realizations

:: I miss my cats terribly. I've been longing to get a cat but I know I can't afford one. I would also be tempted to stay in all day to spend time with it.

:: It's just come to me that I would really love to either live within a mile of a beach (a sandy, accessible, hanging-out beach) or in a large cottage in a wooded area (but still close to things) surrounded by paths to clearings and gardens.

:: As much as I love Maine, there really is no place like home.

:: Being an adult is not very fun. Bills are stressful and jobs are tedious. This is not the real world. Childhood is the real world.

:: I need to read more like when I was younger. I devoured every book I could find back then. When I was in fourth and fifth grades I read every Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that my school library had (and there were a lot). I've only read 75 books in the last four years. That's almost 19 a year. Compared to my childhood, that's nothing! I have a goal to read at least twenty books in one summer. When I was in fifth grade I tested at an eighth grade reading level and I was so proud of that. I feel like I've plateaued in the last few years.

:: I really miss substitute teaching I hope I'm able to do that again this coming school year. I definitely want to work with kids, finally, but the high school is just down the road from us and I did like being at the high school. It's so much more rewarding than folding clothes all day and I feel like I'm actually earning the money I make.

:: I talk about the weather a lot. I think about it more than I ever have. Maybe because I walk to work now. It's been a very rainy and cool spring and it doesn't seem like that will be changing soon. Saturday was beautiful but of course, Tanner and I were both working.

:: I made a list of 22 things to accomplish by my 22nd birthday which isn't going to well. I think I was a little over ambitious with some of them, like figuring out how to work my sewing machine and setting up a brand and etsy for my crafty things. Maybe by my 23rd birthday?

:: The gas has been going down a lot in Maine. I found a place in South Portland that's $3.67 a gallon so I put in over half a tank and only spent $15. I hope it keeps going!