title, shmitle
Mood:  caffeinated
*looks around* Is anyone still here? It's been ages since I last posted. Poor blog, so neglected...

Much progress on the wedding front. All of my bridesmaids either have their dresses, or have them ordered. Sarah's made magnificent progress on the flowers. I've purchased undergarments more expensive than any other item of clothing I currently own, and will have a gown fitting soon. With the exception of the people playing an active role in either the setup, or the ceremony itself, all of the invitations have been sent out, and the replies are starting to come. (pats self on back) All of that said, there's still so much to be done: I have to fill out my song sheets and return them to Complete Music, find something to attach my veil to (some sort of barette, I think), find vases for the table centerpieces, make hair and nail appointments, purchase more flowers and garlands for decorations, mail the rest of the invites, find time with Jim to get our marriage license and get the men's suits bought, and several other things I haven't even thought of yet. O_O 36 days to go. I'm trying very hard to keep track of everything that needs doing, and not be so overwhelmed that I give up. So far, I think I'm doing ok. Some of the invitations were sent a little later than they should have been, but at least they're done now. I'm really having a rough time fulfilling all of the roles I'm involved in. I'm not only a wedding planner, I'm also a tutor, housekeeper, stepmom, and full-time employee. I do all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and checking of homework, and that's just between the hours of 4 and 10pm. I've never been so consistently busy on a daily basis, and I really don't like it very much. I suppose it's good training for what will come later in my life though. *sigh* I miss reading on rainy days...and theatre. I'm hoping that I can get involved in the community theatre this fall. I miss quiet evenings, just taking time for myself. But anyway...

I guess that's all I have to say for now. Who knows when I'll post again? :P Feel free to comment, the site emails me when you do. *waves*

and the countdown begins...
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Wedding Plans
98 days to go...

I've got my dress ordered. That was an ordeal in and of itself. But, the worst is over. Now to move on to flowers. I plan to visit Hobby Lobby sometime this week and take pictures of the flowers I like, which I will then email to Sarah. Dearest Lu has taken on the formidable task of creating the wedding party's floral accessories. I myself will do some of the decorations, and I plan to recruit a couple of Jim's relatives and friends.

Now if I just had money to pay for all of this stuff...lol. I did have a minor windfall in that I discovered that an old credit card account from a few years ago is still open, and has $800 available at a much lower interest rate than my other card. Yay! I put the dress on that, and plan to use it to pay for the first installment of ring payments. Will pay the rest of that (and buy flowers) when we get our tax returns back, hopefully in the next week or so. Hooray for direct deposit!

Well, back to the rat race I go...

Let your heart be light...
Merry Christmas everyone!

Hummmmmm
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday dear Jessi,
Happy Birthday to me.

or, if you prefer something more casual:

We hear it's your birthday
and we're here to sing to you
singing do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do.
So have a happy birthday
from the HCM crew
singing do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do.
You look good (you look good)
You look fine (you look fine)
You look good you look fine
and we're running out of time
singing do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do.
Hey!
(a shameless bit of plagiarism, but I'm not the first) *wonders if Amanda is crosseyed yet*

and for our German friends:
(scary the useful things I remember from high school, isn't it?)

Herzliche Geburtstag fur mich,
Herzliche Geburtstag fur mich,
Herzliche Geburtstag leibe Jessi,
Herzliche Geburtstag fur mich.

And furthermore, in the words of Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

Ah, the glory of Jim's vocabulary
"What's with the glumitity?" Jim asks.

I give him an odd look.

He replies, "Glumtitude?"

Don't you just love making up words? We do. You've got to hand it to the person who came up with "haberdashery", that's real talent. Myself, I stick with simple creations like....

I can't think of one right now. That figures...

Oh well, life goes on.

We're well into Turkey Day preparations at our house. Hope it goes well...

I'm still here...
I'm really disenchanted with the whole blog thing. I think if I had a computer at home it wouldn't be so bad, but here at work I'm just not in the mood. Of course, that could be due to my recent state of mind. I think I'm on a bipolar low. I'm not enthusiastic about anything, if I smile, it's forced most of the time. I heard myself laugh today, and thought to myself "Do I really sound that phony?" I'm having trouble sleeping too. And gaining weight again, no meds to blame it on this time, just emotional eating. All in all, I'm just not a happy camper. Don't know what will have to happen to turn me around, but I hope it happens soon. It's just occurred to me that I haven't even been trying to find another job. I went to StaffCo over a week ago, and haven't called them back yet. That's all I've done. Now that it's re-entered my mind, I believe I'll go check the ads right now, before I forget again. Will post again when the mood strikes...

How broad can a broad get?
No, that's not a reference to fat women. I'm talking about broadening your mind, your horizons, however you want to put it.

I watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang today. (Which will henceforth be referred to as CCBB, cause I don't feel like typing it again) I don't know how it ended up at our house. Well, actually that's not true, I know exactly how it got to our house. When we moved, Jim had Robert pack the movies, and told him that everything on a particular rack was ours. He didn't check, so we have some movies that Jim isn't too fond of, CCBB and Sound of Music among others. Anyway, I didn't work last night, I stayed up late and read, then watched Chorus Line. I finally went to bed at 3:30am. Mind you, this was intentional. The logic behind this was something like "I have to stay up all night Tuesday at work, so I should stay up as late as possible Monday so it won't be so hard on me." Well, as usual, logic didn't come into play when I woke up at 9:30 this morning. I never did manage to go back to sleep. So, I've had 6 hours of sleep (not uncommon lately), and by the time I get home tomorrow, I'll have been up for 24 hours. Do I have to tell you how tired I am of working third shift? Oh, and more good news. Found out when I got here tonight that not only is the owner making us work Thanksgiving and Christmas, we won't have December 15-31 off like we did last year. Supposedly, time off requests will be considered in the order they are received. Jim and I turned ours in for Thanksgiving (and the day before) over a month ago. We'll see...

Wow, that was a heck of a bunny trail...back to my story...

Ok, so I got up this morning, read for a little bit, then decided to watch CCBB. I'd never seen it before, and knew I'd never get to watch it when Jim was home. So, since he was over at his dad's getting ready for trapping season and would be home around noon, I popped CCBB into the player. It's cute. I can understand why Jim doesn't like it. :) For the record, I do. It's the kind of cutesy catchy quasi fairy tale that I enjoy on occasion. And that's the most exciting thing I did today. :)

is it a sign?
My Neopets account just got frozen. Apparently the administrators are under the impression that I posted something inappropriate on the message boards. As I don't remember doing so, I have submitted a request for my account to be unfrozen. In the meantime, I started a second account, which I've been meaning to do anyway. I still can't do anything though because the verification email hasn't arrived in my Yahoo mailbox. So, I can't get into my old account, and can't use my new one... Guess it's time to get the crochet project out...or I could read that book that's been sitting at my right for a week. Darn these addictive activities...

PS, it's DAMN COLD here. It's currently 24 degrees, with 91% humidity...I'm wearing a ski jacket, with a polo and a sweater underneath, and I'm INSIDE!

Music review
Heard a new song on the radio yesterday: Home by Michael Buble'. It's from his third album, but this is the first I've heard of the guy. Checked out his website, and I'm thinking he's going to be my new favorite male solo artist. He's from Vancouver, and is a "classical pop" enthusiast. (Read - SWING!!!) I find this very interesting as the song I heard had more of a modern country ballad feel to it. Obviously, the guy's versatile. I intend to run out and purchase his albums as soon as possible. :) Feel free to peruse his site yourself, if you so desire. Here's the link.

If you haven't read the comments on the previous post, do so now. My dad mentioned a site that is worth visting as well. It's a newspaper columnist's personal site, and has some interesting things to see and read. (I thought the stock certificates were neat.)

Gotta love Sarah McLachlan
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: Black & White
unravel me
a distant cord
on the outside is forgotten
a constant need

to get along
and the animal awakens
and all I feel is black and white

the road is long
the memory slides
to the whole of my undoing
put aside
I put away
I push it back to get through each day
and all I feel is black and white
and I'm wound up small and tight
and I don't know who I am

everybody loves you when you're easy
everybody hates when you're a bore
everyone is waiting for your entrance so
don't disappoint them

unravel me
untie this chord
the very centre of our union
is caving in
I can't endure
I am the archive of our failure

and all I feel is black and white
and I'm wound up small and tight
and I don't know who I am

everybody loves you when you're easy
everybody hates when you're a bore
everyone is waiting for your entrance so
don't disappoint them

everybody loves you when you're easy so
don't disappoint them

don't disappoint them ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had my "surfacing" CD in the stereo alongside Vince Gill's "I still believe in you". Oddly enough, Sarah lasted just long enough for me to finish steaming my artichoke (which was my dinner until Jim got home from duck hunting at 8), with some time for kitty snuggles while I waited for the timer to go off. Then Vince came on to serenade me while I ate. After that, I set the CD player to repeat this song, as I'd been trying to learn the lyrics to it for a while. As I listened to it, I realized it has somewhat of a "gotta move" rhythm to it. So, I just let it repeat and repeat and I danced my little heart out. Hey, with me, when the mood to exercise strikes, I don't hesitate. It doesn't happen often. Anyway, I danced around in several styles, got my heart pumping, stepped in time to cool down (short circuit around my living room). Then I sat on the floor and engaged myself in a pointless activity I do from time to time: transcribing the lyrics. Trouble is, none of the lyrics from this CD are printed on the jacket/book thingy. (Maybe that's a moot point, why would I be writing them out if I had them printed in front of me? Then again, I have done that before...) So, I'm sitting there, listening to this song for what must have been the 20th time, and I think I've got it down. I came into work tonight, of course I have that song stuck in my head (along with every other song I've heard in the last 6 hours). Not necessarily a bad thing, but I decided to post the lyrics here. Since I didn't bring the notebook I'd written them in, I had to look them up. Lo and behold, I had three words wrong, and all of them totally change the phrases they're in. Man, now I have to decide whether to sing it my way or her way...
In case you're wondering, here's what I heard, with corrections in parentheses:
- and all I fear (feel) is black & white
- everybody hates when you're a fool (bore)
- I am the archive of our faith (failure)