I am a: Quirky sysadmin. Geek. Gamer. Comic fangirl. My little space, my home on the interwebs. I blog about personal stuffs, work, various coding projects, and anything else I feel like.

Yesterday felt like 3 days compacted into one. I got up early to hit Walmart to get a few extra goodies for Jessie’s surprise party. Or rather … I tried. I spent 45 minutes looking for the car keys that were in Jim’s pants pocket. (ARGH!!)

I make it to Wally World and pick up the supplies I needed. The cashier was kind enough to help me wrestle the balloons I had bought into a couple of large bags so that I could hide them from Jessie — which I was later glad I had because she was up when I got back and was doing the “Where ya been? What’d ya get me?” dance when I came through the door. LOL

She and I went by Shoney’s for an early breakfast just after sunup. She loves it there, and hey, it’s cheap. Heh, she was telling anyone that would listen to her that she was celebrating her birthday and that she just turned 8. LOL. She got a kick out of it when the staff came around and sang to her, and presented a balloon and birthday sundae. Hehehe, I loved that stuff when I was a kid too; and besides, I knew that once she got to Chuck E. Cheese’s, she’d be all about the games and wouldn’t eat anything … so I encouraged her to eat all she wanted at breakfast.

We shopped for a little bit and went back by the house to get Jim. From there, to Chuck E. Cheese, Jessie’s bouncing in her seat. She just *knew* we were going to her “most favorite place on Earth” … and she was right, LOL. Up until that point, she hadn’t seen her gifts or the balloons I had bought, so those were brought out when we got there. Jim’s mom had picked out the cake we picked out, a Spiderman cake … to match my Spiderman gift wrapping, bags, and balloons. LOL

OK, several tiring hours later, Jim leaves to go play golf, so Jessie, Jim’s mom, and I head to Fultondale for their “Founder’s Day” festival. It’s not too far from Jim’s mom’s house and I hear they always have a decent set of festivities for kids.

God, it was HOT! I was reading this morning that at 5pm yesterday, the heat index was still over 110 F.

Oh the joy of summer in the South. :P

We stayed there and played all sorts of games, gathered free water and various goodies, rode a few rides, etc. until around 9. I let Jessie stay up until 10:30 to play her XBox — after all, we *were* celebrating her birthday, and she rarely gets to stay up.

So needless to say, I’m exhausted. I slept in until around noon. I got a call from my mom a few minutes ago, telling me that my Uncle Bill just passed away. He’s had cancer and has been sick for a very long time.

His wake is tomorrow night, and funeral Tuesday. The only problem is that this week is our National Meeting at work, plus we are having 9 new clients in town for training this week! *9*!! We normally have 3 or 4, 5 max!

Needless to say, I’ll be lucky to be able to leave on time … leaving early for the wake will most likely not happen. I’m not happy about this, but when I try to explain it to my mother she gets upset with me.

I know my parents aren’t happy with the way my life turned out. And yes, it sucks that my work is an hour each way from my house. And the fact that Jim and I work together sometimes makes leaving early impossible when someone needs to be there. I’m a little pissed off because I know that if I can’t get off to attend Uncle Bill’s wake and/or funeral, I’m going to get a LOT of shit about it. I can’t help that. If this had been any week EXCEPT THIS ONE, it wouldn’t have been a problem.

*sigh*

Hi, welcome to my place. To your left is a rock, and that over there on the right is a hard place.