welcome to winter in the midwest!

yesterday we were in a flash flood warning. tomorrow it's supposed to be 50 degrees with rain and thunderstorms. today they issued a blizzard watch starting saturday morning.

Holding onto bitterness is like drinking poisen and expecting the other person to die. --James Arthur Ray on Oprah, 2/16/2007

this quote sums up what i've thought of my parents since their divorce in 2000. i've been so angry at them for so many things and hoped they would suffer by knowing what i thought of them (though i never communicated this anger).

dad responded by being eager to talk with me and sending small nudges to test the waters when i didn't come to him first. he told me over christmas that it doesn't pay to be bitter -- just get over it and move on. he made it sound so simple, but that's exactly what he does. he realizes he can't do anything about how the other person feels, so he does what he can to let the person know he's willing to talk and then stops worrying about it.

mom responded with bitterness, blaming, and victimization.

guess which parent i gravitate towards now? o, how life has changed in the last 1.5 years...

now turning the tables on me, i realized last week that i've rarely felt the pain from their divorce. i've been too wrapped up in the anger and resentment, which is slowly being worked through. now some of the pain is coming through. i now have God and people in my life to help me through this, so hopefully i won't ping-pong between anger/bitterness and distracting myself from thinking about it like i usually do.

yapping & food

so i have this friend that i talked to 654 minutes on my cell last month (even though i was with the person 2 of the weekends in my billing period). 607 of those were night/weekend minutes of my 780 total (or 78% of my off-peak minutes). the other 47 minutes i spoke to this person came to 21% of my peak minutes used.

this month, we'll be apart 3 of the 4 weekends. how close to my 1000 off-peak minutes will i use this month? ;)

in other news, i went to the ER this weekend while visiting my sister in omaha. after a few hours of ruling all sorts of things out, they decided i had a viral infection. i've never experienced so much pain in my life! (i don't want to go into the other details now.) everytime i ate anything, it came up along with a lot of pain within a few minutes, so i've been leary of eating ever since. this is what i've eaten in the last week or so:

• saturday: bread bowl (with Brianna!!), some amazing cookies at my sister's


• sunday: 1 can of chicken noodle soup


• monday: 1 can of chicken noodle soup, popsicle, apple juice smoothie with 1/2 banana


• tuesday: apple juice smoothie with 1/2 banana, popsicle, 1 can of vegetable soup, slice of bread


• wednesday: pb&j, popsicle, chocolate, chicken sandwich, fries


• thursday (for supper alone): two slices of pizza, alfredo, chocolate, valentine candy, 1/2 banana

looks like my stomach is back to normal now. :)

kearney has full power back!!

last week, nebraska public power district repaired and energized kearney's last 3 transmission lines! nppd's work is far from over though. i heard (but haven't found verification) that most of the new lines were temporarily tied to the poles and not secured to withstand any type of storm. in addition to properly securing the lines, they will have their hands full making the necessary repairs made in time for irrigation season.

i was anal about conserving power last month, which was really good for me. it was easier to focus on living a simpler life, but it didn't hurt that i was out of town for most of the weekends. :) i did less chatting online, had slightly less heat, used less hot water. but i also did less sitting at my computer, less vegging, and more reading. it was humbling to realize how much electricity i routinely waste.

this storm will not soon be forgotten.

"this is the worst day of my life." --me after school on 2/6/1992

...except it turned out to be one of the best! we knew that my brother might fly in that evening, but nothing was certain so mom wouldn't let us tell anyone. it was really difficult to control the excitement that day! after supper, mom, dad, my sister, and i loaded into the mini-van for the 2-hour drive to omaha. even then, we didn't know whether my brother would fly in. (he flew from south korea to seattle a few days previous, but was stuck in customs for awhile).

we got to the airport and awhile later, the plane that he might be on arrived. a bunch of suits came off along with a few families. and then no one else. after 5-10 minutes, an elderly woman exited, carrying a young, korean boy. we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

i remember it being really awkward. this 1-year-old kid was my brother, but i didn't know him at all. do i hold him? do i try to make him giggle? what do i do?

he wasn't sure what to think of us either. it was obvious that he was tired of being on a plane, but he didn't have anyone familiar to go to. we were huddled around, smiling at him and he had this bewildered look on his face. he squrmed out of someone's arms and started crawling around on the cold tile, gazing up at us every once-in-a-while. after signing papers and visiting a bit, we loaded up and took this stranger home with us.

15 years later, i can't imagine life without him. to me, this day is just as significant as his birthday because it's the first day i saw him.

so...happy birthday William!