Diane’s World

I bring the sad and tearful news that my dear and somewhat faithful laptop, Pooky, came to a very awful and idreadful end last Friday.

R.I.P. dearest Pooky.

My mommy, who loves me, has decided to give her iMac G5 to me to console my grief and spur on my graphic design career. In all reality it is better for me to have a desktop anyways.

Only one problem remains; the new computer doesn’t have a name. I’ve been trying to name it all day today but it’s not working. I’ve thought of everything from Romeo, to Digit, to Ziggy. Maybe Jo-jo! I like them all! Any ideas?

Anyways, with my recent obsessions with explodingdog.com, the color red, and the recent realization that there is no one that understands me including myself,  I’ve made this the new desktop:

I’m enjoying the large screen, the fact that this computer is about 20 billion times faster than my laptop, and the most wonderful iSight watching my every move.

Thanks Ma and Pa.

Not much else to report. This cold has been lingering for about 2 weeks now. Boo. I go back to Dordt in 17 Days. Woot!

See you around people.

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July 24th, 1986: I was born at 7:00am.
July 24th, 2006: Samuel Jacob Flanagan was born at 7:38am.

5:00am - Sarah wakes me up - she is going into labor.

5:30am - I drive Sarah to the hospital

7:00am - Sarah gets an epideral (meaning a huge NEEDLE (bleh) in her back)

7:38am - the baby was born.

Honestly one of the most interesting days in my life. The night before I had dropped Andrew off at the airport and he was in Washington DC for a business trip, so I got to be the one next to sarah as she gave birth.
It was quite the quick ordeal - only 5.5 hours of labor.  Andrew claims it is because “Sarah is really good at having babies”. Haha. I also get to check “witness a birth” off of my to-do list in life.

I know everybody wants pictures. I’ll give you a few right now, but I’ll leave the job of picture posting mainly to Sarah.

…. urg this is the only photo that wants to load right now. Boo. If you are desperate enough, you can go to my facebook photo album that contains ample amounts of pictures of both patrick and samuel

http://dordt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002262&l=0586d&id=148300015

Well it was an interesting birthday. I drove over 130 miles, ate nothing but a piece of cake and a slice of cold pizza, and spent most of it in a hospital.

I say this every year: I have the world’s most interesting birthday. I can say something about almost every birthday in my life. Nephews are born, Grandmas die, little asian women cause car accidents, sunburns turn me into a mutant… you name it, it happens on my birthday. Every year you can count on it - so sorry Samuel, you now have the curse of July 24th. Maybe I should stop having birthdays - someone needs to rip that date out of the calendar.

Well I am exhausted. And still sick. And still very sunburnt.

First of all, I got sick. Kind of  a cold (which is weird because it’s in middle of July…) so I feel miserable and that will probably reflect in this blog.

My mom wanted me to update, and a gazillion things have happened in the last five days. I’ll give the highlights:

1. (actually, this is a lowlight rather than highlight) I got sick. Wait, I said that already. Well I feel like yuck. Yuck and a half.
2. I took Patty-wack to his first movie (Curious George). He sat on my lap the whole time in awe of the huge tv - and he was soo rediculous adorable. Cute movie too - Jack Johnson’s soundtrack is very fitting.

3. Wow I can’t believe this is number 3, but Cow is alive and as happy as a fish can be.

4.  I still have a huge list of things to do before I leave, and it grows. I started reading a few books - “Ruthless Trust” by Brennan Manning and “City Notebook” by John McCandlish Phillips.

The former is one I have to read as R.A. homework and I don’t like very much. It has good points but I find myself disagreeing with it a lot. Ever since I read “Total Truth” by Nancy Pearcey, I’ve been far more critical of the Christian literature I read… which is both a bad and a good thing.
Phillip’s book is very good - it is a bunch of short clips of different people in New York. He’s very good at painting a word portrait, and the people he found to write about are astonishing. (much thanks to world journalism institute for that book.)

5. Speaking about being an RA - I’m rather nervous, but very thankful that I got hired again. I am scared of people not liking me.

(For my readers who don’t know what an RA is: it stands for “Resident Assistant”. It’s a leadership role at my college that each resident building hall or wing has, and our goal is to create a safe, fun, and enjoyable community in the campus. We are in charge of making activities, watching out for our residents, making sure that rules aren’t being bent too far, and occasionally going on duty in order to make sure that the campus is secure and safe.)
6. Today I power washed my mom’s sidewalks (yes, while sick). We have a lot of sidewalks (we live in a corner house, go figure). It was a lovely summer’s day (wow that’s a Ben Gibbard lyric) and I had sunshine on my shoulder (ohhh now John Denver) and I GOT SUNBURNT! (Don’t you love how I put parenthesis after every statement).

Sick and sunburnt. Can it get worse?

7. Yes. The answer is most profusely YES.  Tomorrow… I have to go to a DOCTOR (dun dun dun).  Ever since my low iron count last semester, weird things have been happening to me - easy  bruises, tiredness, craving dirt. So I’m gonna get some blood work. This means NEEDLES. needles are my #1 fear in life. I’m not looking forward to it, but I really need to be healthy before school starts.

8. I have a birthday party on Saturday. B-day is on Monday. Sarah is starting to get Braxton-hicks contractions (false labor) so everything is on edge to make sure things are ready for the baby. She is throwing my party, and Andrew is going to be gone a lot this week. Hopefully baby can wait.

Ok I feel gross. Can I cry now? Must go lie down… owie.

The Sicky-Girl, Diane

Hey world!

Small update:

1. Cow is alive. Sean you’re right - I don’t do too well with keeping small animals alive, but usually it’s my siblings fault. Or at least I’m gonna blame them.

2. PICTURES! I stole Sarah’s camera.

Here is when we ate the brains out of a watermelon:

Here is when I hugged a cow at Meeker Days in Puyallup:

and that’s all.

3. This week’s project was a success: paint and paint. And then paint fishies. I did all of the color in the kid’s bathroom in Sarah’s house.

(Sorry about the glare. I forgot to put the curtain back on the window… which might have helped when I took a shower earlier today. Whoops. )

This room took all of 3 days to complete - 2 days for the all around blue, and 1 day for the fishy designs. I think it looks good.

Welp, I think that’s all for now. I have only  1 month and 1 day until I’m chilling at Dordt again and I have that long list of things to complete that is only getting loooooonger. I’ve added to my booklist that I should read this summer and my dad and I want to go backpacking. Yup, summer is going by rediculously fast.

Oh and just to make Rachel happy, here is a Patrick picture:

Yes, he is adorable. I can’t wait to meet his brother! Woot!

Well have a good week.

Diane

1.The title of my post is from Wilco , More like the Moon. I almost deleted this song on accident when I cleaned out my iTunes! That would’ve stunk, big time. This song is one of the few that can make me cry. The lyrics aren’t much, but those instrumentals are amazing. Smokies.

2. You can tell a lot about a person by what they choose to post in their blogs. I won’t go in detail, and I have no clue what you can tell about me, but it’s true.

3. Shrimp is gross. Andrew says it’s like eating giant bugs. Meeeh.

4. So Germany gets bronze in the world cup. I’m ok with that… but FRANCE is above Germany??? Who let that happen?

Not that I have anything against France…

Ok I do. The best thing about France is the humorous articles that are written about them. (Honestly, do take the time to read these…)

1. A very brief history of France at war (muwaha! History buffs would love this)

2. Dave Barry on the Frenchies (Dave Barry is my hero)

5. On the topic of articles, my mom showed me this a few days ago and it made me laugh. I felt very wrong about it, but this guy really has guts. Severed Pigs Head Thrown Into Muslim Mosque

6. I decided that someone needs to make a film with Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford in it. It would sell no matter how stupid it was.

7. I started running again! I’ve been using machines until now because of my old foot problem, but I think it’s good enough to run again. Woopie! Right now I’m not doing too great - I run out of breath every 1/2 mile. I know, stop laughing at me. Two years ago I could run 8 miles relatively easily. What happened?
8. I miss having a piano accessible. That is one very nice thing about home. Unfortunately, I’m not doing too great at the piano anymore either. Shoot, I lost all my skills! I am pretty good at the bow-staff though.

9. I made a summer checklist to prove I’m not only bumming around:

1. World Journalism Institute – New York!
2. WJI homework - 4 articles, 1 paper
3. Start dianefeucht.com
4. Help Sarah & Andrew move
5. Help Andrew get kitchen painted
6. Paint Kid’s Bathroom
7. Design Dordt’s hockey team website
8. Paint Fish design in Kid’s bathroom
9. Write an evil plan to overtake the world.
10. Help Andrew design a website
11. Have a party. Honestly.
12. Meet Mr. Samuel Jacob Flanagan – my nephew
13. Write my mom’s resume
14. Throw Sarah a baby shower
15. See the dentist and eye doctor (ick)
16. Power wash my parent’s sidewalks
17. Read the 2 books Val (my boss, I guess) sent me.
18. Go shopping. Eck.
19. Become Patrick’s favorite Aunt.
20. Design door decorations.
Impressive I know.

10: Now the most important thing: COW IS STILL ALIVE! Except I don’t know for how much longer - we changed the water in his bowl for the first time and I don’t know if he will survive the night. My fingers are crossed.

11. My birthday is in exactly 2 weeks (dude, 20 is such a big number… I’m getting old), and go back to Dordt in exactly 1 month and 6 days.

12. My poor computer is getting slower and slower. It’s very painful to open photoshop or illustrator. :-/ Poor Pooky. It’s in really good condition - I love this computer. It’s just overused and overloved. I’m salivating over the new MacBooks. Maybe next year I’ll get a job and save up for one, but I’ll miss my faithful Pooky.

Those who have a mac understand me. You PC owners don’t know what it’s like to absolutely love a computer. Don’t make fun of me.

13. I’m craving coffee. Must resist.

14. Oh one more thing (I promise) - I updated my portfolio. Lots of stuff is missing, and it’s a huge mess, and for some reason the drawings take forever to load… but maybe my computer genius brother-in-law will help me out with that once he gets home from his business trip… right Andrew?

Go to the top right of this page and click “portfolio” to see it - except for you Internet Explorer users; I have no clue what this page looks like to you. I told you… Firefox is the way to go!

HAVE A GOOD WEEK EVERYBODY! Stay out of trouble!

Diane