Denial?

I love babies. Other people's babies, that is.

Chloe Ann: most laid back baby ever.

This brings me around to the topic I've visited before: not wanting my own little bundle of joy. I love cuddling them, dressing them and playing with them...I don't even mind feeding them, but then I give them back to their parents to do the dirty work and the actual parenting. I don't know if I would ever consciously choose to create something I would be responsible for rearing. I don't think I'm that selfless; I don't think I would be very good nor would I enjoy it as much as some people do.

This is why I've always taken great precaution to keep accidents from happening, and will continue to do so. Five years ago, it would have been pretty much the worst thing I could have imagined. Now, it is almost as if I wouldn't know what I would do until I was actually in the situation. I'm about to get married and I'll be 25 this September. Some people would even go as far as to call me an adult, even though most of the time, I don't feel like one.

I sort of hope to have this figured out in the next three years or so, because although I'm not sure if I'm up for having kids or not, I do know if I want to have them, it has to be in the next few years. I don't want to have a relationship like my mom and I did....not really liking each other until I moved out.

Tuesday To-do's.

Inspired by my pal Tabs over at http://tabulouslyme.blogspot.com/ I have decided to start a weekly Tuesday To-do's posting, mirrored after her Totally Awkward Tuesdays(stolen fromhttp://tovadarling.blogspot.com/ ). I am an avid list maker and I think goal setting is a good way to stay organized.
This first week is centered around wedding planning, because like it or not, I have a wedding day come August 29th that is getting closer as I type. They won't all be wedding related, but until after mine, there's a good chance it's going to pop up from time to time.

My short list to hopefully be completed before or on next Tuesday:
-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.

It is a bunch of not-fun wedding planing stuff. The invites might be fun, but then again, might not.

If anyone feels the urge to make a short list of tasks they need to do before next Tuesday, there is no better time than the present!

Costs.

I am thankful for this job...I preface the following statement with this fact.

I do not know if I have ever felt this level of dread associated with getting out of bed and coming to work before today.

Yes, I can pay my bills but at what price?

I can see why people previously in this position weren't happy. It is a very lonely job....and sometimes very frustrating, but I will persevere.

I am thankful for this job....but that doesn't mean I can't wish I were still snuggled in my bed with my adorable Fiancé on this rainy Monday.

Today will be okay....I have lots to keep me busy and Pandora to keep my ears full of good tunes. I am also going to the gym on campus after work for the first time. After lazily sitting on my arse for most of yesterday (this included a 2 hour block of cat-napping whilst Fiancé played Call of Duty 5) I am ready to stop being so sedentary. Plus it might boost my spirits about having to come here day in and day out. With 131 days until the wedding, and me not feeling so great about my forearms, I think its time to take some action.

Happy Monday...try to find your silver lining, it seems to help me on rainy days.

Dis-connect.

This will most likely be a very disjointed, unorganized and whiny sort of thing due to me being out of the loop for the past two days because I'm in this god awful, snooty, rich suburb of Chicago. Seriously, this place has sucked the joy out of my usual happiness about staying in a hotel. And you should see these houses. And the amount of Audis/BMWs/Mercedes/Porches I've seen is ridiculous.

I brought my MacBook, thinking being a very nice hotel, there would be free WiFi in the damn, overpriced place...I swear I saw it say so on the website, but who knows. I was wrong. $9.95 for a connection that expires the next day at 3pm. So if I wanted interweb for both nights I'm here, it would be $20. I'm poor and was just generally annoyed by this, so I said, no way. Then I remembered there was a "business center" with a computer and fax and copier. i go to check it out, and its $4.95 for the first 10 minutes and then $.10 for each additional minute. So no internet at the hotel. Bummer.

Then I decide, hey, I'll go workout for a while. I head down to the gym and there is also a day spa at this hotel, so there's a counter and receptionist there.

She tells me there is an $8 charge each time you come to the gym, but you can just charge it to your room! I tell her no thank you, I'll just go for a walk, since that's still free and I'm on my way. My room was pre-approved to go on my boss's work credit card...for the exact amount it will be with tax so I can't "just charge it to my room."

After this, I decide to just go drive and try to find something better to do, since the cable doesn't have anything good on. I find an outdoor mall, which was nice, but its not like I can shop right now, with the wedding and bills and having to spend $600 on new tires Tuesday before I left...and I try to find someplace reasonable to eat...like a Chipotle or Panera and of course I couldn't find shit so I end up at an effing McD's.

Today, conference lunch was seriously a bunch of weird shit I wasn't about to attempt to eat so I had chicken and soup, that's it. It was annoying...along with this conference in general. I don't know why the fuck I'm even here. We don't even use the testing program its for! I don't really even get what they have been talking about for the past two days. Plus I just don't know much about testing nor do I care.

So today I try to drive the other direction, thinking I might find something besides McD's for tonight's dinner, but nope. Here I sit, in the fanciest goddamn McDonald's on the planet. Plus I paid $2.95 for 2 hours of internet. I don't know if this is a statewide Illinois thing or what, but it fucking sucks.



Oh and I had the worst wedding dream I've had so far but in an effort to forget it, I don't want to rehash it right now. I slept awful last night, waking every hour.

So here's a recap of the sucking of Oak Brook, IL for Ms. Emmalane:
1. No free internet (this has also made me want an iPhone even more)
2. No free gym.
3. Gross snooty food.
4. stupid conference.
5. way too squishy bed/pillows causing bad sleep.
6. State of IL being hour behind OH, its just annoying.
7. Nothing besides McD's or expensive restaurants around hotel.

I can't wait to go home.

Wedding.

I just had the urge to list what I DON'T want associated with our wedding:

Calla Lilies.
Bows on the backs of chairs.
Receiving line of any sort.
Bridesmaids with matching hair, shoes, accessories.
1 Corinthians 13:4.
A long, hypocritical Christian ceremony when neither of us follow any organized religion belief system.
"it all was a blur" afterthoughts.

Things we will be doing:
DIY flowers and centerpieces.
sustainable favors, if any at all.
A short, to the point ceremony centered around the committment of marriage, not its religious meaning.
Enjoying the whole day and not stressing about all the little details :)
Catering done by local pizza places/DIY salad bar.
Celebrating our marriage with family and friends, woo!

I just stumbled upon a friend-of-a-friend's wedding photos and they could have been taken straight from a wedding mag. Why on Earth do I want to spend all this time planning a day almost identicial to this, besides slight differences in color and flower choice? All I really want is a the day to be as unique as we are...and we are pretty special people, if I may say so myself, haha.

Awesome.

This video seriously just made my day a little bit better.
Tabulous: Let me know a good night for it...I have The Sound of Music and I'll bring it over and we'll have a movie night :)

Heartbreaking.

August 2006

February 2007

March 2007

April 2007

July 2007

I woke up thinking about Little One this morning. I don't know why....there weren't any strange dreams about her, she was just on my mind. I really try to not think about the situation with her too much...it is so unfair and just plain not right. It really upsets me if I dwell on it for too long. Fiancé hasn't seen her since September of 2007, unless you want to count the day he went for the paternity test in August of 2008. He is such a great Dad and Little One is missing out on having him as a father along with being a part of a great extended family.

It really just breaks my heart that there is so little that can be done. Fiancé did what he could. He went and filed the paper work last April, he obtained an attorney, and now, almost a year later, nothing is resolved. The case was somehow terminated when Little One was moved out of state and since her mother was single when she was born, her mother has the right to do that. She has the right to keep a child from its father? A father that is willing to pay support and wants to be in his child's life? If said child's father was a drug addict or rapist I can see where this could apply, but said child's father is a good person....but that doesn't matter because they weren't married so he basically has no rights whatsoever, and the little he has, no one seems to care about.

Heartbreaking.