Busy, Busy

I'm a bad blogger. I never blog consistently and even when I do it's just a bunch of garbage. Garbage, garbage.

To fill the empty space I attempted to do this long ass survey in the style of circa 2007 MySpace. It was vyer long. I do the entire thing and then realize it was much lamer than I had anticipated. I deleted it and here's what has resulted:

In case anyone is interested and hasn't talked to me lately here's what's going on with me:

• I've had Laryngitis for over a week now. It was one of the longest lasting, slowest healing sicknesses I've had. It's mostly just really irritating to be sick day in and day out. But yesterday I actually had a decent amount of energy for most of the day so, I think I'm officially getting better. I should be over it in a day or two.
• My cousin just had brain surgery to remove a pretty large brain tumor. As much as I complain about my family and as distant as I often feel, they are still my family. And one good thing about such a large familial network is the way we can rally at times of crisis. Everyone has been at the hospital pretty much every day he's been there. That means anywhere between 10 - 30 people at all times, whether he's awake to realize or not. Everyone takes turns bringing dinner and snacks for everyone in the waiting room. Everyone is there after work, constantly calling. It's a big thing and to be honest, it makes me proud to be apart of my family. (But don't tell anyone I said that! I'm not usually so sweet. I have a reputation to uphold!)
• Last weekend, Adam and I trekked ALL the way to Guerneville to check out a possible wedding location. It was really beautiful and it looked like a lot of fun, but I'm not sold on it quite yet. Wedding planning so far has been a slow process but location is one of the most important factors for us. Overall for the weekend we drove over 375 miles or something like that. It was exhausting (especially while sick!)

Here's a picture of the place we looked at.

• This weekend we're going to Sacramento because Adam's little niece chose us as her godparents for her first communion. Me? A Godparent? But she chose me and what am I gonna do? Say no? It's cute either way, and all we really have to do is get her extra presents. It makes me feel special, they like me. haha.

And that's about all, I guess.

Oh, and any feedback on the new layout? I'm loving Blogger's new template designer.

Sick Sickly

I have a temperature of 100+ and all I'm feeling is the burning of my eyes.

I'm so groggy that I can barely spell. I'm sounding out all the words. (but maybe I'm always like that and I don't realize).

I feel like shit but I'm too sick to fall asleep. I hope my nyquil kicks in.

Spring Cleaning

For those of you in the know, you would know that I live in what I call, "a constant state of squalor." This is perhaps a little melodramatic, but, as you all know, I am relatively melodramatic.

But I'm just a bad cleaner. There's no ifs. ands, or buts about it. I'm no good. Try as I might, I stop trying and return to my normal bad self. To have things so messy makes me feel somewhat immature, as if it's a sign of my life falling apart. If I were really "together" then my shit would be organized, simple as that.

But, for the past couple of weeks I have subjected poor Adam (and myself, of course, but I chose this therefore I am the subjector and he is the subjectED) to a good bout of SPRING CLEANING!

Before we left for Madrid I pretty much tore the house apart! I dumped out the contents of at least 4 purses (this is strange, I understand, to have not only so many purses but so many purses filled with so many things, and all at the same time. But that will have to be another entry cause I'm rather long-winded on the subject). I did about 4 loads of laundry and threw everything on the couch. I went through pretty much everything in the apartment evaluating it's travelling value. (Is this worth the bulk in my bag? Will I REALLY need it? Will I really use it?) And finally I finished packing a mere 2 minutes before the taxi got to our house.

We got home and... Well, unsprisingly enough, all of my mess had been waiting for me that entire time. (don't worry we threw away any and all perishables or possible stinkies. It was clean mess).

But I was tired. I blamed jet lag. The day after we got back I had to go to work. Adam was SUPER inundated with homework and midterms. I had a serious set of post-vacation blues. I continued to live out of my luggage for at least 2 weeks after we got back (So I'm an over packer AND I bought a lot of clothes while there, sue me.)

So for a month our mess grew and grew. Old mess, new mess, inbetween mess. We would try to tidy here and there but tidying isn't enough when you're facing the Mount Kilamanjaro of Messes.

We hit rock bottom. There was no longer any place for walking, sitting, living, or dying.

The light of a civilized, mature, together, and sanitary young girl clicked on.

"It is time for Spring Cleaning," I declared!

We have since cleaned absolutely everything. I finally put the luggage away, I recloseted my purses, my shoes are all in the closet. We cleaned the bathroom! We cleaned the kitchen! We even had the carpets shampooed!

Anyways, the point of this entirely too long entry is that as part of Spring Cleaning we finally took a stand, put our foot down, and demanded the leak be fixed. So now, our window no longer leaks!!

I'm very excited for the lack of squalor. All that's left is to frame and hang our pictures (so it looks more lived in, decorated, and awesome), decorate just a little, organize the bookshelves, scrub the fridge for invisible germs, finally paint the bedroom (We've had the paint and equipment all this time, I was just waiting for the window to be fixed), oh, and clean my car.

Next up? Baking night tonight con platanos. Pictures and recipes to come.

This just came in the mail!

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Contagion

I'm pretty sure I'm going a little crazy. I don't know if I'm freaking out. Am I freaking out?

Is this the way I eract to so many people getting sick and dying?

CAuse yesterday I was completely freaked out that there was something wrong with ME (unresolved. depends on today's happenings whether or not I make a doctor's appt or if yesterday was just me being crazy.)

Today I'm convinced that there's somethign wrong with Penelope. I mean, I'm always mother hen, over protective mother over her but I'm usually right (how many UTI's has she REALLY had?!) and I just don't know what to do.

I feel scattered. worried.

But at the same time I feel irrational. Like I'm really being crazy. That yesterday was perfectly fine. and the dog is perfectly fine. and everything is normal and I'm blowing everything out of proportion cause everyone else is getting sick, I'm projecting problems onto myself (and the dog).




ughk. I'm so neurotic.

To take a popular trend from Tumblr and indulge my vanity here's a GPOYW: the Monday Edition.

We've finally cleaned our house, put all my clean clothes away folded, and I'm free to lounge around guilt-free. A quick note in my new journal and I just turned on "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle," hopefully I won't chicken out and turn it off midway.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

I easily see that I have lived a very blessed life.

It wasn't till I was 14 that I even knew anyone that had died and even now, to this day, I have never had to feel any horrible, terrible loss.

I have lived a sheltered and what some might call a perfect life. I have been protected from some of the greater injustices or violences or even just simple losses.

My mother and father are still married, alive, and healthy. All of my siblings, while some were reckless in their younger years, are equally alive and healthy. I've even been dating my first love since, well, since the beginning. The heartbreak I have experienced has been different. Because instead of being tempered by time, acceptance, and moving forward it was, while at times intense and I don't doubt that it was real, it was relatively short lived, it was still within my grasp and slight control, and instead of being weathered through and dissappeared it was healed.

So far, the sound of this seems like there will be a "but" but there is not "but."

I have existed so far in my life in some beautiful bubble. There have been scares and worried but nothing so much as to change my life or truly affect me or even to slightly affect me.

I don't want that to change. I don't want that to change ever.

And with things going the way they are, with mortality ever pending and change ever looming, I feel this stressing need to face it. Face that there could be hurt in ways I have yet to experience. I'm scared.

Plenty of people face plenty of hard things every day. But I have not. I completely understand that my existance has met practically no adversity.

What if I'm not strong enough? If I'm too weak? What if I cannot rise to the occassion? What if I just can't do it? What if I can't do it?

So many times people have met negative situations with grace and kept something vital within themselves alive and well. What If I cannot do this?

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is tumbling down and the debris is finally threatening to fall upon me as well, to break me from this protection, and I'm here, waiting, anxious and afraid, looking up bricks and bodies and hopes and dream fall down around me, saying over and over, "Please not this time. Please do not let this fall upon me. Please not this time."

This just in:

And it totally made my day!
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Broke Broke Broken

It would be just my fucking luck to find a working polaroid camera in the absolutely looks awesome edition for 5 dirt cheap dollars at the flea market like an angel from heaven lighting up the sky with golden clouds and harps

AND

for them to start ACTUALLY retailing the film again after what feels like YEARS of nonproduction and trolling eBay to watch the bids go higher and higher into fucking obscurity

AND

for me to actually be able to get film at a relatively decent price in perfect condition with THE most beautiful swoon inducing boner giving boxes

AND

to use one pack which is a MEASLY 8 pictures to discover that I absolutely full heartedly and quite sincerely LOVE. AND I MEAN LOVE the pictures

ONLY TO FUCKING JAM IT AND EFFECTIVELY BREAK IT.

I'm obviously very upset over this.

How?

The question I'm left with, now that I have finally begun what might actually be considered wedding planning, is how do I begin to know where to start and/or how to choose?

While I have these sorts of thoughts about all sorts of things (invitations, ribbons, flowers, colors) I'm going to talk about the impending D.

The Dress.

My earliest memories of planning out my wedding dress are from 7th grade. I was like 11. It probably started earlier than that though.

I would walk to and from science class with my friend Logan probably ENDLESSLY boring him with talk of bell sleeves and velvet (I know, right, wtf?!). I even remember the feeling of being in a school hallway, everyone pushing past us, and holding out one arm, with the other brushing it along in that entirely feminine and girly way to signify how I wanted the sleeves to fall.

In my disgustingly ugly taste I probably wanted something that looked like this:

From there my tastes changed (thank god). I went through a Sailor Moon lookalike phase where I swore I wanted my dress to look like this:

I even remember drawing sketches my freshman year of high school to put into my binder. I won't even consider embaressing myself and putting the scans up.

And as I grew up I even started opposing the idea of marriage. I still wanted a dress.

I'd secretly buy wedding magazines and pull pages of dresses I liked. My dream dress is still this multi-layered tulle with assymetrical roses on the skirt ball gown. I'd never wear it but I'll never stop loving it. It was quite honestly my first love of an actual dress. It used to make my heart race.

So here I am. A girl that's whole-heartedly getting married with an approximately medium sized budget considering what to wear to my own wedding.

Now that push has come to shove I'm at a complete loss.

People buy several homes in a lifetime, several cars in a lifetime, more pairs of shoes than most can probably even count, but some people will only ever buy one wedding dress. And for those that aren't true believers in the marriage forever concept you can't very well argue that there will only ever be one first wedding. One first dress for one first wedding. I imagine it to be like a drug high, there's never any as good as the first. Or sex, as bumbling, embaressing, or horrible it is, the memory of your first time having sex will always be there.

One wedding dress.

One wedding dress on a moderate budget.

One wedding dress on a moderate budget that will satisfy over two decades of dreaming and fantasizing.

And I guess you can argue that it doesn't REALLY matter, and I see that it doesn't. I would happily agree to wearing a pantsuit or potato sack if it was the only way I could marry Adam. I know that Love is the most important aspect and the exciting prospect of spending the rest of my life with him. Really, I completely understand that. But... I mean... I only get to do this once. I don't think I'm being unreasonable.

There's advice everywhere for "brides on a budget" that they are their groom should make a list of things that are most important to them for teh wedding so that way, as long as the top of the list is attended to, they won't feel like they're falling short. Or it isn't everything of their dreams. I'm a list maker, I practically did this before happening upon the advice. For me, in the scope of my whole life, the things that are and have always been most important to me about a wedding are:

1. The groom. He had to be my prince-charming, Mr. Darcy, Mr. SecretAgentMan, and so much more all tied into one.
2. The dress. Ah, the dress.
3. My family (my immediate, special, actually liked part of my family) being there with me, just as happy as me, just as happy for me, and beaming.

So, to sum up everything I've just said:

My dress is important. So how do I go about making such a big deciscion? I can't very well only be partially satisfied.

How do I find the dress of my dreams? Will I know the moment I put it on? Will it hit me suddenly and magnificently? Will it be a slow realization of a growing love and adoration?

I don't doubt that most dresses I try on will be beautiful, but will they be special enough? Will they be captivating? How do I finally commit, make the big jump, and after waiting and planning and hoping for so long pick just one dress?

Finding someone to marry may seem difficult enough but hell, there's all that time dating before hand. Dating is (obviously) like a marriage test-run. If they're no good you dump them, you find someone new and better and just a little more perfect. The same thing goes for homes and car and bad outfits. You have time to feel it out.

This dress? It's a move it or lose it type of deal. You get one shot. You don't have marriage test runs or dress rehearsals.

You have The Day, you have The Aisle, you have The One waiting there for you, seeing you for the first time in all of your weding day regalia. So picking and choosing The Dress is no small deal. I feel like on my wedding day I want to look like what I would look like in Perfect World.

How?

Should have stayed for the sunset

As a break from my Spain trip vacation pictures -athon that I'm sure is boring you mindless (I didn't post Barcelona/the end of my trip last night because I was too lazy)

I wanted to say that I've never been a Pearl Jam kind of person. In fact, I'm not sure if I've heard or even LISTENED to many Pearl Jam songs at all

but for some reason

something inside of me has always responded to:

I waited all day.
you waited all day
 but you left before sunset
and I just wanted to tell you the moment was beautiful.
Just wanted to dance to bad music
drive bad cars
watch bad TV
should have stayed for the sunset...

if not for me.

Sometimes I want to get into trouble. Sometimes I want to be bad. Sometimes there's something inside of me begging to be let go.

Cause I'm wild.