No need to panic! I have returned.

I know it seems as if, since a week ago, I’ve fallen off the face of the Earth. Maybe I did. But I’m back, and you can stop pacing back-and-forth in your offices or bedrooms or even your bathrooms. (I don’t know where you are when you read my blog! Don’t judge me!) I have plenty to tell you, and I promise I won’t put you to sleep while doing it.

I’m finally done with school for 3.5 weeks, and this is the first Monday I’ve been able to sleep in since the first week in June. Honors economics was what I would call…..”tolerable.” (That’s an understatement, by the way. The real word I would prefer to use for the class is inappropriate and should be left up to your imagination.) I was more than happy to turn in my final and scoot my backside out of there. I don’t even care what my grade will turn out to be, really. I’m just glad to have my life (and sanity!) back.

As you probably know by now, my birthday was last Tuesday. I got an amazing shirt, which I totally want to wear today just because I’ve fallen in love with its vibrant colors, a note telling me my padres were buying me an iPhone (I just got it yesterday! Did you know the 8-Gig is only like $99 now?), and…get ready for this one…two more seasons (4&5) of Gilmore Girls!

I also got two books, three more journals to write in when I use up my others, pens (one of them being a purple pen that writes in black ink…traitor), and lots of chocolate birthday cupcakes. Though I got to see Colleen and spent most of the afternoon watching the first disk of season 4, it was kind of ruined by the fact that I knew I should be doing homework…which I didn’t do, because it was my birthday.

The last few days of school were kind of suckish. But once I was done and out of there, all was good. I spent Friday basking in the freedom. I cleared an entire shelf in my room to add more books, creating my own Great Library, in a way. While I’ve been struggling to write this past week, I’ve fallen in love with books. Not a bad thing, I guess, but not as productive as writing a novel.

Speaking of Reminiscence, there isn’t much to report JulNoWriMo-wise. I just checked the ranks and learned I’m ranked number 29 in the statistics. I took this past week off of working on it, since doing so during class became difficult and distracting. But I plan to get some work done on it today, am at 57,000 words, and hope to get in my 61,000 before Friday, which is the last day to enter word counts before JulNo is over. I hope to finish the book before school starts up again.

I also, before I go back to school, plan to finish reading the stack of unread books on my night stand. Once school starts, I’m determined to focus solely on my schoolwork during the week. I hate it when books pile up, and i don’t put them on my shelves until I’ve read them.

I didn’t get much reading done yesterday, which kind of bummed me out but was also acceptable. I churched in the morning, which was a little rough at start but turned out just fine. Worship practice later in the morning was acoustic and amazing (thanks Matt!). I played around with my iPhone and had some of the girls over to hang out and celebrate Kelli’s birthday. But mostly I played with my iPhone.

Once I get the Internet connection to work on this thing, I’m going to try doing my blogs from my phone. It’s new and a bit more challenging, and it might be fun. Plus, it would mean I wouldn’t even have to get out of bed to do it, so when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep, I could write to you. See, there are advantages to turning seventeen.

Have a great Monday! Today is the best one I’ve had so far in six or so weeks.

Remember: don’t eat toothpaste after dark.

Love&hugs, Meg