Still Kickin'

This appropriately says it all.

HaBryerton:@MollyLouise10 who are you again? My sister used to tweet under this twitter ID, but she's been strangely absent lately from here and her blog

Said sister has been, well, a workaholic for the past week and a half.

Not quite a regular 9-5, but still enough to put 37 hours for a week. Makes for one hell of a paycheck. I don't mind working - I like my job. Sure, the heat is a little more than bearable when you're doing nothing at home besides reading borrowed library books, and running up and down the stairs of a moving boat doesn't look all that appealing to anyone with more than a little bit of logical reasoning capabilities, but it's the job that I have, and the job that I will do.

I just drink 64-96 ounces of water a day as a result. More than half of that while I'm at work.

Another thing that hasn't helped both the blog and new installments of Murphy, has been this:

HaBryerton:@MollyLouise10 does that mean I should stop strapping him into the car seat & taking him to work with me? It likes the office AC [Regards to my missing Focus.]

[Side note: I'm watching Robin Hood (the BBC version) and Djaq is basically telling Will Scarlet that she loves him and I cannot handle this, and it reminds me how much I love this show. Though my favorite is and probably always will be (other than Will and Robin) Allan a Dale.]

I am so sweaty and disgusting that it's gross, even for me.

Keeping with the Robin Hood theme, the new movie? You must see it. Absolutely have to, because it's very reminiscent of one of the best series of books that I've read in quite a while. Stephen R. Lawhead took the legendary tale of Robin Hood out of Sherwood Forest in England, and dropped him into Wales. Gave the story a unique twist, and made it one hell of an interesting read that I chewed through in little under a week last year while in Martha's Vineyard. There's three books in the series - Hood, Scarlet, and Tuck. I strongly recommend you read them. All of them.

In an update about things happening across the pond - or trying to get there - the visa application processing center received my application. And I'll get it back (or have to send more information) sometime between the next two to twelve weeks. Hopefully it'll be along the lines of two.

And we're down to 66 days before I depart on a plane for three months across the Atlantic in a tiny town in Wales.

I'm doing that odd combination of crying and laughing because I can't believe that it's almost here. Less than, what? Three months? Two months? Sixty-six days. Sixty-six days before I pack up, get in the car with mom and dad, take a drive to the city, and go through airport security and stand there before that final barrier until I can give them one last hug and go through that last checkpoint. Sit there by the gate and wait with no phone for the plane, hope to find people that I'm going abroad with, and start to build something incredible.

When you think about it that way, it stirs something powerful and unidentifiable within you. Something that you're excited about, and scared of at the same time.

[Side note: Those Jillian Michaels commercials - nobody looks that freakin' good when they get done with a serious workout. Their hair is not down in perfect curls and they are definitely not smiling to that degree. It's more like a grimace because your muscles don't want to work properly. Or that could just be me and everybody else after Ralph gets through with us...]

Probably not the type of post that you were hoping or thinking you'd see from me, so I'll end with something a little out of the ordinary. The stuff that I'm currently reading for fun, most of it borrowed from the library.

Rising Phoenix, by Kyle Mills
The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
Ramage, by Dudley Pope
Byzantium, by Stephen R. Lawhead