Honeymoon. Finalized.

Finally.

I shouldn't have doubted him. He always comes through. He was just cutting it a little close for my taste is all.

The wedding is on Saturday, the 10th. We'll spend the night there somewhere close by then Sunday we'll head back towards Charlotte and spend the night at my house. Monday morning at 6am, we will fly from Charlotte to Miami. From there we'll fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico. From there...drum roll please....

St. Lucia!!!!

I can't even tell you how excited I am! It's going to be the longest plane trip of my life but at least I have Brad to travel with. He asked for the longest layover possible in San Juan because he has a friend there and he's hoping we can meet up with him and see a few of the local spots.

I told him this is going to be the most amazing vacation of our lives. I just can't wait to eat, drink and be merry in our private plunge pool :) I'm just saying!

Becoming Domesticated

I'm transitioning.

This weekend was a lot of family and a lot of generic, pre-made dishes to keep everyone satisfied. I decided to be grown up and try something I was pretty sure I would hate.

I loved it, I'm just saying.

I hate almost every ingredient in this salad, but for some reason when you put it all together, it's love. And now, to share (it makes a lot, so the amount in parenthesis is what I did for half):

(1) 2 bags of romaine lettuce
(1/2) 1 bag broccoli slaw
(1) 2 pkgs beef ramen noodles
(1/4c) 1/2c red onion chopped
Almond slices (Mom didn't use these though since she can't have nuts - and I wind up not putting nuts in my stuff just so I won't forget)
Mix above in bowl then pour over dressing.

Dressing:
(3T) 1/3c vinegar
(3T) 1/3c sugar
(1/4c) 1/2c olive oil
(1pkt) 2pkt beef seasoning (from the beef ramen package)

I hate broccoli slaw, I hate ramen noodles, I hate onions. Yet I'm in love with this salad. Go figure!

Off to research crock pot recipes!

Another one bites the dust...

Nothing can ever be simple, right?

Lovely weekend with family and my hometown church. My mom’s old circle group threw me a bridal shower on Sunday, which was absolutely beautiful. It was great being able to see people from church and spend time with my aunts and cousin who I don’t get to see very often. Everyone was asking how the wedding plans going and my mom and I kept responding with, “well, we just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop!”

Apparently sometime last week, it dropped without anyone realizing it.

About 20 minutes after we returned home from the shower, my mom got a call on her cell phone from a number she didn’t recognize. It turned out to be one of their neighbors at their house in Charlotte. He had gone to my parents’ house to return a bowl and saw that water was gushing out the front porch and the windows.

This was bad. My parents’ front door sits on top of a full, walk-out basement. So essentially, there was water gushing out of the second floor of their house. No one had been there since early the week before.

My dad drove straight to Charlotte that night (we still had family staying at our house in Pennington). I went there yesterday on my way home. I walked in the front door and my mouth just dropped. I have seen water damage before (unfortunately, this is not the first time my poor parents have had go endure this – this same thing happened to our house in Pennington), but I have never seen anything quite like this. I walked into the foyer to see a gaping hole in the ceiling. The brand new hardwood floors were warped so much you could set up a rollercoaster for your Barbie dolls. The smell hits you like a brick wall. Turning the corner to look down the stairwell at the basement is when the astonishment really hits. The basement was completely destroyed. Ceiling tiles gone. Standing water on the pool table. The light above the pool table hanging by a wire. Mold spores growing everywhere you look. It was horrible. I called my mom and told her to stay in Pennington at least until the weekend. It’s not livable to be there right now.





We can be thankful no one was home and that more things weren’t destroyed. Most of the wedding things were upstairs, out of harm’s way. They still took my dress to the other house just to make sure the smell doesn’t get to it. But still. They said it could be 6 weeks before things get better. Between this and the wedding, my parents are going to need a vacation!

I'm just saying.

Pleasure doin' business with ya, boss.

My boss bought me lunch at Olive Garden today? Why, you ask? Because I obviously have lawyer tendencies and made him sign a contract with a little “wager” we made last December:

CATEGORY 360

Wager

(My name) vs. (His name)

Terms:

This wager states that (His name) does not believe that (My name) will remain as the Category 360 Supreme Merchandising Assistant (aka Hits Submit and That's It) until August 5, 2009.

In which case that Ms. (My name) does, in fact, remain as the Category 360 Supreme Merchandising Assistant until August 5, 2009, (His Name) will then owe a lunch at Olive Garden.

In which case that Ms. (My name) does not remain as the Category 360 Supreme Merchandising Assistant until August 5, 2009, possibly as a result of gittin' hitched, then she will owe a lunch at Olive Garden.

On this day, December 5, 2008, we the undersigned, agree to these terms.

And then I had him sign it, I made a copy and done.

I'm like that.

And I truly enjoyed my 5 cheese baked ziti.

And I now desperately need a nap.

I'm just saying.

Shoot for the moon...even if you miss you'll land among the stars...

Now the decisions start flowing. Not the wedding decisions, most of those are pretty much done at this point (off-topic: I do, however, want to brag on the bridesmaid shoes – on sale for $14.99 at Payless so we get BOGO. Even if they never wear them again, they’re less than $15. So proud of that!). Now I have to start trying to figure out what type of school I want to go to. Obviously the score I get on the LSAT will have a lot of say. I’m not expecting to blow the test out of the water or anything. This is not a girl who does well on standardized tests. There are 10 law schools in approximately a 1-hour vicinity of Brad’s house. I say approximately because let’s just be honest – a 45 minute drive to DC on a Sunday morning isn’t exactly going to translate to equal driving time on a Monday. The metro-rail is an option though and would give me extra studying time.

Graduate school gets me really excited. I’ve scouted about 9 schools that have at least one degree that really interests me. My biggest problem now is trying to narrow down what exactly I want my master’s in. Do I stick with Communications? Do I go with the tried-and-true MBA? Do I delve into something that sounds insanely exciting (High Technology Crime Investigation!?!) and hope to find a lucrative career with the government?

The more I think about it logically the more I’m leaning towards Graduate school. One, it’s a bazillion times cheaper. One year of a typical law school would pay for my entire Graduate degree at a major university. Example: George Washington University Master’s Degree in High Technology Crime Investigation – the entire degree is around $31,000. One year of law school at George Washington University? $42,500. Yeah. When you put it like that it seems to make the decision easy.

It’s not an easy decision, obviously. I have to seriously sit down and figure out where I want to be in my life. Do I want to be the butt of “stupid lawyer” jokes for the rest of my life? (haha) Do I want to shoot for the stars and get a degree in something I never imagined possible? Do I stick safe with an MBA which will give me a leg up in “most” jobs? Do I continue with my Bachelor’s in Communication and go for the Master’s in that?

I need an advisor. I'm just saying.

Numero Uno

I’ve finally done it. I’ve broken down and got a blog *other* than LiveJournal. Don’t worry, my LJ friends, I will continue posting over there. I can’t exactly re-create my high school blog entries :)

So let’s get started:

The countdown is on – less than 2 months before I’m getting hitched to my best friend! After that comes an incredible honeymoon…somewhere…I hope…nothing is concrete yet, which worries me. I left the honeymoon entirely up to him with two exceptions 1) No tent 2) No sleeping bags. I'm just saying. I thought those were perfectly appropriate and extremely necessary stipulations. But at this point I don’t care if I’m sitting in my townhouse in Charlotte. As long as I’m not going to work for a week, I think I’ll be pretty happy!

To update everyone (most of whom I would assume is in the dark on these new events): I’m going to wind up in Maryland again. I know, if you’re keeping count it started as me going to Maryland, then him moving to Charlotte, and now I’m back to Maryland. Hopefully other decisions won’t be this difficult in the future. Don’t believe anything we say until it happens.

Basically, I went to Brad awhile back and expressed my frustrations with where I am now. Don’t get me wrong, I work for a phenomenal company and I love my co-workers. But it’s virtually impossible to move up right now since they’re getting 800+ applications for each position. I’ve been out of school for 3 years now and can’t get anywhere higher than an assistant/glorified secretarial position. It just stinks because I did everything “right” in college – good grades, extracurriculars, internship, lots of job experience. So I told him that if he would support me in going back to school (financially and emotionally) that I would move to Maryland so he could keep his job. That’s when everything fell into perfect place. Turns out his job has been begging him to stay – and just got word that the state is going to let his facility build a ropes course/climbing wall and want him to oversee the project and after it’s completed. If you know Brad at all, you know this is essentially his dream job. Then we found a rent-free place to live: his grandmother had a stroke in January (thankfully she is almost fully recovered) and moved into an “apartment” with Brad’s aunt & uncle and cousins. They have told us we can stay in her house while we’re trying to get everything settled, all we have to pay for is utilities. This is HUGE, especially if it takes awhile to sell my house down here – we’ll still only be making one house payment and a very affordable one at that. So that’s a huge blessing. His uncle also found me a part-time job making better money than I currently make and very flexible hours that let me work essentially whenever I need.

So, back to the school thing. I’m taking the LSAT next month (two weeks before the wedding, yes I am insane). Even if I don’t do well on that, I’m going to go to graduate school. With him being so close to DC, Baltimore, and the Pennsylvania state border, I have a total of probably 25+ schools to choose from. Whereas in Charlotte I have one law school and 1 graduate program other than an MBA. I don’t want to leave everyone and everything in Charlotte but I think this is the best thing for us at this particular time. I’m really hopeful that we’ll come back to the Charlotte area after I get my degree (in whatever!) but we’ll have to see how the job market is then.

In other news, Amber and I have decided to train and run a half-marathon in November (right before I leave for Maryland). I’ve never done an *official* half marathon so I’m excited to start training again. I’m not setting out to break any records or anything mind you – I had signed up for a half marathon last year but thanks to my lovely wisdom teeth infection, I had to back out at the very last minute. I was ticked. But this is for real!

Okay I think I’ve probably rambled long enough. Have a lovely afternoon :)