Countdown

It's getting closer and closer to Iowa! I'm trying to trick myself into believing that I'm not moving until next month; otherwise, I get antsy and start doing my nervous dance. The pre-school-year nightmares are due to start any day now. They happen almost every year without fail--usually I'm at school, most of the time my high school (there are reasons the nightmares take place there), and I'm almost always unprepared for a huge test, or I don't know where any of my classes are, or once I was stuck in the closet of my first grade classroom because I wasn't wearing any clothes.

This weekend was the busiest I've been in a long time. My friends Laurel and Josh had their 21st birthday party on Saturday. No, nothing got out of hand! They jokingly asked for Ferraris, so, being the facetious literalist I am, I bought them each a HotWheels Ferrari and made them each a card with a different drawing of a car. They seemed to really like it, and apparently Josh collects HotWheels (who knew?). I met a kid named Austin who was really nice. He may or may not have been Laurel's cousin? I was confused on that topic. Her family seems to have a lot of cousins! I was also surprised to see two people from my high school (one who showed up without being invited or even recognized by the hosts. Actually, I was the only person who recognized him). I pretty much ignored the two of them, since I didn't have anything to say, and it was an exceedingly awkward situation. Laurel has to be the nicest person ever, because she didn't even blink at it (although she did comment later on not knowing the guy).

My aunt and uncle and one of my cousins visited over the weekend, too. We went to the Queen Mary, the Aquarium of the Pacific (in Long Beach), and Knott's in two days' time. It was pretty exhausting. Some of the animals at the aquarium seemed to like me. There was an auk that was splashing around , going back and forth directly in front of me, and one of the bat rays in the petting area was kind of doing the same thing. And a moray eel was staring at me through the glass. It was a little disturbing, because those things look like they would try to eat you if they were big enough.

I have a new car! I don't know if I've mentioned this before. It's a black Mazda3 hatchback, and it's beauuutiful. Yay for happy cars! It's also very easy/intuitive to drive, though it measures 8" wider than the Protege that I've been driving until this point. Pretty soon, we're going to put it on a truck to ship to Iowa--but I don't know where it's going to be shipped because Iowa hasn't told me where I'm living.

Speaking of bizarre lack of communication, VU hasn't sent my diploma yet. I sent in their silly request form almost a month ago (isn't it?), and diploma is nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, they do seem to have sent my final transcript to Iowa.

Lately, I've been working on a crochet project based off a pattern I figured out from an afghan my grandmother gave me. Here's the progress so far:
And here are some close-ups of various color combinations.There are no exact duplicates, although several have the same color schemes.
Thanks, Grandma!