Word Counts

The last time I had to write a paper with a 2,000 word count I was studying at St. Mary's University College in Twickenham, England. I spent one really long day in the computer lab hammering out details about the Wapping Dispute and how Rupert Murdoch got rid of the printing press unions. Since I had to write in the student computer lab I had to learn to live with the noise, or learn to work and listen to music. For whatever reason, I could only work while listening to Get Up Kid's "On A Wire." As I have been having many 2002 flashbacks lately (the year Adam and I met and the year I went to London), it seems only appropriate that I listen to On A Wire now as I attempt to write my final paper for my Liberal Studies class while I sit at my desk at work.

If only I could...

Buy this house...


Not that I am currently in the market to buy another house, but this house in particular is sentimental for me and my siblings.

It is the first house my brother lived when he finally moved out of our parent's basement.
My sister photographed this photo that made it into the pulse newspaper.


And I met my future husband.

35 Days.

The official countdown is 35 days until the wedding. Wow. In 5 weeks from today I will become an Arntson. Very weird to think and say. The name change aspect is going to be a frustrating couple of months to work all those details out, change the emails, bank accounts, SSN, driver's license, and not to mention every login/website that I have tied to my current email. At the same time, it's probably best to just cut the ties quickly and move on. No use prolonging the inevitable, the change is going to happen. Perhaps even the new blog I've been thinking about for 6 months will emerge. I'm still trying to think of a name for it. That is the hardest part (for me at least). I don't want to start something and then after getting into it realize I should have gone another route. Who knows what I'll do with myself for the rest of the summer post wedding. It's going to be very odd only have one class to deal with and no wedding. At least I can spend my time helping out with Janna's wedding in August. I'm looking forward to going to other people's weddings after I have my own. I will certainly have a newfound appreciation for all the details and the hard work. I may never criticize another wedding again, maybe.

OK, it's officially time for me to start my homework. It's going to be along afternoon- 7 assignments to write. At least I only have 2 weeks left of classes, that's 4 classes total. 2 presentations (both relatively short) and 1 paper. I can get through this!

Trying to relax

I'm getting married in 39 days. Thirty Nine days. Wow. I think we're in a pretty good place with things, but at the same time, are you ever really done planning a wedding? It seems like there is always something to do or figure it. After all its not like I've done this before. In fact I've never really planned an "event" before. I've planned a lot of other things, but not anything to this scale and never with my own money. Its all starting to feel surreal. I know its happening and very soon, its just hard to believe that after a year everything is coming together.

I know we still have some time before all the RSVP's are due back, but we're missing quite a few of them. I really do not want to have to call/contact everyone. I just hope people figure it out, otherwise postage is going up and I may never get them back.

I also have 3 more weeks of grad school. I really just need that to be over. That is too much for my head right now. I planned out when I'm going to get everything done, hopefully I can make it happen. I don't really have a choice, I'm literally running out of time!

And to my favorite Saved by the bell quote:
"Time, time, there's never any time!"

P-R-O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-A-T-I-O-N

I should be writing an outline, but it's easier to blog than it is for me to get theoretical right now, so I'm putting it off. I can't put it off for long since its already 11 and my eyes are getting droopy. I don't know how I justify this to myself. It's not going to be any easier to write in 10 minutes when I'm a little bit more tired. It's also not going to be any easier to get my head in the game with Adam coming in and asking questions every 3.5 minutes. Despite the fact that our wedding invitations have been sent out already, he is still working out his guest list. He keeps asking if he should invite people. I don't really care anymore and just tell him yes every time (shhh, don't tell him). Now I have just committed to getting up at 3am so he can check his blood sugar. Here's to a night of crappy sleep. I'm okay getting up for his health reasons, but the problem is he will keep hitting snooze because he doesn't remember why he set his alarm. I once had a night of sleep with his alarm going off every 10 minutes from 2am-4:30am. Needless to say I was a bit dis-oriented the next day. I was already tired today, so I will end up being tired the rest of the week and will probably be eating coffee grounds to stay awake by Friday.

I think the reason I started writing this was to try to get my head organized, but now I've been distracted by trying to find the mattress commercial where they eat coffee grounds and drink coffee right out of the pot to stay awake, and I can't even find it. Not like it's that good or anything, I just wanted to find it.

20 minutes later and I'm really getting tired and will half ass my assignment so I can try to get to sleep before midnight so I can catch a little sleep pre-3am alarm time. I hate that's its still Monday and I can already tell it's going to be one of those weeks.

All shook up.

Last weekend I spent the majority of Sunday relaxing, napping, not thinking. I was alert and ready to go for the rest of the week. Somehow I thought that would happen this week. I was wrong. Allergy season has hit me and my eyes just want to close. I had a wedding shower yesterday and everyone kept telling me how calm I was for a wedding coming up. Today- I am not so calm. For once, I feel like we have a good handle on the wedding stuff. But today my mind is wandering off to school and getting in shape. I haven't been running or lifting as much as I would like to lately and need to get that back in the routine. Of course, I opted not to run on lunch today which I will for surely regret later. I did get a chance to escape and enjoy what appears to be the official start of spring weather. In the meantime I am trying to deal with the end of the semester of school. I have one paper I need to write/revise. But I need to get my head around my topic and how I'm actually going to do it. I also have individual assignments and a group project to get done for my other class. The group project is putting my head in overdrive and it's just one more thing I can't deal with right now.

This week is off to a rough start, but here's to hoping the week improves and I don't have a nervous breakdown by Wednesday.

Concentration

It's 10 pm on a Saturday night. I am sitting in sweats doing homework-- or at least thinking about it. Thinking about how I do not have time to do it tomorrow so I have to get some done tonight. It is such an unsettling feeling thinking about everything yet not getting it all done. I'm also trying to watch the "Black Dahlia" which isn't quite a 'multi-tasking' kind of movie. I think I've already missed some crucial parts as I write this.

The official countdown is:
Classes over- 4 weeks, 26 days!
Wedding- 7 weeks, 49 days

Too close for comfort.

Wow. That was an awful sixty minutes. I grabbed my computers (yes 2 of them) and retreated to my bedroom to finish up my homework. I was reading my gmail and was stunned to read my "Orbitz TLC flight update." I didn't think much of it since my flight is not until June. I read it once and thought it must just be a general update. I read it again and realized it was telling me that I have a flight on a bankrupt airline that has been canceled and I need to, get a refund from my credit card and call another airline to get a new flight. I read it a couple of more times and consulted Adam to see what he wants to do. He was in the middle of a call of duty game and didn't seem to get the gist of what I was telling him. I just left him to his game and decided to call northwest first to get a new flight since we had a connecting flight with them. I spent an hour being put on hold and trying to get on the same page as the helpful saleswoman. Every time I was put on hold I would look up the flights she referenced only to see them being thousands of dollars more than what I paid originally. At one point I was actually crying on the phone to the woman that it was my honeymoon and I just wanted it to work out. Finally she came back on the line and told me we could have all new flights and it would only be a couple hundred more. All I care is that Hawaii is still going to happen and it's not going to break the bank to get there. This was just a jolt that I absolutely did not need. sigh.

It's two hours later and time to start my homework, again.

What? Say again please.

ATA airlines declared bankruptcy. What is my airline for my return flight from Hawaii? ATA. Who has canceled ALL of their flights? ATA.

The good news is that it our return flight, so worst case scenario, we get stuck in Hawaii.

Seriously, bankruptcy? I do not need this right now.

And there they go

I put our wedding invitations in the mail today. Or at least all of our families and mutual friends. Adam is still working on his friend list and still deciding who he wants to invite. I love the inter-workings of the male brain. It's fascinating and yet so frustrating at the same time. I had brought the invites with me last week to work so I could get them cut up, and it snowed all day so I had to make sure they stayed in good condition on my way home from work. Today I brought them with to mail them and it was raining when I left the house, now it's snowing. I'm utterly amazed that I didn't ruin any of them in the process of transportation. With my luck I would have tripped and everything would have gone into a puddle. Somehow I managed to not ruin all the invitations, or any of them for that matter.

I am pretty sure I am going think it is Tuesday all day today. That's not going to be annoying at all <sarcasm>

Relaxed, finally.

Today is the first day in months where I actually found time to relax. I have been so busy lately I haven't even had time to just chill and not think about anything. It's been pretty amazing. Of course, I didn't get all of the things I wanted to get done done, but hopefully being recharged will help me focus for once. I am also fairly certain that this will be my last weekend of semi-sanity pre-wedding. There's nothing worse than thinking the next 8 weeks are going to be completely chaotic. At least I know the 2 weeks after that will be the most relaxing weeks of my life... All I want to think about is Hawaii.

Just a little frustrated

Adam called me at work asking when I was going to be home for dinner. I looked at the clock and realized I could catch the last Lyndale express bus, so I told him I would be home by 6. He questioned this as it usually takes me at least 45 minutes to get home. I repeated, "6". We discuss what we have in the house to make dinner, decide on a pasta and I ask Adam to start it. By the time I get home at 6:04, he hasn't started anything. He tells me he thought I would be home later and he wasn't sure what to do.

Boil Water, add pasta
Heat sauce
Drain pasta
Mix
Eat

It's not difficult. Despite the fact that Adam has been home for at least 30 minutes by the time I get home, it becomes my job to make dinner.. because I don't have anything else to do.

I found a song by the Plain White T's that I like that would be good for our first wedding dance. I asked Adam if he wanted to listen to it, but he didn't feel like it and wasn't sure he like it anymore. I have found about 20 songs that would be fine, but he doesn't like anything. He's a musician, I get that he has high standards, but he's also not looking for anything either. Throughout this whole process I have discovered that Adam has a lot of opinions, but refuses to actually research anything. Anytime he questions something or has his own opinion, I "give" him the job to do and shockingly it doesn't get done, or it takes a lot of encouraging to get it done. At least we have a DJ booked and decided on the cake...

I just needed to vent.

I've been so wrapped up with other things that I didn't even realize it was my 3/4th birthday today. Happy 25.75 to me.