Like Sand Through the Hourglass...

...These are the days of the Nilla life.

I totally stole that title from Juliebean. Because it makes me laugh every time I hear her say it (or read her write it ;)).

So, would you believe me if I told you that I had every good intention of blogging in the latter part of last week? Or that I had every intention of blogging over the weekend? To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure what the heck happened! All I know is that I ran out of time. And this week is shaping up to look roughly the same... if not worse (as in busy).

Work is continuing to go well. I have knocked out the majority of the backed-up filing that had been sitting for about 3 or so years. Everyone seems happy that I'm there helping to get the file room organized. Which is a good feeling :). I really like the people up there. They are fun, and we have a lot of laughs. Which brings me to an observation... One would think that libraries and funeral homes would be horribly dull places in which to work. I can vouch for the fact that the exact opposite is true. I've had some serious fun working in both locations. Consider:

Houston-Love Memorial -- go walking around under the library building and signing my name to the page rec room wall (twice :) -- 2000 and 2008).
Troy University -- make three quilts in the span of a few months with Donna during my lunch breaks!
UA -- have rats living in close proximity to my cubicle, as I sadly found out a mere 2 weeks before I left
The funeral home -- generally just fun back-and-forth comments. The boss is a guy with a great personality and sense of humor. In fact, last week I told him he got fired while he'd been outside. He looked at my mom and said, "Whose idea was it to have her work here?" And my mom said, "Yours." And he said, "Darn!" And laughed. We had a conversation like that today too. Can't remember what started it, but he said something about me working toward perfection, and I said, "What do you mean 'working toward'? I'm already there!" And he laughed and said, "Man! You're on it today!" Ah, it's so fun to exercise my big mouth.

*Oh... so here's a laugh. The other day I was filing in the file room and one of the ladies that works there came in and she said, "It smells funny in here. I hope a mouse hasn't died in the walls." And sadly, I'm starting to smell it too... that sickly smell. Thank goodness I'll soon be filing in the new file room! Hmmmm.... Aren't there something like a zillion stories about me and mice? Or rats? If you don't recall, you can have your memory refreshed here and here and here. Okay, that's way sad... Because I thought there were only two. And there are 3!!! Yikes!

Good grief, I thought I was further in this post than this!

So, I've seen some of my family. Love the kids. They crack me up. Took some cookies over to Brad and Tarylyn and the kids and played with the kids for a little bit while my car was getting an oil change at Wal-Mart. (Oh my gosh... the slowest Wal-Mart in the world, I SWEAR -- my car would be in the next batch to go in, and they still quoted me 2 hours! What? Do they have to look up the procedure at the public library?). Anyway, so while I was there, Benjamin did a lot of talking. Samuel went around in circles saying "I can't take it anymore." I don't know what he was talking about. And Saria wanted to be held and hugged. I can't believe she's almost 8. It's unreal. I remember seeing her the day she was born. Where does the time go? Desiree answers Christina's cell phone now, but she doesn't say anything into the phone until you talk to her first. The first time this happened, I wasn't sure what was going on (because Christina gets really bad reception where she lives, so I thought the call might have been dropped). Finally I said, "Des?" And she said, "Aunt Hila?" Hahahaha... Funny girl. She'll be 4 in 10 days. Benjamin will be 3 at the end of the month. Good grief! Slow it down! And Alysha turned 13 today! I knew her when she was 3! Do you know how old that makes me!?! Hahahaha...

Anyway, so today I slept an extra hour, because I seriously needed it. Until today, I hadn't slept past 8:15 all week! Okay, I know some of you probably get up way earlier than that. But, I've become rather spoiled and used to what we'll call "Ellen hours." (Only not really, since I do go to bed while it's still dark outside... like around 2 a.m.). And that's only cool if you can sleep until 10ish. So today I got up at 9 and then went to work by 9:30 and worked. And tonight my mom and I had to make a bunch of appetizers for a baby shower I'm helping to do for a couple of the ladies in the ward tomorrow night. And what is my issue anyway? Why do I go and volunteer to do something so involved as the oreo truffles? Okay, so they aren't hard to do, but man, they do take time! Especially when I make a genius decision to double the recipe! UGH! I soooo owe my mom big time for giving up her own me-time to help me :). Or maybe we're just even :). And tomorrow I'll be working all day (no sleeping-in tomorrow if I want all my hours for the week), then going to the baby shower. Then Wednesday I'll work until I take Christina to an appointment and then I'll have Institute. Then Thursday will be work and RS Presidency meeting. And Friday, not sure what that is yet at night, but I'm watching the girls for Christina to go to work that day. And Saturday, I have a RS brunch at the Stake center. And Sunday I'll have a meeting at 7 in the morning. UGH! And currently I'm giving up my Roswell time to blog :). That way Elka can't get onto me ;)!

Also, I should be reading. And applying for a job. But, I'm soooo going to bed soon. Maybe after an episode of Roswell :). What is wrong with me?!?

Oh, and just for posterity's sake... Or because I was playing around with my camera and thought I'd take a picture for this post... Here you go. You get to look at me -- listening to my mp3 player and messing with my hair :). Aren't you lucky? (I need to start carrying my camera with me again so you can actually have interesting pictures to look at...).