Mishaps and other haps

From Random

I love you, sweetie. You make me smile.

Wedding plans are coming along. I booked our florist and photographers this past month. This weekend Michael printed labels and I folded, labeled, and stamped most of the invitations. I will be sending them out sometime soon– in the next week or two, I imagine. Michael also called Jack and he agreed to be our officiant, which makes both of us very happy!

We bought wedding bands a few weeks ago and they have been sized.

I have plenty of tasks left to do, but those are some of the ones that have recently been completed.

The next two weekends we will be making two trips out west– to Jack’s house– and will be hanging out with friends and family, enjoying good food, and floating down the Wisconsin River.

Also, on the afternoon of August 7th we will be attending the wedding of our friends Colin and Lindsay.

I am taking a little time off from work over the next few weeks to enjoy these summer events.

The past few weekends have been pretty entertaining. On Saturday the 18th, we went to the Bristol Renaissance Faire. Matt Larson came up from Chicago for the weekend and we also had Becky and Joe with us, so it was a full car on the drive to and from Kenosha. I finally purchased a dress this year, so I now have attire!

On Sunday the 19th, the guys gamed and Liz and I shopped out hearts out at Maxwell Street Days. My best find was sleeping bags on sale at Fontana. We now own two sleeping bags! Let the camping begin!

This past Saturday I had a list of things to do. My car had to be dropped off for maintenance. Michael and I had a great breakfast at the Pancake Cafe before heading to the Farmers’ Market downtown and marking off other stops on our errand list. Saturday night we went to Opera in the Park, which was fun, but we left a bit early since we were unprepared for cool weather and unwilling to use portable toilets.

We worked on wedding invitations Sunday, ran a raid and a couple of heroics in WoW, and the three of us (Michael, Joe, and I) had lunch at Old Chicago and then stopped for frozen custard, completely ruining our dinners.

I have been trying to find random chunks of time to continue my record of recent events. That’s what my blog has felt like lately as a writer– a record of events rather than much that is particularly thoughtful.

My co-worker mentioned today that it has been about a year since she interviewed for the position in our department. Really, work hasn’t slowed down for me since a month or so before she was hired. We’ve been understaffed for quite a while and our manager is trying to rectify this issue now by hiring a third person for our area, probably in the next month or so. This third person will actually be shared between my team and another two-person team with which we share office space. Cross-training may happen in the future. I hope it results in more money for all of us. The other team may be particularly hopeful as they are a few pay grades below my team and below the range at which they probably feel they should be paid.

Meanwhile, time is booking it. I will be experiencing a significant life-changing event of some magnitude in a little less than three months. I am too lazy to check the “wedding countdown clock” on Michael’s computer to see exactly how many days are left at this point, but knowing that the wedding date is October 10th, you can probably do the math.

Work, life, and little black cats do not allow for a lengthy period of retreat to ponder this transition from an unmarried person to a wife. However, I want to better tap my resources of self-expression to convey something about how I feel going into this experience.

I have always been a bit anxious, but I am less anxious when there is Michael. I have always been a little reclusive, but I am less reclusive when there is Michael. I have always been a little funny, but I am funnier when there is Michael. And I laugh more.

I get to spend my life laughing with this wonderful, loving person! I’m not sure what the original plan was, but I can’t imagine doing anything else.

More on this later …

This week we’ve:

Picnicked with the Dotzours and discussed plans for the family trip to Jack’s at the end of July.

Watched A Boy and His Dog as our Tuesday night movie with Tom, Colin, and Keith.

Had dinner with Julie and Kevin Prime and the cute little boy they are in the process of adopting, Spencer, on Wednesday evening. We also met up with Josh, Kelly, and some of Kelly’s friends for drinks on Wednesday night.

This weekend we have my company picnic in the Dells on Saturday and a Mallards game Sunday night.

We both finally hit 80 with our WoW mains. Nodor, Beiame, and Teqnacht collaborated to send me a nice set of purple gear to start my (new) end-game career. It should be pretty spiffy for either healing or DPS and since I am dual-specced, I should be able to sign up for whatever role is needed. I expect I will heal a lot since that is my traditional niche, I’m better at healing, and lately our guild has needed (and sometimes lacked) healers.

Now … time to figure out where to work this into my summer. It may be easier to pull off heroics during the week, rather than raids. I’m not sure when raids are typically scheduled.

I’ve been having a hard time working in regular blogging time lately. Summer tends to be a pretty busy time for our household!

In the past few weeks (in no particular order), we’ve celebrated our nephew’s birthday, babysat the kids, hosted Guffey’s 9th annual Sci-Fi Film Fest, had friends over for weekly games and movies, and this weekend we’re celebrating the 4th of July weekend with two different groups of family members on Michael’s side.

I cleaned out my closet this week, dutifully donating clothing yesterday. Maybe there will be room for that wedding dress when it comes back from alterations in August.

I have been on a cooking and baking kick the past week. I attempted peach/strawberry jam a few weeks ago, but the batch failed to jell. This morning I made another attempt, this time using a different type of pectin. I decided that freezer jam might be more my speed than cooked jam, so most of this batch will be going into the freezer.

We’re still working out wedding plans and meet again with our adviser/consultant/planner (Althea) on Monday evening.

At this point, I think we have at least one event planned for every weekend between now and Labor Day (which happens to be our six-year dating anniversary). Some of these weekends we will be out of town for part or all of the weekend. I will try to take photos and post some of them on Facebook, even if the blog posts are a little sparse. I have set up a Flickr account, but haven’t posted anything yet. I know it will be useful for photo sharing, but right now it’s just another thing to think about.

By the way, we are planning to go to the Bristol Renaissance Faire on July 18th and Irish Fest on August 15th. We’ve talked to a few people about these dates, but let me know if there is an interest in carpooling or meeting up there.