need

A little body pressed against yours, little hands and arms twining around your neck as this miniature person seeks comfort from an unnamable fear - the dark, maybe, or missing his mother. Whatever the reason, he needs someone right now - and being that someone for him is the most important job in the world at that moment.

50 days

It's 50 days now until Twilite arrives and we begin Minobot 4: The Canadian Reunion.
Last night's Skype conversation centered on sorting out our plans for the time we are together.
After a weekend with international WigBers in Vancouver, we're roadtripping in two directions: south to Oregon, and north to Hazelton BC.
Oregon is home to Twi's aunt, she lives in Portland and from her emails, it sounds like she's excited to see us. It'll be cool to meet her and get to know another person from my man's family.
Hazelton is where the coolest chick in the universe currently lives, along with her baby boy and the rest of her family - my friend Jillybean. She's always there for me, and it's going to be great to hang out with her, and get to know "my" nephew.
50 days...
I can't wait!

1 Year Anniversary

so i just realized that Friday was my official one-year anniversary with Christian. :)
both of us forgot, but we did have a really fun time talking on Thursday, and that conversation ended up spilling over the midnight mark into Friday, so i think we're good :)
what can i say about this relationship, except to thank God that we have it, and say that i almost can't believe that i do.
it's a crazy adventure we're in, but through it all we're in it together, and he couldn't be more perfect if i had imagined him.
Happy Anniversary, Christian. i love you.<3

homeschool kid

"Ok, what about dinosaurs? Did they exist?"
The leader of this discussion turns to face me from across the circle and says, "Hmm. Well. Holly, let's hear your answer. You were homeschooled."
I throw up my hands in a confessing gesture and lower my head. "Yes, yes I was."
And I proceed to lay out my belief on dinosaurs and where they fit in the Creation Story, adding in just what I believe about the timeline of the creation story, and what happened to make dinosaurs go extinct, making sure to point out that my belief is based on facts from Creation-based scientific research.
A few days later, I'm just about ready to take a stack of books to the Philosophy section when I overhear my boss talking with a (really awesomely dressed) lady at the front counter. I walk over and say "You homeschool? I was homeschooled."And this starts a long conversation between me and the lady, about learning history from a Christian perspective and the upsides and downsides to Distance Education, and which curriculum is good, and how the school system tries to make homeschooling people afraid by saying their kids won't graduate properly and will never get into a good college or university (not true).
I was thinking about these two different situations today. And thinking about how funny it is that a few weeks ago, I took this "homeschooled" quiz on Facebook, and the result was that I was the atypical homeschool kid and the maker of the quiz was suprised that I was online at all.
I am the strange one and have always been that - the grade schooler who had never been to gym class, the middle-schooler finished school by lunch, the high schooler who listened to Francis Schaeffer lectures, and now,the twenty-year-old who is recognized as "the oldest from that big family who homeschools".
I am not the only one, it's true - one of my good friends is married to a homeschool kid. But I am still strange, apparently. I have opinions that differ from those of my peers. I know what I believe and I can tell you why. I can argue my points and cite historical facts to back myself up.
My greatest ally in my school years were my parents, who taught me everything they knew, and helped me keep learning beyond that. I thank God every day that my mom found the curriculum for the Worldview course I took in eleventh grade - as I said to the lady at the bookstore the other day, it helped to shape me into the person I am today.
So if you point me out as "the one who was homeschooled", please understand that I am not offended. I don't mind being recognized as different - I like it. I'm the homeschool girl. I know my history, I know my music, and I know every fifth person who walks through the doors of the bookstore where I work.
I'm just a socially-sheltered homeschool kid.

an odd set of thoughts

i was just reading "Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason" (again), and got to the part where she gets home from Thailand, and the next morning Princess Diana has died.got this odd feeling, because i remember that. i was 9 years old at the time, just starting to realize who exactly Princess Di was... the sad-looking, pretty lady on the front of so many magazines. and then those portraits were replaced byshocking car-crash wreckage and headlines saying "Diana Dead" and i remember seeing one cover that showed Prince William and Prince Harry, and thinking how sorry i was for them. because their motherhad died, and it was all over everywhere, and there were people taking photos of them all the time and saying things and to my young mind it just seemed awful. it's a funny thing to remember now, years later, but i actually think that Princess Di's death was when i started to realize how the life of a princess maybe isn't like Cinderella and that type of Disney princess.maybe, life for a real princess is actually more like Princess Jasmin, in Aladdin. trapped in the palace, where things are lovely and gorgeous, but still being completely unhappy and doing things you dislike.and really, you don't have to be a princess to feel like that sometimes.Helen Fielding wrote (as heroine Bridget Jones): "Think going [to Kensington Palace] with flowers might be a bit creepy... but thing is, really did like her. Was like having someone in heart of authority who was same as you."an odd, and possibly depressing, subject for my blog... but there you go. a peek into the workings of my mind, both as a 9-year-old and now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
she's nine years old, barely. birthday was just over 2 weeks ago and she's thinking about getting home to her pencil crayons and art paper, can't wait to get out of this grocery store. hanging on to the handleof mom's shopping cart, finally heading toward the check-out.an avid reader, she scans the magazine and newspaper headlines for something interesting. "Diana Dead"she turns to her mom, busily unloading the cart onto the conveyor belt, and asks about Diana. who is she? or was she... -a princess, yes a real one, we'll talk about it later help me now.in the car, driving home. asking again. -Diana was a princess, the princess of England, and she's died trying to get away from people who wanted to take photos of her.confusing. and who were the boys on the magazines, with flowers? -her sons. Prince William, he's older, and Prince Harry. she won't really understand what happened for a few years... but she realizes that maybe being a princess isn't a life to aspire to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R.I.P., Princess Diana of Wales.

=)

today marks my first day of being full-time at the bookstore, and while i didn't actually work today (Sundays off, boo-yah), i did think about my hopeful project for tomorrow: alphabetizing the Philosophy section.hopefully i'll be able to get that done first thing, before the book-cart comes out of the office and we get swamped.now, i don't know. maybe you all are like almost everyone i've told my job about here IRL. i doubt it, but i'm not sure. maybe when you read that i have a job at a bookstore, you think "Oh, wow, she gets to read all day."let me clear that up for you.
it's not true.
what i do, all day, is handle books. i take them off a cart, organize them into sections on these tall shelves by the counter, and then take armfuls from each section and put them away. and then the paperbacks comeout, in their banana-boxes, and i carry banana-boxes full of Sci-Fi and Mystery and Romance to their sections, stack them, and put them away. and if putting away books sounds easy to you, i dare you to try it for eight hours. alphabetize Sci-Fi novels first by author then by title, onto shelves so packed full with other Sci-Fi novels that it's crazy. alphabetize Westerns by Max Brand into a drawer, Max Brand being such a prolific writer that we can only have one copy of each of his thin novels in said drawer, and there are still overflow in a basket besides.find room on towering shelves for that one last Gen-Fic hard-cover, shelves that are so high that you have to step off the stepladder and balance on an inch of (albeit very sturdy) shelf while hanging on with one hand.try with all your might to fit one more Elvis book into the Music section, strain your fingers to fit one more Danielle Steel novel into that drawer, and don't forget to trip over the Bookstore Cat a few times whilesquatting on your heels in the Children's Section, attempting to slide one more Kid's Large Soft-Cover into the "Z" section.
and i will say that sometimes, while putting away yet another stack of Romance, or particularily Paranormal Romance (s/he's perfect, I've finally found the love of my life... but Wait! Oh No! s/he's a vampire/demon/fairy/god/Santa Claus [so frighteningly [i]not[/i] kidding]!)i have flipped over the book, hiding the inevitable couple on the front - he like a young Val Kilmer with Snake Pliskin's hair, she flawless and twined about his rippling physique like a steamy snake - to read the editor'sdescription on the back. and sometimes, it is so unbelievable (the Santa Claus one, for instance), so over-the-top, so [i]bad[/i], that i or my co-worker can't help but share it with each other, and then share whispered giggles before resuming our task.because sometimes, in that situation, you don't know whether to cry or to laugh.and do not for one moment think that Romance is the only genre we giggle over! Sci-Fi has it's hologram-covered monstrosities as well, though we do our best to seek and destroy those ASAP... my favourite SciFi cover as of yet depicts a figure that can only be described as Rambo's younger brother, on the hard, reddish surface of what appears to be Mars. i don't know the story behind that one, and i don't care to - it's funnier to guess.i and my co-workers have a general beef with publishers who randomly decide to print the next batch of books by a particular author bigger in some dimesion than the last, though we tend to directly blame the author. *cough*Ian Rankin*cough*also, we tend to dislike authors whose books are unseemingly large for mass-market paperback... *cough*Jack Whyte*cough*
if all this sounds easy to you, then i tip my newsboy cap at you, for you must be a superhuman.don't get me wrong, i absolutely adore my job. i wouldn't trade it for the world... although, after writing that, i recant and try again: at this time, i wouldn't trade it for the world, though someday i will trade it forHawaii.:)
but think of me, and other bookstore workers like me, the next time you're in [i]any[/i] bookstore, be it Barnes and Noble, Chapters-Indigo, or your local Used - we don't read all day, we work as hard as you do, we justhappen to work with books.

hurrah!

i have wonderful news: as of March 15th, i will be a full-time employee of the bookstore!this means rent and bills are covered plus other expenses like gas and food, without me having to get a second job.
i am incredibly, indescribably happy.
=)