Whoa.

I'm blown away. Just did one of those Meiers-Briggs (sp?) personality tests, and here is what it said. No joke -- that's how it turned out. I did not alter these results!!! Uncanny, I think. For those of you who know me, you know what I mean.

Makes me feel a little better about....me.

Blogger's Paradise

I have been reading lots and lots of blogs lately. Which is funny, I've never been much of a blogger or a blog reader or any of that...but I'm addicted. What is it about reading the thoughts of total strangers that I find so intriguing? I feel like some of these people could be my best friends, postulating on life over Margarita Monday...

I do have to wonder, do these people plan their blog posts ahead of time? Like, do they prewrite/draft/revise? Or are they like me, just spewing whatever comes to mind?

Once upon a time, I was one of those writers who could spew whatever (words, mind you, not projectile vomit) but I am so out of practice...I guess I have spent too many months writing two line headlines without clauses! (Right, d.?) So now, after reading the immensely entertaining blogs of my peers and of total strangers, I am ashamed and feel grossly inadequate... But, I digress.

Oh, faithful readers (read: "the small d." because I know you're the only one who actually reads this garbage), what a week it has been. First of all, I started feeling ill on Saturday morning, but still dragged myself up and out for class in the morning, shopping at the mall, and out with friends to O'Shea's that night. For the first time in a loooong time, we found ourselves up until the wee hours of the morning, talking about who-knows-what (really, I have no idea) and I crawled into my bed at oh, 7am. Probably not a good thing considering I had planned to go dress shopping with Mom the next day. I managed to try on one dress that I LOVED in the store, and then looking back at the pictures, realized it was not. quite. it. Of course, this could have been the hangover talking. One fight with Mom and an emotional breakdown later, I vowed to NEVER, EVER go dress shopping (or do anything wedding-related) while hungover. Especially not with Mom. In fact, I'm not sure if dress shopping with Mom is a good idea anyway.... More on that later.

Monday morning. Interview for the most perfect-for-me teaching job. Felt like things went G-R-E-A-T. Principal even introduced me to another teacher as his "replacement", as in, I'm already the replacement. As in, already got the job. But at the end, principal says he'll make a decision by Thursday. Fast forward to today -- Thursday -- and if he's made a decision, he ain't told me yet. Peachy.

Meanwhile, Monday-thru-Thursday, the cold or whatever it was that I had Saturday morning came back with a vengeance. I managed to do lunch with a friend and then Monday Margaritas with the ladies, but since then I have been completely sidelined, a.k.a. drugged and knocked out on the couch... This is just not the time to not have insurance. Or I guess, not the time to be ill, considering the whole rejected-by-individual-insurance issue. Story of my life. Seriously.

Thankfully, things seem better today, at least where illness is concerned. Nevertheless, for good measure, I cancelled the appointment with the potential photographer and spent an extra couple of hours in couch-potato mode. Then, class tonight -- Language Arts Methods. A few of us from Alt Cert, and all of whom BUT me have already been teaching, and the rest are regular MAT kids. When I say kids, I mean most are fresh out of undergrad and are still glowing and glittering with their idealism. "I want to instill in my students a love of reading and writing and..." blah blah blah. Which is all fine and dandy, but good luck finding yourselves jobs -- but oh wait, that difficulty finding a job thing -- apparently that's just me. Nevermind. Carry on.

Yes, I have become quite the cynic. Maybe I should change the title of this blog to "WARNING: My Cynicism May Ruin Your Day." HA.

Sorry kids. Blogger's paradise, eh?

ETA: I just found this song on another one of the blogs that I have been reading...an old school remake, but beautiful just the same...if I could figure out how to make my blog play music....

My inspiration

So I guess the new trend these days is to make an inspiration board for wedding design. Interior designers make inspiration boards all the time, and I guess the idea has transferred to wedding planning. Of course, none of these items are meant to be taken literally, but hopefully they will help to get ideas and keep everything focused. If it doesn't "fit" on or with the inspiration board, then it probably shouldn't be included in the decorations.

Also, note that I have a picture of an altar at a beach destination wedding -- that's meant to show that I want the wedding to have a "destination-ish" feel, even though I wouldn't consider Starlight, Indiana a destination...

Before life gets away from me too much...

So my buddy, the small d., whom I will miss very much now that my days in the business world have ended, has this really cool blog, and it gave me the idea to start a really cool blog of my own.

Unfortunately, I know mine will never, ever compare to the coolness of the small d. But maybe I can find my own level of coolness? What do you think? Anyone? (I know, me = cool is highly unlikely, but I can try...)

So this is where we are right now:

- I have started going to graduate school for a Masters of Arts in Teaching. I'm in an Alternative Certification program, which sounds really cool on paper -- being in the program means I am certified teach while going to school at night. The major bonus is that we do not have to take an unpaid semester for student teaching -- we teach in our regular classroom and are observed while still getting a paycheck. It all sounds really sweet, except that if a fully certified (read: already has an education degree) teacher wants the job and I want it, the district is required to hire the fully certified teacher. That means those of us in the program are only eligible for the jobs that are left over after all the fully certified teachers are hired. I'm trying to teach Middle School Language Arts, but I'd really rather teach High School English -- unfortunately, I was told that there are more jobs in MS, so I went for it. Yet as of today, I don't have a teaching job. No substitute job; nothing. In fact, I have no employment to speak of as of July 25th. Which is both liberating and terrifying at the same time, especially in light of the fact that...

- I got engaged on July 1st! I'm very excited about this, considering I've been waiting for this wonderful thing to happen for over 2 years. We already have a date, a ceremony and reception venue, a DJ, catering (included in the reception venue), and a wedding party. Oh, and a guest list that keeps growing but a budget that doesn't....

But ya know, I haven't had a whole lot of time yet to enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to finding more time for planning, and I hope I can somehow channel my inner Martha Stewart (ha! not likely) to come up with some really creative, impressive decorations and whatnot. Truthfully, I have had to pull myself away from various wedding planning websites over the past month because it will suck the time and the life (that is, the life away from my laptop) right out of me. Part of me wants to talk about my wedding all day every day to anyone who listens for two seconds. The realistic part of me knows that I have just under 11 months until my wedding, and people are really going to get sick of hearing about it by the time the day actually gets here.... ;) So, I'm definitely looking forward to getting immersed in wedding planning...as soon as I can give myself permission to do so...

So I might find myself doing some blogging about my ideas and concerns and excitements and thoughts regarding the wedding...or I might write about challenges in teaching (or, at the rate I'm going, not teaching...).

And every now and then, I glance at my ring and it hits me all over again: holy cow -- I'm getting married!