Major accomplishment

I did what I said I was going to: get the invitations in the mail on Monday.  Today is Monday and those invitations are in the mail.  Phew! 

I had a panic attack last Monday night and made a trip to Michaels at 7:30pm (making back just in time for Castle).  I got half of the stuff I needed to make invitations.  I continued on with the panic attack the following night with a trip to Target for the remainder of supplies.  I got some pimples on my face from all the stressing out about it (which drew even more attention to my large forehead - but I was too busy freaking out to notice).  Then I cut and printed, cut and printed, designed and printed, and cut and cut and cut...(it keeps going). 

I spent the majority of this weekend putting everything together, and it took me up until 10:30pm last night to get everything done, but I did it and it was a wonderful feeling.  It was also a major sense of accomplishment for me to design everything and put everything together by my goal date (that's one of the only things I've done on time and it felt damn good). 

Look for the invitations in the mail.  I realized after putting them in the mailbox a block away that I maybe should have had each weighted to make sure one stamp would do it...so my apologies if you end up having to pay a little bit or if the invites are delayed because they get sent back to me (at least it will give you plenty of laughs).

FYI - I've become what I didn't want to be: the bride that talks about her wedding all the time.  The problem is that's basically all I'm doing!

Holy crap - our wedding day is about three months away!

I finally got my butt in gear and really started organizing my thoughts about our wedding.  I needed some pressure before I finally got into "Let's get this planned" mode, but now that I'm here, I'm pretty excited!  I love lists (because I love the satisfied feeling I get when I cross stuff off) and I started lists of everything Chris and I need to do as soon as possible, as well as stuff that can be hammered out a little later.  I feel so much better now that all the thoughts swimming around in my head are now down on paper.  It helps me organize and feel a little bit more in control. 

I took my wedding ring into the jeweler last week for repairs - my mom gave me my Great Great Aunt's ring to use as my wedding ring and I couldn't be more excited about it!  Plus I finally took my dress in to get dry cleaned before I take it to the tailor on Tuesday (I figured she'd probably appreciate working with a clean dress - hee hee). 

Our next big decisions: specific time for the wedding and catering.  I'm also finally starting to really work on decorations.  I'm going to look at fabric next week for tablecloths and Chris and I are going to make a stop on the way down to his parents' to look at plants tomorrow.  I also found out about a big sale at the U in late April for the kinds of plants I'm looking for.  Let's see if I can take off some time from work to actually go!

One thing I really want to have for our wedding is something I've made for myself.  I started working on a shawl last week - I fell in love with the pattern the minute I saw it.  I hope I can get it done before the wedding! 

This post was much more positive than my last one - I got my portion of the crappy project done since then and finished my portion of the other project done.  Now I'm making great progress in rebuilding our budget applications.  I really wish I could have taken your advice Jamie...

Case of the blehs

I should not be writing at the moment because I feel frustrated.  I can't seem to focus on anything and I haven't been sleeping great the past few weeks.  The main issue is work.  A piece of the issue is that I have three major projects going on right now and each one seems to take more time than I anticipate.  Because each of those projects has a deadline of ASAP, I'm feeling a lot of pressure and I haven't figured out quite how to deal with it yet.  For the past couple weeks, I've been bringing work home with me because there never seems to be enough time during the day to do them. 

One thing that really irks me is one of the major projects is a new initiative at a time when we already don't have enough people to do the work we're currently doing, and it's a project that's not going to provide much benefit.  A group of us objected several times, but one of the higher ups (who has no concept of how time-consuming this project is) said to do it, so we have to do it.  One of my team members said long ago there's no point in fighting it and after several attempts, I finally accepted that.  But what I can't accept is the fact that my opinion doesn't matter.  Everything we said was listened to and without a moment's hesitation, we were told what we needed to do next to push the project forward.  I finally understand why so many don't bother speaking up anymore.  It may not be worth the frustration and effort.

The main issue weighing on my mind is that even though I'm busting my ass on these projects, there's still a chance I may lose my job in 2010 or 2011.  The Governor's proposed cuts to local government aid means there are many jobs on the cutting block.  It's the nature of government work I guess.  I just wish everyone in my division cared about the quality of their work and exceeded the minimum expectations.  If the bare minimum is all they are willing to do, maybe it's time to raise the bar. 

What I need to remember is that I'm lucky enough to still have a job right now.  I am grateful for that.  I hope I can find my sanity again someday soon.  What I really needed was to vent so thanks for listening to my whining and bitching.

Continuously sick

I've been sick for a while now - it's getting really old.  It's basically been a bad cold, but it coming knocked me out and I've had to take a few days off work (eek!).  Banjo's been enjoying stealing my body heat as we snuggle on the couch.  In my efforts to not go crazy, I've tried to be productive at something, like finishing a book I'm reading or knitting, but I've done a lot of zoning out.  That's been the worst part.  Banjo likes tearing apart Kleenex though (he's not picky if it's used or not).  That's the second worst part.

I did finally crochet some new potholders for us:

The turtles remind me of Longville - Turtle Racing Capital of the World.  haha

I also love three-day weekends

I had the best feeling ever this morning: I woke up around 6:45 with no alarm.  I love having a holiday!  This is a very enjoyable weekend.  We went to my parents for a couple of days (which translates to lots of yummy food) where I finally started Dad's socks and got close to finishing The Stand by Stephen King. 

For those of you who have read The Stand, it's so good!  And for those of you who haven't read the book, it's so good and you should read the uncut version!  The book was long, but I didn't notice because the story was so good!  It reminded me of The Storm of the Century in certain ways.  The book is about a superflu that kills most of the population, and what happens to the survivors.  Fascinating stuff and I highly recommend it.

I'm also recovering from the solution to my migraines - I had an IUD placed last Thursday which means I can have babies when/if I decide to AND have no more hormone-related migraines!  I know this information may make certain people uncomfortable, but I wanted to let people know so they can hopefully pass this information along.  It turned out my body had too much estrogen because of the birth control pills I was taking and my body's natural production.  That meant I almost always had a migraine once a month (at least).  My doctor suggested getting off the birth control pills for a couple months as a trial and I haven't had any migraines since.  That's when I too decided to get an IUD, which uses a low dose of a different hormone that hasn't been linked to migraines.  Plus I don't have to remember to take a pill every day and it lasts for five years.  Now you can hopefully pass on the word in case you know of other women suffering from migraines on a monthly basis. 

In other news, Banjo was a pretty good dog this weekend with Pokey.  The cat stayed locked up in my parents' bedroom the whole weekend...hee hee.  Banjo only growled at Pokey a few times, and he was super excited to get home.  It turns out he likes routines and his own space.  It's fun to visit, but he's ready when we get ready to leave.  He slept hard all the way home and all night.  It makes me feel good to know that he's making progress with both us and other dogs, because the beginning was a bit rough.  Totally worth it though :)

I love organizing

This morning I was trying to figure out what I wanted to accomplish this weekend.  Lately, since work has been mega brain intensive, I've wanted to do things that don't require much thought (namely knitting).  So this morning, I started by weeding out my binders of knitting patterns, recycling the ones that I have no intention of ever knitting.  It felt really good! 

In the process, I found a pattern I had forgotten about, but have been wanting to knit for some time: fingerless mittens.  I really liked the pattern, so I decided to cast on and I got one of the mittens done:

 

 

It always feels good to work on a quick project for that feeling of accomplishment.  What I also felt good about was the fact I found the yarn in my stash (from one of the bags of odds and ends I bought off Craigslist).  

Another accomplishment is I think I have finally gotten to a point in my knitting where I feel comfortable making changes to the pattern.  When I first started, there was no way I was going to do anything besides what the pattern said to for fear of ruining all the hard work (I ruined things anyway because of the mistakes every beginning knitter makes!).  Now, I modify as I see fit.  Proud day for me!

I've also found this in cooking.  Since I weeded through my recipes a while ago, I've been choosing one or two new recipes a week to try because I don't want to keep saving recipes that don't taste good.  I've had pretty good success so far, but am finding there are certain ingredients I don't like and certain ways of preparing things that completely differs from the recipes.  It has lead to some pretty savory discoveries.

Finally finished some UFOs

When I woke up Saturday morning, I was trying to think about what I wanted to accomplish.  I was looking around my craft room and realized I had four unfinished knitting projects still sitting on my shelf.  The part of the projects I really don't like doing is the finishing work (tucking in yarn ends mostly).  So if I don't have some kind of deadline for the project (meaning if I'm not giving the project to someone in particular), I usually put the project on the shelf and let it sit there until I find the motivation to complete it.  The reason I don't like tucking in yarn ends is because at that point, all of the knitting or crocheting is done, so when I do this, it doesn't feel like I'm making any sort of progress, which is not very motivating.

I decided to finally complete those four.  Two of the projects needed yarn ends tucked and needed to be sewn together (one was a cushion cover for my rocking chair in the living room and the other was a pair of baby booties).  One project only needed yarn ends tucked (a baby hat) and the other project, a baby blanket for donation, needed a border crocheted. 

I first finished the booties and hat and with my sense of accomplishment and momentum, I moved on to sewing together the cushion cover for my rocking chair.  After finishing that, I started crocheting the border on the blanket.  I will still need to block the blanket, but the fact that I've finishing tucking in the yarn ends and finished the border was amazing progress.  I still have a number of projects on my needles, but at least I've completed those that were sitting on my shelf waiting to be truly finished.