the time to plan a campaign again. I go into too much detail and all with it. Then I came up with the idea of trying something more freeform, less structured, with Bryan, my cousin Starla, and Holly. We're playing it a lot like a freeform play by email rpg, and this is the first time I've DMed/GMed in a freestyle manner, coming up with ideas on the fly. I usually try to plan so much of everything, so this is really different for me, but it's going really well. It's fulfilling the urge to play D & D, without taking up too much of my time. And since Starla and Holly are really into vampires, we're playing a game where they're both vampires and Bryan is a hunter. We've got some really great ideas flowing so far.

I never said anything else about Sassy and Ben, but Ben ended up having to have four teeth pulled instead of two. He's done really well sense then. Sassy's yeast problems have cleared up nicely and she's regrown hair in the places that it was missing in. Best of all, her hearing is back! She still has a little trouble hearing, but at least she can hear some now. We're really glad for that. She's also gained a total of 4.8 lbs since she first went to the vet, so that's good too. The vet thinks she has a little bit of a bacterial infection around her tail, so she's on two more medications.

Well, there's a dachshund begging to be held, so gotta go...


Made by kandysmindfreak

Erase my answers, enter yours, and tag whoever you'd like to play
Use the 1st letter of your first name to answer each of the following.
They have to be real places, names, things, nothing made up!
Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial.
You CANNOT use your name for the boy/girl name question.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Tonya
FOUR LETTER WORD? Tuna
VEHICLE: Tundra
TV SHOW: Torchwood
CITY: Toledo
BOY NAME: Topher
GIRL NAME: Tabitha
OCCUPATION: Taxidermist
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: T-shirts
FOOD: Taco
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Toilet
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: To the rescue!

Stolen from sweetkisses13

Bold the names of guys you'd definitely shag.
1. Italicize the names of guys you might shag after a little persuasion.
2. Leave the guys who don't do anything for you alone.
3. Put a question mark after the guys you've never heard of.
4. Strike the guys you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
5. ADD FOUR OF YOUR OWN AT THE END.

( Character Shagging )

Since I started writing papers for school again, I've been wanting to do more writing. I saw the info on this community in my friend Marion's journal, and I've decided to join. Thought some of you might be interested as well!

I don't know why I wait so long to post in my journal. I tell myself I'll post more often, but I just don't get around to it. So here's another long post.

Since my last post, Bryan and I have been hanging out with my cousin, Starla and her girlfriend Holly, a great deal, at least once a week, usually twice. It's been really nice to get close to her again, and feel comfortable around her again. I'm glad to see that she's doing so much better. And Holly is really great, and a lot of fun. We've all been doing a lot of karaoke singing with the Singstar games, and playing some Cranium Wow too.

A couple of weeks ago, an ILL/Reference Desk position opened up at the Bossier Central Library, and I applied for it. I really wanted it, plus it would have worked out for the best because I could have quit the newspaper job. Since I started school, I've not wanted to get up to do the newspapers. More sleep would be great, plus, it would have meant less miles on the car, less money on gas, and Bryan wouldn't have had to make so many trips to come get me on the days that I'd work. I'd have been working every day, full time. I interviewed and thought it went really well. The lady that interviewed me spoke very highly of me when she called me back, but they went with someone else, who has been with the library system for much longer. Meh.

We took Sassy to the vet this past weekend. We've wanted to for some time now, but we've been able to afford it. The plan had been to take her after we finished paying for the funeral (Two more payments!) but I managed to work out the budget where we could go ahead and take her. The doctor said that she has some yeast problems, and gave her an oral medication as well as a medicated shampoo. We have to bath her twice a week. She also got some dewormer, even though he didn't see definite signs of worms, he think she might have whipworms, and that that may be the cause of her weight loss. She tested negative for heartworms, which I'm very relieved about, but I'm still worried about the weight loss. Oh, and I don't know if I've mentioned this on here yet, but she's lost her hearing, pretty much all of it, though she can hear some really high pitched stuff. He gave us some medicine and ear wash for her ears, because they're yeasty too, but he said that he couldn't see a build up that would cause hearing loss, and he said that it's mostly likely nerve damage, which means she won't be getting her hearing back. She's picking up on her hand signals really fast again though. Daddy taught her all of them. She's just not remembering the one for 'sit'. She'll get it again though. We take her back in two weeks for a check up to see if she's gaining any weight back.

Then today I took Ben to the vet because he's got a tooth infection. He's been having some swelling underneath his eye on the right side, but it would go back down. Then yesterday I looked down (he was in my lap) to see that there was a bloody, pus-like discharge all over my leg, having drooled out of his mouth. That was pretty disgusting. Anyway, the doc said to give him an antibiotic twice a day, and then bring him back in Thursday. They'll put him under and remove one tooth on each side, that are infected, and clean the rest of his teeth. Poor little dachshund.

I'm trying to become more active on the blinkie communities, but I keep missing the open offers. I want to get back into making them myself too, as I miss that, but first I have to find the time. Plus, I'm not really happy with most of the pixels I have, and I'm thinking about buying some subscriptions to pay sites for pixels, so I can have more cute and creative stuff.

I hope you guys are all doing well! I do read your journals even if I don't comment!

A year ago, this past Saturday, she went into the coma. It's been on my mind a lot lately. It's been a really painful week. Something in one of my audio books triggered a break down last week. As in, I think it's finally real. March is going to be rough. And all of the things I'd planned for my birthday, to try and distract me, aren't going to happen because we're not getting any money back on our taxes this year, we're actually going to have to pay instead. Ah well.


Working on my first paper for college. Eh. I second guess myself too much. I'm having Bryan proofread it now, but some of his changes don't make sense to me, lol.

I think I need to make myself a drum icon...

Last night I happened upon a bulletin on myspace that said that a couple of my favorite bands would be playing at H & H Lounge, so we decided to go. We didn't want to miss The Goddamn Gallows again, like we did last time they were in town. They're a great band, as are some of the others that were there last night, most of which were local regulars that we see often. Anyway, I thought I'd link a few of their myspaces in case any of you might enjoy them.

Sadly, some of their myspaces don't do them justice, and they sound a lot better in person, but even so, here's their links!

Alright, first off, this band didn't play last night, but it's one of my favorites, The Hoodlum Circus. Going by what their myspace says, they're a punk/psychobilly/experimental band. This is the band that my friend John, who was/is giving me drum lessons is in!


Next up is The Noids! So, their myspace calls them Psychedelic/Garage/Afro-beat....yeah. I'd say, they're Punk. Anyway, very awesome, the lead singer is a great guy that everyone seems to love. He's also an awesome artist (If you follow his link from that page, Paul, you can see his art in his photos).


Then there's Sunday Mass Murder, which calls themself Punk/Thrash/Hardcore.


And finally, the band from out of town, L.A. in fact, The Goddamn Gallows! Sue, I especially wanted to recommend them to you, because if I remember correctly, you enjoy psychobilly/rockabilly, right? If so, I think you'll like them. We really enjoy them! This was our second time seeing them. Last time we tried, they moved to a different location and we didn't know it. Anyway, give them a try!



Also, on a completely different note, Rosemary III is a friend of mine's band, and they're really good. They're nothing like the above mentioned bands. These guys call themselves Acoustic / Indie / Folk Rock. It's three guys, aged 14-15, doing vocals, guitar, keys, drums, and violin. They have a really nice sound!

How many times has someone on your friends list posted about something and you were really confused, but you didn't want to ask because you knew you SHOULD know? How many times have you felt 'guilty' asking a close LJ friend a question that should be 'obvious'?

Well, here's your chance. If you've missed a few things, missed an entry and are confused, ask me anything. Even something EXTREMELY basic, like where I live! I'm not going to get irritated at any of the questions - we've all missed things before, so ask away!

Ask anything you want!

You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes.

Today was the start of my first class. I posted my first assignment, and now I just need to do my first assigned readings.

For the longest time, I wasn't able to think about my mom being gone, or her/my experiences of her being in the hospital, at all. Anytime I'd start to think about it, even if I tried, my mind would shut down and think of a hundred other things, just to shut that out. It wasn't intentional. I thought that since I'd had to distance myself from the situation so much, and since I was still dealing with my dad's death, still am, that I just wasn't ready, or able, to deal with my mom's death too. This is why I really haven't talked about it much.

In the last month or two, I've started to find it creeping into my thoughts more. I miss her, them both. But I do find myself thinking about her now. Remembering. I can think about it, I can see it, and I can feel it, all over again. All of those moments at the hospital, wondering if she'd come out of the coma, praying for guidance so I could make the right decision, looking for some sort of relief for her so she wasn't suffering anymore. I can feel all of those emotions again, and see those scenes in my head, like I'm reliving them. So finally I've started to grieve I suppose, finally I've started to feel the sadness. I thought it would happen as it got closer to being a year, and apparently I was right about that.