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One of the things I thrive on is routine, if I’m being honest. I know many folks do, but I find a very nice pleasure in stability and predictability. For instance, I have been living with my boyfriend for approximately a month now. I know that every Monday through Friday, my son and I will get up at 7am and we will get ready for school. I will take him to school, come home, get ready for work, then go to work. I’ll come home for lunch, either cook something up or warm something and shove it down my throat (depending on the amount of time I have!). After work, I get Monster, come home, do homework with him, ensure that he does his chores, then get started on supper.

It all follows a nice flow and pattern throughout the day. There are, of course, variances and moments of spontaneity from time to time, but for much of the day I know what’s going to happen and when. Is that bizarre? Probably a bit. Ah well, c’est la vie. I know that every Saturday night, I will get to work on the menu for the next week. Then I’ll build the grocery list in Google Drive and share it with the boyfriend. Sunday, we’ll do the shopping. It’s all very nice, very relaxing and very comfortable. I’m quite happy and, to my surprise, he is too.

I don’t know if I’ve spoken about it much here as it’s such a public space, but I did/do find the prospect of living with someone very unnerving. You can’t predict what will happen, you know? I’ve shared my living space with someone really once or twice before. I guess it depends on what you count as living together. When I was much younger, I lived in my father’s house while he was an over-the-road truck driver and cared for my brother. By “cared for my brother”, it really was just me making sure he got to school and stayed out of trouble. It was lovely though because it was stable.

Anyways, I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that this new routine, while it’s been an adjustment for Monster and me, has been great. It’s a great environment, a healthy situation and I’m very happy to be in it.

When I was younger, I used to collect coins of various denominations with the birth years of my family. For instance, I had a quarter, nickel and dime that were all from 1988. My brother was born in 1988, so I felt like they were special to me. As the years go by, it seems that Monster is interested in collecting coins too. They just happen to be a modern coin. He likes to collect coins and save them in a jar. He’s saving up for a Minecraft account, so he says. We’ll see how well that works out for him! He keeps wanting to spend the money but then realizes he’ll have less money!

I recently moved, if you hadn’t heard through Twitter/Facebook, and I am so thankful that most of the apartment is hardwood floors or linoleum. That means that I won’t have to vacuum very frequently since basically the bedrooms are the only places with carpet. Well, the bedrooms and my gigantic walk-in closet. I swear, that walk-in closet is like an entirely different room. I could totally house Monster in there or something. Well, I mean, that would probably be bad. Anyways, my point is that I won’t be having to search for “carpet cleaning chapel hill nc” any time soon, thank goodness. Though we have already had one spill. Thankfully, it was a small tea spill. C’est la vie.

Today I was driving home and I was thinking about different driving attitudes among my friends and I. I have one friend who is a very aggressive driver. He will speed, get on people’s tails, weave in and out of traffic, and slam on his brakes. I guess I should replace aggressive with wreckless. I don’t drive with him if I can help it. I have another friend who is a very cautious driver. He obeys traffic laws, gives people space on the road and uses his brakes appropriately. I feel completely comfortable having my son in the car with him. I try to obey all of the traffic laws, give people enough space, and treat others kindly while driving, which I talked about a little earlier this month in my blog about Lubbock drivers. However, my thinking today reminded me of a comedy show that I used to watch.

My family was big fans of Jeff Foxworth and Bill Engvall and similar comedians. I believe some of them still are, but I’m only sort of a fan. It’s just not the comedy that I like any more. Anyways, towards the end of their Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again show, they do a section called “I Believe”. It’s embedded below.

Around the 5:57 mark is when he starts talking about it.

If you don’t want to watch the video, he says “I believe that if you let somebody cut in front of you in traffic and they don’t give you the little “wave”, it should be perfectly legal to get up underneath ‘em, get ‘em loose, and put ‘em into the wall.” For whatever reason this struck me this morning while I was letting someone cross over a few lanes in front of me. Not many people in Lubbock give the ‘wave’ and that’s okay. If that was the biggest of my problems with Lubbock drivers, I’d be in heaven. But I was thinking about why we expect the person to do the thank you ‘wave’. Is it because we expect a reward for being nice? Shouldn’t we be nice and courteous to others for the sheer sake of being nice and courteous?

You all may be aware that Monster had surgery last summer. He’ll have another surgery this upcoming summer. However, this spring we have different family members getting surgery. Our cats! They are two years old now and have yet to be fixed. They are purely indoor cats, but we still need to have it done. We just haven’t had the money to do it until now. In Lubbock, spaying one cat costs between $100-$300 dollars. Back in my hometown, you could get your cat spayed for $50 bucks. I do wonder why it’s so expensive down here, but oh well.. at least it’ll be done finally. I’ll be very, very happy!