that’s the sound of our phone ringing off the hook from bill collectors. even though my father has been gone over 6 months now, we are still recieving daily calls from people wanting money. mostly its people wanting money for his medical bills, but we also get calls for old credit cards and things that we could not take care of because when dad got sick, it got hard to pay for things they were paying for previously. i’m not exactly sure what we can do about it since mom is out of work due to her stroke. Debt Relief seems like it would be a good idea right about now.

well its been a couple days since the show ended and i’ve given myself time to let it sink in. i know people are angry about the ending and i’m sure a lot of people are very confused at everything. some questions weren’t answered, but so many were. i thought the ending was perfect, and it ended just as dad guessed it would a year or so ago. when we found out the show was coming to a close i’d asked him what he thought this would all turn out to be, and what he responded with is more or less exactly what the ending was. sure he wasn’t able to predict every single detail but the fact that he knew the main basic ending makes me happy. my dad may not have lived to see the final show, but in a way he already knew how it would end.

the show its self was breathtaking, as matthew fox himself had mentioned, it was very beautiful. i was moved to tears so many times during the 2 and a half hour finale! poor lucas was stuck listening to me bawl like a little baby though the last few minutes of the show.

i regret never watching the show with my dad. i wish i could go back in time and sit though every episode with him, from the beginning. its strange but, watching this show from beginning to end was sorta like a big send off. especially with the ending. it was my own private memorial. its strange to talk about a tv show like that.

lucas has written some awesome thoughts on the show as well. he is a much better writer than i, so you might want to check out his blog. be wary though, he has some spoiler content in there.

sometimes if there is an emergency you need to be able to have access to more cash than you currently have. there are many ways to get this extra money but a really simple way is to get a payday advance. MoneyNowUSA is a multiple lender payday loan search engine, where you can find your highest payday loan amount with the lowest APR. most applicants are approved for a payday loan and they are a secure and trustworthy site that encrypts all data to protect you from identity theft, something you really have to watch out for these days.

always remember if you need to do something like this, you have to be 18 or older and a us citizen who is currently employed, with an active bank account (either checking or savings) to be eligible. you should only use payday loans in cases of emergency, and only apply for one payday loan at a time. most importantly, never take a payday loan out if you aren’t sure that you can pay it back when its due (which is usually by your next paycheck).

that’s not too bad right? looks pretty simple to me. i’ve never had to do something like this but emergencies happen, so its good to know its there if i need it. its much better to do something like this than to try and borrow money from friends and family who may or may not have the money to lend you. i can think of a few times when my family could have used a system like this, but i don’t think it was available or if it was it wasn’t widely known about. with our history in car trouble this sort of system would really have come in handy!

have you ever needed a payday advance?

sunday marks the end of 6 seasons of LOST and the final 2 and a half hour episode to complete the story. for me it is a sad moment, though i’m sure many people will be sad when the show ends. for me i feel like i’m losing the one final connection i had left to my dad.

as i mentioned when this last season of the show began, i promised my father i would watch it with him, and then he passed away in december. i have watched every single episode and as the end drew closer i have been more and more depressed over it.

its strange how you can feel connected though a television screen. i feel my dad around when LOST is on, and i miss him more and more when the end credits roll. now the show is about to be no more, and the story will be complete. i wish he could have seen the end of it, and i hate that there won’t be any more of it. in a way its like i have to say good bye to him one last time.

i have never believed in god or heaven or anything like that. but i have always decided that people go somewhere, somewhere they love to be or somewhere they enjoyed from movies or tv or books. my dad knows the secrets of the island, and yeah saying that makes me sound crazy, but it makes me happy to think of him there.

sorry i’m kind of rambling here. i just sorta wanted to put this down on something.

LOST has been an awesome show, and i kick myself every tuesday that i didn’t watch it when it first started. i really underestimated how great of a story it was.

i’m really envious of people who have their own business or work from home. even though i know its a lot of work to get to that point. (my dad owned his own business). it seems like it would be so nice to be my own boss. i have really enjoyed writing blog posts about different stuff, and i don’t mind when its dull topics like custom business cards and stuff like thiat. but i don’t really get much work for that because i’m still new to it all.

i ramble on here a lot about the lack of employment in my area, but a part of me is kind of scared to go out and get the jobs that i am really interested in. i’m not sure why i hold myself back, but i know that its something i need to stop. i’m not getting any younger!

i’m also not sure where to find jobs like that. i do have skills but i never went to school for them, and for some reason that seems to stop places from hiring me. just because i don’t have a piece of paper that says i can make a picture or make a logo, doesn’t mean i can’t do those things just as well (or better) than someone who does have that paper.

being an adult is irritating.

this was really a suprise. i’ve not played starcraft in YEARS. but i was really excited when blizzard first announced that there was going to be a starcraft II. i signed up for beta when they first opened the signups and i never actually expected to get in! but earlier today i found this in my inbox and i squealed for joy:

so now i am currently waiting on the thing to finish patching so that i can hit play for the first time and learn how to play starcraft all over again >_>

i have been a fan of blizzard’s games for a looonnnggg time. ever since i first got my hands on a playstation and a friend loaned me a copy of warcraft II i was hooked. a lot of my friends who were fans of the warcraft series were not fans of WoW but i was hooked on that too. the couple of times i played starcraft, i was hooked, and i’m pretty sure that starcraft II is not going to disappoint.

so after i play a bit i will write more but i just wanted to share my happy moment with the blog.

when i started paid blogging, i looked to jenn of jenn.nu/blogging-girl.com for ideas because she has been doing it for a while and she tends to find really good places to write for. i was pretty sad to learn that she has been scammed by one website called blog advertising store, formerly known as payingpost. she has written a blog about the problems she’s having and if you are a blogger who does paid blogging you should really read this post.

earlier tonight i found out that steam is giving away portal for free until may 24th! pretty awesome deal right there. steam is one of those places that makes me wish i had credit cards. they are always putting out really cool games for low prices, and i sit and drool over them because i can’t buy them! i’m really glad that portal is free, cause i’ve wanted to play it for a long time. yes i’m way behind on my gaming… should have played it a billion years ago with everyone else. but at least now i’ll finally better understand all those cake jokes. you’ll definitely be seeing a future time waster of the moment post featuring portal! i have a feeling its going to eat a large chunk of my day for a while.

right now its stuck downloading cause a bunch of people are getting it at the same time i am, and the server can’t really handle it. but i’m patient.. and its almost done!

i’ve been failing a lot with my diet recently, but i’m doing my best to get back on track. its nothing specific like a Protein Shake diet or anything, just trying to eat better and more healthy.

last night i tried hummus for the first time. i’d been reading about it on a website i go to for nutritional info and a lot of people were raving about how awesome hummus was. i’d never tried it, and the name honestly kept me from it. so when we went to walmart for groceries yesterday i searched around until i found where they keep hummus, and i bought some. i should have bought the normal flavour to try first, but i went with roasted garlic. its kinda odd… but not bad. the texture is kinda weird but mostly like dip, except i think its better for you than most dips.

i’m trying to help my mom eat better too. after she found out she had diabetes she had to stop eating a lot of stuff that she really enjoyed. the doctors have given her a long list of things she cannot eat… so i have been trying to find her substitutes. its not easy… especially in a dinky town where your only shopping option is walmart. but i’ve managed to talk  her into switching to turkey versions of some meat products she likes, and to keep her from being tempted, i’ve switched to sugar free versions of candy and stuff that i like, in order to keep her from grabbing something with sugar in it. sugar free doesn’t bother me except when its soda, but i quit soda a year or so ago, so i don’t really have anything to worry about

its still tough though… after being raised on what i thought was a regular portion for a meal, i find that the ACTUAL serving i should be eating is way smaller.. and so my body is pissed because i’m not eating as much as i used to. usually to quell the hunger pains i drink a bunch of water, and that really helps. i’ve also invested in some of those 100 cal snack packs, but i keep them in mom’s room so that i can’t go and grab them at night when i’m on the computer (cause she’ll be asleep and i don’t go in her room then.) those help a lot because they are perfectly portioned and i know i’m only getting one serving.

i just need to make the diet a routine, and then i need to get my butt in gear and start exercising more.

on twitter i follow a few celebrities and one of those is neil gaiman. he is one of my favourite authors and so i was really excited to see that his book, american gods, was chosen for 1b1t (one book one twitter). 1b1t is a global book club. attempting to get as many people as they can to read the same book and discuss it via twitter using the hashtag #1b1t.

1b1t started yesterday and i dove into a book that i’d planned to pick up for years. i first saw it when i went to nyc with my high school. one of my friends read it the whole way there and the whole way back. at the time i had just gotten into neil gaiman’s writing, via the sandman series, and so i put it on my list of books to read later. unfortunately that was in 2001, and its now 2010… and i’m just now picking up this book. its kinda weird in a way, because it was 10 years ago last month that i first saw that book, and here i am reading it now. so far it has not been a disappointment.

1b1t has broken the book discussion up into a schedule so there won’t be any spoilers:

• Week 1 : May 5-11
  Caveat, Warning for Travelers
  Epigraph
  Discuss Chapters 1, 2, & 3

• Week 2 : May 12-18
  Discuss Chapters 4, 5, 6

• Week 3 : May 19-25
  Discuss Chapters 7, & 8

• Week 4 : May 26-June 1
  Discuss Chapters 9, 10, & 11

• Week 5 : June 2-8
  Discuss Chapters 12, & 13

• Week 6 : June 9-15
  Discuss Chapters 14, 15, & 16

• Week 7 : June 16-22
  Discuss Chapters 17, 18, & 19

• Week 8 : June 23-30
  Discuss Chapter 20 and Postscript

unfortunately i am already on chapter 4 so i’ve slowed down a little to let the discussion catch up to me. if you want to join in on the book reading fun, all you need is a copy of american gods by neil gaiman, and a twitter so you can join the discussion. tweet about the book using the #1b1t hash tag. you can check out more information about this event by following @1b1t2010 on twitter, and check out this page as well. can’t quite get your hands on the book just yet? the first 5 chapters of it are available here from harper collins publishers.