October Madness

 There's something about the month of October! There's always ridiculous drama! And boy has there been drama around here...
1. Mac escaped! Anna's crazy, peeing cat escaped from the house yesterday by breaking out through yet another window. He was missing from somewhere after 9:30 a.m. until after dark. I arrived from Raleigh near dinner time and joined the search for the missing cat. I walked up and down Milton and Pomroy. We had the neighbors helping. Joe had searched the entire neighborhood for hours. And, it was raining the whole time! Just when I was about to give up hope that we'd see him again, Joe started screaming from the backyard. Mac was lodged underneath our shed in the backyard! More than likely, he'd been there all along to try and stay dry. It took all three of us, a pole, and a mop to get him out from under the shed. Muddy and cold, he was perfectly fine, needing only love and warmth. Joe gave him a hot bath, and Anna cuddled him for the rest of the night while Sparta called for him through my bedroom door.

2. Midterm Week is in October. I've been working hard at all my classes, but it doesn't seem to be doing any good. Today, I got back my midterm that I took on Friday for American Authors. I got an F... my first. Usually, I ace literature and I was jokingly called "The Writing Beast" in my high school journalism class because of my natural talent for writing. Since transferring to UNCG, I have lost my confidence in myself and my talent as I continue to get back graded papers that are D's and F's. I have only made one A the whole semester! I'm completely floundering. I have one midterm left, and I'm not expecting a high grade on that one either. It's like I've lost my ability to write well anymore. Either that or I don't know how to write the way they want me to. It's been very frustrating, very discouraging, and very disappointing.
3. Stuart and I have recently not been doing so well. Everything is fixed now; we've talked everything through and have mended the parts of our relationship that had started to unravel. On Friday, we celebrated our one-year anniversary!! Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend it together. The Angus Barn took that away, but we did get to spend two days of my Fall Break together. For awhile there, it didn't look like we were going to make it... not even to reach our anniversary. Suddenly, a lot of things went wrong and there was a lot of miscommunication, misunderstandings, and misconceptions. It was a worrisome week wondering whether or not we were going to make it through. Everything is back to normal now. We've made promises to keep trying. We love each other, and we're holding onto that with everything we've got.
And number 4 deserves a blog post all of its own...!!

Stuart and Fleetwood