Of monograms and house guests

With wedding planning fully underway, we took a break this weekend as my parents were coming down to be our first official house guests. We deep cleaned the house, ironed linens, and set up the guest bath (which rarely gets much attention) with cute little soaps and towels. It was nice to actually have some noise in the house as we are usually asleep when we are home.

My dad's business charity is UCP and every 6 months when Nascar is in town we grill hamburgers and hot dogs at the race track. I myself am not a Nascar fan, but I am a fan of helping worthy causes, so nine times out of ten I am spending race weekend pulling apart hot dog buns and directing rednecks to the relish dispenser. Corey spent much of his days as the parking lot police (equipped with a safety orange vest and badge) chasing away offenders parking in front of gas pumps. It was a rebel girl's birthday dream.

As a combination birthday dinner/wedding reception scouting trip we headed to the restaurant and ordered three times too much food (all in the interest of 'tasting' of course), and made most of the decisions as to what will be on our wedding menu. My parents also gifted me with an arty nouveau spice rack that I've been coveting and some super fuzzy pink lounge pants that scream my name from a mile away. The boy is not as good at keeping gifts a secret so in the past few weeks I had already opened my gifts of the new Sleeping Beauty release as well as a gorgeous pair of Gucci sunglasses I had been lusting after. On my birthday he presented me with a spa certificate so I will be spending next Saturday getting massaged, pedicured, facialed, fed and made-up at Dolce. Sigh.

Wedding planning is just as stressful as I was afraid it would be. At least we're doing it extremely short notice so I only have five months of running around like a crazy woman instead of the year and a half that I fear I really need. So far all I've done is book the locations and get monogram samples from my graphic designer. Three checkmarks and 250 items left on the list!!!

Keeping up

It's been a busy week for sure, for everyone. Personally I was disappointed with the Presidential outcome, and that had little to do with Obama's victory. I was, am, and will always be a Republican. I myself share core values with Republicans. However, I also feel that I have no right to tell other people how to live their lives. I personally would never entertain the option of abortion, but who am I to push my beliefs on other people? I have been brought up to feel one way about gays and lesbians, but I feel I have absolutely no right to decide who can and who can't love each other. In this situation I respect and admire everything about John McCain. If he hasn't proven to the American public that he puts his country before himself then I don't know who has. So, my disappointment stems more from his loss than Obama's win. I have faith that Obama will bring thoughts and ideas to the White House that have never been heard before. But, he hasn't been tested before and that makes me a little nervous. I hope that he turns out to be the President that 53% of the country wants him to be.


On the personal front I've been dealing with a cold that just won't go away on top of my daily health problems which has made wedding planning stressful and daunting. However, the good news is that I have a dress, a ceremony site booked and a reception site booked. I thought those last two alone were going to be impossible, but when all else fails march down to the event coordinators office and demand they see you. It worked for me! :)

To my evident chagrin, this weekend is my twenty-somethingth birthday. If you'd asked me at 18 where I saw myself in years I would have definitely said married with kids. So, I'm a bit behind the curve, but at least headed in the right direction. Too bad birthday celebrations just don't mean as much in your 20s as it did when you were in the single digits.

Gone are the simple days of Cabbage Patch dolls and Rainbow Brite cakes. No more inviting every kid in the neighborhood over and having them sit in a circle around you while you unwrap every single present and parade it in front of their faces. And definitely no more eating 1800 calories worth of icing with little repercussions besides a distinct sugar high and a frosting moustache.

Oh to be a kid again.

Wedding woes

Almost everyone I know is married. What I don't know, however, is how they survived the wedding planning process.

Two weeks ago I sat gazing at my shiny bauble, blissfully unaware of what planning my wedding would mean. First we took the, "Oh, we'll get around to it next year" approach which was quickly changed when the boy reminded me that in order to get the new baby I've been bugging him about we'd have to get hitched first. Well, that was enough to push me into a whirlwind of planning only to realize that this stuff isn't easy. Or inexpensive.

The good part is that it will be small. And when I say small I mean SMALL. With family and friends scattered all over the world (a side effect of life in the military) we decided that planning a short notice wedding and inviting everyone would make for a lot of bad feelings and hurt pocketbooks for those to whom attendance would be a real challenge. So, it will be 20 of our closest friends and family members and that's it.

The bad part is that I was somehow switched at birth with Christina her majesty the Royal Princess of Norway and I have rather expensive tastes. Sure, we could get a whole pig and a keg ala CMT's redneck weddings and call it a day, but that's not exactly how I roll.

The reception was the easy part. Our favorite restaurant has been the scene of many of our most romantic dates, as well as the place where I first taught Corey to be a foodie. Their French inspired American-nouveau cooking is a must have.

Now for the hard parts: a ceremony in the, ahem, desert, that doesn't look like we're in the desert. Somewhere that doesn't care that you won't be buying their pricey catering package and just want to use them for their beautiful garden views before you jet off to greener culinary pastures. Does such a place exist? Maybe with a dusting of fairy dust and a happy thought or two.

And then there's my poor mother who is trying her best to scour the internet for inspiration but who (despite living in Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas) cannot seem to grasp that it will, in fact, take quite a while to drive from Cave Creek to downtown Phoenix and our guests will be likely to arrive at the reception with In N Out burger remnants on their tux lapels because they were starving at around the 20 mile mark.

Looking on the bright side, I do already have my dress which is something that generally causes a bride more disdain than anything else in planning her day. And I am the google queen so if something exists I will find it by way of the internet. My perfect ceremony locale must be out there somewhere!

I'm sure in a year I will look back and laugh at the drama one single day caused me, but I'm sure I won't regret the memories. So I trudge on with my trusty wedding planner portfolio and arms full of bridal magazines and hope and pray that it all works itself out in the end.

The ring

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Corey and I got engaged over a year ago, at 3 in the morning. It wasn't flowery, or a big show - it was just a heartfelt moment that I will remember for the rest of my life.

However, Corey knows that now and then a girl needs a little tradition and a good story to tell. So, we spent a lot of time looking at rings and talking about what I liked, and researching jewelers in the area. Eventually, he found a place he liked and they helped him design a ring that would be perfect for me! I had fallen in love with the tulip setting months ago, but knew it wouldn't work with the wedding bands we were set on, so I resigned myself to having something I loved a little less when it came to my engagement ring. But, since Corey can never bring himself to let me be disappointed, he worked with the jeweler to figure out how to make it work.

And it felt like it would take MONTHS.

Well, yesterday it was done.

I came home to a rose petal trail leading to the bedroom, which was packed full of balloons and that sign on the wall. And to my left was Corey, down on one knee holding the most beautiful ring I've ever seen. Apparently it is virtually impossible to take a good picture of an engagement ring without special jewelry photography skills, but here's the best we could do:



So, although I've had a fiance for a while now the whole theatrics of it all were very appreciated - from asking my parents' permission to a personal engraving on the inside of my ring.

I would have married this man with a cigar band ring and an Elvis impersonating JOP, but I'm happy to have things this way too. And before you ask, the wedding is a ways away. We're thinking next fall - in Vegas! :)

Scared

It's an inarguable fact that I am a huge chicken. I'm a scary moving hating, night-light needing, bug-eschewing scaredy-cat.

Corey thinks I'm just a worry wart, but I'm afraid that it goes much beyond that and borders on OCD. Right now I am worried about the scorpion that's caught in the air duct above the master bathroom. Sounds like a logical thing to be afraid of right? But, I'm also worried about the AIDS epidemic, and the economy, and raising intelligent chidren, and the health care industry. I worry about the funny noise my car made on the drive home last week, and I worry about my dad's torn shoulder, and my job.

I'm constantly striving to be a better person and to make a bigger impact on the world around me, but I struggle because I don't know where to start or what I can do. I would love to feed starving children, and adopt AIDS orphans, and balance the national budget. So, where does one start?

I've always seen myself as a future mother, but now I'm afraid of the world that I'm planning to bring children into. The economy, the energy crisis, the world food shortage...is it even fair to bring children into the world with all of these catastrophies around us? Will I have the control to raise balanced, intelligent and kind children or will the world take that control out of my hands and pervert my children to its whims? When I was a child I don't remember dealing with poisoned Halloween candy, or Amber Alerts, or sex offender signs in the neighborhood. Can I protect my children the way I think they deserve to be protected? And will I pass my worries onto them?

I know I can't save the world alone, but I also know that the decisions I make have an effect on the people and world around me and I'm afraid of making the wrong ones. Am I alone in this? Sometimes I feel that everyone around me is careless and worry-free while I'm secretly petrified in silence.

8.1 Gs

Wednesday the boy got to go on the ride of a lifetime. As a reward for his NCO of the Quarter award he got to take an incentive ride on an F-16 with a top pilot from Luke. Half of me was absolutely petrified that he would crash and die, and 100% of me was insanely jealous because I'm supposed to be the one in the family doing the daredevil stuff.

But, he lived (and I am still jealous) and had a great time. He didn't even puke, or pass out, which are very common afflictions when cruising at 7+ Gs. They did a max climb take-off which you would have to see to believe, as it involves the jet taking off and climbing at 90 degrees - completely vertical! He even got to fly the jet himself and went sonic (broke the sound barrier).



Apparently they used to give spouses incentive flights but the expense and danger made them discontinue it. So, I told the pilot that I was going to run for public office and come back.

Bailout Bill

I've been interested in politics for as long as I can remember. From student council in school to a poli sci major (for part of college at least) I found it intriguing and compelling. It goes without saying that lately, it has been even more interesting than usual.

Today the House of Representatives passed the Bailout Bill which will allocate $700B of federal money to take bad loans out of the hands of individual banks. This will free up those banks to make credit available again, since it has been virtually frozen for the last few months.

Last week, when the House defeated the bill by a small margin, stocks tanked. People were concerned about their money, and concerned that if they left it where it was it would be worth even less when they came back for it later.

Now, today, the bill gets passed and what happens? Stocks fall. I was thoroughly confused. So, I logged on to my favorite websites to see what the analysts were saying. And what I read made me sick.

There are a whole lot of Americans that are too self-righteous and bitter and arrogant to see past their own situations. There are people everywhere complaining about the bill passing because they didn't cause this problem so why should they (in the form of tax money investments) have to pay it to bail out those that weren't as smart?

Well, let me tell you why. Because we are living in a democracy. Politicians were put in place to do what is right for the people. People being plural. Not for you, or me, or your neighbor Joe. Now granted, there are some very crooked politicians who are also only out for personal gain, however the fundamental ideas that this country was built upon are equality and strength in numbers and defending the rights of the people.

People who have homes that are being foreclosed on are not going to be sent a check from the government. They are not going to pay off my Visa bill because I charged some Louboutin boots last month. This bill is not going to buy groceries for people who took out loans they can't afford. What the bill is going to do is buy bad loans from your bank so that when you want a new car or a new house or a student loan - you can get it.

We may not have all contributed to the recession - Corey and I do not have a defaulting mortgage, but I have noticed about a dozen 'bank owned' for sale signs in my neighborhood. So, because I didn't contribute it's better to sit back and let the country fall into a depression?

We ALL lose in a depression. From fast food workers to CEOs. The unemployment line all leads to the same place no matter who you are. So, in protecting your bank's assets, you're also protecting your own. The problem is everyone who is secretly sitting at the dinner table and saying, "Well, they got what they deserved taking out more loan than they could afford."

Let me ask you this: What do you get out of your neighbor going bankrupt? Does it help you in some way? When we get to a place where we are wanting other people to fail then we need to evaluate what's going on inside our own minds and hearts and not what's going on in our neighbor's wallet.