Seriously?

People I don't know in real life read this poor excuse for a blog? Really?

Wow, that sort of made my morning....so thanks to whoever from where ever that has ever stumbled upon my page. And a preemptive thanks to those who may do so in the future.

I love you long time. (Even if the main purpose of this thing is borderline selfish and just a place for me to vent and be random, thanks for reading).

Well Crap.

I've already blown my 365 posts in 2010 goal I set up, but yesterday was especially craptastic, so there's my excuse for not writing. Someone (either me or my HR department at work) ty-poed a 2 as my allowances on a tax form, and so the tax fairy will not be leaving me a surprise this year, I will actually have to pay her. Life goes on, and I'm going to correct the mistake today, so my deduction is "correct" (because I TOTALLY know the correct percentage of my paycheck the Federal Government should get, being a Sociology Major in my undergrad definitely taught me that. Can you feel the sarcasm? Good.)

The upside is since I got married last year, Husband and I can file together so I won't owe anything, he'll just get less, which cuts out the waiting for his return so we could turn around and pay what I owe. Whoever said money can't solve problems was rich and stupid. We had sort of been relying on a good refund this year, but I guess that's why I shouldn't assume things. Lesson learned.

In other news, its snowing. Past New Year's, unless snow gets me a day off work, I could really careless about it. Can we please fast forward to Spring now?

Happy Tuesday.

Day One..sorta.

I had this wonderful plan to blog every day for a year just to see if I could do it, beginning yesterday, and here I am, starting one day late! Oh well. I have goals just like a bazillion people/blogs but I don't really feel like announcing them all in a tidy little list, because I know myself and I know I usually over do things, including goals. So for now, my goal is to blog once a day for 365 days, about my life or things I think about while moving through it.

Woo.

Happy New Year.

MIA

I have some explaining to do, dear readers (all 4 of you....holla!!)

You see, I've been sort of lax on the blogging as of late. Mostly because I feel a very strong urge to bitch and moan every time I go to post something and I don't want to be a downer so I choose not to share on those particular days. Which lately, seems to be....well Every. Stinking. Day.

I need to get it out...so out with it: (although I will try to see the silver lining and put a positive spin on things)

I am struggling with this mess of a wedding...one day I am ready to take charge and the next I want nothing to do with it. I made a "everything left to do" list yesterday and its not awful, although the "things needing done that don't cost money" section is v. small, just like our bank account balance which in this case, is v. bad news, since just about everything we have left to do requires purchasing things.

I started working on my Master's Project again early last month but seem to have lost steam on that once again. My current excuse is, "my advisor is out of the state on vacation until July 20, so I can't do much more w/o consulting her" which is really, a load of crap...well, yes she really is on vacay, but I could be doing a lot on my own, I just choose not to. I know I'll finish, I just keep putting it off.

All the while I am trying with all my might to not worry incessantly about money. It is a HUGE problem for me...even when we have money, I worry about expensive "what if's" that could pop up. So I try and remember how most people don't have enough right now...and we both still have jobs and a place to live and cars that run and we are in love and getting hitched and we are really lucky to have each other.

So make me feel better today, lovelies....what is your biggest worry as of today, July 1st 2009? Sharing is fun...and it might make you feel a little bit better as well.

Thrice.

I see I have more than the lone follower these days....I think that deserves a huge WOO-WOO! Thanks for making me feel loved followers!

I've written before about how I don't care if no one reads this...because its nice to have a quiet place to spew randomness. Alas, I'm discovering it is also nice to get feedback on the randomness from perfect strangers as well, so keep it coming...and tell a friend if you so choose.

So 100 days from today is our wedding. I'll be the blushing bride, trying to eating breakfast (with a mimosa fo' sho') at this point 100 days from today. I'm excited, but still a bit worried about money and how things are going to be executed.
We are going to Kinko's next week to drop off the invite paper for printing....and Fiancé is (supposedly) going next weekend to choose clothing for the men folk. My shower is next Saturday...and I'm mildy excited about this as well. Plus, Fiancé's mom and sister will probably throw me another one sometime in June for his side of things, since they are all based around Columbus. Woo wedding crap. Overall, I'm still way more excited for the trip to Florida at this point and for everything to be done with.... is that messed up? Oh well if it is.

PostSecret goodie.

Okay....ANYONE would be terrified of having children if this is what they picture.


It spoke to me, for obvious reasons displayed here and here but also created a creepy image in my brain and I had to re-post it and creep out others. Head over to postsecret for more random, heartfelt and just plain weird tidbits.

Oh and ps-I'm going to finish my Master's by August....because I love a good challenge...ie: writing a Master's Thesis AND planning a wedding AND being Matron of Honor to a wedding in the works for next May. It should make for good blogging...or so I hope!

Change.

I'm having a "blogdenity" (hah!) crisis and decided to go for a fresh approach. It's white..reminds me of freshly laundered things and cleanliness.

Maybe it will procure more readers? Anyone?

Bueller?? Bueller???

Oh well, I like it more this way. Hopefully my one follower enjoys the change too.

Tuesday To-do

From last week's list:
Format/Design invites with Fiancé.
Ask him kindly to start gathering addresses for the ppl I gave him a list of a month ago.
Type up addresses from the family list my mother hand wrote.
Create Bridal Shower guest list for Maid of Honor, which I've been promising her for the past two weeks or so.

3 out of 4 isn't too bad....and we are going to mess around with the invites tonight.

This week's list is not wedding related, it is a list of things I need to do for myself in the next week:
Excerise every day.
Write down everything I eat.
Clear my head before bedtime.
Not worry over things I cannot control.

*EDIT/UPDATE 4/29/09*
We formatted the invites last night so that is taken care of...now we just need to get ink and start printing! Oh and I need to type up address labels with all the fancy Mr. & Mrs. crap too. 4 months from today is THE day Craziness!

Determined.

To get back on the right track, you have to get out of the old rut.

I am climbing out of the rut, so to speak. I will do this. I will feel good about myself and my body and I WILL start moving more every day.

There, I blogged it, so it must come true...right?

Sometimes I think the hardest part of this whole weight loss thing for me is, I haven't been a thin person since I was about 6 years old. I have no recent memories of being in good shape, besides when I was this time last year which was when I hit a plateau and stopped losing. I was working out 4 to 5 times a week then, and I'm not working out at all these days, so I'm hoping that will boost things.

It is just very hard to do the whole visualization thing when I don't really know what I am going to look like. I don't have a "skinny picture" to use as motivation. Plus I'm afraid if I try and do this, I'm going to visualize myself too thin and never reach that mental image.

All I really want is to be happy in a swim suit....and I'm not talking a bikini or anything...I doubt I could achieve that type of body without a trainer and working out 3 hours a day. I'm not striving for perfection here...just comfortable in my own skin. Which I can do.

Grateful.

So I'm all over the online social networking world. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter...even a cool little Ning network called Offbeat Bride Tribe. This blog is my own little place...and I know very, very few people (probably just the one real-life friend who follows when she is uber bored) read this, but I don't really care. I'm not really doing this for anyone but myself.

Since all my friends keep up with the surface of what is going on with me via the networks listed above, I felt like I needed a little place to call my own....a place to really dive into the randomness and sometimes ridiculously angsty parts of me....also where people wouldn't wonder....wow, ____'s gone off the deep end again. I really enjoy rambling my thoughts here...again even if no one really reads it. It's the closest thing (besides reading) I have to a hobby these days. Plus I've stumbled across a handful of awesome blogs in the process...and when I do get a bit of feedback from my few and far between comments to them, I love it.

My point to all of this was focused on my Twitter this AM (I usually only update it in the morning and sometimes at night...unless something exciting happens, which usually doesn't happen.) It was something along the lines of, trying to only think positive thoughts today. Now, I can't say I completely succeeded, but I can say my attempt has left me with a very good mood.

I am so very thankful for what I have today. Including my random, not-at-all-popular blog.

self-medicate.

I think I might have the half bottle of wine in my fridge for dinner tonight.

I can't seem to EVER feel like I have control over our finances. All I do is worry about all the different payments...even though we ALWAYS pay everything on time and even have a bit left over sometimes. Which that will probably change with my $363 a month loan payment beginning next month.

I just don't want this constant state of worry anymore. I have an unconventional wedding to worry about...that is enough for one chica.

I wish I had some cash...I'd buy a lotto ticket on the way home if I did.

Happy Blog

Due my recent constant state of tenison, I've decided I need an attitude adjustment, or at least attempt one so I can say "at least I tried".

I am very thankful for the following:
1. I have a job that allows me to pay my bills, and isn't too horrible to do day-in and day-out.
2. I have a wonderful fiance who, after over three years together, still gives me butterflies.
3. I'm getting married. At one point in my life, I thought this would never happen.
4. Despite our few problems, my family is very supportive and pretty functional.
5. I have a handful of great friends.
6. Coffee. I can live without it, but I choose not to.
7. the TV show 'Friends' being on DVD. I think I would lose my mind without something to watch that isn't fuzzy since we don't have cable and after February 16 or whatever probably won't get many digital channels consistently since we have yet to find a digital antenna that actually works for us.

I am going to put a lot of effort into remembering these things on a daily basis. There are so many people in this country and others that are struggling in so many different ways. I need to be more thankful I have my teeny stressors instead of huge ones.

In totally unrelated news....Happy Birthday Lincoln, you rocked a beard like no other.

So this is the New Year.

I am a little scattered brained today. This week has confused the shit out of my sleep schedule and I slept like crap last night. Most likely because I took a two hour nap yesterday while fiancé watched one of the 15 college bowl games on tv (we still don't have cable, so I can't really argue when there is literally nothing else on) but I digress...

I am trying to get to a point....but I'm having trouble remembering what it was in the first place. Oh yes, the standard reflective New Year's blog. That is where I was going with this.

I love New Year's. I actually think it is a semi-neurotic girl's best friend. Here is why: you get a fresh start. The Calendar says so. It is a new year. Right now we all have 363 days in front of us (barring any freak accidents) to do with what we choose. Here is how I choose to spend 2009:

The biggest one that pretty much overlaps with the other small promises I have for myself is
1. stress management. I will strive to get a handle on my stress level and bring my normal state of being down a couple notches on the stress. Along with this, comes the
2. healthy lifestyle I want to continue practicing. Eating right and exercising has a HUGE impact on my moods. Last but not least, I want to
3. find a new hobby that incorporates the first two. As much as I love reading, its competely sedentary, makes me sleepy and hurts my eyes when I over do it. Other than that, I've decided only the extreme OCD truly claim cleaning as a hobby, therefore I will no longer do so (haha), I don't have much in the hobby area these days. There is a yoga studio literally next door to where we live, and in a couple weeks (after I've been active on a daily basis again for a bit...I don't want to hurt myself) I'm going to go check things out and join a beginner's class.

I am excited for 2009. If you can't tell from the fiancé talk, Boyfriend proposed on Christmas night and has transformed into Fiancé, woo! We are pretty much set on the end of August (Tabulous: you will get a full explanation on this at a later date) and I'm getting my first taste of real wedding planning. I have a binder going already with preliminary guest list and timeline of things needing to be done. So one year from now, I will be a Mrs. AND a Step-Mom. I am actually excited about both those things, strange as it may seem. I really do love Kiddo and Little One and can't wait to be an official, legal part of their lives.

Now I know things probably won't go exactly as planned and there will be times where I am stressed over things I shouldn't be, eating deep fried things and sitting on my ass, but we are all human and if I think I'm NOT going to mess up, I would be crazy.

Happy 2009. I hope everyone has a great NEW year.

quick....list 10 things you are thankful for.

In no particular order:

1. Family/friends who care.
2. Boyfriend.
3. Job.
4. I have all my limbs and they all function.
5. New/bigger apartment.
6. pretty snow showers.
7. Cuddles from boyfriend.
8. TV shows on DVD, especially Friends (if they didn't exist, I would be a sad, cable-less girl watching tons of movies)
9. Coffee. It makes me happy on the cold and sleepy mornings.

I am tired of all this negativity swirling around in my brain. Its annoying, it gives me wrinkles and stresses me the eff out. So I am trying to accentuate the positive this week and plan on making part of this posting a blog every day with a positive tone. Go me.

Rant.

I need to bitch, and since just about all my girlfriends (Tabs, if you want to stop reading now, I will understand) have already listened to the condensed version of this speech, I don't want to annoy them with the long and painfully negative/whiny version so here goes....with a bit of our history before the actual bitching.

On New Years Eve, bf and I will have been together for 3 years, or at least it will have been three years ago that I kissed him for the first time, and since I stopped even looking at other guys after that night (yes, it was that good) I pretend its our "anniversary" since we took things so painfully slow at first and there really wasn't a day when he asked me to be his gf or anything. I am not complaining about how slow things were for us in the beginning, it was what I needed at the time and it worked best for both of us.

This year has been the year of FOUR weddings. One in March, three from Sept. 20 to Oct. 10. Many people I know and love have gotten married or gotten engaged this year. The weddings have been awesome fun, but have given me the insane, crazy, I want to get married as soon as possible, itch.

The M word first came up one Friday night back in February or March. I don't really know how (probably since I was a bit drunk I brought it up, but I can't remember) but I do remember him saying, "it definitely makes it easier for me to ask knowing you will say yes". The seed is planted.
It comes up again in the end of March, when we went to Columbus for a weekend, wandered through a mall and I showed him what I thought I wanted ring-wise. Of course, the one they get out of the case for me to try on is a $7,000 2 carat, round cut solitare. He says, wow that's it? It is sort of boring, then we see the price and I start laughing and his eyes get huge and we say thanks and leave. I later conclude the band must have been platinum and it was in the mall so the mark up is very high. The marriage talk pretty much subsides for the whole summer.....until fall wedding season begins. And we catch the bouquet/garter at his brother's wedding. And his extended family keeps asking me when the next wedding will be. And his brother and friends ask me to marry him because "you're so awesome". And his mom and sister always call me Aunt Sara when I'm playing with the little kids. And just being at friends wedding's makes me all teary because of all of the looooove and pretty dresses and romance. The crazy wedding thoughts continue to build.

Then, the first weekend of November, we dropped his car off to get an oil change and go to lunch. At lunch I ask him what we are going to do after to kill time before the car is ready, and I smile. He says, "no, I don't want to look until I've saved some money" I point out "you won't know what to save unless we go look since I don't really know what I want anymore". He can't argue, ring pricing ensues. I was shaking the whole time we were in the jewelry store. Very excited. So I chose three rings that day that I loved equally. He qualified for financing and I told him to come back whenever he is ready and choose from the three. I almost wish now I would have made him choose that day because the waiting and thinking about it is driving me fucking insane.

My crazy, irrational side is thinking things like, "why hasn't he done it yet? Has he changed his mind? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me? Are we okay? I am really ready to spend the rest of my life with him if he can't even go get the damn ring and ask me in the timely fashion?"
My logical, rational side replies with, "he hasn't done it yet because he knows how I am and he's trying to catch me off guard. He hasn't changed his mind, we just moved into a great new apartment together and he loves me. He is just being him, and I know he will do it when he is ready. I am just being me, and I need to focus on other things in life besides the proposal. Yes we are fine, our relationship is evolving but that is what happens and we are happy, which is all that matters. Yes I am, he's my lobster, even if he isn't on the schedule that is in my head.

So this is a glimpse into what is going on in my head about 5 or 6 times a day. Its a bit unnerving if I may say so myself.

I am seriously I woman possessed by the thoughts of proposal/wedding/marriage. I NEVER EVER thought I would be like this either. Its ridiculous and I don't really like it, but I can't seem to distract myself from it.

I wish he would just do it and get it over with! All I want for Christmas is ring on finger!!!!!!! end rant.

I don't really feel better, but at least I can look back at this blog and laugh whenever we do get engaged.

Thoughts about...babies*GASP*

(Disclaimer: due to this being the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I have just about nothing to do at work, plus this place is deserted so I'm extra bored, thus explaining the random and multiple blogs)


I was cyber-stalking various females I knew in another life (ie: high school) and realized a lot of them have reproduced. Which is fine. What perturbs me about this is how as I was looking at pictures and things, I feel like I am missing the train on this life experience; in other words, I almost feel jealous of these girls. Which really throws me off. I've always found myself saying "I love kids, I just don't want my own" but I am starting to wonder if I am wrong about this.

Then my childhood comes flooding back to me; I had the best parents in the world, but was a very unhappy child inside. Kids can be a-holes and superficial, I don't wish their ridicule upon anyone. I often wonder how different my self-esteem would be now if I would have looked different as a kid. Isn't that horrible? That, along with the annoyance level sometimes created by kids, has always kept me on the straight and narrow about not wanting them.

Although the thought of giving bf (who will eventually be Husband) the chance to do the kid thing the more "traditional" way makes me smile and I know he is great dad, I just don't know if I truly want to. Plus as far as he knows, I don't want them and as far as I know he doesn't want another...but who knows.

Plus there is the whole swallowing my pride and admitting I was mistaken all those years I said I didn't want kids to all the people who said things like "that will change when you meet the right person". But that isn't even what has caused the (semi) change of heart on the subject. When I first met him, and actually up until a couple months ago, I was still 100% not wanting to reproduce. Then bf's sister has to go and have the cutest and happiest baby known to man, and its all been down hill from there. Plus I've grown so fond of Kiddo and I really do miss and am heartbroken about us not being able to see Little One that I think I could do it for myself some day maybe. I dunno.

I do feel better spewing all of these thoughts out here. So woo for that.