So, 2009. It wasn't all that bad, all things considered. Finances have been tight the last few months, which has caused some stress but on the whole '09 was pretty sweet. I moved in with a boy (who is a pretty awesome guy), got engaged to the man I love (afformentioned awesome guy), and had many good times with friends.

It makes me a little dizzy to think how different things will be a year from now. Doug and I will have graduated from college, we'll probably be living somewhere else, and we'll be married. YOU GUYS, I WILL BE KIND OF A GROWN UP. :D! D: ! :D!

I haven't posted in my personal journal for a million years. Anyway, this is the first Thanksgiving in my entire life where I haven't woken up with my family, watched the stupid parade, and then sat around bored for the rest of the day. Instead, I woke up at two o'clock in the afternoon in my own apartment next to the man I love and will be (ostensibly. We'll see.) working on homework for most of the day. It feels a little...strange? Not bad, just....different. Anticlimactic? Tomorrow we *may* go look at shopping stuff, and then I have an MRI (yay). In the afternoon we're going to my mom's house for a belated Thanksgiving dinner.

Okay, first of all, we *did* end up changing our venue. It will not longer be at the gardens and it won't be at the church, either. Both the ceremony and reception are going to be held at Wildlife Prairie State Park. I still get my outdoor ceremony (HOOOORAY), but if it rains or is stupidly hot outside we can move the ceremony indoors to our reception site. We've put a deposit down, so NO MOAR CHANGING OF VENUES.

Anyway, Britnar came for a visit this past weekend and we had fun going to every bridal shop in town to look for bridesmaid dresses. Brittany tried on some pretty princess dresses and looked fabulous. At the first shop we went to, she suggested I try on some wedding dresses (just for fun, since at that point I was pretty decided on the one from David's). I agreed and she picked out a few that she wanted me to try. I liked all of them (Brittany has good taste in foofy dresses) but one of them was so awesomely amazing I have decided that its *~*~The Dress~*~*.

The lighting in the room wasn't great, so the pictures are not high quality. The sample was also way too big. BUT BUT BUT

( THE SUNBURST DRESS )

Yesterday I read a story about a puppy who was FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET.

www.nj.com/parenting/index.ssf/2009/06/4_year_old_flushes_puppy_down.html

Just thought I would share.


THE END.

So, we have tentatively set a date (July 17, 2010) and have started to look at venues for the ceremony and reception. We are not procrastinators, yay (well, on this at any rate. The further we work ahead, the less stress we'll have during school.) And today I went with my mom and youngest sister to try on some fancy things. It was fun and little scary, mostly because I was terrified I would STEP ON THE EIGHTY YARDS OF FABRIC and inadvertently rip it and then the sale's lady would yell at me and nobody would have any fun.

But that crisis was averted. Pictures are below the cut (so my love can't peek). I need opinions! My mom was very careful to not influence my opinions. Too careful. HALP.

(Also: there might be a significant amount of wedding talk on here for the next few months. I know many of you are fandom friends, so if you find this irksome and want to defriend me I understand completely. Not everyone enjoys being subjected to foofy dresses and whatnot every few days.)

( Pictures of dresses here! )

Today is my 23rd birthday. For some reason, I feel like 23 is MUCH MUCH OLDER than 22. I have no idea why. Plans for the evening include grocery shopping. Then Doug is making me dinner because he is shiny and wonderful.

We're all moved in to our new apartment. It is very...well, empty at the moment. We don't have much furniture other than the bed, the dresser, a love seat, and my parents old kitchen table. There is a huge pile of boxes in the dining room that I am pretending don't exist at the moment.

I am really enjoying my new job. I love working with the little ones during the first half of my shift. They're exhausting, but a lot of fun to work with. Baby smiles  make me happy.

Also, YOU GUYS I SAW STAR TREK. I knew just enough about it to get some of the little in jokes (lol, guy in the red suit), there were EXPLOSIONS and also some time travel stuff that wasn't COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS and some awesome characters and really, that's all I want in my summer movies.

Today my parents had to put my family's 17 year old tabby cat to sleep. Not only was she ridiculously old, but she was partially paralyzed, suffering from a bad infection, and hardly eating. She literally could not walk or clean herself anymore. They'd put off making the appointment for a while, mostly to appease my younger sisters (one of which is younger than that cat) but they finally decided that it wasn't fair to let her suffer anymore. My mom told me that she wasn't scared at the vet's and that she was even purring while my mom was petting her.

I know a lot of people will think I'm crazy because she was 'just a cat', but I've been crying off and on all evening. I left Japanese class early because I kept having to fight back tears and it was becoming embarrassing. I knew that the cat was sick and that this day was approaching quickly but some silly, childish part of me kept hoping that she'd make some miraculous recovery and be okay again.

 A few weeks ago I took a bunch of pictures of Percy with my youngest sister. They're really sweet photos; I need to upload them.

I am beyond burned out on school at the moment. It's a little bit discouraging. The classes themselves are fine, for the most part, but I'm stressing about my paper for linguistics. Our proposal is due next Wednesday and while I have a general idea of what I want to do (communicative language between men and women) it is far too broad for a 15 page paper. I'm considering limiting it to how men and women communicate on the internet (through blogs, chat, etc) or changing it to the way couples in relationships speak differently to one another than they do towards others. I just...don't know. There has to be a fieldwork aspect to it, and both of the aformentioned topics are fairly easy for me to do considering I only have 23 days from the proposal to when the final paper is due.

I cannot believe that it is almost April. Just thinking about that puts a big smile on my face. I love seeing the tulips popping up everywhere and being able to go to my night classes while its STILL LIGHT OUT. It's been very warm in my room, but that just means I can have the window open without worrying about it becoming freezing.

I want pizza. Like, ridiculously badly. And not the nasty crap they have at the dining center. GOOD pizza. Conceivably, I could do this but I don't want to because I still have NO DAMN JOB despite applying for literally every place I could think of. I'm already dipping into my savings to pay for school stuff and I can't justify spending fifteen bucks on pizza. Even though it would be delicious. And last me about a week. And really: it would be DELICIOUS. (No, self, no!)

The deadline to apply for housing next year has passed and I was incredibly tempted to write the housing department a letter saying HAHAHA, BITCHES, I'M NEVER COMING BACK. Every damn day this place gives me another reason to hate it. From the signs in the bathroom that say 'please do not vomit in sinks' (why do they need to even say that? WHY? WHY?) to the overflowing nasty ass showers to the fact that my room is either far too hot or freezing due to the shitastic heating system.

WHY AM I LOOKING AT PIZZA PLACES. NO. BAD.

I've been kind of halfheartedly watching Heroes this season. It is still made of fail and continuity problems and I hate the kid that is tagging around with Sylar SO GODDAMN MUCH. I don't even remember what his name is. I just remember that he has a very annoying voice and a very annoying purpose and very annoying dialouge and ugh. It's gotten to the point where I can't even watch the first season because it is tainted by the UTTER CRAP I know its going to become and that makes me very, very sad. That is *exactly* what happend to me with Lost. All that squandered potential and all those interesting characters destroyed and the damn show doesn't even manage to be NOT BORING anymore. Unless it has and I've missed it. Oy.

We watched it in Japanese class. That class is...very, very odd.


THE CATS. First I was like D: and then I was like :DDDDD.

I want to do the dance.