It's official!

Here's a crappy phone picture of my new engagement ring!

I'll post a picture of the happy couple once I'm on my own computer. Thursday night, T made a big deal about taking me out on a date and spending quality time with me. At around 6:00, he picked me up and asked if I wanted to go to the beach until our "real" evening started. I didn't care what we did, so off we went to the beach, T's phone receiving text messages all the way there. Something was up...I pretended not to notice. We pulled into the exactly right parking lot and walked down to the sand. As soon as we had turned the corner around a dune, I saw a white table and two little wood chairs sitting in the sun. I gasped, "Did you do this?" He just smiled. As we walked closer, I saw that the table had been draped with a lace table cloth, real china, wine glasses, and four candlesticks. This was the work of two very good friends. He'd gotten others involved in this date. T pulled my chair out for me and then reached into the giant picnic basket for the Olive Garden he had picked up. "I'm sorry I didn't make this and it's not really fancy..." he began but I was too busy squealing "Breadsticks!!!! I was hoping we'd go to Olive Garden." I'm easy to please, you see. Out came salad and breadsticks. We talked about nothing in particular and people gave us curious glances as they walked by (me in my dress and he in his button up collared shirt and nice patent leather shoes). Out came the steak, summer vegetables, and spaghetti. T couldn't decide what I would want more so he opted for all of it. We had a little of everything and then T started babbling. And I knew it was coming. I dropped my fork to listen to him nervously tell me how I'm always there in his dreams, in his thoughts, during his day. I'm the first person he wants to talk to when he's trying to make a decision, or when something good happens, or when he just needs to complain. I'm there and he wants me there all the time forever and he knows I've been the best thing that's ever happened to him (all the while he's fumbling with his pocket and standing up and walking over to me) and then he gets down on one knee in the sand and says "I guess I'm just trying to say, Will you marry me?" And I say yes and he slips the perfect ring which fits perfectly on my finger. And then the part you never see in the movies...we clear the table, throw away the napkins, re-pack everything into the picnic basket and proceed to carry everything back to the car. Perfect.

Bitten by the Travel Bug...or maybe the Settle Down Bug?

Just got back from Petoskey, Michigan the other night. All the way home, through all of Michigan and Northwest Ohio, the forests and bright blue water of the north kept playing through my mind's eye. And I wanted to go back and stay forever. Northern Michigan has my history stored in it. It's where my mom, grandma, and step-grandpa moved just a few years after my mom's dad died. The home in Petoskey was where my grandma owned a little country store. Round Lake down the street was where my mom swam as a teenager. This little tourist town was where my mom said goodbye to her best friend when she moved away. It's where my mom grew up and graduated from high school, the high school where she met her boyfriend, where she broke up with her boyfriend, and where that heartbreak made her move in with her best friend in Ann Arbor making it possible for her to meet my dad. Petoskey is where I used to go with my parents to visit my grandma and her husband. I remember the little house, eating oatmeal in a high chair, and then sitting on the lap of the man who I knew as Grandpa and smelling his pipe smoke. One day, we didn't go up to Petoskey anymore. I was only two or three when my grandma got a divorce so those memories almost immediately flew away from me like a firefly drifting around, only once in a while lighting up to remind me of the pipe smoke or the screeen door or the breakfast bar.

I really only remember driving up to Traverse City in the summers. Visiting my cousins for the Fourth of July. Dressing up in red, white and blue outfits my mom had made. Going to the Cherry Festival and watching my cousins ride on a float. Sometimes, my mom and her best friend would take the kids to see fireworks in a town nearby. I loved those fireworks the most because everyone stood by their car near a field to watch and then they'd beep their horns when the really good ones exploded. Anytime we visited, my grandma would read Shel Silverstein to my cousins and I - silly voices and all - and we'd play Pictionary which made us all giggle and yell because our drawings were impossible to decipher. We would sing little songs and sometimes she would play the piano for us. She always played the first bit of "Claire de Lune" by Debussy or the theme to "Somewhere in Time" or she would play show tunes and my mom would sing. She taught us the right hand part of "Chopsticks" while she played the lower notes. Afterward, my cousins would go home and my parents and I would go to the upstairs bedroom. I'd listen to the comforting noise of the cars going by on the busy road below until I fell asleep. I still don't know why that sound is so comforting, but I never tire of hearing it.

My grandma has since moved to a condo which I have never seen, a few of my cousins have since gotten married to men I have met maybe three times, but I know they remember those times too because my older cousin walked down the aisle to "Claire de Lune" and her sister had the theme from "Somewhere in Time" played before her wedding. Maybe I'll find a good Shel Silverstein poem to quote in my programs...

So you see, Northern Michigan has a lot of my past life sitting and patiently waiting for me. Waiting for me to come back and remember it all over again, to see it in the deep blue water, to feel it in the wind and the sun, to smell it when someone's pipe tobacco drifts around the corner, to hear it in the traffic going by late at night, to taste it in the newly washed sweet cherries. It's in me, it's part of me and it's drawing me back. The firefly in my mind is wildly flashing its light, attracting me back to my childhood, back to easier times of perfect abandon. Picking wildflowers, swimming in the lake, eating cherries on a curb downtown.

No other place on earth comforts my soul the way going "up north," does. I'll be back someday and I just might not ever come back.




I haven't uploaded my own pictures yet so the one on top is from wikipedia.

Michael Jackson

One month later, I have something to say. I finally have the words to describe how I feel about someone so legendary. Someone with whom no one can compare. Someone for whom, maybe there are no words. There will never be another Michael Jackson and to some, that is a good thing. To me, it's heart breaking. Michael Jackson was a phenomenal entertainer, an amazing artist. He felt the percussion, the guitar, each song flowing through his veins. He was the music.

But more than that, Michael was compassionate, giving, and kind down to the soles of his patent leather shoes. He took blow after blow from the beginning of his career as a child to the very end but it never broke his idealistic (and maybe a little naive) nature. Michael cared about his fans, he cared about those who were not his fans, he cared about his enemies, he cared about the earth and nature. Did you know he's in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the pop star with the most contributed to charities? He was a man who stood his ground and said "I don't care how much you laugh or scoff, I will change the world." And he has. One person at a time. He is finding people homes and medicine through his organization. Even when The Heal the World Foundation dropped out of existence for several years, its volunteers kept working and raising money for its cause and then helped to put the foundation back together. They didn't quit or sit around and wait for another charity to throw money at. They worked hard. They had passion. And it all started with the heart of Michael Jackson.

What does that make you think? How does that make you feel? I am ashamed of my 10 year old self laughing with my friends and singing the variation of "Black or White." Michael Jackson took on a world of hurt from the public and from people he thought were his friends but he trudged forward in his need to heal the world. I can't help but watch all the interviews, the stories of Michael, all the media coverage and think "What did we do?" We were all bullies who endlessly picked on one person until he felt alone and isolated. But he never gave up his cause, his passion. Who do you know like this? Who do you know with so much character that they will stand up and fight for what is right even when everyone is throwing stones at them? Are you like this? As sad and shocking as the death of Michael Jackson was, I think it served to bring the real heart of Michael back to light. His legacy as an entertainer will live on forever through CD's, DVD's, and radio. But the more important legacy of his benevolence lives on through every person who gets out of their seat and go to work for a love of the people and the creation around them.

What do you want to do? Where do you specialize and shine? I know that I will do my best at never letting people sneak under the radar. I ask God as many times as I can remember to give me the eyes to see people the way He sees them. To give me the tenderheartedness to see the humanity even in the most irritating and rude people that I run into every day. I hope and pray that I recognize all opportunities that arise to help someone in need, even if it's just a listening ear for 30 seconds or a smile to someone who would've gone home and killed themselves had they thought that not one person cared. That is where my passion lies. Even though I'm shy and afraid of what everyone thinks of me, I will step outside of that and risk my pride and be who I am called to be.

What part of you are you constantly pushing down and fighting off in order to keep your comfort level? It's time to let that side show his or her face. It's time to be the change that you want to see.

SERIOUSLY

I missed this so much! I love blogging. I love the blog life and the blog community and the blog everything. Does that make me lame? Then lame I shall be!

Had to get that out. Have a good day everyone. I'll see you tomorrow.

What Day is it?...

Wow! It's June! Where have I been for 8 months? Well, I'll just jump right in. I'm engaged! T and I picked out a ring, picked out a date, got some vendors, and next July 31st, I will be Mrs. T. Haha. Maybe I should change his name. From now on, he will be...I don't know. Someone give me an idea. I'll just stick with "T" for now.
I bought a wedding dress off etsy.com and even though the dimensions she listed should have fit me, it doesn't quite zip up all the way. I'm a little too well endowed in a certain area if you know what I mean. So, I'm eating lot of fruits and veggies and very little meat and sugar. T and I just started walking the other day so we'll see how it goes. I need to get skinny for my cousin's wedding in about a month anyway.
Nothing too exciting happening in good ol' suburban Ohio. My roommie moved out to get married and left me with a water damaged bay window to take care of (courtesy of a leaking turtle tank). So T and I will get to figure out how to scrape, sand, and repaint so that I can get the deposit back when I move out. Oh yeah, I'm moving back in with my parents to save up. That should be interesting. My mom is online every day looking for wedding favors, little messages to write on the wedding favors, something to put the wedding favors in. She buggs me about bridesmaid dresses and tuxedos. Really? It's a whole year away and you want me to rent a tux?? Oh yes, it will certainly be an interesting year.
T and I made it through a class together-Astronomy. We only had a couple of fights over our study and homework habits, but in the end we passed and are just one step closer to that Associates. Someday I will be an event planner and it will be fabulous.
So this may end up turning into a diet/exercise and wedding planner blog but I'll try to keep the topics varied. I'm off to read months and months worth of blogs. Hope to see you all back soon and commenting!

My Weekend is Already Here!

My parents, T, and I are all going out of town this weekend to visit family. My grandma (my mom's mom) turned 80 the other day so we're going up to have a big family party at my aunt's house. My grandma is insisting that T and I sleep in the basement with my cousins (and all their significant others) which will probably be awkward. We used to sleep there when I was, oh I don't know, EIGHT? I'm now 25 and all my cousins are in that range. T's a little nervous about that particular adventure. So in one house with 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 (or possibly 2 3/4) bathrooms, there will be 1 grandma, 3 daughters, their 3 husbands, 7 grandchildren (maybe only 6), their 6 husbands/boyfriends, and 5 little great-grandchildren. That probably isn't as big as some families but it's big enough for this little only child.

My dad wanted to extend the trip a little and visit his parents for one day. These are the grandparents who said "Oh honey, you better think about that!" when they found out that T was five years younger than me. Joy! So instead of leaving early Saturday, we're leaving early (EARLY) Friday. T is so afraid my dad is going to ask him about politics or something. They have severely differing views. My dad has 5 hours in a car to talk about it, but I think he'll be too engrossed in his talk radio to ask T anything. I'm sure politics will come up at some point with someone's family as they always do, but my mom and I always manage to stay out of the conversation. I'm sure T will be able to do the same.

I'm actually excited about this weekend, but what I'm not excited about are the preparations. I should've done the rest of my laundry early this week, but of course, I let everything else get in the way because I hate hanging my clothes up after they've been washed. To make matters worse, my roommate called last night and said "The washer is leaking water all over. It looks like there is a pipe or something just sitting on the floor." My dad doesn't have time to come put it back together and I'm afraid to (Spiders!), so I'm going to my parents tonight after work to do laundry, then I'm going back home to pack. I have no idea what I'm going to wear. My dad wants me to bring as small of a suitcase as possible. What?!?! But I pack everything I own just in case! In case it rains, then snows, then turns into an 80 degree day. Anything is possible here in the northeast/midwest. Then after all that, I'm getting up at 5:30 in the morning so that we can leave and be "on the road" (as my dad always says) by 7:00. I should not be at work right now. I have too much to do! Stress!

T wanted to carve pumpkins before this weekend since we won't be home. I'm sad. We ran out of time and now we won't have any cute little jack-o-lanterns on our porches. Actually this will be the fourth time in my life that I've carved a pumpking for Halloween, but I'm sad for T. It's an important part of the season for him. Maybe I'll surprise him with a couple pumpkins tonight (Oh. Oops! Stop reading this T!). I can make time for that.

Oh, and by the way. I saw this on Oh! How Lovely!

Go back to the beginning and read it. DO NOT CHEAT AND READ MORE RECENT BLOGS. Start at the beginning and read to the end. It's spread like wildfire and it's fantastic. You will love it.

Have a great weekend everyone. And a good, safe Halloween. It's supposed to be warmer here. I hope you have good weather where you are!

Siiiiiiigh....

Oh that's a sigh of relief by the way. My two-ish weeks of stress are OVER! I feel so much better. Here is what I had to endure the last couple of weeks:

Friday, October 17th - Set up stage at church so that it actually looks like a church for a wedding. Get this done between the hours of 5:30 and 7:00 and, oh by the way, we have nothing decent to work with. It all needs to be bought at a store. At least our Pastor went out and bought stuff during the day for me while I was at work. I ran to a store and set aside some fabric for him to buy then got to the church at about 5:30. He bought candles and set out the walls and tables to cover in fabric. The project was not complete until about 9:30.

It turned out pretty well. T and I are being taken to the Olive Garden for our hours of hard labor so that's nice.

Saturday, October 18th - Supposed to go to an outlet mall with H but her husband, D has a bad cold so we all stay home. I stay in bed all day because I feel nauseated. That could have been a nice break but I could only think of all the laundry that wasn't done, the apples that needed to be peeled and made into applesauce, and the jewelry that needs to be made for our annual "Mom's Time Out" Christmas shopping extravaganza. Nothing got done. I didn't even eat until T brought me soup and crackers at 3:00, then we fell asleep, and then I showered at 5:30 so that we could make our movie on time. We saw "W" which was better than I expected. Go see it.

Sunday, October 19th - Remember that I must lead one worship song on stage at church and sing back-up vocals for three others. Go to bed really late Saturday night because I slept all day then get up really early on Sunday and feel sick because I am so nervous. Feel better by noon (when church is over) but exhausted.

Monday, October 20th - Get to class late and realize that everyone was emailed a study guide but me. Who knows why. Maybe it went into my spam folder. Whatever. Just get another copy from the teacher. What the...!?!?! It's three pages of vocabulary words! Do laundry until 2:00 in the morning.

Wednesday, October 22nd - Study for test all day at work. Good thing we aren't busy. At 5:00, punch out and go into kitchen at work to study until 6:30. Memorize all eras, periods, and the epochs for our current era. Remember all types of volcanoes, rock elasticity theory, the difference between an active continental margin and an inactive continental margin, know what a subduction zone is, blah blah blah. Finish test in one hour and float on cloud all the way home. Watch Heroes with T.

Friday, October 24th - Sit in line at the gas station for 20 minutes because gas is now down to $2.20 per gallon. Rush to church to set up the stage for another wedding. After rehearsal, practice the songs we're singing at wedding with J. This is the second practice and it's not going well. After practice, go to T's and immediately fall asleep on his couch for two hours.

Saturday, October 25th - Drag myself out of bed, go to school for two hours. Randomly think of the current event presentation that needs to be made in front of the class in just two short days and freak out. Get ahold of myself. After school, go home and wet hair so that it can be blow dried and straightened. Grab dress, undergarments, shoes, and makeup, and run out of the house to the church. Practice with J for an hour then get dressed. Sing with Justin at wedding, breathe a sigh of relief then go hang out at T's until the reception. Dance the night away.
How cute are they? These are the nieces of the bride also the pastor's two daughters. Yeah, he officiated the wedding of his own sister. It was sweet.

Sunday, October 26th - Sit at salon for 3 1/2 hours while hair is dyed from blonde to deep brown with caramel highlights then trimmed. That was a good day. sorry for the angry face. The sun was in my eyes but I was actually happy. As seen here with T who came with me:

See old me here.

Monday, October 27th - Get paperwork and information together for current event presentation in Geology class. Go to school feeling a little sick, shake uncontrollably in class, feel heart beating out of throat. Make presentation better than any presentation I've ever done in my life. I actually kept everyone's attention and didn't read directly off a paper! I had handouts! They asked questions and I answered! Woo! Receive test back from last Wednesday. I got 104.5%! I only missed two! I got extra credit! Breathe a gigantic sigh of relief, then go home to watch two of the three Desperate Housewives episodes I have missed.

Happy Days are here again! Have a great day everyone!

As promised, my test is over and I'm back! My test went much better than I ever thought it would. I was able to successfully name the three eras, 13 periods, and 7 epochs that he wanted us to name. I also drew 3 types of volcanoes, illustrated the rock elasticity theory, and drew a very simplified continent to continent convergent plate. So interesting.

Anyway. On to Coldplay. I'll admit, there are other bands/artists that I had wanted to see before I'd pay to see Coldplay but T has been wanting to see Coldplay in concert since their first album. He was pretty ecstatic and bouncing off the walls the entire time which was cute. I should've taken a picture of him in his delirious state. This is T trying to remain calm

For some reason, on the way there, I felt like we were on a road trip so I started taking pictures of everything. Including these pretty sky and sunsetting pictures.




Once we got to the venue (which was way easy thanks to T's mom's TomTom!! Christmas present?), we walked around and around and back and forth until someone finally told us to get on the elevator and go down a floor. Then we walked down to our floor seats. That was exciting. I hadn't even looked at my ticket until right after we got off the elevator. I had no idea that T had paid for such good seats. We were pretty much right in the center and about this close: Not too bad!



Duffy opened the concert which was pretty earsplitting. I guess she's Number 1 in England? I don't understand that. She was very choreographed and dressed like she was from the 1960's. Her sound is like that, too. I guess her label or whoever is really playing the sexy, 1960's nurse thing up a lot. It was silly, really. Where is the musicianship? Anyway, after we dealt with that, we waited for about a half hour while the stage was set up and the rest of the crowd flooded in. Then the lights went out and Coldplay started. Their energy from the start permeated the room and I already knew that I wouldn't get bored at this concert (which usually happens after 30 minutes). By the second song, they had lowered these giant orbs (which I have been told Conan O'Brien uses) and started flashing light designs all over them. On the third song, the orbs started showing a live feed of the concert. I would like to have these orbs in my living room. The band did about half of their concert, including a techno-y version of "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" mixed with "Talk" and then said "We'll see you in about 30 seconds!" and ran off the stage. The lights came up and we all stood around playing with our camera phones until someone finally asked, "Did he say 30 seconds or 30 minutes?" As soon as those words were spoken the lights came down again and the spotlight pointed behind us. Somehow, Chris Martin and his crew had gotten up to the second level without anyone noticing. They sang a couple of songs which aren't so memorable to me while being violated by the fans behind them, then got back to the stage with the lights still down. The cell phones of course, came back out:


Coldplay did several more songs, including a really amped up "Politik" preceded by Chris Martin telling us we're the most famous state in the world (Ohio) and asking us to vote for the "right person" (which I'm sure means Obama). Of course they did their big hit "Viva La Vida" and everyone sang the Ooo-ooo-hhh's. During the second to last song, which I didn't know, a snow storm of paper butterflies started spraying out at us. That was probably the most amazing part of the night because I'm that lame. But really, look at this and tell me it's not cool



Then they pretended to say goodnight and go back stage and we pretended to beg for an encore and then they came out and played "Yellow" which I loved. That song is probably my first memory of Coldplay or maybe "Trouble" is because I remember the music video. Either way, wow. Incredible, incredible, incredible. I'd go see them again the next time they come through. I just hope they pick their opening act next time. Duffy and her fake Diana Ross moves just did nothing to complement the energy and rock star attitude that is Coldplay.