Is work always feast or famine

No matter where I work I never seem to have a job that operates at a consistent level. Things have been chugging along well for the past few weeks but not overly busy. Suddenly nearly all of the parts I ordered arrive and I have 6 projects all requiring my attention at once. I admit that none of them are earth shattering so they don't all have to be done RIGHT NOW! But it would have been nice to have things spread out a little more.

On Saturday we are meeting a woman at IKEA to sell the last of my wedding stuff, the 18 silver julep cups we used for the flowers. The big question that remains is what will I do with the $100 because that doesn't go all that far towards the new lenses I want for my camera!!! I think I am going to have to start putting away some money ever week towards those. And any money I get as a gift. That should only take about 6 months. Right as if I can wait that long, I am not a patient girl. Do you think I can find used lenses on ebay or something? I will have to look into that.

The wedding is really over

What is the clinical name for wedding withdrawal? I have been able to keep myself entertained since the wedding by working on making an album. But now that is really done, and ordered. Nothing left to do but wait for it to be delivered. I should be glad. We are doing a great job of paying off our debt, my ESP is growing nicely (at least in shares) and I LOVE being married to Mike. But now that all the planning is over I have a little too much free time on my hands. So yesterday I decided I should put that time into cleaning up this site. Yeah!!

And on my riding. Which has really suffered due to my lack of working out. I have no stamina left. Meet Nifty (left) and Pickles (right), my current two lesson horses. Aren't they cute. Nifty seems to like the camera more tha Pickles who is trying as hard as possible to fatten himself back up. How can you not find that adorable!







Mike has even agreed to drive me to my lesson tonight, on his motorcycle!! Maybe one of these days I will get him on a horse. That would be FUNNY! Maybe I can get him or Dagi to take some pictures of me and Pickles jumping for you! No one has ever taken a picture of that.

Work is going okay. Though I just realized today trying to make up a to do list for the day that I am running out of stuff to work on. Time to ask the boss for more projects. It's perfect timing actually because I have my one-on-one with her tomorrow. We were supposed to have it yesterday but it would have interfered with the Cinco de Mayo ho-ho and then I would have missed the cool dancers! And the Mexican Wedding Cookies.

My husband is famous!

Okay not really, but he was on TV. I even made a sad little video of it. And of course we saved in on the Tivo and downloaded it to his computer where we are trying to figure out how to burn it to a DVD. Oh wait you want to know what the segment was about? Um, something with landslides and all the rain, and engineers. That isn't the important part!!

In other news I got my tax refund today which means I am going shopping, for 60GB video iPod (yes I do need three), more memory for the laptop, and some backup stuff for my camera!!

And in funner news for all of you we got back our professional wedding photos this week and I made a page for you to view them on.

I can't breathe

Allergies are really kicking my butt this week. All I do is sniffle and sneeze and cough up globs of phlegm. Tasty! I am so desperate to be able to breath better at night that I am going to go buy some of those nose strips tonight. I am sure those will instantly end the honeymoon period for our marriage. There is nothing romantic about going to bed with a nose strip on.

I am getting really anxious about my wedding photos. Not worry, just so excited to see them and hating that I have to keep waiting for them. Based on how nice the ones all the guests took were I am really hoping that the ones from the professionals are going to be amazing!

This seems pretty true for me

Brainy Kid

In high school, you were acing AP classes or hanging out in the computer lab. You may have been a bit of a geek back then, but now you're a total success!

Who Were You In High School?

Alone even more

Mike is going to be going to some type of water survival training tomorrow morning for work. I am not excited about the idea of being home alone Thursday night, Friday, and most of the day Saturday. Especially when he will be going to his PE review class on Sunday all day. Being a wife with a husband you can't spend time with sucks. Last night he was studying for his PE and I missed him so I took my wedding Thank You note writing supplies into the second bedroom so I could at least be around him. And he kicked me out after 10 minutes because my pen was too loud!!

All this alone time does mean I am finally catching up on some stuff, like organizing my desk at home. Lots of fun. But I also have time for fun stuff like the lastest Sims 2 Expansion Pack and playing around with how I want to make different pages for a coffee table type wedding album.

Home Alone

When I lived alone I had no problems spending a day at home alone. Now that I have gotten used to living with Mike I get really lonely when I am here by myself all day. Even when I have lots of things to keep me busy, it is so quiet.

Rebecca sent me more wedding pictures if anyone is interested. I can't wait to get the professional ones back! I have already started playing with layouts for My Publisher pages.

My name is Michele and I am a cryaholic

It doesn't take much to make me cry, a cotton commerical, a greeting card, the inscription in my wedding band. So it should come as no surprise that I cried a lot on my wedding day. You can see it in the video (tears dripping off my chin, Mike said they were flying off my eyes and hitting him in the face) and in certain pictures. But I suppose to some people who have only known me since college or later it might be a surprise. I generally try hard to cover up how emotional I am.

When I went away to college I had to start reigning in my feelings for Mike and try to not FEEL them as much. I couldn't spend all day everyday crying about it, though I wanted to. Eventually I got it so far under control (especially when he was in grad school) that I really got a bit numb to things. I can't decide if it is good or bad that the wedding broke my icy veneer off. I feel soft and exposed.

Oh and no I will not tell you what it says inside my ring.

JUST MARRIED!!

We are married!!! And now I can finally share with you all the wedding planning website I have been spending all my time with. I am still adding stuff to it with regards to vendor reviews and photos. We had an amazing time though and I am just so HAPPY!!!!!

Ding

Michael is playing this video game Dragon Quest VIII and it has this alchemy pot where you can cook up new items to use or sell from things you find or buy, and when the thing you are cooking is done the game makes a "ding" sound to let you know. (Yes I know I spend too much time watching him play video games, I get that!) Strangely yesterday one of my ovaries made the same sound in my head. Either I am nuts or it is starting to think it wants to use it's eggs to MAKE SOMETHING!! I haven't heard any ticking yet from my uterus so I am assuming that it has to wait until the other ovary dings. Scary thought.

Oh and obviously the wedding has taken over my life, but all that will end soon I promise, and then I can come back and show you the crazy wedding planning webpage I made that has taken me away from this one! For now I will leave you with this picture of the ring that we FINALLY settled on late last week. Sad huh, less than two weeks until the wedding when we finally get an engagement ring.

Yuck!

Oh and Saturday night Mike dragged me to see Hostel. Which was for the record total crap. Beyond gory, and just sick and twisted. But really what else would you expect from Quentin Tarantino. If I had know it was one of his movies I would have refused to go. I spent half the movie hiding my head in Mike's shoulder and pretending the sounds from the movie were dirtbikes not chainsaws. The only good aspect of the whole thing (other than the popcorn) is that now I get to torture Mike with the most girlie movie I can think of. 136 minutes of Memoirs of A Geisha anyone? He'll LOVE that!!

There was more wedding progress made today. I finally got some quotes from caterers. That is the last big thing left for the wedding. I will feel so much better when it is just little stuff that is left. Like actually HAVING the wedding. Or making the programs. That might even be fun

Damn it!

My jumpdrive broke today. I had a ton of wedding stuff on there. Now I am really cranky. I had so many more things I wanted to do with my vacation time over the next few days not rebuilding things lost on my flash drive. At least I don't have to go back to work until Monday. I really needed some time off.

Barrier Erection

The shutdown at work is now in full swing, and holy crap is it tiring. My first project starting on Friday; erection of a visquine barrier to protect the manufacturing area from metal particulates generated by grinding. Doesn't that sound fun? Yeah.

Sadly I actually had fun running around talking to contractors, subcontractors, environmental quality control . . . It made me feel useful, and like I am finally learning a bit about how to do my job. That is refreshing.

In wedding news, I booked Decker Mansion for February 25th. My shoes came yesterday, and I ordered my veil off ebay (only $27 including shipping). I have found a couple of photographers that have packages in our budget (~$750 - $900) that include only what I want. Now I am waiting to get a list of references to call. Since I am not likely to be able to meet with these people before I have to book them, references are my best defense against getting someone who sucks. After the photographer I am going to focus on the caterer and cake. I am starting to feel a little anxious about the decorating part. Not that I can't handle it. But more that I don't know what needs to be done because I haven't seen it myself. There is a mantle in every room we are going to use and I just don't know how I want to decorate them.

Happy Birthday Michael.

My personality is a tad on the obsessive side. Since Mike and I decided that we wanted to get married I have been completely wrapped up in trying to figure out what we want to do for the wedding. I spend all my free time searching for cheap wedding goods on ebay, looking at wedding pictures on The Knot, looking through bridal magazines, searching the web for wedding locations . . .

Where was I? So I don't want this to become some kind of wedding blog but I think I am trying to hard to keep my wedding planning separate from this webpage and it is keeping me away. So I will try not to bore you with details but I have a dress, a comb for my hair, shoes on the way, wedding rings on the way and a site nearly booked. Now if we could just find me an engagement ring.

Brrr Cold

The Saturday before last Mike and I went to The Download Festival at the Shoreline in Mountain View. The whole thing pretty much sucked. The music was bad. Not the bands fault, I think it was the sound mixing. It was freezing cold, we got there way too early, the food was really expensive and we left before The Killers even took the stage. Heck we left before Modest Mouse finished their set. Sad huh?












This weekend was much better. We went down to Santa Cruz to the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot and the Boardwalk. I will put up pictures later. We had a really good time though. We went on rides, had ice cream, played mini golf and pinball, and ate seafood out on the wharf. Much better weekend!

My instructor Dagi sent me an email with her webpage in it. Doesn't she take amazing pictures? I so wish she could be my wedding photographer! She would be amazing at it.

Sharing

Mike and I are trying to share the computer for a few weeks, until we decide how much we can really spend on a computer for him. Already I am not liking it. I miss having my computer in my lap all night while we are watching TV. Now it is over here on the desk! And sometimes he is on it when I want to be. This sharing thing will take work, I don't do well with sharing.

Tomorrow is a big day though. I am going to a book signing. I plan to take pictures. And if I can get on the computer tomorrow I will post them.

For some reason I am nervous about asking for time off to go back to Apalachin to have a wedding. Is that weird? I have tons of vacation time. Actually the whole wedding thing makes me nervous. Everything except the dress, that is just perfect. Getting married is HUGE and it's really starting to hit me.

Crazy

Last week was really crazy. Mike was sick all week, so I spent a lot of time taking care of him and finding him a doctor to see. I wasn't feeling great myself so we went to bed early everynight.

One day sort of on a whim I went to try on wedding dresses and I fell in love with one. So I called back the next day and bought it. Oops! That wasn't in the plan. But I am really happy about it.

My riding lesson was great. We went back to the in-out jump that we tried a couple weeks ago and Nifty didn't know what I was asking for. My instructor worked with him on it in between times. Which was very handy because this time he did it really well. Yeah! We got some good jumping in. Oh and there was another woman in my lesson this week. She seemed nice. We shall see if she stays around.

To top off the week Mike's computer died last night so I spent copious amounts of money today to get software to try and recover it and an external hard drive to back up to in the future for both of our machines. Don't want my computer to get any ideas about acting up now!

I have a dress, I have a dress!!!!!!!

Getting Married?

Michael and I have been talking for a long time now about getting married. When to do it? How to do it? Who to invite? How much to spend? And so on and so on. At some point I seem to have decided that though I am willing to drool over dresses online, look for ceremony locations in two different states and the Caribbean, compile (both in my head and on paper) countless permutations of guest lists and budgets, I refuse to do anything concrete (like go try on the saliva covered gowns) until after we are officially engaged. What does officially mean? For me that means he has asked me. Not in an email or sitting on the couch or in the parking lot of the Nike Factory Outlet Store "Wanna get married?", but in a thoughtful, premeditated kind of way. With flowers or candles or chocolate. Preferably with a ring of some kind in hand.
Which leads us to our current issue, the ring. We both have some opinions about it. I want white gold (he agrees with that), I want something antique or vintage (he would prefer modern, but thinks the ones I like are pretty), we both want it to be cheap inexpensive. We have better things to save our money for (like a house). One of our options has been to get a cubic zirconia now and get a diamond to replace it later. We have been emailing back and forth about what we want to do about it.
Mike: So I'm thinking... Would it be better to get a 1/2 carrot CZ instead of 1 carrot, so that it would be easier to replace it with a real one in the future??? Also, would a 1 carrot look more fake than a 1/2 carrot? and, if the prongs are set for a 1 carrot, can you put in a .9 carrot or something?? they are usually WAY cheaper than the 1 even unit cuts..... I need to take a class or something, I'm so confused!
Me: (thinking: isn't it cute how he spells it like a vegetable) saying something useless . . .
Mike: you aren't much help =(
Me: Sorry! I don't know . . . followed by some suggestions
Mike: I don't like either of those =)
Me: Okay, let's give up on the ring thing. It's too much work and I don't enjoy it at all (and I don't think you do either!) =)
Mike: NO, I'm going to find a PERFECT one! I just need to figure out what PERFECT is!! And I want to be able to replace it later, and 1/2 carrot would be MUCH more likely to be replaced =)
Me: BABY!! It doesn't have to be perfect! (though it is very cute that you want it to be!)
Mike: How about I find something other than CZ?? Maybe a really nice sapphire? or Ruby?
Me: I would rather a sapphire, or we could resize the ring you got me for Christmas and just use that?
Mike: eh, that one isn't all that nice though, its more of a casual ring than an engagement ring. I will find one!!!
Sigh sometimes we even almost make me sick.

We are back.

And here are the photos.

Rehearsal












Wedding






















Reception View full sized

If I get other ones from other people over the next couple of weeks I will post them as I get them. The wedding was beautiful. I thought the ceremony was the best part, other than the heat and the sweat running down my legs under my dress. But it was short, only one reading, no songs, and the sand ceremony was a nice change from the unity candle.
Three questions were asked of me repeatedly over the course of the weekend.

• 
  When are you and Mike going to get married? - Asked by EVERYONE! Which is fine, I know people want to know these things, and weddings make them think about them. But really we don't need more people's opinions on when or how we should do it. We will do it on our terms, and the only people we are likely to even condsider scheduling around are our parents.
• 
  Are you sure you don't want a big wedding now? - Asked by Mike, and wording differently but the same idea by his mom. If anything all the hoopla made me even more sure that I want a really small wedding. We enjoyed the wedding, and I thought it was beautiful, but I just don't want that.
• 
  Do you want/When do you want kids? - A ton of people. Just because I danced a lot with Mike's adorable flower girl cousin, and talked to her baby sister at the brunch the day after does not mean I want kids. Just that I like cute ones who go home with other people (their parents) at the end of the day!

If anything after this wedding weekend I want even more to just run away to Tahoe and be done with it. I am sure I could plan a great wedding, but why? We need to save money to buy a house more than we need to spend thousands on one day. Even if someone else was paying for it, even if my parents had thousands of dollars to spare to spend on it, I would still want a really small wedding. Maybe then I would invite like 25 people or something. But I can't see myself EVER wanting to have one that even had 100 people. I am not comfortable with that many people wanting my attention at once, that is part of why I am a cat person not a dog person.
It was nice to see all of Mike's family again. I definately feel more comfortable with them now. More like I am part of their family even though we aren't even officially engaged yet. I just don't know what we are going to do about us getting married. I suppose we should sit down and talk about it. Just me and Mike first to decide what we want. But it is so hard to make decisions in our household! I think we have made a choice about something, and then I get asked 20 more times what I want to do about it, or if I am sure that is what I want to do. Which actually is something a lot of people in his family do. And I can deal with it most of the time. But this is really big and we need to get past that stage. Soon.

Depressed

Just got back from dropping my iPod Mini in the mail to get serviced. I am really depressed about it actually. I can't believe I really miss it already and I was practically hugging and kissing the box before I dropped it in the DHL drop box.

Last night I bought some black heavy fabric (12 sq yards) to make Mike's curtains. It only cost $25. As for ways he can pay me back . . .

There was this article on msn that I found today. One of those little links next to your inbox when you are checking your hotmail account. Anyway. Some of them I thought were really sweet! (I am not big on the public ones AT ALL as a note!) The ones I liked were:

• Tie a red velvet ribbon from one spot in your home to another. Attach little notes recalling perfect moments in your relationship along the way. You wait at the last stop, ring in hand.
• Food is a tempting addition to any successful proposal! Spell out, "Will you marry me?" in M&Ms, jellybeans, or Hershey's Kisses on the kitchen table, bed, or coffee table. Send him or her in to read it; when they say yes, you can toast your future with a mutual sugar rush!
• Go for a sunset sail and propose at sea.
• Go to the beach with your honey of honeys. Casually build a sandcastle (at a safe distance from the ocean!), and place the ring on the highest turret. Invite him or her to admire your handiwork, then pop the question.
• If it's cold and snowy, build a snowman -- or snowwoman -- and set the ring box in his or her stick arms.
• Buy a baby animal that he or she has always wanted (bunny, kitten, puppy) and loosely tie the ring around its neck. Make a commitment to the pet and each other. Or, substitute a stuffed animal -- still fuzzy, but less maintenance! Kitten please!

I'm not at all pushy am I?