As most of you know, my dad passed away a couple of weeks ago. We weren’t close and I hadn’t seen him in 10 years so being there at the very end was kind of odd, but I’m so glad I went to see him and had a chance to talk with him briefly. We didn’t get to say all the things we wanted to say, but we said enough and there was peace for both of us. I still haven’t cried over it, but I will one day.

I turned 34 earlier this week. It was an OK birthday other than Aidan being sick and us not getting to cook dinner and stuff like we’d planned. I didn’t want a germy birthday dinner and certainly didn’t want to catch the bug he had. We’ll probably bake a cake or something this weekend, just so we can celebrate properly.

As I’ve plugged several times already, dashmihok.com and sophiabushphotos.com are now online if anyone wants to affiliate. I’ve got spots open for family, top and regular affies. Just email me through either of the sites and I’ll be happy to add you.

Aidan and I dropped dominic-monaghan.org due to lack of time. We didn’t want to let it go, but there was just entirely too much to do to get it to where it needed to be. We might open another one under a different domain one day with a smaller gallery or something. Or not. Who knows.

I’m in love with Glee and more specifically Lea Michele. The show is super fun and super pretty and all, but I don’t know if I’d be as into it if it weren’t for her. She just kind of brings the whole thing together and makes it all work. At least for me anyway. I also totally love Jane Lynch as Sue. She’s just absolutely perfect in her role.

Supernatural is rocking this season. I have a feeling they will break my heart by the end of the season though.

Tried to watch Vampire Diaries and boy does it blow. I still think Paul Wesley is super cute, but he doesn’t really embody Stefan just as Ian doesn’t embody Damon and Nina totally doesn’t embody Elena. Truthfully, hardly any of the characters look like they were described in the book (see descriptions here) which bothers me. Maybe if the actors or scripts were better, I might like it more. As it stands though, I had to give it up.

One Tree Hill isn’t very good this year, but I love Sophia so I will continue watching. Plus, they’ve had some really great tunes and Bethany looks amazing. I also like Shantel in her role, but she does happy and fun better than she does sad and hurt. The storylines are just so lame and some of the dialogue is just so forced. There is just no question that the show should have ended last season. I hope that they let it go in peace after this season because otherwise it’s just going to be unwatchable. I know some of the actors won’t have much of a career after it ends because they don’t have much talent, but they should have made a nice little nest egg for themselves by now and they could live comfortably for a while even if they don’t get much work.

Gossip Girl is kinda meh as a whole, but I LOVE Chuck to pieces. He seems just as smarmy as always, but less smarmy at the same time and much better dressed. I do miss S1 clothes on Chuck though. They were the best. Why do they keep putting Blair in shoes that don’t match her outfits in any way whatsoever? It’s weird and makes her look like she has no fashion sense even though she totally does. OK, I know it’s the stylists on the show that dress the cast, but still. And don’t get me started on that hideous outfit they had Serena in a few weeks ago. You know which one I’m talking about. Ugh times infinity. I wish they’d cut Vanessa’s hair again because trying to go for the messy Serena hair on her just doesn’t work at all. Also, why do they continue to make her annoying?

The True Blood finale was a let down. It took me weeks to finally watch it and then I felt like it was an hour wasted. I so wish they would have combined books 2 and 3 for Season 2 because they could have done it pretty easily and then that dreadful Maryann storyline would have ended long ago like it should have since she was barely present in the book and didn’t even have a name. Yeah.

I hope Dollhouse survives. I would hate to be without my weekly Joss and Enver fix. I’m so bummed that I can’t watch tonight because our stupid cable box is dead and I won’t have a replacement one until sometime next week.

Still practicing Russian, but I’m still not very good. I can say a few things fully and properly, but it’s getting really hard now. I keep getting the “I” and “You” and male and female forms of things mixed up, as well as the word order. I can’t even pronounce anything on the disc I started yesterday which makes me a little unhappy and somewhat frustrated. I think part of it has to do with my Southern accent. I just can’t wrap my mouth and vocal chords around certain words no matter how hard I try. I’ll have to take the discs back to library soon too which kind of sucks. They have a whole language section though, so I could try Farsi, Italian, French, German, Chinese and the list goes on. I might give a few others a whirl to see which one(s) I like best because learning Russian has definitely been fun and a good exercise for my brain and that’s exactly what I needed.

I think I’ll end here since my lunch break is now over. I’ll try to start tweeting again soon too. Just haven’t been in the mood lately.

I’ve been contemplating learning Russian. I realize that Russian is actually quite useless to me in my daily life, but learning a second language would expand my brain and could be fun. Besides, everyone else usually learns French, German, Italian or Spanish whether or not they will use it in their daily lives, so why not step outside the norm? If I don’t like it, I can always try out one of the easier languages instead.

Every single book I’ve read lately has used the word “murmured” a ridiculous number of times and it’s bugging me. I’m starting to hate it almost as much as I hate the word “succulent” and I really, really hate that word. There are a lot of other words that could be used in place of “murmured” and then “murmured” could be used more sparingly. Do the authors not realize they use it so much? Do their editors not catch it? Does it not bother anyone else?

So I’m about 200 pages into Breaking Dawn and I’m still not into it. I mean, I’m into it in the sense that I need to find out how the story concludes, but I’m not really enjoying it and that is disappointing me.

I don’t know how I feel about reading so much of the book from Jacob’s POV. I just don’t really care that much about Jacob anyway and having him tell me what all is going on is just kinda meh. For those of you who have read it, does he tell the rest of the story here on out or does it switch back to Bella? If it is him, does he at least become more likable?

Let’s move on to Rosalie next, shall we? I never liked her before and now I really don’t like her at all. She such a self-serving bitch. Maybe this is all an act and things will change, but she bugs severely in this book. *pokes her with a stick*

There is like zero Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Esme since the wedding. I seriously hope they come into play again later on because I like them and kinda miss them being an active part in the story. At least Carlisle is still in play because Edward is a wreck and I want Rosalie dead at this point and there are still over 500 pages to go.