Jade's Babblings

John and I have decided 100% that we do not need a full-blown wedding planner. Our day is not that complicated and with a budget of only about $6000, there's no way we could A. make it complicated enough and 2. afford a planner even if it was complicated.

But I did find this service for wedding day coordinators. There were two in my area that provide "day of" coordination. I chose to persue the one called "Two Friends Coordinators". The two women seemed very nice and personable over email and their website is very helpful.

Basically their services encompass day of helping and help one to two months before the wedding. I think this would be an awesome thing to have because I can already envision all the things that will go wrong at the ceremony and reception. Also, John and I have pushy people on both sides of our family and friends and I am a timid person. This means that if John and I decide we want something done one way (people walking down the aisle, for instance) and we're getting "help" I won't have the guts to tell someone to stop. Hiring planners ensures that our timeline and events go off without a hitch. The good thing is that their services start at $400 and only range up to about $800 so I'm sure we can keep it in the lower range. We just need a little help, not full-on planning.

Here are some of the services they offer:

• Act as the day of liaison/contact for your vendors, bridal party and guests
• Help you with your final itinerary/timeline
• Help you set up the ceremony and reception layout
• Offer etiquette advice
• Follow up with guests who did not RSVP
• Help facilitate the rehearsal run through
• Ensure you and your wedding party are comfortable, happy and that you have everything you need as you get ready (water, flowers, snacks, etc)
• Make sure programs are passed out
• Ensure everyone has their bouquets, corsages, and boutonnières
• Make sure your marriage license is signed and given to the officiant
• Coordinate photos and make sure those required for photos stay after the ceremony
• Make sure centerpieces and other table decorations are correct
• Make sure place cards are in the right order and all guests find their seats
• Make sure the guest book/wish bowl/photo frame is in the right place and guests are signing it
• Make sure everything is running smoothly and on time
• Make sure gifts and cards are secure
• Confirm vendors the week before and make sure they know the right times and places to be
• Make sure your vendors arrive on time and set up in the proper spot
• Distribute final payments and gratuities

Just the peace of mind I would get from this is totally worth it. Of course some of these things might be done by Kathy, the kick ass awesome hostess from the Cocke n' Kettle, but the thing to remember about her is that she doesn't work for us. She works for the site. And that means that even if she's helpful on a lot of things, there still may be issues that arise that she would have to side with the site about. Whereas our coordinators would be working directly for us and not the site or any of the vendors.

We are meeting with them on the 14th of January and I can hardly wait.
Oh, and I found some affordable videographers too who will work with about a $700 budget for video. Not too shabby.

I once named a book of poetry "in my head" when I was in high school.

Today B is out sick so J and I are here at work alone. It's been pretty slow.
I was telling her how much "myspace" sucks, but that they've added this feature about rating your teachers from college. That's always a bit of a fun. J is not as into the internet stuff as I am so she was asking me about blogs and stuff like that. I sent her to these places, my favorite blogs.

Discussing blogs and online communities with people at work always brings up that question - should I really be doing this?

It's true that I don't say anything severely detrimental on here. I don't attack the company I work for, or even my co-workers.... The customers - maybe a little bit. But they deserve it, trust me. It's not the same now as it was when I was in high school. The stakes are higher, the pressure's on.

But I always come back to the fact that not many people read this to begin with and those that do wouldn't care if I bitch about things occasionally. I doubt the girls I work with would be that enthralled with my blog writing anyway, but if they ever asked for the link I wouldn't have a problem handing it over. That's the important thing. I don't have anything to hide. I don't even use most people's real names on here.

Totally un work and blog related - Desiree left her boyfriend and moved home with her mom. Her mom is of course psyched. My mom is happy too. And I'm happy for Dez, even if she is miserable right now. I don't think that guy was any good for her at all. In the long run, she'll be much better off at home with her crazy mom than with her crazy boyfriend. But I know some small part of my mom is thinking "Gee, I wish my daughter would move back home."

Words cannot express what a bad idea that would be. After living on your own for . . . four years you cannot move back home with your parents. It doesn't work. It's a cosmic certainty. I wouldn't want to anyway. Planning a wedding kind of gets put on hold if you leave your fiancee and move back in with your parents. lol.

But you know she's thinking of it a bit.

Mom called me at work about an hour ago to say she picked up my dress from Chrisanne's. Thank god. They were closed last week, on days that they were supposed to be open on. I thougth they were going to resell it or something. Mom called me as she got out to the car and said she picked up the dress and it looked good and all that and then asked, "Is it supposed to be in a clear bag?"

"No..." I responded, thinking to myself that she was already driving down the road and running through my head all the ways I could hide a clear bag with a big wedding dress in it from John.

"Oh, well I'm right here so I'll go back in."

Whew. The store told her they only put them in pink bags if they are ordered. Since mine was off the rack it gets a clear bag. Oh, well excuu-uuse me. But they put it in a pink bag for me after all. Now I have to go pick it up before Mom's cats get to it.

Video of Pixel and Amelie opening presents from Kirsty.

And I've added even more at my videos page.

I do have my super long presents post right below this, but I finally uploaded some vids to Google video so I thought I'd post a link here. These can always be found at my website on the pictures page. Here's the link. I'm going to be uploading more soon so check back often.

I don't celebrate Christmas, being a Jehovah's Witness and not believing that A. Jehovah wants us to celebrate birthdays/holidays/etc. and 2. that Jesus was even born at this time of year to begin with. But I did give in and buy stuff for John and his parents since I knew I would get stuff from them and it seems silly to wait a week and then say "okay, here's your non xmas gift." They all know my stance on it, they all know my beliefs, so lets just move on.

For John (the dad, not my John) I got him "150 most beautiful songs" sheet music, which he loved and immediately started trying to play on the piano. I got stud amethyst earrings for Valerie, which I think she really liked because she tried to get John to stop playing the piano at least three times so that he would look at them.

For my John I got him a fleece Army blanket (very comfy), A Christmas Carol on DVD starring Patrick Stewart (which he also got for me so we gave a copy to Sarah and Paul), a Harry Potter sticker book, Morrowind (an xbox game he wanted), and a Harry Potter tri wizard tournament watch. He was a lot more pleased with the army blanket than I thought he would be, which was cool and I think he really liked the watch. I wish I had bought him a few more things I had my eye on though. But the good thing about being a JW is I don't have to wait until next year to get stuff for him. I can just surprise him sometime randomly.

I also got Kirsty a Pier 1 gift card because I know she and I like the place but it's so expensive so I thought that might be nice. She got Pixel those toys and treats and a Petsmart gift card so I bought more toys and also some toys for Amelie. :)

For Paul we got him Dawson's Creek season 1 and I painted a gift box for it with "Bay Path" (our high school) in our school colors with these desk and backpack stickers and stuff on it. He and I used to watch DC on the phone back in high school so I thought that'd be cool. We threw in a $10 CVS gift card too because who doesn't need stuff at CVS? lol.

Sarah got Anne of Green Gables the continuing story on DVD and also a pugster charm bracelet with a few starter charms on it.

And Sadie's big gifts were a book (Mrs. Piggle Wiggle) and a Dora the explorer back pack. I also had painted a little box for her too so I got a small stuffed scottie dog to put in there. Kirsty had found these cool wooden planes and trains at A.C. Moore and walmart so we painted those up and I gave her a set of those too. One of the planes was pink with her name on it so I think she really liked seeing that.

Whew. Is that it? I think so...

So, what I got. . . this year was really great because I was so excited about giving everyone else their gifts that I was doubly happy to get the ones that I received.

From John and Val I got a really nice dress that I had on my Amazon wish list, season 1 of Gilmore Girls, and the movie "Crash". We got a steam cleaner vacuum from them as well, which was super nice. We got a nice set of three blue bowls from his Aunt Eileen. They're pretty. And his cousins gave us some stuff on xmas eve - I got some Avon stuff, which was really nice, and we got a cool crock pot as well. A pier 1 gift card and a home depot gift card too.

From Sarah and Paul I got two awesome Star Wars books! I also got this cute little software called "my fantasy wedding". It's so cheesy, but it's so much fun. Sarah and Sadie and I were playing with it last night at their house. I put it on my wish list cuz it looked kind of like the sims, but with weddings and not quite as high quality. It sure is fun though. I could see wasting some serious time on that.

John got a few gifts from them too. cool ones. He got the book "Tattoo" that he himself is in!! He got a really cool write-up in it. So if you want to see John's awesome back tattoo, go by the book. He also got a spud trooper and a Dragonlance book. A Dragonlance book that he actually didn't have! If you know John, you know this is amazing as he owns about a million of them AND his parents had bought him a couple already this year.

From John I got some really cool stuff. He got me a bunch of books of course (among them were both of Bruce Campbell's book and the annotated Chronicles of Dragonlance, kick ass). I got a christmas carol with Patrick Stewart (lol), Equillibrium, kelly green chucks, and Hermione's time turner from the third harry potter movie (this may be my favorite gift, haven't made up my mind yet). He also got me a RENT poster signed by the entire cast and the director. I can't wait to frame it and hang it up. A very unique gift. I can't remember if I'm forgetting anything. I'm drawing a blank. But that's it for now.

We had a really good weekend of lounging and relaxing. And I didn't get a single on-call call on xmas day. I got a few last night, but that's okay. Better than when we were at his parents' or when we were at Paul and Sarah's last night.

My pets are just too cute to resist I guess. Kirsty bought Pixel some very nice gifts this holiday season. lol. She even painted a cute little crate to put them in with little puppy paw prints all over it. Pixel got some milkbone dog bones, some smaller treats, a couple of nyla bones to chew on AND a treat dispenser that she hasn't quite mastered yet. Could be because I put her food in it to see if she'd eat it. I think she's more interested in treats so we'll try those next.

Amelie had much fun helping Pixel to "unwrap" everything. She took special interest in the ribbon. And at one point I had to take a green bow away from Pixel. I got a great picture of her trying to wrestle it away from me.


There's the wrestling picture. Here after follows the rest of the (very cute, imo) pictures I took. I also took a video, but I'm trying to upload it to my host and it's not working so I'll post that later.











Here's Pixel looking at her new treats and toys. "Oooooh, can I open them now, Mom??"











Amelie thinking "I don't really love my puppy. I think they made that up. In fact, I usually hate her."

But she had no problem playing with Pixel's gifts with her.




And here's Amelie getting ready to smack Pixel for getting all the attention. Don't worry, Ami. I'll buy you a nice sweater to wear or something. Mmm. . .maybe not.




Here's Amelie enjoying her new "ribbon toy" from Aunty Kirsty. She looks drunk in this picture. . .
She is going to the vet tomorrow since her left eye won't open properly. Maybe that's the reason for her slightly "off" look.
















And here's Pixel opening her dispense-a-treat. How cute is that? I wish she had been groomed already so that you could see her face better, but I think she's smiling inside the wrapping paper. . .
:)


Video to follow. (I hope.)

I've been updating my wedding website a lot lately. I found all these cool gifs.

I have to find a place for this one.
Oh, and I updated my regular website too with some new links and an added claire picture at the top. I'm not obsessed, just in that kind of mood lately.

Yea. . .

I've been disfellowshipped since. . . .last September I think. Of 2004. Sad, isn't it? I can't believe how fast this has flown by so far. With my back surgery I haven't been to meetings in about two months. That blows. The Elders are definitely going to pay attention to how often I show up to meetings. I could go back in January and get married in October, but if I'm not going to all the meetings for a while they are never going to reinstate me.

So I just typed out a letter to the book study conductor (elder) at my new Hall. I explained I had recently had surgery and that I hadn't been to work for a while at first either and that I hope to be back to meetings regularly in January. I'll mail that off tomorrow. I hope it helps. It might make it easier to go back to meetings knowing that they know why I was out. I miss going to meetings. I really do.

When I was little I used to wish that I could miss meetings for a while, but now I realize how much it sucks to do that.

In other news. . . .

I went to my fourth post op appointment yesterday. I left work at 1:30 (I was all alone in the morning and it was sooooo busy, but I did about 25 cases by myself and I was so proud) and went to the doctor's office. She was busy in surgery at the hospital down the street so she was about 50 minutes late. I read 80 pages in Harry Potter, which was cool.

So I go into the exam room and she's looking at my incision and she says that it's not healing as well as she'd like. That's always what you want to hear. She said she'd seal it with some silver nitrate (that smarts) and in a week see how it's doing. So I have to go into the hospital next Wednesday for my fifth appointment with her. Except now that it's at the hospital I don't know if I'm going to be charged for it. And I won't have health insurance until January 1st. But it's got to be done. She said it could get infected if it tries to heal over the deeper part of the wound without healing from the inside up. Augh.

I'm on-call all next week. From Christmas morning (I'm picking up the phone from B at 9a.m.) to January 2nd.

I don't know what I was thinking saying I'd take the phone for all this time. On Monday we're going out to Paul and Sarah's to open presents with them (Sarah and I said we were going to call if "family day" to annoy our Catholic counterparts since it's not really on xmas day) and I'm going to have to bring the on-call phone and my computer. AND it's a 40 minute drive out there so John better drive like the wind.

I hope, I hope, I hope that my mom picked up my wedding dress this week. It's supposed to be picked up before the 26th.

Tonight and tomorrow will be busy. John is working until 8 tonight so I have to run home (I'll be alone at work the whole afternoon) and wrap his presents and do some painting I have to do. I painted a LOT last night and it was so much fun. Then tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I have to bring Amelie to the vet because we noticed last night that her eye is shut and only opens halfway. At 11 a.m. I then rush off to Petsmart with Pixel to take her for a grooming. Whew. Oh, and today I'm going out to lunch with Kirsty at 11:30. That'll be fun, and it'll break my day up here just a bit. When I get back from lunch, though, the girls are leaving and I'll be on my own. I hope it'll be okay...

That's what a customer once said to me when I was training on my new job here a few months ago. There were lots more nuttier things. One person said we were as helpful as poking sharp sticks in his eyes.

I think I provide great customer service. I really do. I've never been more confident in my job abilities than I am at this point. But man!! Other people have really got some work to do. The downfall of customer service...

I've been waiting on a FedEx package for four days now. It finally arrived last night. It had been in Massachusetts, 15 minutes from me, since Thursday night. Friday, Saturday AND Sunday it went out for delivery and never got here. They said they weren't running Mondays. What delivery service doesn't run on Mondays during the holiday season??? so I finally got my package last night. Thank goodness it wasn't TOO late.

A couple weeks ago I called Capital One to cancel my payment protection plan. I had finally paid the stupid thing off and I didn't want any more silly charges on it. Of course they gave me the "let me put you through to my manager because I can't do this myself" speil, which I listened to patiently. Then the "manager" went through his spiel with me THREE TIMES before I finally said, "Sir, I understand. I do. I'm in customer service too, but I really don't want this option, thank you." to which he replied "Fine, it's cancelled. Thanks." and hung up on me. What has the world come to? Whatever happened to a "thank you, have a nice day." ??? I even sympathized with this guy and told him I was in CS too. Geez.

I have many stories like that, but here's the one that takes the cake. (and yes, Kirsty, I am stealing it out of the email I sent to you about it because I don't feel like typing this whole thing out again.) :)

We went to this small owner operated jewelry store the other night to look for wedding bands. John got my engagement ring cleaned and got a box for it there and he said the guy was nice so we went. We walked in and right away I disliked this man. We asked if he had wedding bands, he basically throws the display boxes up on the counter and tells us to take a look while he helps another customer. When he comes over John was trying to talk to him and make conversation and he says how when we went to the mall on Friday the woman at Kay was rude to us.

The guy then proceeds over the next 20 minutes to, basically, give us reasons why no one in the jewelry industry will want to help us with wedding bands right now. He's like "wedding bands are a low end item" (meaning we're not spending enough in his store for him to care about us), "it's the week before xmas. I have plenty of other stuff to do" (basically saying no one in the industry wants to help us with our silly bands when the wedding is still 10 months away). Crazy stuff like that. He was just so RUDE. And then he tells us that we shouldn't be worried about this and we can get our rings on our way to the church. I'd LOVE to have gotten that in writing. Oh, you mean you'll gaurantee that you can give us rings we like in our sizes the day of our wedding???

When John tried to tell him we're just looking for ideas he says, "What ideas? You want a simple gold band and you want a diamond band. You don't need ideas!" WHAT A JERK. I told John that if we could find the same rings for the same price (or even just a little more expensive) that I was NOT going back there. I think it went over John's head. He thought the guy was just trying to be funny, but I was so mad. The only thing I said to him was that I heard it took three months to get in bands in your size (because the first time I got married it took a while). He laughs at me (!!) and says "try one week". Ergh.

So that is my "winning" story of the death of customer service.

I spent the entire weekend painting. It was grand.

Kirsty called me Friday night (John and I went to the mall to look at wedding rings, more later) while I was on my way home from the mall. She wanted to know if I was busy the next day. Of course I wasn't. Silly her... she thought I had a life.

I've noticed lately that when I sleep in too late on the weekends I feel like my entire day is wasted and I just feel crappier than I did when I went to bed. So I didn't mind getting up early to meet Kirsty. I got up at 8:00 and took a shower and then I got to lounge around on my big comfy bed and read Harry Potter (Yes, I've given in to the dark side). Then I took Pixel (dressed up in her winter finery) and met Kirsty at A.C. Moore to pick up some art supplies. She's addicted to that place and now I am too.

Then we went back to her house and painted for a while. Pixel hung out and chewed up an eraser and tried to chew up a wooden airplane. We stopped her, though. She was fairly good. No accidents in the house, which I was glad of since I would have flipped out. lol.

Then we went back to A.C. Moore (I know, I know) to get a couple things for me (only $7!) and took Pixel back to hang out at my house. Kirsty stayed for lunch and we painted until about 5:30 (that's a long day of painting). The she headed home and I waited for John to come home. He didn't get out until 7:00.

The next day I went back to A.C. Moore (without Pixel) for some paints that I needed and a couple "ingredients" for some presents I'm working on. I should have called Kirsty cuz I found out today that she spent yesterday painting too and went back to A.C. Moore. Guess we should have car pooled, but we each thought the other would be sick of us by then. I'm so glad I stumbled upon Kirsty. It's great to have someone so close who shares so many of my interests. I even get to go dog shopping with her after the holidays! (She wants a dog like Pixel. Hopefully hers won't be as spedly....)

John got home around 2:00 and I hurried to finish up my projects so I could hide all my presents before he got home. (I also had gone to Crystal's hallmark to get wrapping paper and stuff). We were going to go see RENT again but we stuck around hoping the rest of my presents would show up via fedex. They didn't of course and I felt like the afternoon was wasted. But we did fill out John's resume. Kirsty sent it to her boss. I guess they are looking for people in her department. That's productive at least.

Then we snuggled up on the couch and watched Gangs of New York (really bloody movie). We read a lot of Star Wars yesterday too. Now we get to go on to the third (conclusion) book in the Heir trilogy. Yay!

Today we're going ring shopping in our town. There's a little jeweler around us that is open until 7:00 so we're going to go check it out. We were able to determine from our shopping trip on Friday (see, I promised you more later didn't I?) that we have hugely different tastes in rings. But we can compromise. If we can afford it, John is going to get this simple white gold supreme fit band we found (pretty, but too simple for me) and I'm going to get a diamond band to go with my ring. Very girly. I never thought I would like something like that until the guy in the store had me try one on. I loved it! If we can't afford that we are going to go with matching white gold rings with a diamond cut pattern on them. Oooh, sparkly.

That's about it around here. Hopefully we'll get to see Paul, Sarah, and Sadie soon. I haven't seen them in a while. Sarah bought Sadie's flower girl dress. Very cute! Miss you guys!!!

I think things are getting better between me and my co workers. One of them emailed me last night and I emailed them back and we've been much more pleasant to one another today. And I talked to the other one in person this morning. that went well too. I feel a lot better and I feel like a lot of tension has been lifted today.

J and I dressed alike. That's sort of amusing. I told her I was going to call her tomorrow (even though it's the weekend) to coordinate our outfits.

So. . .I can breathe again. Breathing is good.

Peachy Keen now has three egg babies. Hopefully she'll only have one more. The risks get higher with five eggs as opposed to four. And I really don't want to have to handfeed baby birds while I'm at work. But I am excited for her and TK. They are going to have beautiful babies. All those mutations. . . Oooh.

I used to think I didn't have any, but I've been going over my site reader results and apparently I do. One person was even on here for 23 minutes yesterday. Yet, I get no notes from you people. . . Hmm.

Anyway, look at all the viewers we have (don't worry, IP addys aren't visible or anything):

41		United States
42		United States	Franklin, Wisconsin
43		United States
44		United States	Allston, Massachusetts
45		United States	Franklin, Wisconsin
46		Mexico	Mexico, Distrito Federal
47		United States	Seattle, Washington
48		United States	Santa Cruz, California
49		United States	Irving, Texas
50		Japan
51		Puerto Rico	Toa Alta
52		United States	Westland, Michigan
53		United States
54		United States	Jackson, Tennessee
55		Canada	Tyndall, Manitoba
56		United States	Granite Falls, Minnesota
57		Spain	Sant Just Desvern, Cataluna
58		Switzerland	Wdenswil, Zurich
59		United States	Scottsdale, Arizona
60		United States	Baltimore, Maryland

So c'mon, Michigan, Wisconsin, Marlyand, Massachusetts. . . Say hello! :)

*This message brought to you by "I'm bored".

I know it may seem like John and I are doing things just a little backwards but. . . . .I don't care. Today was a really good day.

Since it was snowing so badly this morning my group decided we would work from home. John had the day off already. So we went to breakfast (yum) and then came home and I worked and he played a video game that he was really into lately.

We took Pixel out to play in the snow and she was super cute of course. Then we came back inside and I was going to have lunch. John had already packed me a lunch this morning before we knew I was staying home (being the good house-husband that he is) so I was getting my bag out of the fridge.
John asked me if I was eating now and I said I was so I went to pick up a bag of chips I had and he said that before I cracked into those, maybe I should crack into this and held out a little blue ring box....

Yes, I cried. It was just such a good day that we were having together. But yet it was such a typical day too and such an unexpected way to ask me. It was a beautiful day and we had fun and cuddled up on the couch to watch "Dukes of Hazard" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" after that.

It's such a gorgeous ring. Something I never would have realized I liked until it was right in front of me. It's been in his family for four generations or something crazy like that. It's a pear diamond in an old fashioned setting. It looks like two tiny waves are holding up the diamond. The part that was really neat was that he's had this ring in his possession forever and he never thought to use it to ask his previous girlfriend to marry him. He had bought her something else (to fill in the blanks a bit - he never got around to proposing so I'm not, like, "try again" or anything like that). But it's really nice that his family thought I was worthy of this ring. His parents are taking us out tomorrow night to celebrate. I just have to stick close to home since I'm on-call.

Of course you get to see a picture. Here you go -

I decided I needed some updated pet pictures in here. I was just showing Chante some lovebird pics today and it made me think I should put them on my blog. Chante's not going to have her own place for like two years but as soon as she does she wants a couple of my lovebirds. Well, their babies anyway. I told her I should fly out there with them (Texas) and visit her. That'd be cool. Two years is a ways off though. So we'll think about it. :)

Anyway, here are some pictures of all my kids.

This is my cat Amelie. She's in the dog's carrier trying to piss her off. Amelie is the best cat in the entire world. She acts much more like a dog than a cat. She greets you at the door and is very affectionate. She likes to be held like a baby too. She's very spoiled. Amelie used to be a lot more spoiled before the dog came along, but she is still "top dog" and she knows it.



This is second in command, Pixel. She turned a year old in October. She was totally zonked out that day on the couch with me. Pixel is a papapoo - a poodle and a papillon mix. She gets crazy fur from it so we have to have her shaved down to about an inch otherwise she's just a big mop and you can't even tell there's a dog in there.
Pixel's pretty hyper and she likes to chase Amelie and really drive her crazy. It gets annoying sometimes, but mostly I just remember that she's just about the cutest dog anyone's ever seen and I'd be really sad without her so we try to let her "badness" go.

Meet Gunther. He's a quaker parakeet. Gunther has a lot of stuff that he can say.
"Tickle, tickle" and then he laughs.
"Quaker, quaker" The breeder taught him to say that.
"Hi Gunther"
"peekaboo!"
"Whatcha' doin'??" and then he'll respond to himself, "Hangin' out."
"Good boy" "step up"
kissy noises "gimme a kiss"
little dog call noises "c'mere." And if we yell at Pixel you'll hear Gunther say "get down!"
"Dance!"
"Gunther's a microchip!"

This is Button (my first bird of my own) who is an orange face lovebird. She's sitting next to her buddy Justarius (John named him. It's from Dragonlance.) Justarius only has one foot due to an accident when he was a baby, but he does just fine. He and Button are friends when Button is in a good enough mood, but they live in their own seperate cages.




Button again. Next to her are TK and Peachy Keen. They had all just taken a shower, duh. TK is an australian cinnamon with a violet factor. He has a purple tail. And if he and Peachy have babies, all of them will have a violet factor as well. Nifty. Peachy is a white face dutch blue. She may have a pied factor in her, which would be cool but there's no way to tell until they have a clutch. These two are very much in love. I had them in a breeder cage with a divider in the middle and they managed to squeeze through the divider. Brats. so now they live happily ever after in the same cage.

When we have a house I would love to get a blue quaker, a hahns macaw, maybe keep a baby lovebird or two (I really want a pied and a creamino), an Irish wolfhound, and a chihuahua. Oh, and maybe one more cat. I'd love to watch kittenhood all over again just one more time. Of course I won't have all these pets, but it's nice to think about. I'm a total animal person and I think animals are a lot better and more caring than most people. Yep, I'm a freak. But that's okay.

Okay, I don't really have to think about this. I mean, it's all determined. But I wanted to use the picture feature and post some cool pics of everyone. I have a link to my wedding website where you can find more pictures of the BP on that site. BP=bridal party. First up....


Paul and Sarah - best man and maid of honor. Paul is actually one of my really good friends from high
school and he and John have become friends since John and I got together. Paul and Sarah have been together for nearly seven years.
Sarah is my absolute best friend in the entire world. We've been friends since I was two years old. You don't get much closer than that. It was so obvious that I would ask her to be maid of honor that I don't think I even asked her. I just started talking to her about plans. But it's good to have at least one friendship like that. I consider myself very lucky to have her.
That next picture is of one of John's groomsmen and his fiancee. He's earned the name Sand Weasel after a 501st event we did where some people apparently didn't know what a jawa was. Hello!! Study Star Wars a bit more, eh?



Migz, John's oldest friend from the 501st. John got to go out to dinner with him and his girlfriend a couple weeks ago, but we haven't talked to him much since. He's a good guy and we have a lot of fun with them. They like to travel a lot. Crazy life. I couldn't do it. But it's fun for him and his girlfriend so whatever works. They've been together an awful long time. John was really glad he said yes to being in the BP.






This little cutie is our flower girl Sadie. She's Sarah and Paul's daughter. We took this picture at our condo shortly after we
moved in. We had to sleep on an inflatable matress in the living
room. It sucked. But we took the pic of Sadie snuggled up with my
childhood teddy bear on the bed. Cute huh? She'll be almost five
by the time the wedding rolls around. Perfect age.


Meet the parents. My parents, to be exact. I took this last Thanksgiving. A rare moment of my dad semi-smiling. My mom was probably poking him telling him to be nice. Such is their marriage. Ah, good stuff.
Anyway, they're both coming to the church, but my mom isn't going to the reception since I'm DF'd and my dad might go but we're not sure yet.



That's it for now. Next entry - pet pictures. :)

Since I heard from the diocese that my annulment might not go through for a year from now John and I have been considering Justice of the Peace people and also retired Priests. There's this site called 1-800-rentapriest. Good stuff.

I have it narrowed down to four people who have all penciled us in for our date. If they get any other requests for that day they will let us know and we can decide then what we'd like to do. I figure four is a safe enough number. That way if one or two book up quickly and we can't book them right then, we will still have a couple people to think about. They are:

Fr. Kerrigan - $500

Fr. Kennedy - $500. No website, but he's from the same group as Fr. Kerrigan.

David Barrett - $250

Lenny Nelson - $200

The $500 fee sucks, but it's worth it for the custom program you get. You also get a couple meetings with them and a rehearsal as well. So that works out nicely.

I'm hoping of course that we will be able to have Father Kevin officiate and also that we can get married in John's church. But if we can't, it's not the end of the world. All four of the people above are very nice and the advantage to using one of them is we can customize our ceremony a lot more. We can write our own vows if we want, have more readings, and the music options are much more open for what I walk down the aisle to and such. We'd just have to get married at the reception site room instead of the church. I don't like the idea of not switching locations at all, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Who knows. The annullment might go through and this could all be for naught.

Today we had CS training in another building from 9-12. So the three of us took the shuttle over to it and goofed off the whole way over. It was like old times. Conversation has been at least polite and semi-friendly so that's good.

I did just deal with the jerk on the phone, though. He calls up looking for a CDL key and says that when he registered in Plink he got a 30 day key but he wants a permanent. So I told him to send me an email. We are an email ONLY group. The keys are case sensitive in most cases and are sometimes long sets of numbers so we give them out over email, NOT over the phone. So he says (in what I thought was a totally hypothetical just looking to bother me sort of way), "What do you do for government agencies that can't access email?" But then he goes on to say that he'd just have to leave the building to get email and all this stuff. So I asked if he'd have access before the 30 day temp key was up. He sighs and says, "Let me talk to your manager." Whatever. So I let him talk to C. She sent him back to us and B happened to get the phone and had to give him a key over the phone cuz he works in some top secret agency. But still.... I was trying to help him. He just didn't care. Then of course he was all pleasant to B. People suck.

But here's the other reason my day was good....

I just went in to talk to P and C, my managers. See, when I first started in this department, I said I wanted to stay a temp worker because I thought the pay would be better. But as time goes on I'm realizing that vacation time might be a nice thing to have and that I should really be thinking about the future (i.e. permanent employees get maternity leave, temps don't). So I wanted to make sure that they knew that so that I wouldn't miss an opportunity to go permanent.

They said that wasn't a problem and that they would have asked me anyway then C said she had an awkward question for me. I was all nervous, but it turns out that they had found out I was a Jehovah's Witness and they said they have xmas gifts for us all and they didn't want me to be offended. I guess back in the day C had tried to give a woman in her work group a rose on mother's day and the woman said she couldnt' accept it cuz she was a JW. I think that's taking it a bit far, personally. If anything, stuff like that is an opportunity to thank someone for their generosity and then use that to explain why you don't celebrate a certain thing. But this woman was obviously a bit more strict than I.

So I told them that I was glad they thought of me and I'd be more than happy to receive a gift. They told me to keep it quiet from J and B though so I shall. I think it's always nice to have bosses that think of their employees like that. When I was working at the insurance company two of the group managers got me really nice gifts at xmas time. My own boss didn't even give me a bonus or a card or anything. But these two managers both thought of me so that was really sweet of them.

so that is why (some days at least) I love my job. On-call again tonight. I only got one call in the two nights I've been on-call. I think it's because I've stayed in the inbox until about 1 a.m. so no one has the chance to bitch. 6 more nights to go....

Friday night I was supposed to get together with Kirsty, but her parents showed up early from Maine so she had to cancel.

Saturday morning I headed out to Feathers with TK, Button and Justarius all in one carrier (big mistake - Button beat up the two boys and made them sit on the floor while she sat on the perch). They got wing clips and I talked to the owner's husband, John, for a little bit about how my breeding program was going. I didn't tell them that I rehomed Quicksilver and Goldmoon. Not that they'd care. They didn't sell them to me or anything. I just didn't get to it.

Then I was sitting around the house and Kirsty called to see if I wanted to run to A.C. Moore with her. So she picked me up at my house and got the tour. She loved Pixel! We even brought her in the car with us and swung into Petsmart where Kirsty bought her the cutest little purple jacket. So Pixel pranced and felt all pretty.

Then on to A.C. Moore and we stopped in at Whole Foods to say hi to my fiancee. He was really busy, but fortunately Kirsty was still there when he got home. She even stuck around to meet Paul, Sarah, and Sadie who were coming over that night. Then Kirsty headed out and the rest of us got sandwiches from franklin. Yummy. Sadie was super talkative. She told John "I like your dog" when Pixel was drinking from her water bottle in front of Sadie and John. Then I was helping her wash her hands with our vanilla soap and she said, "Your soap smells wonderful. I like it." It was the cutest thing. I'm so glad she's coming out of her shell around us because Sarah and Paul insist that she talks all the time but John and I never get to see it.

On Sunday we went to IMAX to see Harry Potter with John's parents. Their treat. It was neat, but I don't think I'd go again. It was just too overwhelming and I didn't really see what the big deal was - it's just. . . bigger.

I did my first on-call last night. Harrowing is a good word. I only got one call, but I kept myself awake until 1:30 a.m. because I was afraid I would get a call. So I just kept clearing out the inbox of all problems so that they wouldn't have to call and wake me up. I slept on the couch so as not to wake John up. ::sigh:: It's gonna be a fun week of sleeping on the couch. And to top it off, the West Wing marathon wasn't even on last night like it usually is. Sad.

I sold my youngest lovebird baby to this lady a few months ago. I should not have done it. She "forgot" to show up the first day she was supposed to pick him up and the the day she actually showed she was late. I should have said that she was obviously not interested in the bird and that I was finding it another home. But I didn't.

So I saw an ad for my bird on Craig's List the other day. She was selling it with his cagemate, saying they were clutchmates. There's a whole lot to this story that probably only good bird breeders (like myself) would understand so I won't bore you all. Suffice to say that thanks to this woman, I am going to have much stricter ways of choosing new homes for my lovebirds. I've come up with a four page survey for prospective owners to fill out and I'm going to do home visits.

These birds are terrified of people. When mine left he was a sweet little baby who liked to sit on your shoulder and cuddle. It's very sad. What's sad as well is that I had to pay to get this little guy and his friend back. They are in an old rusty cage without even a grate at the bottom. That is unhealthy because lovebirds are foragers and now they are foraging through crap at the bottom of their cage whenever they drop seed down there. Bad, bad.

So now I have to find them a new home and sell them because I had to pay to get them from her and I have to at least make that money back because John and I don't have money to be throwing away on birds we're not even keeping. . . crazy.

Anyone want two nice (but need work) lovebirds?

Really great job application.

Moving on. . . .

We met Gil outside of my building yesterday evening. I had cleaned all the bird cages (except Gunther. His is a pain so I'll get to it this weekend) and put Quicksilver and Goldmoon into the new big cage. They seemed to really like it. They tweeted and hopped around and played on all the toys. . .

Gil was nice. I think he was Russian or something, had a very strong accent. He asked some really good questions, which put me at ease. He wanted to know what they eat and if they like treats and if they can fly around. He thought their little happy hut was funny and said he saw one on ebay. So that means he was looking for bird stuff for them; nice. I felt a lot better than I thought I would as we drove away. I miss them a little bit, but I really think that they'll be pretty well-off at their new home. He doesn't have any other pets so you know they'll get plenty of attention.

It was quieter in the house last night, amazingly enough. Button got loud around 6:00 a.m. and I had to tell her to shut up, but no screaming at three like we are used to. Hopefully it'll stay that way, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. One thing's for sure - the spare room looks a lot bigger without that huge breeder cage in it. Now all three cages (Gunther is in the living room so it's just TK and Peachy Keen in one, Justarius in another, and Button in the third) fit along one wall instead of two and it just looks cleaner. Plus the breeder cage was hard to clean so I don't have to deal with that anymore.

Therapy was good. I got some helpful hints on how to deal with issues. Some of it was breathing excercises that I already knew and then some of it was just interesting revalations that I hadn't really thought of before. My therapist is of the mind that to be happy in a relationship you have to make yourself happy first before you can try to make the other person happy - even though you can't really make someone else happy. I understand that, but that whole "make yourself happy" was never my philosophy. Sad as it sounds, my happiness often depends on others around me. It's like this - if you go out with friends and you are in a great mood and having a wonderful time, but your friends are down and depressed, you're not going to continue having a wonderful time, are you? No, of course not. If I'm doing all this wedding planning and no one around me was into it (thank god that's not really the case, but just saying) then it wouldn't be half as much fun.

::Time out to call Desiree::

We were supposed to go see RENT this weekend, kind of a Bay Path chorus mini reunion, but she can't make it. Scratch that. I still want to see it again, though.

So anyway, my therapist, yea. . . I've just never thought that way. Always thought it was kind of selfish. But the way she explains it makes sense I guess. It's just not how I would normally think. But I guess that's why I'm in therapy, right? Got to try to fix myself somehow.

All new ER on tonight I believe. I think it's the wedding episode. They really should have cancelled this show a couple seasons ago. But I'll watch it to the bitter end, just like I did with X-Files even though the last season SUCKED.

At least Star Trek: TNG had the forsight to go out with fans wanting more. They could have easily manufactured a few more seasons, but they stopped at seven when everyone still cared and wanted to watch more. Good way to do it. All shows should be so smart.

Maybe we'll watch some of that tonight. Or maybe we can read some more Star Wars. We're nearly done with the second book in the Heir to the Empire trilogy. Then we'll read the third and then I'm going to read John one of my favorite Star Trek books - Q Squared. Very funny and good. I can't wait! I love that we read together almost every night. It's so nice.