Jade's Babblings

I got my hair done today. First time in months and months. Kimmy was so pleased with me that I hadn't totally killed my hair this time and buried it under mounds of box coloring. I was there for three hours. She cut it (it was all dead at the ends) and she also put a lot of blonde highlights into it. Yay, my hair is all stripey now. I totally love it. It's easily the happiest I've been with my hair in a long long time.

Kimmy's an aunt. Her fiancee's sister had her second kid last night. And one of the ladies at the salon was pregnant and left early for an appointment related to that. It's funny how circular life is. I look at people like them and also my friend Dawn and think "I feel really far behind. I can't wait to have kids." Someday someone probably the age I am now will be looking at me and thinking that. Hopefully. Who knows really...

Blast from the past - I was sitting there with my hair over my face cuz Kimmy was foiling it all up. Imagine my surprise when I peeked out between chunks of hair and saw Simon walk in. He's a guy from my old Kingdom Hall and he married the girl who was the maid of honor in my first wedding, Jessica N. He sat at the station behind me for one of the other girls to cut his hair.

I kind of sat in my chair and smirked because, having the benefit of being able to see things from a df'd person's perspective, I would now have no problem smiling at someone and saying hello as I pass them. But most people have no clue as to what to do and just generally avoid your gaze. Kimmy thought it was all very weird. She was like, do you need me to hide you? LOL. She was kidding of course. Anyway, it was just odd. And then when he left I could see him out the window as he walked to his work van and Jess B's husband Matt was waiting for him out there. Jess B is Jess N's step sister so it's kind of cool that their husbands work together I guess.

It was just funny is all. Made me chuckle. Too bad I couldn't have gone to their meeting tonight or something, but I've got my own to go to and also they only have the book study tonight. I already went to mine on Thursday and I'd only see like a 7th of the congregation if I went to Southbridge tonight. Ah well. Maybe when my mom is done with her masters classes in Cambridge I will go out to their Sunday meeting and "visit" such as it is. I can't really talk to anyone so it's not much of a visit. More of a staring visit. haha.

All winter long at work a bunch of us have been parking in the cycle parking section. No one drives their bike in the winter so the parking people don't care if we park there.

Today I was running late so I parked there and even thought on my way up in the elevator that today would probably be the last day I'd do that because it's getting warmer and people will probably start driving their bikes again.

I came out to my car after work to find this:



At first I just thought "ooh, my bad." but then I went to peel the sticker off and discovered that it wasn't going to be that easy. I drove all the way home with my window part way down so that no one would see the sticker.

Then I got home and tried to peel it off again and discovered that it was one of those thin paper stickers that aheres to the surface and won't come off. I swear, half the fun for the parking people must be to know that you have to drive home looking like an idiot with a bright orange square on your window. My poor brand new car. :(

John was ticked and called the company to find out what the hell was up with that. By the end of the call they even offered to clean it off FOR me. John went out there and got it all cleaned off for me though.

Talk about overkill. It was insane how hard that was to get off my poor car. Here's another great picture of what they did to my new vehicle:

This weekend was a rough one. I was on-call and I had to go out to Auburn to pick up my wedding veil. So I set up my computer at Sarah's and we did all that. I got a call while I was in the store. Too bad that phone has horrible reception even if I'm sitting in my own house...

Called back ten minutes later and they'd already IMed my co worker about it. Never a good thing for me. So it was a pretty tense weekend and Monday was no better. Yesterday got there a bit more and today's been pretty uneventful. I've got tomorrow off for a hair appointment. And then it'll be Friday before I know it.

Now I just have to decide what style and color I want my hair. Kimmy will help me, I'm sure.

I finally went clothes shopping! Normally I hate it, but we were at the mall for hours. I hadn't been shopping in forever so I took some of my tax return money for it. Sweet.

I'm starving and there's still a half hour until lunch...

We were made to love and be loved
But the price this world demands
Would cost us far too much
I spent so many lonely years just trying to fit in
Now I've found my place in this circle of friends

What would you say if you knew this was the last time you would see the ones you love? Would you wish them well? Tell them you hope they take good care of themselves? What if it was your best friend in the entire world and you knew you could never speak with them again? Would you do it? For the sake of your family, for the sake of your sanity, for the sake of your God?

In a circle of friends
We have one Father
In a circle of friends
We share this prayer
That ever orphaned soul will know
And all will enter in
To the shelter of this circle of friends

Were you a stranger to yourself your whole life? Were you the shy, quiet kid who hung out with many and was remembered by few? Making friends is hard, keeping them is harder. And as we get older, it just becomes more difficult.

If you weep, I will weep with you
If you sing for joy the rest of us
Will lift our voices too
But no matter what you feel inside there's no need to pretend
That's the way it is in this circle of friends

Some people come into our lives and quietly go. Others leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same. You are that to me. My circle of friends. The footprints sting sometimes, but mostly they are a gentle reminder. My heart beats and says "What are you missing now? Right this second." And I answer to myself, "You. All of you."

In a circle of friends
We have one Father
In a circle of friends
We share this prayer
That we'll gather together no matter how the highway bends
I will not lose this circle of friends

"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for. The evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." --Hebrews

I have faith. Do you? How strong is yours? Is there anything that would shake it? Think hard.

We are no longer friends, and yet I know we are always in each other's thoughts or just behind our eyelids when we sleep...

"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before we can meet again; and meeting again, after a moment or a lifetime, is certain for those who are friends."
--Richard Bach

This post was originally from March 29, 2005. Now, almost a year later, the sentiment still rings true and I feel even more strongly about it than I ever did. John and I have been through so much crap together. Even though we'll probably go through a lot more, it's hard to picture any situation that would ever come between us for an extended amount of time. He's my friend and my fiancee and the person who takes such awesome care of me and I love him with all my heart.

"The Best" Awards

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t really have it that bad. Sure, money is tight and John and I are dealing with a lot of stresses in our lives right now. But you know what? We’re dealing with them together. And that’s pretty awesome.

I’ve never been good at being alone. I was always happiest when I was in a relationship, sharing my life with someone. That’s not to say that I’ve never been alone or that I didn’t enjoy it when I was. But I’m happiER in a relationship.

John really takes good care of me. He’s a great guy. He spent his whole day off yesterday taking care of errands for me. He fought with the vet about taking Pixel home and he fought with Midas about them screwing me over with my car. He’s taking care of paying bills and all that. I make a lot more money than I did at Bose, but he still takes care of the actual “going to the post office to pay bills” part of it, for which I’m grateful.

On Thursday (his last day off of the week) he’s taking my car to Midas to have it fixed once and for all. And he’ll probably pay the bills that day too. Plus keep an eye on Pixel pup for me. He’s a really great boyfriend. I’m lucky to have him.

Sometimes on a day to day basis it’s hard to remember how much we appreciate the ones we love. They are the people that make us happiest and also the people that drive us absolutely crazy. It’s easy to take them for granted when you see them day in and day out. But just imagining your life without them is enough to make you realize how much you need them.

Yep, I’m pretty happy. John definitely gets the best boyfriend award from me today. (Hopefully he’ll still be deserving of it tomorrow. lol.)

Here's John's comment from it. So nice:

Thank you so much for the kind comments. It's you who makes me a good person through your love and caring. I love you Jessie!
Love,
John

Friday was St. Patrick's Day. I did not do my part as an Irish person and get all liquored up. But I watched other people do it so I suppose that must count.

John and I went to Sabina Doyle's with his parents for dinner. It was so crowded in there. Yea... an Irish pub run by a guy from Ireland and you think it's not going to be crowded. There was a two hour wait for anyone who didn't have reservations. Craziness.

Saturday was some more general craziness. I hung around the house most of the day. I was going to go out to Chrisanne's to pick up my veil that came in already(!) but I didn't make it. Too long of a drive. John got home from work around 1:30 and we had an appointment out in Arlington with a JP at 4:00 p.m.

We made it with five minutes to spare. Go us. David was nice and he had a lot of information for us. We're trying to decided among him and two retired priests. John really wants to go with the priest thing. I guess I don't care much either way as long as we get to customize our ceremony the way we want it to go. I'd like to write a few lines of our own onto the vows, plus add a few other touches.

So that was a really informative meeting. One thing that was so strange was that David went through the whole ceremony with us. He didn't have us say the vows or anything, but he said them with out names added in. Wow, was that ever odd to hear. I said to John on the way home, "Did you feel a little nervous when he said 'do you, john, take jessie...'?" "Oh yea." lol. It was just surreal to hear it all said out like that. But if anything it made me more excited for the day to get here.

Sunday I skipped the meeting (bad Jessie!) and went over to Sarah and Paul's house. I brought Star Wars and Rent, but we ended up just sitting around and chatting instead. Joe showed up and the boys went to get us Subway. Sadie was sick with an earache so she mostly slept through the whole visit anyway. Joe and Sarah were doing a bit of drinking which is the funniest thing I've ever seen and then the four of us were playing a reasonably mild (for us anyway) game of truth or dare.
I've got five words for ya: Get me another drink bitch!

yea, that sums up my weekend.

I took the day off Monday (thank god since after being out late sunday I was in no state to go to work) and John and I went to do our taxes. I should be getting about $1000 back. Whoot! Then we drove out to Boston to visit with John's Nana, but she was only awake about a half hour after we got there. We mostly chatted with his Aunt Peggy and cousin Andrea who were down from Canada. Andrea's cool. I like talking with her. She's all excited for our wedding and bought a dress already. We can't cancel - Andrea bought a dress! Yep, that'll keep us going. lol. John's whole family is awesome. He likes my extended family too. And he's warming up to my parents. Good thing too.

Now I'm back to work having a horrible week. It's been wicked busy here and I was all alone yesterday. It's just me and J today. People yelling over the phone and on email.... Argh, it's not much fun this week. And I have to be on-call for the weekend. Help.

Wedding nightmares have become increasingly scarier as time creeps slowly toward October. Last night I dreamed that I had every imaginable difficulty in organizing the wedding. We had mailed out invites for a wedding in May and then changed it to October and so had informed everyone of that fact. But then we were told that the only time we could do it was in May and it turned out that the day we found that out was the day the wedding had to take place at the Cocke n' Kettle.

Through the whole dream I was trying to find time to call everyone to tell them to get out here so they wouldn't miss the wedding. My mom finally called friends and family only an hour or two before and somehow they all managed to show up. Go figure.

Then trying to get dressed and get all the bridesmaids and groomsmen ready became the problem of the minute. For some reason my wedding dress was blue. And my veil was hideous, but I wore it anyway. My dad walked me out to the altar, but the wedding wasn't starting yet so I have no idea why we did that. I saw some of my aunts and uncles on the way up there and my Aunt Sue waved at me. :)

So Dad and I are just sitting there waiting for everything to start and I decided to go check on my bridesmaids. Don't ask me why they didn't come out first....
I get to the room they're in and Kirsty is there and says that I don't even want to know. And I said, "Know what?" and they showed me that one of the girls' dresses was ripped at the top and missing a strap. It was Jess N's actually, which is funny since she was in my first wedding. But I didn't freak out or anything and everyone breathed a sigh of relief I guess that I wasn't acting like a bridezilla.

My dream pretty much ended there. I remember letting Madison (my cousin's daughter) wear my veil because she thought it was pretty. That's about it. Totally bizarre. I hope these don't get worse as the year goes on. . .

If you could build your dream house, what would it be like?

First of all, it would have to have a wrap-around porch. I have always wanted one of those. Set up some rocking chairs and a porch swing and drink lemonade out there in the summer. If it was screened in, maybe even sleep out there sometimes for fun. Plus, in nice weather the birds could go out there.

It would need at least three bedrooms and also a bird room. An office would be essential for getting work done when I'm on-call or maybe even working from home someday. I didn't put it in the visual aides (of course there are pictures!), but I'd love a library. Some place with big comfy chairs and bookshelves everywhere.

Here is my (not very good) rendering of the layout of my house. Notice the lack of a dining room. That's cuz we dine in the living room! Sorry, Mom. LOL.

If you could choose one fantasy story to live inside of, which would you choose?

This is a tough one. I read so many books and they all hold unique worlds that I would love to explore. But I think my favorite would have to be Dragonlance. It's a really close tie between that and Star Wars (the books, not the movies), but DL wins out in the end.

The books are set in such dangerous times for Krynn, but the excitement and friendships are equal to the peril. I would love to travel with Fizban and have a chat with Raistlin about the finer points of magic. Tas has to be my favorite character - a kender who "borrows" things all the time. Watching a conversation between him and Raistlin is always amusing. There's also Tanis, the leader; Caramon, the warrior; Sturm, the knight; Tika, barmaid turned fighter; Goldmoon and Riverwind, Margaret Weis' example of noble Native Americans I guess; and Flint, the dwarf.

DL is very much like Lord of the Rings, but Tolkien's slow style of writing can't hold a candle to Weis' sense of adventure in her words.

That would easily have to be the story I would choose.

Every week Open Diary posts a theme to write an entry about. I used to do them weekly when I belonged to it, but now I catch them every once in a while. Since I'm looking for some inspiration in my writing lately I thought I'd do a few of them as "practice".

At what age do you think you became (or will become) an adult? Why then?

Had you asked me this question a few years ago, I think my answer would have been different. I probably would have said 17 or 18, which wouldn't be a total lie. I've always been a little more mature than my age normally stated. But having had the life experience I've had these past few years, I'd say my journey into adulthood didn't really begin until age 23. I went through a divorce when I was 22, moved out of one of the safest places I've ever been into the unknown, and stepped back and was expelled from a religion I've known my entire life.

Ask me again in another few years and I'm sure my answer will change. We are all constantly growing and maturing. I don't know when you ever really truly become an adult based on life experience. When you're 50 are you able to say you're an adult? Maybe when you're 80 you've gained all the knowledge you're going to gain for your life. But I doubt it. I think we're all just kids playing a role and eventually we'll reach adulthood, but who can say when that will be.

If you want to see some crappy camera phone pictures of my new star trek tattoo, check out my photo blog link on here. It came out much better than I even expected. My artist was nervous actually, he admitted later, but it came out totally great. I'm so pleased with it.

Friday night was really wonderful. I was early of course. I showed up at quarter of 7 and sat in the parking lot. Nate was the only person whose number I had so I called his cell at about five of and he said he and Kim weren't there yet, but they'd call when they got there. I finally gave in and went in by myself around 7:15 and it turned out Justin and his girlfriend Megan and Kevin and his girlfriend Jen were already in there. Oops, a half hour of waiting for nothing.

Nate and Kim showed up shortly thereafter and so did Todd and Sam. They couldn't sit us all together so I sat with Nate, Kim, and Sam. Sam has/had a few birds so we spent the night talking about that. :)

Justin and Megan had to go home right after dinner so the rest of us headed over to Outback for drinks and desert. We chatted there until about 10:00 and then I headed home. I made pretty good time too.

Nate called me the next morning while we were waiting in the tattoo shop to see if I had made it home safely since I was flying to get there.

Sunday was spent watching movies in bed (Constantine - already saw it, but it was good; Jarhead - awesome film; and Pride and Predjudice - so much better than expected) with John because we were both tired from tattooing. We went to his parents' house for dinner around 4 as well.

That's about all I've got right now....

The setting: Pub99 restaurant
The scene: high school friends catching up on old times.

I can't wait. Tonight I'm driving an hour out to one of my old "home towns" to have dinner with four friends from high school and their girlfriends. One of them I didn't know that well back at good ol' Bay Path, but I guess these four couples usually hang out all the time so he and his wife got invited too.

It should be a good time. I haven't seen these people in forever. Two of them I'm sure it's been the whole six years since we graduated. I'm very happy that we were able to pull everyone together for one night. I hope it turns out well.

Tomorrow we're driving to new hampshire to go tattooing. How psyched am I? Pretty psyched!

I came into work today and there were 26 cases in the inbox, but in one hour I had it down to 5 all by myself. I even did two cases that B had been working on. Then around 9:00 J showed up and we cleaned out the rest of them. I was fairly proud of myself, though.

We met with our wedding coordinator last night at the Cocke n' Kettle, Kathy. She's super nice. She was wicked sad that we aren't doing the Star Wars wedding anymore, but we told her why and she was pretty sympathetic. It seems silly to have a SW wedding with maybe two or four SW fans there.

Then we rushed off to the meeting to see the Circuit Overseer's talk and I was so glad we made it. John went with me which was awesome of course. We had a really good night.

A couple days ago John started a sentence off that way. What followed were the 8 most beautiful words I've ever heard.

"I'm kinda getting excited about this wedding stuff."

We've managed to save some cash up these past few months. It hasn't been easy with all my medical bills. I feel like I just keep breaking. And I'm still not completely fixed. My jaw is still locking up when I do something as simple as brush my teeth. But I can deal.

John's parents have been super nice enough to give us some money towards the wedding. I think that's great since there's no way my parents are going to pay for a second wedding, nor should they be expected to. John's their only kid, so why not? That took some of the financial burden off anyway, which was helpful since John hates anything that involves spending money.

So now I'm even more excited because I feel like I'm going to have someone besides my bridesmaids to bounce ideas off of. I'm psyched, needless to say. Yay. Here's hoping that things continue to go (mostly) well for the next 7 months, 22 days, 20 hours, and 3 minutes until the wedding. ;)

Most of my teenage life I had silly jobs that didn't really mean much to me. I worked at a video store, I waitressed, I worked as a part-time secretary at my ex husband's work...

Usually I was never around a place long enough for a review. The one time I was, I bombed horribly because the boss had some unreal expectations of what my job description was. I walked out being told we'd see how it went for a month and if it went well I'd get a raise then. I never got the raise. Two months passsed, then three, and then I got a divorce and my life went straight to hell for about five confusing months.

I like my job now. It's stressful and some of it can really get to me sometimes, but I do like it. It's the most important job I've ever had and I really feel needed. I'd feel more needed if I were a permanent employee, but there's nothing that can be done about that at the moment.

The permanent employees are going through their self assessments now. J and B have done theirs and they are meeting with our manager today to go over them and see how theirs match up to what the manager said. I was half joking that I get to get out of it because I'm a temp. I did feel a little left out, though. It's hard to be the one person in the group who is considered not a real team member because of their job status. Then our manager came in to drop off their assessments with the other two girls and she said to me that she didn't want me to feel left out so she would be meeting with me as well.

First thought? "NO!!" Second thought - "That's nice of her to think of me and treat me like a 'real' employee." Now I'm going back and forth between those two feelings. I am kind of nervous. I can't really think of much that they could complain about with me. I did miss three weeks of work, but I provided a doctor's note for all of them and I also worked from home the entire time and even took my on-call time. I take cases just as quickly as the other girls now, sometimes faster. I know most everything they do. What I don't know, I ask about and sometimes they ask me things too. It's not as if they have nothing to learn from me either. I'm only iffy in a couple products because I have never had to use the program that we use for them. We get few requests for it and I didn't have access to it until about a month ago so it was unavoidable that I wouldnt' have that much experience with it.

That's about it, though. I come to work on time and stay until I'm supposed to and then I go home and work from home, sometimes even when it's not my day to be on-call. I go above and beyond pretty much. So what am I worried about? I have so much riding on this job. John and I being able to afford the condo, our wedding, our pets, etc. That's a lot of pressure.

Not that I think they're going to fire me. Just that I get nervous with this type of stuff. I just want to get it over with at this point. :)

I don't even feel like the Paxil is working at all. I'm as stressed as ever. Last night I woke up at midnight for no reason with my heart racing. This morning I didn't want to get out of bed cuz I felt sick. I did get out of bed and got ready for work in 10 minutes (shower and everything) and still made it here five minutes early.

Last night was the book study. The Daniel book is so confusing! Between the King of the North and the King of the South and then tieing that into world war II, I was a tad bit lost.

Every time Brother G. asked if someone could read a scripture I had to keep my hand from shooting up in the air. I want to be able to answer again and read scriptures. This DFing thing sucks.

Wedding plans are tugging along. Money saving is too, I suppose, though it doesn't feel that way.

This weekend I'll be trying some new tactics to stop Gunther from plucking out all his feathers. Wish me luck.