Sigh May 31, 2007

-I’m exhausted. Just exhausted.

-I spilled an ENTIRE cup of coffee on the carpet this morning. It’s like I forgot I was holding it and it went everywhere. I was late to work because I had to treat the carpet and sop up what I could. I have no caffeine in my system and I am pissy.

-Scott has become another person, and not for the better. I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

-I hung out w/ a few of my friends last night. One of them just got divorced and he is really bitter. I feel so bad for him because he’s one of the nicest and most “together” people I know. He didn’t deserve that.

+Last night of class is tonight.

+We’ve been getting presents in the mail almost every other day.

-I put in the order for flowers yesterday afternoon and it was more than we had budgeted. Scott was mad about it and took it out me. Nice.

+ Even still, we’re getting a bouquet, 6 boutenneires, and 4 corsages for less than $250.

-: 5
+: 3

I hope things improve for me.

May 30, 2007

If it weren’t for the fact that I only have two more nights of class, I’d have a fit. I’m just soooo tired. Work was busy yesterday, since my boss is finally moving into his real office (we’ll be in the same suite…yeah…) and I was helping him move stuff around and get organized. Then I had class, of course, and I was ready to  nod off. Even the coffee I got before class didn’t help, although it did affect my sleep. Lovely.

My “to-do” list continues to dwindle, which is good. There are so many little last minute things to think about and this is really the time when you decide if something is really worthwhile (or worth the $$). Generally, the answer is, “no.” I still need to place the flower order. I haven’t been slacking, it’s just that she said with the few flowers that we’re getting, there’s no need to place it any more than 3 weeks ahead of time. Nice. I may knock that out today, provided I’m not too busy here.

I also hope my ring is done at the jeweler’s, as promised. I took it in last Wednesday for resizing and they said it would be ready today. It better be. I’ve been walking around like a free woman for a week, LOL. I’m really surprised that one of my busybody co-workers hasn’t asked if the wedding was off or something. I should have had the damn thing resized 9 months ago, but I didn’t want to resize it for when the weather was cooler and then find out my ring wouldn’t fit on my heat swollen fingers. I figured now was as good a time as any, and I made sure to go in towards the end of a very hot day, so my fingers were approaching sausage level. Even still, I had it sized down by a half size, so maybe I won’t be so paranoid about it slipping off my fingers.

May 28, 2007

1. I’m at work 8-5  and in class 5-9…on Memorial Day. Jesus.

2. I normally use the Target store brand contact solution, ’cause it’s cheap and works well for me. The ONE TIME I decide to spring for the good stuff (Complete Moisture Plus), it gets recalled the NEXT day. Damn. Here’s hoping I don’t go blind or something.

3. I went for a walk yesterday by the river and managed to get a good bit of sun on my shoulders. I need to be careful because I don’t want tan lines.

4. We found out we’re getting another one of our Le Creuset pans from our registry. Squeee!

zOMG! May 23, 2007

 I’m getting married ONE MONTH from today. LOST season finale tonight.

Update May 21, 2007

I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!

Thanks, y’all!

May 21, 2007

I have an interview in an hour and a half for a qual lab position. I don’t think I’ll be getting a teaching assistantship position for next year, and that’s totally fine by me. If I work in the qual lab I’ll be part time and can basically set my own schedule to a certain extent. I’m actually kind of nervous, even though I’ve already had 2 people putting in a good word for me. I really don’t want to fuck this up. I need funding, and I need a new job. My position will be “killed” as of August, so I have to have something to do. Scott is completely against the idea of me just not working, and understandably.

Speaking of, he is driving me nuts with his money paranoia. No one is more money conscious than I am, but I think I have met my match here. I realize that in a few weeks here, we’re going to be dropping money like crazy making final payments and whatnot, but it’s really getting to me. I feel guilty even doing something like buying food for myself. Then there was the whole car fiasco. A few months ago he said, “We should buy you a new car after the wedding.” I was really happy, because my car is on the decline. The A/C is totally gone and it has minor mechanical issues, but it’s still “safe.” However, it’s not really a car you want to take out of town. Then he started freaking out about the cost of buying a new car, insuring it, etc. I said, “Fine, I don’t need a new car.” He kept waffling and it drove me nuts. Yes or no, dammit! Then he tossed out the idea of a Vespa. We know how that turned out. Then he went back to the idea of a new car. I finally said that he needed to stop dangling this in front of me if all he was going to do is waffle and freak out about money. Don’t even get me started on his current concern w/ “how much it will cost to make sure I have health/vision/dental insurance.” Please. Don’t constantly blabber on about how worried you are, but then qualify your statements with “Oh, but I know you need insurance.” Yeah, I do, so quit it already! There are just some things in life you can’t get away with not having, and insurance is one of them.

It’s not my fault he insisted on hiring a band (rather than just DJ’ing the reception on our iPod/iTunes). It’s not my fault he suddenly got the urge to invite people he hasn’t even talked to in like 5 years. It’s not my fault he’s wanting to plan a $50/head rehearsal dinner. It’s not my fault he wanted to extend the reception for another hour (and keep the bar open). Yet these all become my problem. We’re talking a difference of over $2000 here, and none of these were my idea.

I’m really frustrated right now.

May 19, 2007

Having a non-academic weekend rocks! I have no papers to write, no chapters to read, nothing. I got up at 8, lazed around drinking coffee and eating a bagel, then Scott and I went to the Asian market here in town. That place is fantastic!!! It’s literally the best Asian grocery I’ve ever been in. They had freaking everything. We spent over $30 in there, but came out w/ quite a bit, including some Japanese eggplant and some lemongrass (which we otherwise would have to buy in B’ham). Then I did some laundry, and we made pad see-eu for lunch. Yummmm. We went to the gym at around 4 and did about a 1 hour workout. I did 30 minutes of cardio and then 25 of strength training and stretching. By the end my arms were iike Jello. When I did my ab work I felt my bad rib pop. It doesn’t really hurt, but it feels weird. (I was in a near-fatal crash about 4 years ago and really effed up my ribcage, including cracking my sternum and breaking 2 of my left ribs.)

I think we have discarded the idea of buying a Vespa or Honda Metropolitan. No one will let you test drive the damn thing before you buy. WTF?! I’m not dropping somewhere between $2000 and $4200 without knowing exactly what I’m getting myself into. And in the case of the Vespa, maintenance costs are quite high. So, we’ll be keeping my car but fixing the A/C, which is really the problem it has. It may involve totally replacing it, which may cost a couple hundred bucks, but it beats buying a new car for $10-12K, and paying higher insurance and a car payment every month. Maybe once we figure out what kind of job I’ll get and where we’re going, we can decide whether to sell my car outright or replace it w/ something more reliable. By that point, it will be over 15 years old. I’m OK with it, and Scott has even volunteered to trade cars w/ me, so that I have the nicer car. Awww.

I look forward to doing nothing tonight, and more nothing tomorrow. OK, I might go wash my car. But other than that, I’ll be sacking out on the couch watching episodes of The Shield and sipping jasmine tea. This more than makes up for my hellish week.

Urghh May 17, 2007

This whole “work all day, class all night” thing isn’t really my cup of tea. I literally leave my house before 8 and don’t come home until after 9. It freaking sucks. Luckily I got out of class in time to get some Taco Bell (big mistake) and watch LOST. Usually, it’s come home, eat something, get ready for bed, go to sleep.

OMG, Lost was good last night. I am so pissed that I will miss most of the first hour next week. Stupid class. I just hope I’ll be able to watch it online the next morning. I know that shit’s gonna go down, and I don’t want to miss a bit of it. I refuse to check out the blogspot spoilers. I just don’t want to ruin it for myself. It pains me that I won’t see another new episode for another nine months. NINE! WTF were they thinking? I sure hope they replay some old episodes or something, or else people will give up on it. Sigh.

I just want to have one night where I can stay home with Scott and spend some QT w/ him. I know he feels totally neglected and ignored. He understands, but that doesn’t make it easy for either of us. I want to walk our dog, go get coffee, watch a movie or just cuddle with him. I feel like this is really shitty timing, because if anything we should be doing more bonding right now, rather than less. I can’t wait until June 24th, when we fly to Puerto Rico for a week of doing nothing and everything together.

Yesterday I did some registry stalking and found out that our flatware set has been bought by one of Scott’s friends. Yay! Unfortunately, my great aunt had planned on buying it, so I e-mailed my mom and said that next time she talked to her to mention it. Her response was pretty bitchy, and I just called my aunt myself, rather than involve my mom, who obviously had a bug up her ass about something. Whatever.  The good news is, we’ll finally have matching silverware that’s “ours”, not “yours” and “mine.”

This is really Twilight Zone May 15, 2007

When we got home on Sunday, Scott went to the mail box to check the mail. We got our second wedding present (hooray!!) and some other things. I opened my mail later and then noticed it was addressed to “Mrs. _____ ______ ______,” and listed my phone number as the number that he had about 2 years ago. WTF?!

We were both kind of baffled, since neither one of us has put in any marriage-related paperwork w/ the University. Not only that, since I’m not changing my name it just seemed kind of weird.

I just called Advancement Services to find out what was going on and how to get the record straight. I’m not going to bother contributing money if they can’t even bother to get my facts straight, you know? As it turns out they comb the state papers for obituaries, wedding, and engagement announcements for their “facts.” The person I talked to had it happen to her, also. Now everything is fixed, but I found it a little bit stalkerish.

weekend like, whoa May 14, 2007

A not-so-brief recap

We got up early Thursday and drove to New Orleans. We planned to get in by 11:30, eat lunch, then go to my hair and makeup trial run. Scott was going to order the cake and go to Whole Foods (or “Ho Foodz” as we now call it) and then come get me about 3. We were going to then meet some friends of ours for dinner at La Madeleine and then head home around 5:30 and get home around 10-ish.

Well, uh, things didn’t go according to plan. First, we got stuck on the I-10 bridge over Pontchartrain (they’re rebuilding it and it’s often down to one lane) and lost about half an hour. By the time we got out to where we needed to be (Metarie, to be exact), there was only time for us to run to Subway and snarf down a sammich before my appointment at 1:00. We did just that, then he dropped me off.

Things went well. The hair and makeup artists were so nice and I looked so good. It seems like a pointless indulgence to get my hair and makeup done, but I’m a complete moron when it comes to that kind of stuff and we’re paying good money for a photographer, so I should look good. It’s reasonably priced, so I don’t feel too bad. They finished in a little over an hour, so I called Scott and he came and got me and we went to Ho Foodz. Both of them, actually. The one on Magazine didn’t have anything we needed so we drove back out to Metarie. Sigh.

At 4:30 we met our friends (who I originally met on theKnot.com…LOLz) and their respective significant others and had dinner. They talked us into staying and hanging out, which we did. Until about 9:15, when I said “Ok, we HAVE to go.” We stopped by Cafe du Monde and got coffee and beignets to go and took off. The last 100 miles of the trip were brutal. I don’t know how in the hell I stayed awake. I drifted off a couple of times and scared the shit out of both of us.

Friday morning I got up to call into work, because I knew I’d be worthless and I was only going to do a half day anyways. After that I decided to just stay up (rather than go back to bed), get showered, finish packing, etc. I saw Bruno laying down next to his litter box and I went over to pet him and say hi. He was dead. I started crying and shaking and Scott came down the hall to find out what was going on. He was so upset. Bruno’s been his buddy for nearly 8 years and made the move from Chicago w/ him. It had to be difficult for him. We got a towel to wrap him up in, and then I called animal control to find out what exactly one should do in a situation like this. (As a side note, when my kitty Oliver died a few months ago, my freaking dad and sister kept him in the freezer for nearly 2 months and then just put him in the dumpster. I was livid. How disrespectful!!!!) They said that we could either bury him or they would come pick him up. We decided on the latter (since we don’t own a shovel and have issues w/ wild animals in our neighborhood) and the guy came about 30 minutes later to pick him up. We were so sad to see him go. I’ve never actually seen any of my pets dead, and it was a bit traumatic. He apparently had been dead for 12 hours or so when I found him, and I feel awful that we didn’t see him when we came in on Thursday night/Friday morning from NOLA. I guess there was really nothing we could do to save him. I really do miss him. He was kind of the neglected one, since Applejack is such a rascal and Brubeck is a dog, but in the last few weeks he was really sweet and affectionate and we really bonded with him. At least we have all those memories of him cuddling and sleeping with us.

After all that we drove up to my mom’s for the weekend. We were both kind of nervous, for obvious reasons. Even though she invited him, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be hostile. Once we got there we realized we had nothing to worry about. She was sweet and pleasant. We had a great time hanging out together. We went to ghost stories at a story-telling festival, visited the TN Aquarium, and just kind of hung out. I think the coast is clear now, and that also means we don’t have to worry about my aunt, either, since they’re kind of a package deal. Huge relief!!! It was nice to see that Scott and my mom get along fairly well, and they exchanged “Heather stories,” which was cute, if a bit embarrassing. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a good relationship between them.

On the way up to Chattanooga, we discussed the possibility of replacing my current p.o.s. car with a Vespa instead of buying a new car. I think that’s what we’re going to do, given that cars are expensive and most of our driving is in town. We’ll keep Scott’s car for out of town trips or rainy days and sell my car and use the money for a new Vespa. I’m excited about the possibility of driving to class on a super-sweet scooter, or joyriding a la Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Except without the super short hair, of course.

I’m actually glad to be at work today, even if I’m starting classes today. 5-9 PM Monday-Thursday until May 31st. Yeah, buddy!