Category: BlahBlahBabble

I have some questions, and I want *YOUR* opinions. Yes, you. Right there. Leave a comment and tell me what you think. Please? Share your thoughts. I *need* your help!

– We have already started receiving wedding gifts. We want to send out thank you notes right away so that the person who sent it will know that it made it here ok. Problem? Our “formal” thank you cards have our married name. I am not supposed to use them until after the wedding. I don’t want to wait a month to mail these notes. What should I do?

– The great honeymoon debate continues. Here are a list of citys, with the issues related to each one:

– Chicago: Fabulous city. I lived 60 miles south in Kankakee, IL when I was in elementary school, but we moved to Houston when I was 15. I’ve never been there as an adult. Mike’s never been there at all, and really wants to go. Fabulous food. Museums. Restaurants. Navy Pier. Lots of other stuff. Negatives? Doesn’t sound “honeymoony,” and I have seen some of it when I was a kid – I’m afraid that I’ll be disappointed by some things. Childhood memories not living up to reality and all that.

– Paris: I love the Eiffel Tower. We have both visited Paris, for a total of maybe 24 hours – combined. Less than one day each. We both want to see Paris again. It’s the city of love and all that. We have airline miles to pay for the flight, so going there probably won’t be much more expensive than staying in the US. Negatives? George Bush is an idiot and the French hate Americans right now. (I’ve heard that Americans that have loved Paris in the past were treated very rudely there.) Mike’s afraid it’s too touristy. He knows a little French, I know “Bon Jour.”

– London: I have always wanted to visit London. Always. Since I was a little girl. We’ll blame Mary Poppins for that, I guess. I want to see so many historic places, there are too many to list here. Mike lived there for a year, so he knows his way around the city – but he spent most of his time at work and never saw all the touristy things I want to see. He absolutely loves the city, and wants to share it with me. And the people speak English (with a heavy accent, but still – it’s English.) Negatives? He lived there, so he has memories associated with the city. That’s a pretty minor negative though, as there is so much he has never seen in the city – so much that will be new for us together.

– Danube River Cruise – This trip starts off with 3 days in Prague, and then you travel the river from Nuremberg to Budapest, stopping in Vienna and other cities. It’s a gorgeous part of Europe that we have never seen, and it would be nice leisurely travel. We won’t have to make decisions about where to go – we get an itinerary to follow, and the decisions are made. Negatives? We’re on their time schedule. If we like one city and want to stay there, we can’t – we will have to continue on. If the food is horrid or anything like that on the boat, it could really ruin the trip.

– Germany – I lived there in the early ’90s, and have wanted to go back since the day I left. I would love to take Mike to see Heidelberg, Rothenberg, Wurzburg, Neuschwanstein, Garmish and Munich. He would love to see all the cities I love so much. Negatives? My memories tied to Germany. There are so many places I want to see, we would be moving around from city to city every other day. We would have to rent a car probably to drive from one side of the country to the other.

– New Orleans – Originally, we wanted to go there. Unfortunately, the weekend after our wedding is the “Great French Market Tomato Festival” and all the rooms in New Orleans are booked. It was like a flashback of our trip there last year.

We’ve also talked about a bunch of other places, but I think the final three right now are Chicago, Paris, London or the Danube cruise. What do you think? Have you been to any of these places? Pros? Cons? If we go to one of the locations, what should we see? Have any tips to share? Come on, you know you’re thinking something about all of this.

The wedding is May 29th. 1 month away. I talked with a total of 4 vendors today. Last night Chelsey, Kymberlie and I went to have our dresses altered. (Kymberlie has photographic evidence – including a shot of her wearing my tiara.) 1 month. Flowers are set, catering menu is in with services from halal catering, and rooms are reserved for guests. I have finally learned why I hate planning things – because I am a freak and obsess over all of the decisions. It’s just easier to pick one quickly and get it over with. Sort of like ripping off a bandaid or something like that.

If you have an invitation and you haven’t mailed back the response card – send it. I’m starting to freak out over the guest list and the RSVPs, and I’ll start stalking you until I know what your answer is. If you’re in to that sort of thing … well, I don’t have time to stalk you really, so I guess it’s a somewhat idle threat. RSVP anyways. Pretty please.

We have no clue where we are going for our honeymoon. Instead of making the list of places shorter, we keep making it longer. GAH! I like the Danube river cruise right now though. 3 days in Prague, a trip through Europe, and ending in Budapest. However, we are still talking about Paris and Chicago too. Or Scotland. Or San Francisco. Decisions, decisions.

Ok. I’ll be ok. Breathe in, breathe out. Whoooooosh. I have no doubts about the wedding itself – but this last month is going to be crazy!

Wow. 1 month. Wow…

The new house is off of Spring Cypress in northwest Houston. Houston is a strange city with no deed restrictions, so instead we live in subdivisions which have deed restrictions. Inbetween the subdivisions, especially on this side of town, you never know what you will find. There is still a farm across the street from my high school, but HP (Compaq) is right down the road with a huge sprawling campus. On Spring Cypress, it’s still pretty undeveloped. They are building now, but there are still individual houses lining the road too.

When we first moved here, I noticed a lot with a chain link fence around it and a mobile home parked inside. After a day or two, I noticed that there was someone in the car – it looked like he was smoking. As time went by, I would look at the car every time we drove past. Would there be someone inside? What would they be doing? Why are they outside instead of in the house? Do they get kicked out when they go to smoke?

It became a game for us. Every time I drove past, I had to look to see if there was someone in the car and I would imagine what they were doing out there. It didn’t matter what time of day it was, a car was always there. It was my job to be spy detective and figure out what was going on.

Until the day that Mike burst my bubble over the whole thing.

I was giving him my report on what I had seen in the mystery car over the past day or two. I had to fill him in because I wanted to know what he had seen. I had to piece this puzzle together, so enlisting him as my spy partner seemed to be only logical.

That was when he told me. He knew the answer. There was no mystery at all.

The person in the car was a security guard. He had seen him get out of the car one day to check the grounds. That’s why some days he was there, but other days I didn’t see him.

It was so simple, but I was disappointed. My game was gone. I looked forward to driving past there to see what was going on, and after hearing the news, I had nothing.

After awhile, there wasn’t a car there any more. I guess they didn’t need a guard for awhile. This morning, I noticed a small SUV with “Securitas” written on it. If that had been there all along, my game would have never even started. It may sound strange, but I still miss my guessing game, trying to figure out why the man was sitting in the car.

If you are unsatisfied with your current body corporate managers you should seriously consider changing so you are obtaining the highest level of body corporate services. Now that I think about it, there is a small building on the property. I wonder what they have inside of there? Hmmm…

Whew. I needed a good laugh, and the bride man in my post below definitely gave it to me. Mad props to Chelsey (my maid of honor) for e-mailing me about it, and then calling me to force me to read the e-mail.

Today was one of those days. You know, the kind where you don’t think it could possibly get any worse – and then it does? Yeah, one of those. It was like news about different things kept piling on me, until I hit information overload. I can’t take any more news for today. No decisions either. I have another round of wedding invitations to prepare (I just got the addresses) and mail out in the morning. I have two web sites to finish. I’m up to my eyeballs in stuff to do – all of which seems to require immediate attention.

Tomorrow morning I have a hair appointment. I want to get it cut a month before the wedding so if it is bad there is time to fix it. I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but I am actually a paranoid control freak – I just hide it well some days. Then we have an appointment at 6:30 tomorrow to have all of the dresses altered. That is if I still have bridesmaids – I was a bit snappy earlier. I hope they will still have me. It was a bad day, but still…

It’s sort of ironic, being as busy as I am right now. I have gotten exactly what I wanted. I went to see “13 Going on 30” this weekend, and it was a good reminder to be careful what you wish for. It was an absolutely adorable girly movie with a soundtrack that rocks. I think everyone should see it. I might just go and see it again myself. Even though it made me cry. Twice. Stop laughing at me…

Ok, I did have one issue with the movie. Jenna turns 13 on May 26, 1987. On her birthday, she is watching a Rick Springfield video, the Michael Jackson “Thriller” video, and is otherwise dressed for 1984. But they said it was 1987. I’m sorry, but those songs are like soooooooo 1984. Great songs, but not the hits of 1987. It’s the little things that you notice some days. The music and the blue eyeshadow. *shiver*

So anyways, I am alive and well. Way too busy. And obviously, I need to remember to laugh every once in awhile.

In the middle of the night last night, I couldn’t sleep. I started thinking about Jason’s Social Studies project that I had read through for him earlier in the day, proofing the final draft so it could be turned in this morning. I suddenly realized that somehow the ethnic background of Austria and Australia had been left out of his report. (I am quite the expert on the statistics of both nations now, thanks to this project.)

I was thinking that I could have him add the information in to the report this morning. It’s his work, and he should do it. Not me.

But what if something was to go wrong? Then what? We are adjusting to the mornings home together, I am still getting used to getting up at 6:15 am, so what if I overslept, and because of that he lost points? The teacher left it off of the second part of instructions, but it was an item he had to list in the first half of the project, and everything from the first half was supposed to be in the second half too.

The dilemna. What to do, what to do…

I finally got up, copied and pasted the sentence from the first report, copied the information on the ethnic diversity from the CIA information website for Australia, reprinted the page and switched it out in his report.

He knows the information. He has spent weeks working on this. It was just an oversight that the information was left off in the first place. If I didn’t fix it, I was going to get even less sleep last night, because I could not stop tossing and turning after I realized it was missing.

I showed him the error this morning, the information I slid in (all of two sentences) and the page I pulled out. He was happy that it was ready to go and he didn’t have to make the changes at 6:30 am.

I’m ok with what I did, but for some reason I keep thinking that I should feel guilty over it. So what does that mean? Am I a bad Mom that helped he cheat or something like that on his homework? Or am I the cool Mom that is looking out for him?