Last weekend should have been a great weekend. A.P. and I were finally getting into our wedding planning: we were looking at the magazines (or he FINALLY was), we went to see the bakery we are going to try to book for the ceremony/reception, and we were feeling like things were finally looking up. My mother, who had had a surgery about a month earlier, was much closer to coming back to town (she had to go to Florida for the surgery). My brother, who had been in and out of the hospital for the past month, was finally looking, sounding and feeling better. But I should have known. Given that everything since our engagement has gone to shit, why wouldn't last weekend go to shit, too? So instead of a nice, quiet weekend, we had one filled with stress, more anxiety and drama, and tragedy.
It started on Saturday: my brother's medication was causing some serious side effects and he spent the whole day in the emergency room. Finally, he gave up and came back to our place (he had been staying with us for a couple of days). Then he went back to the emergency room the next day, got his medication organized and came back to our place again. He didn't get to our place until late, and we didn't end up going to bed until really late. The next morning at 7am, A.P.'s phone went off. Of course he didn't want to answer it, but in my experience phone calls at 7am are never good. This one proved no different...it was A.P.'s brother with the news that their mother had unexpectedly passed away. Though she was not in the best of health, her death still came as a shock.
We spent all day Sunday and all day Monday moping. We still kind of are...him more than me, of course. We will be traveling to Florida next week for the funeral. I still don't know what to feel. In some ways, I am completely heartbroken, but mostly because I won't get to know A.P.'s mother better. I really didn't know her that well, and am sad that my knowledge of her will be so limited. I'm also sad that A.P. won't have her by his side at our wedding, and that she won't ever get to meet our kids. I know he is sad about these things, too. In other ways, though, this tragedy has brought us closer together. Even though it's another stressor, and I've been snapping at him all day yesterday and today, I really got a glimpse of our ability to pull through tragedies, something we haven't done previously.
Anyway, despite my promises to get blogging again, I just wanted to let you all know that yet another terrible thing has happened that is preventing me from doing so. I do have so much to share, though! I'm hoping to make this a working weekend and bust ass and actually try to get AHEAD in my work so that I can really focus on having a life again, and one where my house is clean, my boyfriend feels loved and not like I'm giving more love and attention to my job, and one where I can go back to doing the things that I love and which make me sane (e.g. BLOGGING). We'll see if I can do it. So far, it's been a whole lot of talk...but there's always tomorrow (which is what I keep telling myself every time something crappy happens, which is almost every day at this point). Alright, I just wanted to post a quick update. Here's hoping that next time will bear better news.
10.16.2009
10.10.2009
OMG!!! I'm blogging from my phone!
Hey all! It has been a long week! Tonight I volunteered to help out with a work related event and boy am I regretting it now! I am so tired! Leave it to me to over-extend myself. A.P. is probably psyched seeing as how he can listen to music really loud and do manly things, like drink beer and pass gas.
All in all the wedding planning has been slow going. Blame A.P.! Just as I predicted, that stack of wedding mags and resources has sat in the same place for the last two weeks. In all fairness, it has been a busy couple of weeks, and the other night he did take the mags to bed with him...but then he watched episodes of Breaking Bad instead. Tomorrow I think we are heading to the bakery where we want to have our wedding. It should be fun! Plus...wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to go searching through a million locations to find our wedding/reception site? I'll hopefully have pictures for you next time I blog. Though, with all that's been going on we'll see if I end up uploading them. I still haven't uploaded the pics from my trip to Colorado! Stupid new income source!
All in all the wedding planning has been slow going. Blame A.P.! Just as I predicted, that stack of wedding mags and resources has sat in the same place for the last two weeks. In all fairness, it has been a busy couple of weeks, and the other night he did take the mags to bed with him...but then he watched episodes of Breaking Bad instead. Tomorrow I think we are heading to the bakery where we want to have our wedding. It should be fun! Plus...wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to go searching through a million locations to find our wedding/reception site? I'll hopefully have pictures for you next time I blog. Though, with all that's been going on we'll see if I end up uploading them. I still haven't uploaded the pics from my trip to Colorado! Stupid new income source!
10.03.2009
Some Things About Wedding Planning That Are Making Me Sad
So, wedding planning has been slow going. I told you all about the first of many deadlines, right? Well, now a week has gone by, and A.P. hasn't done a thing. I wonder if he remembers or not. I want to remind him, but have a feeling that if I do, he will see it as me hounding him. And I always have to remember that A.P. is a procrastinator, which technically I am, too, except that I became a lot better about putting things off in grad school. Now I put things off, but not until the last minute. A.P. is still a last minute guy. This might be hard. I hope it's not a planning filled with frustration. That would not be fun.
Anyway, as the week has gone by, I've been trying to look at my old favorites: Once Wed, 100 Layer Cake, etc., as well as read some of my personal blog favs for inspiration (even if most of them are already married): A Surprise Wedding, Not a Bride Yet, etc. But time is still limited, and even hanging out with A.P., or attending one of my best friend's 30th birthday party last night makes me feel as if I'm abandoning my job, since I have soooo much work to do. Nevertheless, I try to look more on my new Google Mytouch since I can now read those blogs on my two bus, one train, hour long commute every day. And as I do that, I try to envision our wedding. Because now, it's not a dream, now, it's a real task that I have to accomplish. I try to picture what I'll wear, what we'll eat, what our tables will look like, what A.P. will wear, how nervous/excited we'll be, how happy we'll be when we don't have to be the center of attention anymore and everyone is just partying. I picture who will be there, too: my friends, my family, A.P.'s friends, and his family. And that's when I get sad. I get sad because this year, while it has been a year of excitement, has also been a year of loss. This will go down as one of the best years of my life (finished grad school, new job, engagement), but it has also marked the demise of one of my closest friendships and a relationship with one of my siblings.
First, the friend. I haven't blogged about it because until recently I was still too upset about the whole thing. I probably still won't go into too much detail, but needless to say my best friend of 10 years, the person I love more than A.P. (probably because let's face it, I don't have to live with her), and the person I refer to as my soulmate (that's what we call each other) basically has been distancing herself from me for the last two years. This year I finally accepted it and grieved and have been trying to move on. But it's been hard. I never thought I would tell my best friend that I was engaged via email with a bunch of people I don't talk to all the time. I never thought that I would tell my best friend about getting my dream job via email with a bunch of people I don't talk to all the time. I guess the big thing is that she has become a person I don't talk to all the time. And it fucking sucks.
In the past our friendship has had some downturns, but about two years ago it got pretty bad. We used to email all the time and talk on the phone a couple of times a week. Then it became email all the time, but talk on the phone every week/week and a half. Then it became email a few times a week and talk on the phone once a month. Then she would just not call me for a month or two. Each time we became more distant I tried to bring it to her attention. Sometimes in a positive way, sometimes by starting a fight. It would always get better, but then taper off again. This year I always felt like I was emailing her all the time and she was barely emailing me. She doesn't call me unless we arrange it, and even then, she usually would forget. It sucked. Finally I looked through my email (I know this might sound OCD, but I actually did it because A.P. kept telling me it was probably in my head) and discovered that this year I had sent her something like 150 ORIGINAL emails, and she had sent me 25 or so, and half of those were mass emails. I decided to stop communicating with her as much. In my head I imagined that she would email me or call me and ask why she hadn't heard from me as much, but I knew she wouldn't. She proved me right.
The other loss is one of my siblings. For something like ten years, I've been fighting this one. One of my brothers, who I always felt I was close with, pretty much stopped communicating with our family years ago. I still talked to him on occasion, though. Then almost three years ago, his wife got pregnant and they had a little boy. After that, I was saw them a lot more. But it was bullshit. The wife would call me, and my brother would ignore me. It was ridiculous. Needless to say, I finally decided that I was sick of trying. I cut off all communication with them. I didn't invite them to my grad school graduation party, and I didn't tell them I got engaged. I also don't plan on inviting them to my wedding. I know it sounds silly, but I'm leaving out A LOT. It's basically been years of small hurts leading me to believe that by continuing to talk to them, I was encouraging his behavior. So I stopped.
Anyway, the point is, when I do all this wedding planning in my head, while I picture all my friends and family who will be there, I also picture my best friend who will be there, but who I know will be there more out of obligation than genuine happiness. And I realize there will be a missing member of my own family. It makes me sad. And then I get bummed out about having a wedding at all. Did anyone else experience this kind of thing? Did anyone else while planning on who WILL be there, got sad about who WON'T be there?
Anyway, as the week has gone by, I've been trying to look at my old favorites: Once Wed, 100 Layer Cake, etc., as well as read some of my personal blog favs for inspiration (even if most of them are already married): A Surprise Wedding, Not a Bride Yet, etc. But time is still limited, and even hanging out with A.P., or attending one of my best friend's 30th birthday party last night makes me feel as if I'm abandoning my job, since I have soooo much work to do. Nevertheless, I try to look more on my new Google Mytouch since I can now read those blogs on my two bus, one train, hour long commute every day. And as I do that, I try to envision our wedding. Because now, it's not a dream, now, it's a real task that I have to accomplish. I try to picture what I'll wear, what we'll eat, what our tables will look like, what A.P. will wear, how nervous/excited we'll be, how happy we'll be when we don't have to be the center of attention anymore and everyone is just partying. I picture who will be there, too: my friends, my family, A.P.'s friends, and his family. And that's when I get sad. I get sad because this year, while it has been a year of excitement, has also been a year of loss. This will go down as one of the best years of my life (finished grad school, new job, engagement), but it has also marked the demise of one of my closest friendships and a relationship with one of my siblings.
First, the friend. I haven't blogged about it because until recently I was still too upset about the whole thing. I probably still won't go into too much detail, but needless to say my best friend of 10 years, the person I love more than A.P. (probably because let's face it, I don't have to live with her), and the person I refer to as my soulmate (that's what we call each other) basically has been distancing herself from me for the last two years. This year I finally accepted it and grieved and have been trying to move on. But it's been hard. I never thought I would tell my best friend that I was engaged via email with a bunch of people I don't talk to all the time. I never thought that I would tell my best friend about getting my dream job via email with a bunch of people I don't talk to all the time. I guess the big thing is that she has become a person I don't talk to all the time. And it fucking sucks.
In the past our friendship has had some downturns, but about two years ago it got pretty bad. We used to email all the time and talk on the phone a couple of times a week. Then it became email all the time, but talk on the phone every week/week and a half. Then it became email a few times a week and talk on the phone once a month. Then she would just not call me for a month or two. Each time we became more distant I tried to bring it to her attention. Sometimes in a positive way, sometimes by starting a fight. It would always get better, but then taper off again. This year I always felt like I was emailing her all the time and she was barely emailing me. She doesn't call me unless we arrange it, and even then, she usually would forget. It sucked. Finally I looked through my email (I know this might sound OCD, but I actually did it because A.P. kept telling me it was probably in my head) and discovered that this year I had sent her something like 150 ORIGINAL emails, and she had sent me 25 or so, and half of those were mass emails. I decided to stop communicating with her as much. In my head I imagined that she would email me or call me and ask why she hadn't heard from me as much, but I knew she wouldn't. She proved me right.
The other loss is one of my siblings. For something like ten years, I've been fighting this one. One of my brothers, who I always felt I was close with, pretty much stopped communicating with our family years ago. I still talked to him on occasion, though. Then almost three years ago, his wife got pregnant and they had a little boy. After that, I was saw them a lot more. But it was bullshit. The wife would call me, and my brother would ignore me. It was ridiculous. Needless to say, I finally decided that I was sick of trying. I cut off all communication with them. I didn't invite them to my grad school graduation party, and I didn't tell them I got engaged. I also don't plan on inviting them to my wedding. I know it sounds silly, but I'm leaving out A LOT. It's basically been years of small hurts leading me to believe that by continuing to talk to them, I was encouraging his behavior. So I stopped.
Anyway, the point is, when I do all this wedding planning in my head, while I picture all my friends and family who will be there, I also picture my best friend who will be there, but who I know will be there more out of obligation than genuine happiness. And I realize there will be a missing member of my own family. It makes me sad. And then I get bummed out about having a wedding at all. Did anyone else experience this kind of thing? Did anyone else while planning on who WILL be there, got sad about who WON'T be there?
9.30.2009
Back From the Dead
As Britney Spears would say, "Hey y'all!" Man alive am I tired!! I don't think I've ever been this tired in my life. I imagine it's a small fraction of what new parents feel, only if you're a new parent, I feel like you get to sit more. My new job has me working late, working at home, AND working on my feet quite a bit. Needless to say I come home so exhausted each day, and of course too exhausted to blog. Then I had a ton of family drama, and blogging seemed...selfish. But now the fam's doing better and I'm getting into more of a routine with work. So, back to blogging more regularly. I can't quite promise my regular features quite yet, because I barely even have time to check the blogs I love, let alone put together a weekly roundup, but I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks, I'll be able to get back to dancing on Fridays.
In the mean time, I do have some wedding planning news. For one thing, A.P. and I have begun to rethink our original excuse to get people to show up for the surprise wedding. Because there's no way I can have a new job and plan a wedding in a short enough amount of time to pull off the engagement party pretense. So we came up with a new idea, and one that I think will serve us better in the long run. Here's the thing, the surprise wedding thing was something A.P. always liked, but he was always worried about making sure his family was going to come in town from Florida. He was really worried they wouldn't come into town for an engagement party, especially his one brother who is a bit cash poor these days with a new baby and a new dream job for which he had to take a slight pay cut. So here is the new plan: have a slightly longer engagement, and plan on marrying in spring. Then, have a fake wedding reflected on the invitation, get everyone in town for said fake wedding, and actually get married at the rehearsal dinner the night before. This way, his family will for sure be in town, I still get my surprise wedding, and yeah, I'm still happy, and he's happier. I think it will be better this way, too. We have also been tossing around the idea of having a relaxed "after-party" the next night (the night we would have as our supposed wedding night) at our place. So it's like a fun-filled, surprise wedding weekend. Plus we get to hang with our friends and family and enjoy a bunch of time with them. The more I think about it, the happier I am about the whole thing. I feel more confident that we won't be excluding A.P.'s family in any way, and I envision this awesome, super-chill, wedding weekend wherein I wear a pretty dress, and jeans. Does it get any better than that?
So we've thought that part out, but now we need to figure out other details, like a date, and an idea of what our budget will be. I gave A.P. the old stack of wedding mags, the binder I started keeping with crap I picked up at the Bridal Expo, and had sent to me because I signed up for The Knot (ughh...what a mistake that was), and a wedding planning book I picked up at a book fair that is really ridiculous because it actually says on the checklist of important wedding things that you need to hire a wedding planner, but it has good budget sheets and flower lists and sort of helpful stuff for A.P. to look over. Then I gave him a stack of post-its and told him to get to marking that text and finding things he likes. Then I told him that our deadline for picking a date, narrowing down a budget (or at least figuring out what we want to save on and what we want to splurge on), and him looking at the mags was end of next week. He says he resents the fact that I am ordering him to look at magazines, but let's face it people, A.P. is A.P. I love him, but if I didn't put a deadline on it, it would never get done. Instead, the whitest white boy would download rap music and read his econ blogs. Instead I told him that he should look at it this way: there are tons of magazines and blogs and books, and I, in the past few months, have narrowed it down for him to these few resources. I made his life easier by doing more than half of the work for him. That sounds nice, right? Engagement has made me a nicer significant other. : O )
In the mean time, I do have some wedding planning news. For one thing, A.P. and I have begun to rethink our original excuse to get people to show up for the surprise wedding. Because there's no way I can have a new job and plan a wedding in a short enough amount of time to pull off the engagement party pretense. So we came up with a new idea, and one that I think will serve us better in the long run. Here's the thing, the surprise wedding thing was something A.P. always liked, but he was always worried about making sure his family was going to come in town from Florida. He was really worried they wouldn't come into town for an engagement party, especially his one brother who is a bit cash poor these days with a new baby and a new dream job for which he had to take a slight pay cut. So here is the new plan: have a slightly longer engagement, and plan on marrying in spring. Then, have a fake wedding reflected on the invitation, get everyone in town for said fake wedding, and actually get married at the rehearsal dinner the night before. This way, his family will for sure be in town, I still get my surprise wedding, and yeah, I'm still happy, and he's happier. I think it will be better this way, too. We have also been tossing around the idea of having a relaxed "after-party" the next night (the night we would have as our supposed wedding night) at our place. So it's like a fun-filled, surprise wedding weekend. Plus we get to hang with our friends and family and enjoy a bunch of time with them. The more I think about it, the happier I am about the whole thing. I feel more confident that we won't be excluding A.P.'s family in any way, and I envision this awesome, super-chill, wedding weekend wherein I wear a pretty dress, and jeans. Does it get any better than that?
So we've thought that part out, but now we need to figure out other details, like a date, and an idea of what our budget will be. I gave A.P. the old stack of wedding mags, the binder I started keeping with crap I picked up at the Bridal Expo, and had sent to me because I signed up for The Knot (ughh...what a mistake that was), and a wedding planning book I picked up at a book fair that is really ridiculous because it actually says on the checklist of important wedding things that you need to hire a wedding planner, but it has good budget sheets and flower lists and sort of helpful stuff for A.P. to look over. Then I gave him a stack of post-its and told him to get to marking that text and finding things he likes. Then I told him that our deadline for picking a date, narrowing down a budget (or at least figuring out what we want to save on and what we want to splurge on), and him looking at the mags was end of next week. He says he resents the fact that I am ordering him to look at magazines, but let's face it people, A.P. is A.P. I love him, but if I didn't put a deadline on it, it would never get done. Instead, the whitest white boy would download rap music and read his econ blogs. Instead I told him that he should look at it this way: there are tons of magazines and blogs and books, and I, in the past few months, have narrowed it down for him to these few resources. I made his life easier by doing more than half of the work for him. That sounds nice, right? Engagement has made me a nicer significant other. : O )
9.19.2009
Life Gets in the Way
Hi all! I just wanted to apologize for my lack of posting. Besides this month being a whirlwind of adventure (new job! vacation! engagement! vacation again!), I've had some family stuff going on lately. I started my new job a few weeks ago and have been insanely stressed and busy with that, and then my brother landed in the hospital. Plus, someone at my new job got me sick, so I have a miserable cold, too. Anyway, this week my brother is getting out, and I'm going to try to catch up on my work this weekend, since I'm sick and not leaving the house. I'm hoping to be back to blogging next week, but I have to take it day by day.
I miss you all! And I miss writing and posting here. If you can believe it, I think I've been more stressed because I haven't been writing. I haven't read any blogs, and barely any gossip (if you can believe that, too), and A.P. and I haven't had a chance to put any thought into the wedding at all. But I'm hoping that this week will lead back into some normalcy and I'll get back into my regular routines.
Anyway, I didn't want you all to think that like many blogs out there, I had given up. It's just been an incredibly stressful past month and a half, and it seems to be neverending. I promise once I find the end of this tunnel, I'll be back and blogging like before! See you guys (hopefully very) soon!
I miss you all! And I miss writing and posting here. If you can believe it, I think I've been more stressed because I haven't been writing. I haven't read any blogs, and barely any gossip (if you can believe that, too), and A.P. and I haven't had a chance to put any thought into the wedding at all. But I'm hoping that this week will lead back into some normalcy and I'll get back into my regular routines.
Anyway, I didn't want you all to think that like many blogs out there, I had given up. It's just been an incredibly stressful past month and a half, and it seems to be neverending. I promise once I find the end of this tunnel, I'll be back and blogging like before! See you guys (hopefully very) soon!
9.09.2009
Fantasy vs. Reality
Ho-hum. I'm so overwhelmed with how fast-paced my life has been the past few weeks. It's lightening up, but it's going to take a while before I feel completely comfortable again. New jobs will do that to you, it seems. I'm still getting used to the new job, and I'm especially still getting used to being engaged. I still say boyfriend (I kind of hate the word fiance) and I still don't really tell people unless they ask. Why? Because then I have to answer questions I don't have the answers to, like when we're getting married and where and how and what kind of dress I want to wear.
You would think a girl who's had a wedding planning blog would be more excited about, you know, planning a wedding! But the truth is, I really am not too psyched at all. I was thinking about it and wondering why it is I feel that way. I've loved writing this blog and I've loved putting together ideas and starting to figure out what our wedding would look like, so why am I so resistant to start FINALLY planning our wedding? I think it's because that means it's no longer a fun thing to fantasize about, but instead more shit I have to do. I have a list the size of my ass (read: big) of things to do already with this new job, and now we have to plan a wedding? I know in a month or so when I'm more settled into my job, we'll really start planning, but for now, I'm just enjoying wearing the ring and smiling knowing we're getting married. Is that so wrong?
You would think a girl who's had a wedding planning blog would be more excited about, you know, planning a wedding! But the truth is, I really am not too psyched at all. I was thinking about it and wondering why it is I feel that way. I've loved writing this blog and I've loved putting together ideas and starting to figure out what our wedding would look like, so why am I so resistant to start FINALLY planning our wedding? I think it's because that means it's no longer a fun thing to fantasize about, but instead more shit I have to do. I have a list the size of my ass (read: big) of things to do already with this new job, and now we have to plan a wedding? I know in a month or so when I'm more settled into my job, we'll really start planning, but for now, I'm just enjoying wearing the ring and smiling knowing we're getting married. Is that so wrong?
9.03.2009
Ummm...AWKWARD
First off, thanks to everyone for the well wishes and congratulations! I'm sorry I haven't been posting a ton the past couple of weeks. In addition to my vacation with A.P., I was in Colorado this past weekend. But I'm back to my normal routine and will hopefully be posting my same 2-4 times a week. Yay! I've missed blogging and reading blogs so much! And while you would think that today's post would be about wedding planning, it's not. Prepare yourselves for some serious awkwardness...
So before I met A.P., I dated...a lot. I met people out and about, through friends, and online. My friends used to tease me about dating so much and having dates with multiple guys at the same time, and I would always say, "Don't hate the player, hate the game!" And I meant it. Though I'm happy as a clam to have my beloved A.P. and only him, and also though I'm happy to get married soon, I am sooooooooo glad that I dated a bunch before I met the man I am officially going to marry. But the problem with dating a lot is that there are a lot of men you dated or went out on dates with wandering the city's streets. Or in my case, possibly working at my new job.
After completing all my training the past few weeks, I finally started my new job this week, and have been busy getting acclimated and getting to know my coworkers, specifically one, we'll call him Douchey LaRue (because he was a bit of a d-bag), who I need to coordinate with a lot. When I got there and met him, he did seem kind of familiar, and I started really thinking about it. I came to the conclusion that he might be this guy I had a HORRIBLE date with three years ago before I met A.P. There are some details that I remember about this guy, and so far they are all aligning with the details I'm learning about Douchey LaRue. People, I am kind of freaking out! I love this job...and this is a place I could work forever and retire from! I don't want to say anything, because it's a bit, you know, AWKWARD AS HELL! Thank goodness there was no lovin' of any kind involved, because that would be really bad, but still the date itself was pretty awful.
So here's my dilemma: Should I confront the guy? Or should I continue to pretend like I'm a complete retard and oblivious to the fact that this guy and I went out on a date and he was a total douchebag? Advice, please!
So before I met A.P., I dated...a lot. I met people out and about, through friends, and online. My friends used to tease me about dating so much and having dates with multiple guys at the same time, and I would always say, "Don't hate the player, hate the game!" And I meant it. Though I'm happy as a clam to have my beloved A.P. and only him, and also though I'm happy to get married soon, I am sooooooooo glad that I dated a bunch before I met the man I am officially going to marry. But the problem with dating a lot is that there are a lot of men you dated or went out on dates with wandering the city's streets. Or in my case, possibly working at my new job.
After completing all my training the past few weeks, I finally started my new job this week, and have been busy getting acclimated and getting to know my coworkers, specifically one, we'll call him Douchey LaRue (because he was a bit of a d-bag), who I need to coordinate with a lot. When I got there and met him, he did seem kind of familiar, and I started really thinking about it. I came to the conclusion that he might be this guy I had a HORRIBLE date with three years ago before I met A.P. There are some details that I remember about this guy, and so far they are all aligning with the details I'm learning about Douchey LaRue. People, I am kind of freaking out! I love this job...and this is a place I could work forever and retire from! I don't want to say anything, because it's a bit, you know, AWKWARD AS HELL! Thank goodness there was no lovin' of any kind involved, because that would be really bad, but still the date itself was pretty awful.
So here's my dilemma: Should I confront the guy? Or should I continue to pretend like I'm a complete retard and oblivious to the fact that this guy and I went out on a date and he was a total douchebag? Advice, please!
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