Wending this day

What happened yesterday? What happened... Hmm... Oh, nothing. That's right. I worked from 8-5 at Grand Valley where I did approximately... Nothing. It was a very long and boring day. I watched almost a full cycle of America's Next Top Model (everyone has a guilty pleasure, right?). My job is to sit in front of a computer all day and twittle (my word) around on the internet waiting for the phone to ring. Very few people call our department, and most of those who do are either wrong numbers or just need to be transferred to one of our directors. Easy peasy.

Today has been kind of hustly and a little bustly. We had an incredible amount of dirty dishes that needed to be taken care of so I worked on those for what ended up being quite a while. I also assembled this beautiful chickpea stew in the slow-cooker, and I'm hoping it turns out as well as it smells. If it rocks, I'll be back later with the recipe and a review. I pumped up the original recipe with some garlic, smoked paprika, and cumin - because who doesn't love those things?

Other things on my mind include my family and Joe. I'll start with my family. I grew up in the new typical American family with divorced parents (mama remarried, however) and until I was 16, I saw my dad every other weekend. That's an awful way to raise your child, every other weekend, and it's very unfortunate because my dad and I love each other immensely but have never been particularly close. I am missing him a lot tonight. He's an hour's drive away but he is also a truck driver, so he's on the road more often than not - another reason we weren't super-close through my formative years. He's just never around. His current days off are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... Not conducive for a weekend visit. I probably won't get to see him again until Memorial Day weekend, and after that maybe not until Labor Day. I try to spend those two holidays with him each year and I try very hard to spend at least Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve there too, so I can see the rest of that side of the family. As I said, I'm missing my dad a lot tonight.

I'm also missing my mom and Tim (my stepdad). I see them rather frequently, we go home once or twice a month to visit them and all the friends we have there, but I have a really deep connection with my mom - and I'm just like her - and sometimes I really, really miss her. There are jokes I can make with her that no one else would get, and she's invested in helping plan my wedding - I can't have that kind of conversation with anyone else. Right now I am thinking about our upcoming move, and I really want to sit down with my mom and talk it out with her. I can't tell her feelings on the subject, but I'd like to think she's happy that we're taking the initiative to move ourselves to a place where there are more opportunities. I'd like to talk to her about how very terrified I am to leave the comfort zone of West Michigan, but I won't see her until May.

Finally Joe is on my mind. But he's always on my mind, so I suppose he doesn't really count. He's on his way home from a night class right now... When we gets here we are going to chomp some chickpea stew. More on that later.