Am I becoming a cat lover?

As impossible as it sounds, I might just be falling in love with cats...at least one in particular. For those who aren't aware (if that's at all possible), I am VERY allergic to cats. My symptoms generally consist of difficulty breathing, itchiness, and if I'm very lucky (and have taken an Extra-Strength Reactine recently) I might get away with sneezing (very loudly) and itchy eyes. Despite all this, I agreed to help out one of the families in my church by feeding their cat while they are away this month. It's been one week and I am totally loving this cat. When I go over I spend a bit of time playing with her. She's very affectionate and sociable and loves it when I stop by each day for a bit. I can only stay for about half an hour before my allergies start to get bad...today I stayed a bit too long and I'm suffering for it...not to mention that I forgot to take my Reactine. Sorry Dad, but I think I'm going to have to give up the family motto now...I know, Grandpa would be disappointed.

I'm very excited about Music Camp now that I know that I can go on faculty this year. I've known for a while that I was accept for faculty, but I wasn't so sure about getting the week off work to go down, but I know for sure now that I can go, so that's really cool. I was on faculty two years ago and LOVED it!! It's even more fun than being a camper, so I wanted to go back this year. I missed it last year, even though I was having a great time in Australia while it was happening back here in Alberta. If I remember correctly, the week of Music Camp last year was the week I was out in Forbes with Bart...that was a great week.

Well, Peace River continues to be a great place to live. There have been a lot of forest fires up north here, although none are directly threatening the town. However, the air quality dropped a lot this week with a lot of smoke blowing in and affecting our air. The rain for the past couple of days helped to clear a lot of that up, so things are a bit better again...although fires continue to burn. I'm planning on trying to get an apartment for the start of September or October (depending on how quickly I can get a couple months rent saved up). While the arrangement I have right now is good, and saves me a lot of money each month, there are certain draw backs that are making life less than great for me (although not bad). So I think I'd like to get a place of my own. It'll also be a good experience to have to look after my own utilities and all that fun life stuff.

Lately I've been thinking about friendship and other relationships (work relationships, family relationships, etc) that I've had during my life, and that people I've known have had. I've been thinking about what those different relationships and different types of relationships mean to me and what kind of affects they've had on me. And I've started to think about how being seperated from the people that I've had some of the most meaningful friendships of my life is affecting me. I have some absolutely fantastic friends, but I don't see any of them on a regular basis anymore, since the closest are an eight hour drive away, and others live even further away. Some I wonder if I'll ever see again, while others I just can't wait until the next time I know I'll see them. And while I treasure those friendships, I also hate having to leave those friends behind when I move. It's been the same story my whole life. And everytime I move I wonder, do I really want to form new friendships, so that I'll be hurt again next time I move? And now that I've moved up to Peace River, I'm asking myself the same question. Really, it is very easy for me not to make new friends here. I go to a small church with no one my age. My only co-workers are my officers, who are a lot older than me, and while I enjoy working with them, I'm not sure I'd ever regard them as friends...there just isn't much common ground on which to build a friendship. And so, unless I make an effort to get out and get involved in things that will bring me into contact with people who I could build friendships with, I could easily avoid forming new friendships. But at the moment, not having any friends here, I often am very lonely and bored. I want some new friends, to be able to hang out with people and get to know them and for them to get to know me...but I only plan on being here a few years at the most, so I continue to debate with myself as to whether or not I really want to do that.

Well, it's Saturday, and I really shouldn't be at the office, but I wanted to come in and do more of the work I was doing yesterday. I've been digging through all the stuff in the building and trying to organise things. I've been finding things all over the place that just have no use here, or that have various components scattered in various rooms...so I'm trying to make things easier to find by organising things and getting rid of the things that just aren't needed. And seeing as I was here, I thought I'd write up a longer post. So I'm going to go home now and relax some more.

Take care.