I have just survived not only my 24th birthday, but also a week long power outage due to a freak October snowstorm that brought down many trees and power lines. Some parts of CT are still without power, but thankfully East Hartford got ours back Sunday afternoon. Paul's parents have a generator, so luckily we were still able to do things like shower, cook, and have heat - at least until Paul's dad went to bed at 10:30 at night and shut it all down. I wasn't feeling well at all last week - even more so than usual - and so instead of taking the downtime to catch up on some reading and writing, I mostly slept a lot and watched movies on my laptop. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I have been feeling extremely run down lately, and have had unexplained hot flashes/fevers off and on. Friday and Saturday, and even the first part of Sunday I felt decent, but with the exception of those two and a half days, I have been down for the count. I can probably attribute a lot of that to stress. Even though I didn't have school or work at all this week, thanks to the snowstorm and taking off work for my birthday, I almost get more stressed out at home than at school. Even normal days stress me out living here, but pair that with no power and cramming a whole other family in here (two adults, one young child, one constantly SCREAMING infant) plus a slew of neighbors here every day, I have been dealing with constant noise, and constant noise with no way to drown it out often leaves me feeling very, very tense, anxious, angry, and drained. Loud noises and bright lights (plus a lack of privacy) are the main contributors to my everyday stress, and often lead to migraines and panic attacks. Usually if there is loud noise I can drown it out with a fan or some non-stressful noise, but without electricity, this was impossible to do. A noise I particularly can't stand is child noise, and if that makes me a bad person then so be it, but I can not stand child noise. Loud, screeching laughter or crying - I just can't. It makes me see red. Often Paul would get home and I would feel like I had just ran around all day punching myself in the head, and then it would continue on the rest of the day and into the night. 24 hour a day uncontrollable noise. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. So I spent the majority of this week fighting off a panic attack. I'm already living in a house that I am completely uncomfortable in, but to add even more people crammed in to the mix - I'm honestly surprised I didn't honestly have a break down. I do not handle stress well, and holding it all in is probably the cause of my sick, tired, achy, fevery feeling. Luckily, on Tuesday, Wednesday and the second half of Thursday I was lucky enough to be able to go to work with Paul, where there was electricity and the internet, and more important, less uncontrollable noise. Thank goodness that Paul's job is so family orientated and friendly, because it probably saved my brain from being the first to ever implode in on itself with frustration and anxiety.

Thursday morning Paul's brother hooked up the internet to the generator, and so I was able to spend most of the morning watching Jenna Marble's Youtube videos and falling in love. I then decided that since it was my birthday I would do my best to not look like a lazy slob, and actually put on makeup, then Paul picked me up to head to his work so I could email my professor my essay that was due that day (I found out too late that the campus was open and classes resumed that day, and missed my first class, where we had an essay due. My professor wrote me back later that it was postponed anyway, but I didn't want to just not show up and not turn in the essay, which I thankfully have more time to work on, since I didn't get as much time as I would have liked thanks to the power outage) and relax. We had planned to go to my grandmother's house after he got off of work, since she had left to take a road trip to Florida that morning, and we were going to house-sit and make good use of her power, which had come back the previous day, but I had to go to my 5:30 class before we could go to Middletown, especially since in that class I had an exam scheduled. Thankfully, when I went to that class, the exam was also postponed, and we just went over the next chapter. After that class we headed to Middletown, saw my parents for a little bit and got some delicious pork roast, and then headed to my grandmother's house to relax, watch television and spend some time in the wonderful, amazing, peace and quiet. My birthday was relatively uneventful, to be honest, and we celebrated by going out with some friends on Friday night to La Boca and then coming back to my grandmother's to watch a movie.

Saturday Paul and I went to the mall to do some window shopping, which quickly turned into actual shopping. I got five pairs of panties, since they are probably one of my favorite clothing articles to shop for, a really cute pair of dark red jeans (mine have only one button, although I did try this pair on as well, but they didn't have anything lower than a size 27) and a simple grey dress from Forever 21 (I also put aside an amazing black double breasted belted wool pea coat that has cute little matching "belts" around the wrists - kind of like this only with a belt and different pockets -and came back for it Sunday, since we didn't have enough money for it that day - however, I have been looking everywhere for the perfect pea coat that I can wear for dressier occasions during the cold months, and after probably three years of looking for something cute and reasonably priced that fit me, I found it - for only $30! I am in love.) I spent a little bit more money than I should have, since I should have spent nothing, but they are honestly pieces of clothing that I can wear all the time, and are more "professional" (I know red jeans aren't really professional, but trust me, they are amazing).

I was thinking about writing an entry that required some thinking, doing some soul searching now that I am 24 and closer and closer to being too old to be such a loser, but I am extremely exhausted, and therefore want to talk about happy things, like awesome new clothes.

Maybe next time my blogging will be more interesting. But probably not.