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[25 Feb 2008|11:00pm] i've had a very deja vu sort of week.  so twice in five days, i've found myself standing in line for over an hour, in the relative cold (it is february, after all, so i guess it could be worse, but my hands were still numb), and i've had video cameras pointed at me both times.  i haven't found out if i ended up on tv or anything from saturday, but i most definitely ended up on german tv looking like an idiot from monday :\ so last monday, ryan and i headed up to nyc for the first of tokio hotel's gigs there.  i was super stoked, and it was everything i had thought it would be.  we just went straight up to the balcony and avoided all of the craziness in the pit, which was probably for the best... yeah, my pictures and videos were from far away, but i was able to record a good part of the show and watch it live at the same time (usually i have to pay attention to what i'm actually recording since i get jostled around too much, but then i miss most of the details that a little camera can't capture).  but backing up a bit, we drove up monday morning, grabbed something to eat once we got there (which i couldn't finish - combination of nerves and watching the humane society footage of the downed cows on the news :( ), then we walked over to the fillmore to get in line at 5:00.... which was our home for the next two hours of our lives.  we were only in sweatshirts so we wouldn't have to deal with coatcheck, so yeah, pretty cold.  and then it started raining.  and we were only about 20 feet from an awning (if we had only gotten there half an hour earlier!).  by time they started letting people in and we got to walk through the gauntlet of cameramen encouraging everyone to scream their little fangirl hearts out, i was good and frozen, so my 3 seconds of fame on german tv involve me basically looking very non-enthused.  meh.  the jungen more than made up for any embarrassment i'm feeling now though :) and then this saturday, i went out to the dc armory to go to the roller derby...  i've been a couple of times when it was at the dulles sportsplex, which i always thought drew a pretty good crowd for a relatively-obscure sport like roller derby, but that was nothing compared to the dc bout.  there was seriously sooo many more people than normal, and i found myself in yet another line for over an hour while they tried to get everyone in the doors.  so less people screaming that time, but still, yet another line, yet more video cameras documenting the insanity.  so hopefully those were just for local news, never to be seen again, and not something that's on washingtonpost.com or something. we fit in a lot of travel last year, and it looks like we've got at least three trips in the works for this year - two possible trips back up to michigan, and a possible trip to europe, and then wherever else we end up going for weddings this year.  in the meantime, a quick recap of the trips from the end of last year, featuring my favorite adjective, naturlich: -new orleans - awesome, rode a mechanical bull on bourbon street, saw some crazy vegetation during our drive through the swamps -outer banks - awesome, although drinking + motion sickness after the wedding reception = a not very fun drive home the next day -california - awesome, ate at a garlic-themed restaurant in san francisco, went to alcatraz, had a nice liquid lunch in napa valley -holland, mi - definitely not awesome, got horribly sick and didn't leave the couch for the entire trip besides the travel stuff, i've been riding a new horse now (a big ole foundation QH, he's pretty fun, except he's built pretty downhill and he likes to trip and freak me out that he's going to somersault over on me someday), and i'm also in my third class towards my certificate now, and, of course, i'm already behind in the assignments.  i was ahead for roughly a week this time, though, so that's at least a small improvement.  we've also been working on the condo for the last couple of months, and as soon as we finish getting it cleaned up and move most of our stuff out of it, it's going on the market (anyone want to buy a one-bedroom condo in sterling?).  so that's been a huge time suck, but the end goal is to get out of the rental business, so once we finish fixing up and selling two of the places over the next couple of years (hopefully), life should be a little bit more simplified, on that front at least.  and just to keep things interesting, ryan and i, both fans of meat, have decided that we are going vegetarian for the next month.  for no reason, really, except because we can ;)  post comment

overly-ambitious post [16 Sep 2007|11:31pm] [ music | Kaizers Orchestra - Den Sjette Sansen ] this has been the most fun but also most insanely busy summer i've had in years, perhaps forever. i finished my first class towards my certificate, and the second one just started this week. i just realized that i can put some of these classes towards an mba from mary washington, so the plan right now is to do that... eventually. it probably won't be for a few more years, but at least that's something i can list under "goals" for my work performance evaluation to show that i'm dedicated to my career path ;) speaking of which, work is going much better now. i still have so much to learn, but at least i'm not completely overwhelmed like i was the first few months, so i'm enjoying it a lot more now. i've also discovered that sudden-death mini golf is much more fun when i win... or, given that i haven't actually won yet, at least if i don't lose by as much i did this year. ryan won both games in our third annual sudden-death mini golf tournament last weekend (i.e., our dating anniversary), so there's at least a definitive winner this year. no tieing like we did the first year, or me feeling bad for ryan last year and letting my guard down because he was sick (i was so schooling him until i noticed how sad and pathetic he looked). i even got to show a couple of times this summer.  i took bandit in a couple of showmanship classes and a trail class and we had a perfectly respectable showing (one 2nd and two 3rd's) for it being the first time he competed in these classes.  and then, right after the second show, the lease finally fell apart on bandit and rita (as i always suspected it eventually would). but the owners basically found me a new horse to lease, who is turning out to be pretty awesome. as far as i can tell, she was only cowboyed around on before, but within two rides, she was already turning into a completely different horse. that's the biggest difference i've ever had in a horse i've been working with, so it's pretty exciting. i told ryan the other week that it's too bad we're not in a different place in our lives (i.e., already have kids and living in our dream house with the horse and skate park set-up), since i'd totally want to buy her. so, this has been the year of the weddings for ryan and me.  we've been to five weddings so far, and only have two more to go.  the last two are in lafayette, la, and the outer banks - both places (and even states) i've never been to before, but in another month and a half's time, i'll have been to both of them :)  the louisiana trip is just about planned now - we're going to stay a couple of nights in new orleans before heading over to lafayette for the wedding, so i'm super stoked about that.  just need to figure out what to go see while we're there, and then i also have to start planning the outer banks trip pretty soon. and now onto the pictures part of this post... ( time to get your picture pages ) post comment

finally [17 Jun 2007|11:33pm] [ mood | accomplished ] [ music | Fall Out Boy - Hum Hallelujah ] in case anyone else besides me was curious, this is how much my hair can grow in a year ( if it's not cut: ) i'm also finally caught up on my schoolwork (yep, i'm going back to school for a govt contracting and procurement certificate), so hopefully i can finish up on my pictures and post about our london/barcelona trip soon.  amazing how far behind i feel, and we were only gone for 10 days... but i guess that doesn't take into consideration the weeks of planning and now the post-trip cleanup of updating the budget, labeling pictures, cleaning up the condo, etc. post comment

ew. [19 Apr 2007|11:43pm] [ mood | tired ] [ music | Rehasher - Surrender ] my great accomplishment of redoing my second ear piercing isn't going so well... it just got infected, which is what happened the last time too, but oh well, at least it's not that bad (yet). i sort of expected it, seeing as how it was completely closed. but fueled by some tylenol III with codeine, i thought it would be a brilliant idea to reopen it anyway, blood be damned. i also thought it would be a brilliant idea to do my taxes while on the tylenol III, and ended up owing the government some $$ and also finding out i had "overcontributed" to my ira (turns out that's what happens when you're married and filing separately - we fixed that now). and why am i making rather dumb decisions while on pain meds? see exhibit a: that was my car. it died a rather undignified death about a month and a half ago when someone decided that reaching into the backseat for a diet coke was more important than making sure he didn't run into someone (i.e., me) waiting at a red light. and while it was very kind of him to then offer me said diet coke, i wasn't in the mood for it a) because it's diet coke, and b) because he JUST RAN INTO MY CAR because of it. grr. but at least i saw him coming so i was able to turn my wheel to try to get out of the way. i didn't actually get anywhere powered by my own car (it was a protege, after all - flooring it was just a suggestion for it to begin moving sometime in the near future), but when he hit me at 35mph, he just shot me across the other lane and up the curb instead of crushing my car against the minivan in front of me. fun stuff. also fun are the headaches i've been getting nearly every day since the accident. apparently a concussion and whiplash will do that to you. the headaches were pretty debilitating at first, but i've made it a few days off my meds without getting bad headaches, so that's an improvement at least. so yeah, my car was totaled and i ended up getting a brand spanking new (to me) 2003 toyota corolla. while i'm sad about saying good-bye to the protege (i was planning to get another 4 years out of it!), i do love the new car. 2 comments|post comment

cold. [18 Feb 2007|09:17pm] [ mood | cold ] [ music | Green Day - J.A.R. ] i am very cold right now.  i haven't felt warm all day, although i'm hoping the wine will start helping soon.  this is the worst part of winter to me - i don't mind driving in snow that much, ice isn't that bad either, now that i can work from home, but the deep-down body cold is miserable.  and even more so since it's happening more often than normal... up until the ice storm this week, i've still be going riding at least once a week without an indoor arena even.  so every time i'd come home with the deep-down body cold which would disturbingly make the outside of my thighs freezing cold even after an insanely-hot shower. valentine's day was good this year.  because of the ice storm, ryan and i both worked from home, which was an added-bonus to be able to look across the room and see him all day :)  then that night we went out to chick-fil-a, then border's to get me "what is the what" (love dave eggers), total wine to get ryan some fancy english pub ale, and finally starbucks to get me a chai tea.  that's the kind of valentine's day i like - no over-the-top expectations and just being slightly indulgent enough to make the day more special than normal.  we also recently got my wedding and engagement rings soldered together, although that was more of a belated christmas present.  but what a difference it makes!  i just wanted the rings to spin around together rather than being all cockeyed and wonky separately, and instead i can wear my rings where a normal person would (at the base of my finger instead of pushed up to my knuckle to make them stay put) and the spinning has lessened considerably.  pretty cool. one of the projects that i've had on the backburner for a couple of years now is to convert my vhs tapes to dvd, and i'll finally be sending off all my horse show tapes this week to be converted.  i went through some of my other tapes, though, and was a little freaked out at the fact that i was waxing nostalgic about the videos i had taped off mtv when i was in middle school and high school... and the fact that i still listen to the exact same music, or at least bands that are very similar in sound with few exceptions.  so i got sucked into watching green day at woodstock in '94 and old rancid videos, etc., then promptly downloaded a bunch of music that defined my high school years to me, only to realize that all of those cds were released between 1994 and 1995.  those two years are what determined my musical tastes to this day, which i'm starting to realize i will not be growing out of soon.  i know i've read that the high school years are supposed to be formative in developing lifelong musical preferences, but it almost seems like my tastes haven't matured at all since then (is it fast poppy punk?  yes?  then i like it), and may have even regressed, as evidenced by my tokio hotel obsession. post comment

one resolution complete [02 Jan 2007|09:41pm] [ mood | cheerful ] [ music | Lady Sovereign and The Ordinary Boys - Girls Will Be Girls ] today was my first day at my new job.  after deciding to remove myself from a far-from-ideal situation at my last job, i am now working for a certain large defense company writing subcontracts.  i only went on one interview this time around, but after i was offered what certainly sounds to be my dream job, i called off the job search (and canceled an interview with sprint) after less than three weeks.  i still can't get over the insane job market here, but no complaints.  so i'm now working closer to home (with the option to telecommute), working fewer hours for more pay, with an office, laptop and support staff, and the chance to learn government contracts... not to mention some cah-razy benefits, so it looks like i may be going back to school (at least online) for free in the not-so-distant future.  between this and ryan landing an awesome new job, 2007 is looking to be a good year... of course, in the back of my mind i'm worried about what negative things will be coming up soon, since things are going so well for us right now.  maybe las cucharachas will come back, that would not be cool :( i did learn in my job search that i apparently can't pronounce "analyst".  that should have taken me out of the running for a contracts analyst position from the outset, but i didn't realize that i couldn't say it until i was trying to leave a voicemail for the hiring manager.  so i started leaving a message, said the word "analyst" (pronounced "a-NAL-ist" - hello, emphasis on the wrong syllable) and realized something sounded seriously wrong.  so i tried again.  and again.  then my stomach dropped, i panicked, said "oh god" and randomly hit #, hoping it would bring me to the menu since this wasn't the normal voicemail system that gives the options upfront regarding sending or reviewing messages.  after a long pause (for dramatic effect, apparently), i was given the option to review my message, which i didn't want to do, but it was at least better than sending the message.  so i had to listen to my voicemail, which wouldn't have been my favorite thing to do anyway (i sound like a boy), but then i got the added bonus of hearing my voice go from smooth confidence to sheer panic... funny now, not so funny then.  so i finally was given the option to delete my message, which i did, gladly.  i then wrote out "analyst" phonetically, practiced it a few times, and called back, leaving a killer message... and then never heard back from the guy.  oh well, it's probably for the best anyway - how unprofessional would it have been if i had to put a post-it on my computer with my job title written phonetically on it? 1 comment|post comment

picture/video catch-up post [12 Nov 2006|10:31pm] [ music | Lady Sovereign - Ch-Ching ] so, in the last almost four months since i last updated, i did the following: -became obsessed with lady sovereign (thanks to ohnotheydidnt) -celebrated my 26th birthday with lots and lots of cake -attended brett and nercole's wedding -had our wedding reception -found a horse to lease -survived my fifth year of volunteering at the 4-h state championship horse show -became obsessed with tokio hotel (also thanks to ohnotheydidnt) -realized that ryan and i have been married for six months already (although i did just tell him he failed at marriage since he forgot what shoulder my tattoo is on) -got upgraded to an office at work related to the last item above, i don't really feel like writing, so this will just be a big picture post. i'm taking my boss' departure pretty hard (hence, the office opening up), and i'm pretty drained right now. ( so, pictures it is. ) EDIT: just kidding - no office for me :( post comment

best conversation ever [22 Jul 2006|01:21am] [ mood | amused ] [ music | Tom Petty - Yer So Bad ] ryan, singing and playing on computer: even odds. eee-ven odds. even odds.* stacey: what *are* you doing, ryan? ryan: what am i always doing? wiggling windows and singing. true enough. * lest you think ryan really has completely gone off his rocker, this was in reference to the 50% chance that it will rain tomorrow during nercole's bachelorette/brett's bachelor parties. so that explains the what, but not the why. 9 comments|post comment

no one warned me about the emails... [21 Jun 2006|11:22pm] [ mood | distressed ] [ music | Basement Jaxx - Lucky Star ] i accomplished a great deed last night - i finally consolidated several old email accounts into my spiffy new email account reflecting the new last name. that was about eight years' worth of emails that were either popped or manually forwarded... and then when all those thousands of messages safely arrived at their new home, i then had to go through and label them all. luckily, gmail is awesome and cut the labelling probably in half by threading messages. love that. so ocd as that was, it's nice to have them all in one place now, i just didn't realize it would take sooo long. there's more cut out to this whole name-changing thing than i realized. we did just get our marriage certificate last week, so i mailed that out to social security for a new card, and then i think i'm going to try to hang out at the dmv next week to get that straightened out. and then it's just consolidating/adding each other to our bank accounts and credit cards, changing beneficiaries, and updating all of my account info for everything... oy. after a restful day or two once we got back from the honeymoon, we also had to get right back into wedding planning. invitations for the reception in wv will hopefully be going out this weekend, and then we really need to figure out what else we need to plan for that. it's sad looking at the hawaii pictures and thinking about how we only got back about a month ago, and yet the chest pains and being stressed out about everything is back in full force again. oh, and i haven't been to the gym in over a month, and i'm still PAYING FOR IT. that goes against everything i believe in... but oh well. all of the wedding stuff will be over soon enough, and then i'm sure i'll wish we could do it all over again :) post comment

wedding recap [29 May 2006|11:10pm] [ mood | happy ] [ music | Green Day - Do Da Da ] ryan and i are back from hawaii, so, a couple of changes are in store. besides the obvious (WE'RE MARRIED), i got myself a new last name, and... it's time ryan got to be ryan on my journal :) i think i've confused enough people for long enough with the "glen" codename, although i still have a certain fondness for his namesake, glen burnie, md (even though i've still never been there). so...hawaii was absolutely amazing, and far exceeded what i had even expected. the ceremony turned out better than i had hoped for... the officiant played the hawaiian wedding song as i came up to ryan, which was awesome, and we were very happy with everything he said and the vibe in general (which was a point of concern, since i didn't even meet or discuss the ceremony with him until about an hour before it started - the possibility of him singing included). too bad i hardly remember anything else about the ceremony yet - i'm waiting to watch the video once it gets here :) i do know i wasn't a hysterical mess like i was afraid i would be - i think it also helped that i had a BUG in my EYE for the ENTIRE freaking ceremony!! that certainly served as a good distraction, because it flew into my eye right when i was coming up to the cove and the adrenaline was really starting. so instead of just getting myself worked up, i got to focus on getting this stupid bug out of my eye, although i eventually had to settle with "well, at least it's not bothering me so much right now" instead of getting it out, because it was not budging... until midway through the sunset pictures after the ceremony, when ryan was able to pull out the not-so-tiny quite-dead bug. ech. everything turned out perfectly... i think that even the things that i was worried about or that weren't fully planned (or that actually went flat-out wrong, like our first attempt at having a surfing lesson) ended up better than if i had been trying for the actual outcome. it was crazy to see our friends and family out of context (there were so many moments the first couple of days that i was like, "how did we all end up in hawaii?!"), but it was also really awesome to have this experience to share with them. it's been since michigan (or college, if living on campus counts) that i've been able to walk down the street and come across people i knew, so i was pretty stoked about that... although i was recognizing people thousands of miles away from home, so that was a bit bizarre :) so many good memories came out of those two weeks in paradise, so here's a quick rundown... pictures will have to wait for now, since it took me forever and a half just to write this entry, but i will try for a picture post soon. -our first sight of oahu rising out of the ocean after hours of clouds and water -the $2.25 breakfast places that we ate at every morning in waikiki... yeah, food was not that cheap on kauai. $7 box of cereal, anyone? -dancing on the beach after we said our vows to the minister singing and playing guitar -our first sight of pretty much anything... mountains, water, horses, chickens, you name it, it was all exciting in its own way :) -waking up after my massage in honolulu... i was all groggy until i sat up and saw my reflection for the first time after the scalp massage portion. my hair was completely frizzed out about 5 inches all around my head, which freaked me out and woke me up pretty damn fast. -the picture dump song. this is one of the few songs of my own creation, and since we did so many picture dumps onto the laptop, it was kind of borne out of necessity (it goes something like this: "picksha dump, picksha dump, picksha picksha picksha dump!" sung to the tune of tootsie roll...? i don't even know. ryan had to do a dance whenever he sang it, which was pretty awesome.) -creating our own "hawaiian standard time"... which was pretty much defined by sunsets. dinner always waited until after 8:00, and for pretty much every day on kauai, we went to a different beach to watch the crazy gorgeous sunsets. -all my "moments". i was pretty much an emotional wreck for the first few days after the ceremony, and i cried nearly the whole way to kauai, excusing each time away as me "having a moment"... tears of happiness, of course, but still sort of weird :) -chickens. there's a lot of chickens on kauai, and i did not necessarily like them at all after the first day or two. -our first taste of the heaven known as guava juice. i definitely would've been down with going to the guava plantation on kauai every day just for some guava juice. we settled with going through gallons of pass-o-guava juice... soooo good. -ryan getting soaked while taking a picture of the sunset our first day in poipu, kauai. we were down at brennecke's beach and he was crouching down on the rocks getting a picture, but also getting waaay into "photography mode", so i found it very funny when a wave came up and completely soaked him. and yes, he has a picture of that moment too :) post comment

almost there! [04 May 2006|11:20pm] [ mood | excited ] [ music | AFI - Paper Airplanes ] the last month has been more of a whirlwind than i was expecting... but the end result is that wedding planning is as done as it can get before we are actually in hawaii, and and we have three days to spare! so everything's pretty much set, we just need to pack and try not to get too sick before we go. glen just came down with something involving a lot of excess mucus this week, and i just got the beginnings of a sore throat. not cool. trying to get more sleep and drink more liquids doesn't seem to be working out - i thought i would get a good night's sleep last night with the relief of getting our vows done, but instead i slept poorly the whole night and was awake from about five o'clock on, being a little bundle of nerves about the wedding and work. i'm feeling just a bit stretched thin... i usually only have one night a week i actually go straight home after work, but with working late nearly every day for weeks on end, and going to the gym and tanning afterwards, i don't eat dinner until after 8:30 most nights. it will be nice to get things back to normal, although i'll also miss all the planning and hubbub, in some sadistic sort of way :) tomorrow's going to be another rough day as i keep trying to finish everything up at work before i leave, but it will be so worth it to head out of there tomorrow night and know that i will be in hawaii within two days... and married in six days (SIX DAYS!) :) post comment

fligon flogan [20 Mar 2006|12:08pm] [ mood | good ] so, i broke my promise to myself... we bought our tickets to hawaii a few months ago, and i swore i wouldn't look at prices obsessively like i normally do (still checking ziprealty.com every week or so to see the comps for my condo type... a year and a half after i bought my place). i was doing splendidly up until last week, when i clicked on a link on travelocity for flights from IAD to HNL for $400something... almost half of what we paid. :( and finally... invitations have gone out! thank god. and my taxes are done, except for i forgot to bring my w-2 to work to send along with federal, so i'll have to wait until tomorrow to actually mail them out. and i've finally started painting the cabinets we got from my neighbor months ago as well, so all in all, a very busy and productive weekend :) 2 comments|post comment

life is like oregon trail [17 Mar 2006|06:46pm] [ mood | sick ] [ music | Mythbusters ] sometimes it feels like life is a little like oregon trail... not the version popular during the late eighties (since i always died within a few minutes on that one), but more like version three (which is far superior to version five, in my opinion). before i switched to the non-oregon trail-compatible mac, i actually finished that game multiple times (something i didn't believe was even possible when i was in elementary school), ending with increasingly more money and land. i feel like even more of a dork for bragging about dork stuff, but there you go. anyway, so whenever someone gets dysentary/breaks a leg/encounters a sandstorm/overturns the wagon, one of the options is always "rest for ___ days". even though i usually set a brisk pace, i've learned that you do, occasionally, need to rest if you don't want to kill off all of your characters. and that's what it sometimes comes down to in real life... i go go go go, until my body finally says "enough!" and it's time to rest for ___ days. so that was my day today. had an overly caffeine-dependent week and then felt terrible at work today. but i made it all the way through until 6:00, and then spent my st. patty's day in front of the tv watching the o.c. and bridezillas (getting ideas ;) while glen was out celebrating being irish. doh. so, invitations and taxes are finally done... but not quite. i just need to check over my taxes one more time before i submit them because they seemed deceptively easy this year. invitations took waaaaay longer than i anticipated they would, but they look completely awesome at least. too bad they're still sitting unmailed, because the stamps i ordered from the post office still haven't come in. i've been waiting a week now, and getting more and more antsy every day they're not here... the snorer has been gone for a couple of weeks now, and it's nice to not have anyone underneath us for a while... i'm almost used to sleeping without the pink noise going now. my neighbors turned out to be really nice - we went down and talked to them for a while one of the last nights they were there. too bad i didn't realize that during the previous year and a half... i just knew them as the people who snored (never did figure out who it was - i'm starting to think it was the woman now too) and the ones who didn't believe they had to dispose of their own junk mail (seriously. they would just take it out of their mailbox and leave it in an ever-growing pile on the stairs until glen and i kept putting it back on their doormat until they finally stopped). the reason we were talking to them is because she hit my car though. apparently having a bigass space wasn't enough for her, and she backed into my car the day before she moved out. so i went into panic mode since i was afraid i'd never track her down again, but it's all okay now. she just scraped off a little paint on my bumper (didn't even dent it), so her insurance paid for my bumper to get repainted. i was even more excited about this, though, since that meant that the scratches that were there when i got my car would also be fixed. who knew that i would just have to wait four years and i could get it taken care of for free... now all i need is for my missing hub cap (for almost two years now) to magically be replaced as well :) post comment

cake tastings = blah [15 Feb 2006|01:42pm] [ mood | busy ] well, the good times have already come to an end at the gym... we got booted from using the (free!) gym at glen's work, so now we're trying to find another "magical membership fee" place to go. we actually made it there twice a week for an hour or so for the past three weeks, so we were even being good and sticking with it :( in other news, THE SNORER IS MOVING OUT!! thank god. of course, the next people who move in downstairs could be even more obnoxious, but i think i could deal better with louder music or something during the day more so than all the snoring at night. it will be nice to not have to play some pink noise on the computer just to drown it out every night so i can actually sleep. we are less than three months away from the wedding now, and while we're getting all excited about helicopter rides and surfing on the honeymoon, we came crashing back down this weekend when we did a couple of cake tastings. neither of us are too in to cakes, but it seems like we should have a few traditional things since we're doing away with so many others. so we buckled down, made appointments at two different places, and went for it. we learned a couple of really important things: not getting enough sleep and then heading out early to drive an hour and a half to eat cake at 9:30 in the morning, and then alternating throughout the day with cake and caffeine to stay awake (especially after we crashed from our sugar highs) leads to feeling like complete and utter crap. we ended up really liking one of the people we met with, and i sent out the deposit to her yesterday, so at least that's taken care of. and good thing, too, since there was absolutely no way that we were willing to go through that again. you'd think that eating a ton of cake for free would be fun, but we got caked-out and just exhausted pretty quickly. but then it was also amazing to see how quickly we perked up once we got some real food in us (yeah, going on only cake, icing, and fondant until 6:00 at night is not a good thing). so while i feel like i should be relishing this whole wedding-planning experience since i'm not planning on doing this ever again, i also know without a doubt that i would happy with never doing another cake tasting... although we somehow managed to eat cake for breakfast the next morning despite everything ;) 2 comments|post comment

First resolution met... [23 Jan 2006|09:28pm] [ mood | bouncy ] [ music | Lagwagon - Billy Club ] i met one of my new year's resolutions today... i worked out in an actual gym. well, maybe not an actual gym, but closer than what i've been to previously. glen and i went to the gym at his office, and i proceeded to work out for an hour or so, pretty much the entire time with my pout face on. i'm not at all a fan of working out, but whatever. when i'm so pathetically weak that i can't even curl 15 pounds, i'm thinking it's time to start working on my muscles (or lack thereof). so we're going to try to go a couple of times a week, and then i have my insaaaaane yoga class on thursdays, so that's good. now that i'm not riding (again), i obviously can't rely on that for exercise. last friday was my one-year anniversary at my job... i'm pretty excited about making it to the year milestone. i know that's such a short time, but at this place it's a bit more of an accomplishment from anywhere else i've been before, since people can seriously get burnt out so quickly here. i've learned an incredible amount in the last year, and yet i realize i've barely even seen the tip of the iceberg. i'm also pretty damn happy about my raise... i had forgotten about one of the best parts of an annual review, since it's been a couple of years since i've been able to have one. as i so eloquently put it when my manager told me how much my raise would be, "i like money." yeehaw... go me. so, glen and i were thisclose to being done with fixing up the condo, and then my neighbor had to go and try to throw out her kitchen cabinets. glen was finally going to have a word with her about putting garbage out on saturdays (why is it so hard to remember?! trash day is NOT ON SATURDAY!), but we turned into trash scavengers pretty quickly when we realized she was about to drag a length of cabinets down the stairs. not just any cabinets, but the crappy ones that perfectly match the ones that i painted and made look pretty in our kitchen. we were waiting for someone to throw away theirs so we could hang some more above the oven and fridge to help alleviate the fact that our cabinet space is pa-the-tic. so now we have them sitting in the living room while we collect all the supplies so i can once again go through the hell that is painting cabinets... i was hoping to not have to do that again (especially since i just realized i'm out of white paint! doh. i hate to buy a whole other gallon just for this), but it will definitely be worth it in the end. and they'll be much prettier than they are right now (orange. only minus the shellac that my cabinets had, at least). now that the holidays are over, we're back into wedding planning full force. glen now has a list of 7 or 8 people to call to make reservations with, from hotels on kauai (one of them has an orchard and garden that we're encouraged to pick from - yay for fresh avocados for every meal!!) to surfing lessons to ziplining. i'm working on researching our helicopter ride next, and also figuring out hair and makeup (good god, it's expensive). then it's on to some cake tasting, and hand-writing the invitations for the ceremony, and, and, and... blah. while i'm starting to get way more excited about everything, there's also just a million things to do, and only about three and a half months to do most of them in. i've already had several dreams about the hawaii portion of the wedding, and it mostly had to do with me not getting stuff done, like getting my dress altered or having my hair styled (or even brushed). when the anxiety-inducing dreams start up, that's my cue to get moving on the planning. hopefully things will feel more under control in another couple of weeks, and i can start sleeping a bit better. oh, and maybe cutting out eating like crap and drinking too much caffeine will help me too. 2 comments|post comment

fuck. [06 Jan 2006|11:41am] [ mood | irate ] i've been in denial the last few months about my jaw. i knew my bite was opening up again, i knew my teeth didn't look right, and yet i still convinced myself that things were okay. my first real inkling that things were about to get messy was after my last orthodontic appointment, when i got brackets put back on my right back teeth so i could wear bands on that side too. with the bands holding my jaw more stable, i realized that while i could technically touch my teeth on both sides, they only touched well on the right in my normal resting position, and i had been shifting my jaw over to the left in order to get the teeth to meet there - so basically, both sides of my teeth could not meet up properly at the same time (they would at least touch, which is how i didn't notice it at first, but the biting surface was off). so i went to the orthodontist for the first time since i realized what was going on, and made sure that when i bit down, my teeth only touched on the right, since while that is my normal bite, my jaw usually swings around so much i don't always have it in the right place. the pit in my stomach got worse the longer my orthodontist looked at the left side of my teeth. when i asked, "they've opened up again, haven't they?", he threw his gloves down in frustration, giving me the answer i was afraid of. sooooooo.... here's the gist of it: braces need to go back on (FOR THE THIRD TIME!!), i may need surgery again depending on whether it's just my teeth that moved or my jaw too, and then i'd be facing a lot of retainer work and other stuff to try to keep my teeth in place when it's all over. again. did everyone catch all of that? braces back on, possible surgery. AGAIN. i feel like i just wasted the last two years of my life doing all this shit to my jaw, and to have to go through it again... i'm so upset about this. my orthodontist wanted me to schedule an appointment to put the braces back on, but i said 1) i'm not even sure if i want them back on, and 2) if they do go on, it won't be before the wedding (may 10). so i have a few months to mull this over, possibly get a second opinion, etc. he's worried about the lack of stabilization in my mouth, i'm worried about going through all of this again for naught. i pointed out the fact that every single time i've gotten braces off, my teeth have always opened up again on the left side. any guarantees that that won't happen again? none. what are the consequences if i just let my bite do what it's pretty clear it wants to? can't predict that, but probably would involve TMJ. i then pointed out that i'm already having problems with my jaw anyway (since i still can't open my mouth as wide as i used to be able to, and the muscles feel pretty tight on the left side), and since i'm (at least, now) very disappointed about my outcome from the last surgery(s), i don't really want to go through all of that again and have the tightness/numbness most likely get worse. he also mentioned that my overbite is getting worse again, and i should probably have one of my bottom left molars pulled. i'm starting to think that along with cutting off the side of my tongue (to keep it from pushing my teeth apart again and again and again), maybe i should just get all of my teeth taken out on the left side. if i don't have my own teeth there, they can't keep disappearing into my gums, right?!?! 4 comments|post comment

port is good [12 Dec 2005|08:15pm] [ mood | energetic ] [ music | Bright Eyes - Lover I Don't Have to Love ] this year really seems like the year of the sick for me. normally i get your average cold once each winter, but over the course of the last year, i've had some pretty nasty colds at least twice, plus various other milder sicknesses. when i started at my current job in january, i was so sick that i could barely talk between all the coughing. i really shouldn't have gone into work like that, but i didn't want to have to call in the first day(s)... ironically enough, i was afraid it would make a bad first impression, although in hindsight, i think it was much worse to have gone in at all when i was that bad off (especially since i got my new boss sick too). my next serious cold was the rib-bruising experience from a month or so ago. also terrible with all the coughing and feeling like absolute shit, but i've pretty much kicked that (finally). i had maybe two weeks when i was just coughing a little bit, but last week just completely wiped me out again. my manager was out sick the whole week, and it was pretty frightening to see how quickly i got worn-down on my own there. by tuesday, i was already so stressed out that i skipped yoga because i just wanted to come home and veg. by thursday morning, i had a sore throat and stuffed-up nose. on friday, i had the same but with the added bonus of being pretty zoned out and feeling like crap, so i went home "early" (an hour and 15 minutes earlier than normal, go me). sleeping until noon on saturday revived me enough that i felt pretty good at my work party that night, but this morning i was back to mouth-breathing and feeling very blah. at least i got out of donating blood today... i couldn't even stay healthy since i made my appointment last week, so i had to postpone it for a week. apparently you're not supposed to donate when you're sick. oops. in other news, my teeth are getting a bit more messed up again. i though the left side was touching pretty well (after separating again after surgery), but then came to realize that they only were touching when i had my jaw jutted over to the left. now that i'm wearing bands on the right side (yes, i now have a pair of brackets back on on each side. grr.), it's holding my jaw in place and it's clear that only one tooth is touching on the left again (not coincidentally, the one with the bands on). this wasn't overly apparent the last time i went to the orthodontist, so my visit in a couple of weeks should be interesting. i don't even know how i feel about this anymore. i got my braces off (supposedly) in february, and yet it keeps dragging on. i want my teeth to touch, but i'm also just getting so weary of this whole process. at least glen and i are heading for new york this weekend. yay!! :) glen did a little sweet-talking and got us in the same b&b in brooklyn we stayed at during the blackout... i was starting to panic, since it looked like we were going to be staying in jersey since everything in nyc either wasn't available or it was over $300/night. this time we're planning on taking the subway into manhattan rather than walking across any of the bridges, though, so hopefully my toes won't get destroyed again. who knew that ill-fitting shoes could almost make me lose my toenails? 8 comments|post comment

it's been awhile... [30 Nov 2005|11:24pm] [ mood | good ] [ music | The Living End - In The End ] sad that's been over a month since i last updated, and i feel like i haven't made much progress since my last entry. still working on the condo, although it's getting sooo close to being cleaned up finally. i finished the last of the filing a couple of days ago (combining our files was definitely not as fun as it sounds), so the christmas tree was able to go up, and is now mostly blocking the filing cabinet. and now, of course, i'm back to my never-ending struggle to make christmas ornaments. last year it was such a big deal, because it took me absolutely forever to finish any, and while i started out planning to finish the whole kit of six by christmas, i lowered my standards pretty drastically... and met my adjusted-goal of one ornament by the new year, but barely. so i'm starting to get into the christmas spirit, which was marked by putting up the christmas tree and asking glen to download some christmas music by me first and the gimme gimmes (there has to be some out there, right?!)... but that's as much as i'm feeling it for now, at least until new york!! i personally think there's nowhere better to be at christmas-time than nyc, so i aim to test that theory when we head back up there for glen's birthday in a couple of weeks. this will be the first time we've been back since the blackout in 2003, and since that was the first time i had ever been there, i'm definitely looking forward to actually seeing nyc as it normally is... so excited :) i went for my bi-annual haircut today, which turned out well (so far). my hair looks really cool right now, since it's all layered, textured, and flat-ironed into amazing straightness. i've never seen it this flat or smooth. i can just hear my mom's voice in my head telling me that i need "more volume!" ack. my hair is bouffant enough on it's own usually without trying to tease more volume into it. anyway, so it'll be interesting to see what happens when i take my shower tonight - will my hair be twice as curly and unmanageable in the morning? probably. so, in more embarrassingly news, i managed to fall asleep at the salon. not full-on sleeping, mind you, but a little bit of head-jerkiness and lots of convincing myself that i was only taking loooong blinks (which is one of the first signs that my body would really like to take a nap in an inappropriate place, such as a hair salon or work meetings :). just as i was congratulating myself on keeping myself awake (by pinching my legs*) without the stylist noticing, she busted me. doh. i guess the, um, closed eyes gave me away a little bit. but at least i made it all the way to the hair-drying stage! glen can get me in a catatonic state by just touching my hair, so i think i lasted pretty well, all things considering... *now that i think about it, i used to employ similar methods of staying awake during all the classes i almost slept through in college.  the worst, by far, was my honors english class with prof. wilkins.  the class was tiny (<10 people), we all sat in a circle, and i sat about two seats away from wilkins.  ever heard of him?  yeah, he's pretty effing brilliant and high up there (i even noticed his dad's name on a plaque in the museum under the lincoln memorial for civil rights issues).  i still cringe thinking about how sleeeepy i always was in there, and how wretched it was to be sitting there pinching my hands until they almost bled just so i could stay awake, take some notes, and not be so disrespectful :(  2 comments|post comment

blah [25 Oct 2005|08:49pm] [ mood | blah ] still not done with the condo, but at least we're getting closer. glen has started moving in more of his stuff, so now we're having to rearrange in addition to just cleaning up from the recarpeting, etc. the living room was still mostly covered in crap last friday, but after a harried hour or so of cleaning in anticipation of guests (?! a rare occurrence up to this point, but something that will hopefully change now that the place is getting more presentable again), all the mess has been reduced to about two piles. it will be such a relief when all the changes are done. we're finally starting to run out of projects, though - redoing the rest of the bathroom is next, and then hopefully we'll be able to relax and enjoy just living here for a while. wedding planning is going well. we've been in contact with our coordinator in oahu now, so we have our date, location, and other fun details figured out. we also scoped out a place for the reception, which is looking good so far. we were going to have the reception at glen's sister and brother-in-law's place in west virginia, but with the tent and other related rentals, it was going to cost $2500+. my mom happened to pick up a brochure for the jefferson county parks in west virginia, and after seeing the price ($125 for the basic all-day rental!!), we visited the park by glen's sister's place, and if we can get the date we want, it looks like that's also a go. i already have my dress and all of my accessories except for my something old and something borrowed, and next up is making all the travel arrangements, working on the invitations and prettying up my veil. although i'm still slightly stressed about all the planning that's still ahead of us, i'm actually enjoying it quite a bit now that we have more of a handle on everything. then again, i've had more time to devote to the wedding planning and condo stuff lately, since i've been nursing the cough-that-will-never-end for the last couple of weeks. i ended up having to stay home from work one day for a measly cold (which i probably should've taken a couple more days off) because i was just coughing so much... which i'm still bearing the reminder of, even now that i'm feeling better, since i think i managed to bruise my rib. so i've been having to take time off from yoga and riding to instead ruminate on how great it is that i'm managed to injure myself coughing. and meanwhile, while my cough and rib are slowly getting better, i noticed tonight that one of my thumbs was so swollen it looked like it was about to burst. i don't have the slightest idea what caused it, but it was very disturbing to see my thumb 2-3 times thicker than my other one. and that, my friends, is why the subject of this entry is "blah." 5 comments|post comment

massive update (with pictures!) [27 Sep 2005|09:11pm] [ mood | good ] [ music | Ann Beretta - Glory Bound ] way too busy - that's been my life during the last few weeks. i randomly got an email from the mother of the girl whose horse i used to lease (until ruby broke her leg and moved away to recover) offering me to lease her horse. i got along pretty well with imac for that month i was kinda sorta leasing him before (mainly because he's more agreeable and didn't try to buck or bite me every chance he got, unlike ruby), so i managed to finagle my way into a free lease. yes, indeed - i only have to pay for the gas to get there and back, and i get to ride for FREE twice a week now :) also on the horse front, i went down to lexington a couple of weeks ago to volunteer at the va 4-h state championship show - it's been four years now since i started volunteering there. who would've thought that i'd stick with it? especially since each year after the first i've always been so burnt out by the end. i go down there to work hard, but still, something about the 12 hour days gets a little tiring (and then i went back to the hotel and did real work i had brought too! not quite sure what in the world i was thinking), but this time there was a liberal dose of bitterness mixed in at the end too. last year i think i was slightly unhinged mentally, but this year i was just pissed off about being in charge of ribbons every single day. one or two shifts over the three days is fine, but this was all day, every day, at one ring for the duration of the weekend. oh, i got to do one other job at one point - i handled gates WHILE doing ribbons. gah! it got to the point where i just kept saying, "i'd be a whole lot nicer if i had some help!" until i finally got some relief. oh well, i'm still going back next year, if only to have an excuse to wear my ginormous belt buckle ;) and for some sick reason, i actually like doing this, despite the annoyances. still trying to figure that out. after floating around to different yoga classes in the area for the last year, i think i've finally found what i've been looking for. i started a new yoga class a couple weeks ago (yeah, pilates just wasn't cutting it for me), and the teacher is wonderful, the class is more my speed (helps that i moved up to level II), and the cool-down is kept to a minimum so i haven't fallen asleep in class yet :) i'm finally starting to remember what made me fall in love with yoga when i was first starting out with my wonderful teacher and studio in dupont - i was just surprised to find it through the county (not even mine) instead of some cute little studio i was convinced was tucked away somewhere in suburbia. haven't found it yet, but i'm happy where i am now. now onto what's really been taking up my time lately - ( the condo. ) 2 comments|post comment

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