Fruit Spray?! Sure!!

Happy Christmas Eve afternoon, one and all!! Woohoo!

(even though the whole 'no snow' thing here is still a bugger

I has sonic ice and that's close enough)

I had my first encounter with WebMD last night. And was consequently up till 2 am. The rumors are true; enter in symptoms and come up with CANCER or other such traumatic forms of death. I may or may not go deaf and then die suddenly, so...*crosses fingers*

I'm pretty sure it's just a simple ear infection, though. If that, even. I probably just have a low tolerance for pain as well as severely lacking experience with headaches. This whole throbbing brain syndrome is a new thing for me and I don't like it. Meh. 

But after I read up on brain aneurysms and eardrum implosions and ebola* I needed to find something funny to distract my brain from imagining all the horrific deaths that lie in wait for me, and conveniently enough someone had posted a comic from TheOatmeal.com, as follows....

*(Not that WebMD said I had ebola, that was 

purely for educational purposes)

For the rest, visit HERE

Although consider yourself warned; 

language is less than cleanly and

you may be sucked into the oatmeal vortex of 

laughter and tears.

Just as I was.

It's kind of terrible what the internet can do with time. As in suck it all dry like the meaningless, brain mushifying black hole that it is. Not to mention after that I managed to somehow segue into Whose Line is it Anyway? youtube videos and HELLO. There goes another 3 hours. Or maybe just 2. I don't know.

It's like people don't get that it's Christmas. Or at least don't really understand the concept of shopping on Christmas freaking Eve. Seriously, what were you expecting? We're in Ross and my mom has me stand in line while she continues looking, since the wait to buy your junk is getting to be ridiculous. So I'm just chillin', wondering when my head is ever gonna not hurt ever again, and this lady peeks around the dress rack, at which point the line has extended basically to the back of the store, and mutters murderously, "Oh you've gotta be kidding me..." and motions for [who I assume is] her mother to look. And I shall not repeat the remainder of that conversation. C'mon lady, nobody is happy about it but there's not much anyone can do about it. Except agree to all stagger our shopping earlier and throughout the entire month instead of being the procrastinating Americans we all are..../sigh. Humans put such a damper on my Christmas spirit. Boo and a half. 

I'm using a suitcase to transport the miscellaneous kitchen doo-dad's I've accumulated over the years and put in my hope chest. It looks kinda silly. My mom and I laughed about trying to pass that baggage through the airport; with a muffin tin sticking out the pocket in the front and boxes of steak knives and a huge honkin' butcher knife and nut chopper contraptions....I might have a spot of trouble.

Not that I'm actually going to the airport or anything, just the fact that it's luggage filled with this stuff. But it works, and it's padded so the glass pie pans and stuff are less likely to just shatter. 

I have so much STUFF. I didn't even realize. And I'm proud to say about 5 of the 11 or so boxes I've packed so far are full of just books :) I love me my books. Plus, BONUS!! My family is moving as well; parents downsizing cuz of all the kids moving out, and so my mom's getting rid of bunches of stuff and I got to pilfer through all the books and save the good ones. Nicked some C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Laura Ingalls, Mark Twain, Jack London and the Complete Adventures of Curious George in a huge yellow book. Amongst other random treasures.

I feel like I need to keep reminding people that, well, this is basically my Diary. I'm not a mommy blog, I'm not a comedian with awesome Paint-drawn pictures and hilarious stories of my amazing wit, and I'm definitely not a crafting blog. I don't travel and I don't live abroad, I don't have awesome recipes to constantly post about and good luck ever getting an uplifting message out of my daily drivel. I'm pretty sure half of my page-views are simply from me going back to read up on what happened such-and-such day. And basically I'm apologizing for being so terribly boring and monotonous and mediocre. SO yeah, sorry.

Btdubs, look at my new hair--

My mom was stubbornly against cutting me some straight bangs.

Apparently we tried them when I was little.....

They musta not gone very well.

Look what Pinterest has done to me. 

Except minus the shoes. Whatever.

And now I bid thee.....

Prepare for Jealousy

So here's the dealio. My life rocks and I'm glad I'm living.

The end.



But seriously. Sunday was the best thing EVAR; Mark and I both finally got to attend church after a few horrid weeks of not making it, although we had to go to different wards. I went and accompanied one of the nicest, friendliest, hilarious-est, most talented families I know (full double quartet of immediate family, buh!), and Mark  went and did tithing settlement // figured out how I'm supposed to get my church records back into the correct ward.
But that's a different story.
We got together after we were both done with churchly duties and he studied whilst I snored on the couch. Twas lovely.

(Speaking of studying, he totally pwned his Cisco certification exam!! 

WOOHOO!! My baby's kind of a technological genius, that's all.)

But then he woke me up because we were going to my brother and sister-in-law's house for a sort of family christmas-y get together thingmajig. We ate bacon wrapped meatloaf and mashed potatoes and shrimp and pumpkin pie till it was sickening....literally. Then we ended up sitting off by ourselves in the other room conversing on what we liked about these Gilbert homes. Cuz see, we'd gotten there kind of early (like, 15 minutes early) so we pulled up Zillow on his phone and just engaged in creeper mode and drove around to glance at the houses in the area. New favorite way to kill time? (Good enough for now......heh heh)

After the party, however, we swung by my house so I could change into NOT-a-fitted-dress and grab It's A Wonderful Life and went back to his house again. It was our first time watching the movie together (both having grown up watching it each Christmas as a family tradition) and can I just say, it's nice to have those moments of "Yeah! There it is! THAT'S why I'm marrying you!" 

Who else will sit there and cry with me when poor young George is getting his sore ear boxed even though he just saved Mr. Gower from killing people and being sent to jail? Who else will purposefully off-sing "Buffalo Gals" with me and the movie? Who else won't yell at me and/or hate me for continually quoting right along with the movie? And when else would I get those hugs that aren't just a hug, they're that excited motion of "I love you so much right now and I can't hold it back but there aren't words so I'm just gonna squeeze you real tight"? Love it. LOVE IT! Not only that but that movie finally eased Mark's mind a little bit about our upcoming struggle as we attempt to conjoin our lives. We may not be perfect at it and we won't have the best of everything right off the bat, but we'll be working through it together and that's what is important.

Plus he opened up a bottle of Martinelli's Cranberry sparkling cider and it was positively delightful. Have I mentioned I love Christmas? Well, I do.

Then he let me stay till midnight so I could open up my birthday present! Which I basically about died once I got the wrapping off and saw what it was.

If you don't know what that is then no worries, you've only completely missed out on LIFE. But it's ok, I will edumacate you (poor soulless heathen that you are); he got me a Firefly spaceship keychain and I'm a bit of an obsessed dork when it comes to Firefly. We watched a silly, obscure movie last night just because Nathan Fillion was in it. Scratch that, we bought the silly, obscure movie and then watched it. Made prior his Captain Hammer days. So young and handsome. Sigh.

And here's a better shot of that lovely bag you see...

As a matter of fact, NO, I don't have enough mismatched blankets. 

Is it just me or does it bear uncanny resemblance to Flynn Rider's 'precious satchel'? And when I say 'uncanny' I mean that it looks nothing like his bag but I feel like it could/should and that's pretty darn awesome. 

So Firefly and Tangled (and a gorgeous framed temple picture, and a minnie mouse apron, and bath salts, and a scarf I will wear tomorrow) basically make for the best birthday ever. But yeah! So Monday was my 21st birthday. I can now legally drink and get stoned and own property. What a fitting combination of rights. I went out to Floridino's with the fiancee and a couple friends of ours for lunch (if you've never been, they have the most AMAZING calzones, I kid you not). Which was muchly entertaining. No pictures though, sorry. Unfortunately, the day had to be cut short because I had a choir concert out in Gold Canyon. Which was also awesome. Funny how much resent I can feel towards a gig before it starts but once I'm there and get on with the program, it's so totally worth it every time. Funny and really convenient. It's nice not to hate what ya plan to do for your living.

And today, I discovered a secret, hidden super-talent. My left-hand is astonishingly adept at painting along baseboards and doorframes. Like, I am pro-status guys. Legit skillz going on up in here. We're painting my parent's new house this week and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Besides the smell--hello, migraines. I'm also having a lot of fun swiping my brush along my sister's exposed indecency while she's crouched on the floor concentrating on rolling her paintbrush the right way....

[swipe]

Sis: [squeals]

Mom: What in the world?!?

Sis: [laughing uncontrollably]

Me: Nuthin. Just paint in the crack.

Mom: [silence].....[head falls forward and shoulders start shaking]

Laughter is the best, isn't it? Had another concert just tonight as well. More stories there but I can't prattle on and on and on about my life in one whole shebang, right? Gotta save some stuff for later. 

I just really enjoy life.

That's all.

Windchimes Fill My Dreams

Good news; my butt looks awesome in my wedding dress. Btdubs. I made my mom take a bunch of pictures of me in it right when we brought it home so we could stick it in the bag, hang it up somewhere safe and not touch it till the next cleaning right before the wedding and I could still get my fill of it looking through the pictures. It's basically fabulous.
And I'm doing my very best to not upload said pictures. So I'll just mention it every once in awhile because I only have so much self control. Maybe, maybe, a couple weeks before the date I'll upload one awkward angle I took myself so it's not giving away EVERYTHING (and block Mark from seeing it, no worries people).
Maybe. If you guys are good ;P

This packing thing is proving to be really...difficult. Because we're moving down to Gilbert and Ocotillo at the end of the month so I'll live there for awhile and then move in with Mark. And that alone is a huge big stressful mess of entangled complications that I shall not delve into at this moment.
Maybe we'll have a place to live come March.
Maybe.
So many maybe's.

DUDE! I am seriously so legit today, you don't even understand. Here, let me explain;
I woke up at 7, firstly (hush, don't judge me...I'm a 9 o'clock morning kinda girl).
I look positively smashing (houndstooth scarf, ftw).
Fulfilled my best-friend-moral-support duties and attended Allie's errand shopping.
In the process of said duties, I found seriously about 20 yards of this beautiful lacey fabric that's gonna just go swimmingly well with all the reception decor, and 20 clothes hangers (cuz I left all mine in Cali, awesome) at Goodwill for--[drumroll]--FIVE BUCKS. Exactly. It was technically $4.91 but then because I was so ecstatic about being so thrifty and also it's Christmas I donated $0.09 to charity. 5 friggin smackaroons, baby. Half-off Saturdays pretty much make my life. Just sayin'.
And now I'm packing (and blogging, I like to say there's an element of balance to my life).
And then I'm going---OH YEAH! And on the way home I stopped by the bank and finally deposited a check for $150. Why is that so hard to get around to doing, always?
So then later I'm going to go pick up some stamps because my awesome fiancee has no idea how that works apparently, so we can send in all our Black Friday rebates and get mucho moolah back.

PRODUCTIVITY!! SAVE THE UNICORNS!!

Anytime you wanna thank me, cool beans yo.

Current gmail conversation with fiancee;

Me: Sooo...I was super thrifty today.

You should love me.

;)

I'm blogging about it but I assume you don't really read that thing anymore...

Mark: Nope, sorry. Now that I'm in it, I'm sure it's super boring.

I make most things boring :P

Me: Says YOU.

I say you've made my life pretty darn interesting, and fabulous, and awesome, and funny, and worth it, and glorious, and happy.

Plus, I'm not even talking about you, so your comment has no validity.

I'm talking about ME. being awesome. cuz I totally have been today.

So APPRECIATE ME, GOSHDANGIT!!

;) 

And then he cyber-laughed because obviously I'm the most charming, hilarious fiance he's ever had (so maybe the competition is a little lacking, I dunno. It's whatever). 

I just realized I'm blogging, laying on my stomach, singing non-existent songs under my breath with the door wide open....without any pants on.

[cue 'I'm Sexy and I Know It']

[Unless you've seen the music video]

[In which case, I'm not THAT sexy....I'm not even capable of being THAT sexy]

[If you know what I mean]

[If not, that's ok too. Welcome to my life.]

Holy bracket abuse. 

My newfound appreciation and [almost] understanding of fashion has become terribly bittersweet. I was morosing to Allie on this today (don't even fret, I made that word up). The problem is, I now have trouble even allowing myself out of the house in comfy clothes. Comfy meaning sweats and lounge-wear. And that right there, in and of itself. I never woulda used the term 'lounge-wear' before a month or so ago. And it's all Pinterest's fault. If I even attempt to do so, quotes such as "Never leave the house until you would be comfortable running into the love of your life OR your worst enemy" fill my mind and visions of outfits crowd my thoughts (similar to visions of sugar-plum fairies, only the fairies don't make me feel like a sluggish, lazy bumface). 

More convo;

Mark: You wouldn't happen to know Santa well, would you?

Me: EH, we're acquaintances...why?

Mark: You should ask him for a house, like that girl on miracle on 34th street.

Me: Oh goodness.

Uh, problem; I am not young, inspiring and/or cute like unto that little girl in miracle on 34th street sooo that plan is basically SHOT.

Mark: Darn...

I also just realized that it's not sugar-plum fairies that people have visions of, just plain old sugar-plums. IT'S LIKE I DO DRUGS OR SOMETHING. I swear I don't. I hardly even take the good healthy pills, ever. Honestly. It's probably bad.

I've sufficiently blabbed long enough. I should really box up some more stuff. 

Now, honestly. Who doesn't love funny screw-ups from an already funny show full of a bunch of screw-ups? Really now...

PS-- that completely unrelated title is just that....completely unrelated. There's just a windchime hanging from my closet door and it's the closest thing I could come to finding a name for this weird post.

Best Necessities

How 'bout we all just back off the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, eh? Goodness. Just because those houses don't get near the same amount of page space as Gryffindor and Slytherin doesn't make them any less awesome. They hold smart, hardworking, supportive people who just aren't reckless and arrogant enough to get themselves on front-page news like Gryffindors or well, just plain mean like a lot of Slytherins (see what I did there? 'Lot' of slytherins, not saying they all are).
If you're going to judge a large group of people, you have to look at all that it includes. Not just the primary focus.
I'm about to get real political here.
It's frustrating me that the computer won't accept the house names as real spellings.
MUGGLE-COMPUTER.

In all honesty, I would for sure be sorted as a Hufflepuff. Which puts me proudly in with the likes of Luna and Nymphadora, but as well as some super-duper nuckleheads like Ernie and Justin Finch-Fletchley. I admire Gryffindors greatly and would give the Sorting Hat a real run for its (his?) money, but I'm not confrontational or daring enough for that.
All I'm really trying to say is, I'm kinda done with all the internet memes on "I think I just have to resign myself to being a Hufflepuff...."
FOOL. You gon' be ungrateful like that you can stay a muggle.
Plus, Badgers are freaking bad-a**, can I get an amen?

I particularly like the part about the badger

"ripping off the lions genitals".

Needless to say, the lion dies.

Stereotypes are dumb. Get over them.

Today, I went through all the piano music my family has accumulated over the years. I'm not sure why my mom always thinks it's a good (or productive) idea to put me in charge of that chore. Considering half the time I have to plop down at the piano and play the songs I come across. And when I say half I mean basically every other book I pull off the shelf. 

Not to mention, BEEP if I'm gonna throw any of it away. You wanting to downsize the sheet music, Mom, get a heartless heathen who doesn't know a half rest from a breve.

(um, I realize I mighta just insulted a lot of people.
'Breve' [breh-VEH] is a double-whole note.

aka really effing long)

Look at that; you're learning music theory.

I found so many old treasures, like my entire 'Seussical' score. And since I was the rehearsal accompanist it wasn't no piddly little choir script thing, it's like 200+ pages of full blown piano reduction and all my notes scrawled on it. Fun stuff going through that. I'm pretty sure that was my favorite musical in high school, playing at the piano.

Good times....good, weird times.

Naturally, however, 'Pirates of Penzance' was my best musical experience overall, considering I got to be ON-stage for that and plunking out the utterly boring score for that one woulda been much less satisfying indeed.

And look at me now, back again to play some more ('Into the Woods' this year. Can you say EXCITED??). If you had told me, that first year playing 'Thoroughly Modern Millie', that I would still be playing for the musicals 6 years from then, I probably woulda laughed. And then really, really hoped you were telling the truth. 

Accompanying, to me, is....pure fun. It's something I don't understand with 'Glee'. Each and every student has that inner diva, the "I wanna be in the spotlight ALL THE TIME and stupid Rachel Berry and why aren't I singing solos and....." and I dunno, I guess I don't believe every performer is like that. Personally, I much prefer being the back-up. I would crumble up inside if I tried to become a concert pianist. In fact, I did die a little inside when I went to NAU Music Camp in 2008 and that's essentially what I learned to be the entire time I was there. Learning those completely beautiful, epic and wonderful masterpieces that you see and hear from those girls in the long, gorgeous gowns on the empty stage save for the gleaming dark piano and they sit there cranking out a long-winded proclamation of "I AM AWESOME. WATCH ME SHOW OFF."

And I hated every minute of it. I went to a piano academy, where I had 2-hour lessons each week and I was expected to practice 10 hours a week; which doesn't sound like much, but you try sitting on a piano bench for 2 hours a day....actually practicing that is. I worked on the Mozart, the Chopin, the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. I about blew my brain out trying to get that 'ppp' [pianississimo] in Debussey's 'Clair de Lune' but I just couldn't get it soft enough. I ripped through the Haydn exercises, cramping my hand worse than any in-class essay ever attempted. 

But I hadn't any passion for it. 

I didn't care about the pianist prowess.

You hand me a Jason Robert Brown and say, "I'm auditioning for this-that, could you possibly accompany me? Oh yeah, and it's the day after tomorrow, is that a problem?"

You just made my week.

(although in the back of my head

I'm cursing you at the same time)

I live for musicals and choral pieces with those delicious scores. The epic buildup and foundation they lend to singing. What would the moon be without the rich, full darkness of the sky accented with twinkling, winking lights? A boring, pocketed orb that's what. A reflective chunk of rock. Which is interesting enough for some. But I can't express to you what it means to me when I follow a performer or group out onto a stage and nobody is clapping for me. Nobody's paying attention or watching as I sit on the bench and flip open my pages. There's no pressure. Not from the audience at least. But I can handle singers, they only need me to fill up the empty air and space between their phrases. An audience needs the entire experience folded nice and neat into their laps with no wrinkles or rips.
I think I just enjoy being needed. Nobody needs a soloist. We all enjoy them at one level or another, appreciate their talent but you don't need them. Not like they NEED accompanists. Someone's singing "Defying Gravity" you can bet your bottom dollar they ain't getting up on any stage or on any microphone without some sort of back-up. I mean, nobody wants to listen to

"So if you care to find me,

Look to the western sky!...."

Without some piano underneath all that belting. I mean honestly. Just think about it. 

Anyway, I'm happy to say I'm an accompanist and darn proud of it! 

And can we just reflect for a moment how huge Idina Menzel's mouth is? 

Reflection complete.

And look at that! It's exactly 12 AM, I'm going to sleep now. 

PMS-Y without the PMS

That moment when you just really wanna blog about something and be funny but instead you pitter-patter about nonsense and conform to quickly cliche-ing internet memes.
Wooooot.

Why is it so much easier and nicer to cry when it's raining? And when I say 'nicer' I don't mean that I'm sitting there hyperventisobbing into my fiancee's shirt and it's just oh so lovely.
"Oh, yes! Tis our favorite past-time!" [read in fake, stuffy British accent].
I mean comforting-nice.
But I did, in fact, have a meltdown in his car parked out at my parents new house in the middle of Gilbert-farm-nowhere whilst the rain steadily danced a wet jig on the roof. Wet jig versus Dry jig, not sure there's much of a difference. Although back-to-back j's and i's looks silly. ji. JI. jijijijijijiijjiij. Not as silly in capitals.
I guess I'm just not built for working as a musician, packing up my room while wrapping Christmas presents for people, finding that those presents seem to disappear and having to recreate them over again with more and more trips to body-clogged Target, moving miles and miles away from my fiancee when I'm just gonna be living with him in less than 3 months (87 days!! Holy *beep*!!) trying to contemplate full-time school for next semester, planning the wedding and organizing the reception and....
Actually, lemme stop it there for a second.
Reception.
Am I supposed to hate it?
Right, yeah, I didn't think so.
Here's a little scene for ya; Mommy comes up to 4-5 year old Hope,
"Hey Hope! What's Santa going to bring you for Christmas??" Sneaky mom's, always figuring out a way to nonchalantly figure out what to buy at Walma--er, I mean, build at Santa's workshop....[twitchy eyebrows]
But alas, oblivious child Hope shrugs and replies, "Oh, I dunno. I guess I'll just have to wait and see!"
Determined Mother counters, "But what do you want Santa to bring for you?" Ok, now she's getting blatant.
Stubborn Hope, "Mom. I just have to wait and see."

True story. But that's the problem. I don't want stuff. Not enough to identify it in my head and ask for it. Not enough to be able to explain it in any sort of words I've been taught. My vocab doesn't cover 'wants'. Only basic communication, and even then it barely sufficeth.
So riddle me this-- how the FRESGAHERNFIGELDERNUFFLEBAGGINS am I supposed to lay out in complete detail how I want this reception to be? How I want my hair to look, my face, the backyard, the food, the tables, the decorations, the trees and the pictures and the...and, and the cake!! GEEZ, who friggin cares about cake?!?? How do I answer my Mom and my Mom-in-law-to-be and my aunts and my maid of honor and friends when they come up with these questions I hadn't even thought of, much less answered for myself.
In complete and total honesty? I want it to be a night that Mark remembers in complete and utter joy for the rest of his life. I want him to look back and think, "Yeah, that was one of the best days/nights of my life and DARN IT if that reception wasn't awesome to boot!"
Except he wouldn't use 'to boot'. He's not into awkward, fallen out phrases like I am.
I "want" the reception to be exactly what Mark "wants". I want to see his eyes light up when he sees the place and I want that precious, rare, radiant smile to spread all over his face and I want him to still talk about it after we've left and it's all said and done on his own accord. It doesn't count if I have to ask about it.
And so we tried to talk about it today. Tried to collaborate on where to put tables, chairs, food, parking, etc. etc. I tried to draw up a quick sketch of the yard so the ideas were written down in some permanent form. It's 3 months away people, I figured a sketch would suffice! But turns out my dear, sweet honey would prefer to take measurements and make a drawing to scale and pin everything down securely. And that's where the argument started. Mark is a precise perfectionist and I'm just....not. Mark has his ideas and he believes in them wholeheartedly and it'll take a real direct experience to change that. He has opinions.
I don't.
I see a picture and say, "Oh that looks nice!" and he explains to me why I'm wrong and what he would change about it and after three words I'm totally on board and completely swayed. Because heck if I know I actually wanted that picture in the first place. It just seemed nice at first glance.
And there's nothing wrong with that! I like that he's decisive and wants things the way he wants them. I'm glad he can determine that in his mind. Cuz otherwise we'd be two amoebas floating in the milky way (I don't even know if what I'm saying there is possible, THIS IS WHY I NEED HIM).
But as the groom and being a guy, he wants to just be left out of the planning process. So that leaves all the 'wanting' and deciding to me.
Plus he insulted my sketch.
So I cried. I cried cuz I knew I shoulda given him the pencil and paper and I felt belittled and I'm utterly terrified of defining what I want to others.

I'm gonna get on the couch (that's a vague psychologist therapy reference, btw) and let you guys in on a secret; I reigned in letting on what things I want in life because that means those things are what make me happy. And my happiness is something that has rarely been safe, through all my years living at home. Everyone protects their wants and happy's; they're the good, little, shiny pieces of our souls we really enjoy bringing out and looking at. And without going into too much detail [or any detail, hopefully] can we just pretend for a second that I am particularly defensive with mine? We can just say that any tiny hint of something that gave me the barest flicker of a smile was ripped from my hands and ruined with any and every means possible. Burned, torn, squashed, hated, scorned, scattered ash remnants of that shiny happy I was speaking of.
So I learned to keep it to myself. Deep inside myself.

And now I gotta lay it all down on the table, the most important day of my life as yet to come for three whole months?? You're effing joking, right?

Holy rant. Alrighty! Now that we all know Hope's a crazy and needs a shrink....
Weddings are stressful.
Glad it's sealing me to my best friend who's gonna help me get through it and love me through all the crazy and unnecessary tearful implosions.
Gosh it's nice to find yourself in somebody else. Nice to feel safe. Sharing yourself is nice. No, sharing yourself and having that self loved in return is...NICE ('pleasing; agreeable; delightful').

At the end of the day and after a long, enveloping hug from my fiancee, this is about all I have to say about March 10th, 2012.....

Come at me, bro.

COME. AT. ME.

Bing-Bong

Yo. I'mma gettin' married.

(click on it. Come on. Just click it. ENLARGE, DANG IT!
It's only basically fabulous.)

There's a reason God gave us talented friends;

Cuz they make us look gooooood.

Just sayin'.

Also?

Because we all love a silly picture now and again.

Forgive My Ramblings

I just sneezed and my tailbone popped....O_o

There's a small gray and white kitten napping and twitching on my bed. 

It's very hard to type quietly.

ThePianoGuys are at my high school tonight.

I'M GOING TO SEE THEM.

They're playing their songs on MY alma mater's stage. 

I still go up there and play on the same piano.

I may or may not just pass out the next time I'm up there.

I'm a little obsessed right now, if ya haven't caught on.

We're doing engagement photos tomorrow morning.

I'm slightly panicking.

IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAS....-time.

My hair has not grown out of it's "pure-stubborn" phase.

I am disappoint.

Kitty-twitch.

I love.

I really cannot explain to you how weird and awesomely exhilarating it is to be back at my high school but as a paid accompanist. I'm also experiencing the feeling of, "No way was I that loud and immature and obnoxious in high school....it's just not possible...."

But wait. It is.

Driving in a car with three new kittens that are very confused about this daring adventure they are on is one tricky situation. But we made it home alive. The kitten I was assigned to holding was the most nervous. She didn't seem very comfortable with getting moved around. But finally she kinda nestled into the crook of my arm and eventually started kinda half nodding off. But then she'd pop back awake and stare me right in the eyes, daring me to try any funny business....but then her eyelids would droop again and her head would plop onto my elbow.

MELT MY HEART, why don'tcha?

We got two kitties for our family (my christmas present to daddy, who absolutely adores cats) and also picked up one handsome little fellah for my good friend Allie. Can't wait to take him over to his new home. Super can't wait till I have my own new place and these sweet treasures I'm bringing home will be for me and my hubby.

My parents got the deed for their new (and last) house in the mail!! Woohooo! 

Oh, random moment.
kitty snores!!! guh! cuuuuuuuuute

I'm dying here.

I was actually really confused for a minute.

"What is that NOISE?!??

ohhh, tis just kitty."

So now we finally have a place to hold the reception. The backyard is just PERFECT. It's gonna be fabulous! I'm excited to get to decorating and such.

We're at less than 100 days now! And no I'm not actually counting down the days, theknot.com just sends me emails all the time about it.

I really have to pee

but I'm afraid if I get up I'll wake kitten

and then he'll be awake

and get lost somewhere in my

Christmas Chernoble room.......

oh mama

It's gonna be a pain moving twice in less than 3 months. But at least most of my stuff is packed from before I left for Disneyland. 

[long pause]

There's really not much to blog about.

Other than kittens!! (There's two in here now.....oh boy)

Let's see how good of a mother I'll be as I keep an eye on two kittens and try to do my hair for the concert tonight with a half inch curling iron cuz I totally know how to use one of these contraptions....

(Hope is muchly confuzzled).

Bahahaha, they're so confused by my computer.

And they absolutely hate our dog. Luckily he's just a yorkshire terrier so he's not gonna gobble 'em up as a snack or nuthin. In fact, the kittens pose more of a threat than he does. One already took a swipe at his poor nose earlier today.

I totally smell potatoes right now. NOOOOOM.

Oh my goodness, synchronized kitty heads.

GUYZ THIS IS TOO CUTE. I'm such a sap.

Done. Posting now. Sorry for the silliness.

HAPPY UPDATE TO YOU ALL! and to all a good day ;) 

Hippo-Critical

Someday (at least I hope), people will remember to be so grateful for all these wonderful things they keep listing when it's NOT 'the season'.
Forgive me. I appreciate your humble gratitude and commend you on realizing how blessed you are but the point is really diminished and mute for me when you post on Facebook how happy you are with your life when the stinkin' Holiday is coming right up.
Tell me how glad you are for your family and friends when you could just strangle your parents or when your friends are fighting and causing some silly drama you're going to forget about by next week. Tell me about your love of freedom and being able to get an education when it's finals week and you'd like to go eat out with your friends but you need to cram for that test early tomorrow morning.
Tell me you're grateful when it counts.
Otherwise? I really couldn't care.
Now, I don't mean ya can't have a list of stuff you're grateful for on Thanksgiving/Christmas, whatever. It just doesn't mean anything to me, personally.

Anyway, my Thanksgiving was pretty darn awesome. Despite the whole six people who were there (again, I'm used to over seventy guests). My mom decided this was the year I'd learn how to make a turkey....

Who ever said it was required to look nice?

No one. 

I won't remember a thing. It's gonna be the worst, most hilarious, terrifying and incredibly shameful thing when I eventually have to attempt my first turkey...by myself. It's completely different when my mom's there and basically just hands me the stuff to 'chop up and dump in'. I got that, pro-status. But if she left the room stuff would be burnin' up and boiling over all over the stove and someone would end up dead (and it wouldn't be the turkey).

BUT. I am a freakin' legit table setter.

Beautiful, eh? It's ok, I know. You don't need to say anything. Well, except for the fact that my mom brought out all the decorations (tablecloths and Thanksgiving-esque paraphernalia) soooo yeah, as a matter of fact I do wholly fail at housekeeping/hostessing. No big deal.

Ain't he a beaut? Larry, I believe, was his name.

It's been an interesting Black Friday weekend. Really the very first I've ever been directly involved in. Last year was kinda half-there but not really. This year, I met up with Mark at Fry's Electronics (also known as Felectronic Fry's according to the sign on the building) where he and JT had set up the most legit waiting-in-line fort (cuz really, it's so a fort)....

Yeah. We're kind of awesome.

So I got there around 1830-1900 (using military time cuz honestly guys, Black Friday means war). We nibbled on honeyed ham and watched A Knight's Tale and Fifth Element before putting it all away again around 2300 hours. Fry's opened at midnight, which sounds really nice, but lots of things we also needed to get weren't actually for sale till 0600. 

Dumb.

So we got in, split into two groups; divide and conquer style. An employee asked if JT was my husband.

"No, sir. Not that one."

I think he thought I was crazy.

Check this out, we were done gathering up everything we needed at 0012. Twelve minutes. We were good. We got in the checkout line, which was blessedly short and planned what we were going to do until 0600.

But wait! What is this?! We had needed a lot of multiple items so we had 3 of this and 3 of that and by the time we made it to the dude telling us which register to head for Mark finally noticed one of our power supply boxes were missing. Missing!

Some ninja had reached in and yoinked it right out of our basket. 

It's like it was Black Friday or something!

As annoying and rude as it was, I couldn't help but feel excited to actually experience a real BF (black friday not boyfriend) shenanigan. I'm just disappointed that I forgot about the facepaints. Poo.

So once we through that first time, JT went home cuz he wasn't willing to wait till 0600. Mark, Greg and I put the stuff in the truck (my new [old] baby, pictures to come...someday). Then headed back in for another power supply. We got one of the last few and went right to the checkout line...or what we thought was the checkout line. And it was, but it was the middle of the line rather than the end. This dude gives us a pitying look and points to the floating balloons peeking over the racks way far away on another aisle, "That's the end."

A Christmas Story, line for Santa much? Yeesh.

It took an hour and a half to get through the line and buy our one item we shouldn't've had to come back for. Silly.

By 0200 we were getting hungry so Mark decided he wanted Denny's and handed me his droid phone to find a location near us. But apparently you aren't supposed to click on any of the automatic fill in options cuz then it doesn't show you all of 'em. So we drove quite a few miles to find out that one Denny's has been replaced by a dentist office complex place. Lovely.

Drive some more miles back and find one that has one cook and two servers. Hello waiting half an hour just to be welcomed and then seated. Food was good, though. Driving back to Fry's we passed under the freeway, came up on the parking lot and found a Denny's right on the property. 

Only idiots don't see stuff like that.

So we laughed like the idiots we are. 

There isn't a facepalm strong enough.

Greg was a walking zombie so we sent him home. It was 0330 so we had some time to catch a quick power nap. Luckily, with the couch amenity we'd both brought some blankets and I had a couple pillows in my car so we were fairly comfortable....

0530 my phone went off and we stumbled out of my car, probably looking like bleary-eyed hobos. Found some more junk for really cheap (mail-in rebates that basically render the item FREE? Heck yes). And when I say 'junk' I mean important stuff that will make life easier as far as technology goes. Close enough.

By the time we were done shopping at 0630 it wasn't even worth it to go home so I just went to Mark's house and we slept for a few hours until noon when we went to SanTan mall and met up with one of my bestest friends from high school and her fiancee. 

Wet Seal tees and cami's, 5 for $20? I'll take 5...literally.

Charlotte Russe 30% off everything and clearance rack? Yeah, I hit that.

Also I'm addicted to scarves so has a new polka-dotty cutie.

Oh and Bath and Body travel size sanitizer bottles 5 for $5? I'll take 10. 

Black Friday = SUCCESS

So doing it all again next year.

Today was one of those days you stand back and give yourself a look over in the mirror and think, "Dang I did a good job this morning. It's like I'm actually pretty or something."
And then you spend the whole day inside and clean and don't see anybody.

Boo and a half.

But it's all better cuz the honey is coming over after work to gobble up some leftovers. I'd say it's worth it. Even though he still calls me beautiful when I've just taken a sunday nap at his house and I wore his clothes cuz sleeping in my [uncomfortable but still gorgeous] dress is just not preferrable and so I wake up with smeared makeup and a tangled hot mess living on my head. There are days I'm sure that boy is delusional. But what the hey, I am too so cool.

I'm grateful for LIFE ;) <3

Fails-giving

We've been that family that gets 70+ people together, crams 'em all in one house [insert awkward metaphor for stuffing inside a turkey] and commence the face stuffing!!
This year?
Mom, Dad, sister(s), brother, grandma and dog. Question on the 'sister(s)' cuz one might not even show resulting from Black Friday events. It's just our immediate family this year. Which, by societal standards, isn't that weird at all. But to me? It's freaky weird.
I won't answer the door every two minutes, sometimes just creepily waiting behind the door for people to come up and ring the bell since I saw them getting out of their cars but wanted to avoid the awkward "I'm standing here watching y'all approach and my face doesn't know how to conduct itself so I probably look like the poor turkey did before he got his neck chopped off and body plucked and....." well, you get the point.
We won't eat at one so there will be time to chat off the food baby, pack ourselves like sardines in a sardine can into the living room so we can do our annual family talent show (basically all the 5 year olds plunking out their beginning-beginners piano tunes and pausing for 5 whole minutes, staring at the keyboard in silence when they forget where they are in the song...then start over again) (and then the actual accomplished pianists, but I love that part).
There won't be any football in the home theatre, or barbies/dress-up, or cool knick-knacky crafts and there for sure won't be a communal watching of some Disney/Pixar flick such as Finding Nemo or Cars or one of the new awesome ones that have come out.

Thanksgiving in Utah was the best thing ever.
I totally took it for granted. Sad sauce.
I'm also pretty sure the Hostess-monster inside my mom is currently shriveling up and dying a sad, miserable death since she has no swarm of guests to cater to. Just us 5 people. Maybe my fiancee. Maybe. Poor, poor woman.

On a brighter note! Yesterday was the definition of AWESOME.
Ever heard of 'Desert Bus for Hope'? Yeah, I didn't think so [http://www.facebook.com/DesertBus]. There's a group of people up in Canada who host and have hosted a gamer marathon fundraiser for a charity called Child's Play, who give games to terminally ill children. They hang out in a basement, somebody plays desert bus (an awfully boring game consisting of driving a bus down a completely straight road from 'tucson' to 'las vegas') for hours on end and they take in donations and auction off some super cool items, have special guests and junk. They're on a live webcam and Mark has officially gotten me fully on the desertbus-boat (...o.O)
Being on said boat, when Mark called me Tuesday morning saying, "These dudes are driving from Tucson to Las Vegas in a big van and have prizes for anybody who stops them along the way. They're going down the I-10! We should do it!!" we both basically jumped at the chance. Especially considering they were embarking LIVE and they had awesome t-shirts included in the prizes. And how convenient! They were meeting someone at IKEA in tempe. Now we have to go.
He came and picked me up, we had a super stressful quicky fast quest to find some club soda ("clubbing" is sort of a phenomenon) but to no avail. I worked to keep Mark calm so he would drive like a not-crazy person and we could stay living, cuz that sounds really nice to me. I like life. We tried to keep up with what was going on in the basement up in Canada as well as the van travelling down the road using Mark's phone but the connection was quite dumb and the last thing we caught as we were taking the freeway exit to IKEA was the dudes leaving the building and showing the internets their nifty fat van they were travelling in and then oh, no!!! His phone went to poop. We scanned over the [monstrous] parking lot, looking for any van and picked out two that could possibly be it. We got out and went inside, looking really awkward as we had no clue where we should go or look or even if the people were still there.
We went back outside, Mark attempted connecting with his phone again and while he was distracted I heard a male's voice behind me saying something that I don't remember but at the time it sparked my brain and said, "Pay attention! These guys sound like nerds...."
IT WAS THEM.
I smacked Mark on the arm and he looked up and shouted, "Hey! It's you guys!"
We're such a good creeper-team.
So all in all, we found the people, they were super nice and fun to talk to. They had actually forgotten their prizes at home so I traded my high school '20 years of tradition' (that's actually spelled wrong and says 'traditon') musicals shirt for the little dudes Desertbus shirt and we were on the interwebz! Like, in the tubes! Sweeeeet.
Also, it was really entertaining to see Mark so nervous. He was shaking afterwards. Woot adrenaline!!

It's freakin' legit. I tell ya what.

We so exci-i-ted.

Update of Updates

<peeks around corner>
Are you still here??

So. There's a lot to talk about here and it's going to be a huge mess but I will get it all out and now I can really get to blogging again.
Firstly, to explain my random sabbatical from this online, public journal; I came home early from the college program. Before you judge me, realize that I was never getting credit for this adventure and merely went to enjoy the experience, get that chance to at least sniff out what reality is actually like (which, obviously, no better place than Disneyland, right? reality galore!) and live away from home, do my own personal, introspective DTR with Mark. Only problem was, I didn't need five whole months. In coming home early, I wanted to just finish out the lasts few weeks of the internship and not be explaining to countless people WHY, and HOW, and WHEN, and WHY again. I didn't want to be constantly thinking about leaving.
A) I hate feeling like a quitter. Or at least not sticking out till the end of something I got myself into (aka, "quitting")
B) Sure, let's think about leaving all the time so we never forget so then it feels like forever to finally actually be leaving. Sounds lovely.
C) It is Disneyland, after all :(

But I mean really, once I got engaged, why would I stay somewhere that isn't really helping along my education, I wash dishes all day long [life skills? Nah, I'm just a maid] AND I simply don't fit in anywhere? Plus, no pianos to speak of. No, I want to be with my fiance planning all these necessary wedding things and I want to spend this holiday season with my family.
Gmail and skype and texting and phone calls are just not the way I want to nail down all the wedding preparations. Sorry.

Secondly (except more like First-and-a-Halfly), I was actually surprising Mark in coming home. He knew I was planning on quitting before January but I had told him more along the timeline of the 'week of thanksgiving'....
I lied.
I came home on saturday, the twelfth. Had to implement the most extreme self control I have ever managed and not go see Mark that night. My mom and I got back to the house around 6:30 and I played my lovely piano for a little bit (teared up cuz I'm an emotional sap [and a complete silly mess from working at Dland]) and realized I totally suck now that it's been three months.
Fine, I don't "suck", I'll just actually have to sit down and really practice some things, run through my Handel book of finger exercises a couple times and unsloppify my technique. Boo and a half.
Mark works twelve hours on saturdays, 5:30-6 or something horrid like that. And it's the end of his work week. So popping by his place when he's completely exhausted and frustrated with all the stress and only being able to stay a couple hours before he should go to sleep just didn't sound all that enjoyable. So that's why I stayed home and spent some lovely time with a certain bestest buddy and her [kinda cool] hubby.
But on sunday morning, Mark and I have church at 9 am (wooty mcwootsauce) so I woke up, quite easily I might add, got all prettied up and went over to his house to wake him up. It went a little something like this;
<walk up to front door>
Oh, wait. It might be locked. Oh, this'll be fantastic....
<knock-knock>
....waiting....
<opens door>
Mm, same ol' bachelor pad.
Huh, I wonder why his light's on...maybe he's already awake?
<tiptoe quietly so as to not click heels on tile>
Baha, silly boy. All curled up in a ball with the light on.
<jump on bed, kiss cheek>
me:"Why are you sleeping with the light on??"
<lays like dead slug>
<rolls over>
<lays more>
<about to poke his cheek>
him: "Whaa--how are you here?"
me: "I'm magic!!"
<pause>
him: "No, seriously. How are you here??"
me: "Surprise!!"

I thoroughly enjoyed that. He seemed pleased as well.

Now, thirdly; since I've been back (a grand total of four days) I/we have--

• Whipped up a rough draft guest list; just a general idea of all the people we know [and holy dang if there's not a lot of you!!]
• Began gathering up already owned decor and picture frames
• More and more lists
• Booked the temple [more to come on that]
• Found THE dress [second one I tried on. EVAR. Huh, go figure]
• Sent out facebook event to rake in the addresses [I'll just need to ignore my notifications number for the next little while....it's kind of skyrocketing o_O]

And there's still so much to do. Thank goodness it's all for one of the biggest, best decisions I will ever make and I'm having a good time. Hopefully the good mood holds out till February. Oh, mama.

I am a bit worried about having my dress so early. I'm so in love with it and just wanna show it off to everyone (namely a certain fiance of mine) and wear it every day but gosh darn it it'll just hafta stay in the bag and hang in my mom's closet or something so I don't have such easy access to it....

Wasn't even supposed to dress shop today [er, yesterday now...this is the problem with blogging and not immediately posting, /sigh]. Was going to go check out a craigslist truck out in peoria with Mark early this [that] morning but he got an email and the truck is in a garage so we wouldn't be able to see it till 4pm and he has school from 4-9ish so that didn't work. So we went back to his apartment to clean and watch 'Once Upon a Time' but then he got called in to work.

And who likes to clean alone? Certainly not me.

So I called my mom and she told me to come on home and we'd sit down to talk over wedding plans.

Then all of a sudden we were wedding dress shopping. Just for the heck of it. To kinda get an idea of what's out there. It was still pretty early in the morning so we window shopped for about an hour and 'visited' about three different stores (and a couple long-gone shut down shops) before going back to AZ bridal. 

For some reason I was totally convinced and kept thinking to myself, "No way I'll find one today. We'll just look around and see what's 'on the market'." I may have been telling myself that to ward off the guilt that kept creeping in for not having my best friend/MOH there, when she really wanted to be there for dress shopping and I wanted her there as well....

But there'll be shoe shopping, and bridesmaid dress finding and all the other requirements of being a bride and MOH duo.

And so I fill out this weird form so I assume the employee can help me find exactly what I'm looking for in a wedding dress....
"I want to not look fat and be able to breathe...oh, and let's make it white I guess."
Like, seriously. Do you really gotta know ALL that?? o_O Silly.
She showed me to the racks that have the sleeved dresses on them and told us to grab six. So we did. The first one was beautiful. It was a lace-up which felt a lot nicer than I thought it would. Being tied in was a weird experience [thank HEAVENS we tossed corsets out as a necessity]. However, the supported hug of the bodice was nice. But it had that weird bunched up messy-poof skirt thing that I just don't understand.
K, fine the Belle-look is

whatever. Cute, if it's your thing [which it isn't mine].

But when you get to the point of

looking like a four year old took a stapler to your skirt I say, "whaaa??" And thusly, the first one got a 'yeah you look nice but let's see what else there is....'

The second one...I immediately loved. I had a dressing room that was straight across from the stagey mirror place so when I opened the curtain I got a first glance experience like I was in the place of everyone else who's gonna see me in it (namely, Mark) and I quickly found that in that split second moment there was a little 'ding!' in my head if the dress was something I could envision myself getting married in. And that second dress...in the famed words of Taylor Kerby, "I'm so attracted to myself right now!!"

Then turns out it's a little bit out of our budget, so I put on the brave face and return to the dressing room to <cross-fingers> find something even more fabulous.

But dress after dress and eight dresses later (and a small heart-attack after a teensy rip sound trying to pull one over my apparently too-wide behind) I was still glancing over at the 'favorite' hung on the wall to be used for comparison. Except there was none. I put the 'favorite' back on and just let it hug me in all the right places and felt so skinny and so beautiful and wished so hard it would just be March right then and there with everything all figured out and ready, set to go.

Turns out we could get a 15% off discount on the dress and they even threw in the lovely veil for free! Woohoo! Didn't know I even wanted a veil till they held it up to my head. 

I tried to come back with Allie later so she could see it, too (plus I just wanted to wear it again) but they'd accidentally already sent it off for cleaning.

Boo.

But I still has it! So it's all good and I'm so, so sos,o,so,soeoidlj excited!!!

Excited, I am.

But now I wanna get in the shower cuz I feel all gross from running around everywhere doing all these productive things today. So...bye, y'all!

I'll be posting more regularly now, promise :) Thanks for reading!

Unrelated to Life

When you can't hardly write another word for the tears that keep threatening.....well, then that means no one else is ever reading that chapter.
Breaking the hearts of your characters is like willingly slapping your heart on an exam table, cutting it open and finding your own worst fears and nightmares, pulling them out and having a tea party. Lemme tell ya, they aren't very good company. Lousy manners and a terribly offensive lot.

Yes. I, too, have taken my hand to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Something about 50,000 words in the month of November. I just like an excuse to type whatever passes through my brain like a lunatic who fancies rhythmic clicking seated before a vintage typewriter. With paper and ribbon. The 'ding' is pretty satisfying as well.
But basically I just delved into a certain idea and found myself getting to the end of playlists without even realizing the first song had ended and losing my breath and a terrible stinging in my eyes. And I haven't blogged in forever. And I miss people. And I....I would just really like to get back to MY life soon. The life that I enjoyed and reveled in and took for complete granted.
If I learned anything out here, it's that I had it made back in AZ; the most wonderful friends anyone could be blessed with, more laughter than I knew what to do with and the man who fills my bucket of happy dreams to overflowing. And that there are 3,198 spokes in the dish washing machine we use in the kitchen but that's just cuz I got bored and counted.
I just really don't want to cry right now.
Cuz it's almost 2 in the morning.
And I work at noon.
Which means I gotta leave my apartment by 11.
Which means I should totally be asleep.
But I want/need to get this idea/moment finished before I lose the emotional connection. I'm just a method writer and at the same time don't like being unhappy so that makes for very uncomplicated stories missing a conflict which, well, makes for no story at all. Not that I believe anybody really enjoys 'misery' but I do think I have a certain aversion to the emotion.

But now I have sufficiently run out of words and the moment is done. Except for when I go back through and add in the minute detail that gets lost in the flow of telling.
Being sad is exhausting. Goodness.
Thank y'all for being my shoulder to lean on when I can't give my characters one....thanks and good night.


ps-- I'm not writing much till I get home because I don't want to think much till I get home cuz maybe then time will go faster. I dunno. It's a hypothesis and I'll let you know how it goes.

Takes True Lovers To Be Silly

Here's a little slideshow for you....except you're gonna hafta be imaginative and pretend that I actually went to any real trouble to make this.
Just play the song and scroll through the pictures. That's all you gotta do. It's not difficult, I promise. And if it is, please get yourself checked. Really.

And now the lovely images of loveliness!

I lied. Must put words inbetween some

You can't tell it, but the reason I look like I'm sobbing over the death of my long-lost childhood kitten is because I'm sopping. freaking. wet. And we were just getting to the big drop! It was ridiculous. Never been in the front before. Never been in the front with the heavy people all in the front as well.
Never. Again. Never, I say.

There's a reason we were made for each other.

Oh, beautiful. We can look like humans. Genius.

His face. Kills me.
Slaying me with his smile....that's a song, right? Please tell me that's a song. Because dang it if that's not poetry and if I'm the first to come up with it, then that's just pathetic.

We tried. We really did. But cuteness could not be found. Only sillies.
(Recognize it? That's where he proposed <happyspasm> ahahaha!!)

It was cold. And pretty sour. That's all.

So the little cottage was eating his head away. No big deal.

It was a little bright. And I'm a good, caring fiance. Look at me go. Woot.

Dearest best friend Allie is a genius and the brainchild of this brilliant photo. Considering 'once upon a time' I wasn't Mark's biggest fan. 

Sometimes though, there are no words.

Again. No words.

Immediately following this picture;
"Can we look happy now, please?"
"Fine."

<heartskip>
Yeah, pretty happy I'd say :)


Just a small taste of what the picture montage will be like at our wedding.
Cuz I'm having a WEDDING!!!
Great freaking balls of fire.
How fun is that?

"He's more myself than I am. 

Whatever our two souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

--Emily Bronte