Rebirth

Easter is a wonderful day to reflect on how life has transformed.

Sagittarius and I have been married for a couple weeks now.  It turned out to be a beautiful day, even though the first forecasts threatened of snow. It took a lot of work, but we had the love and support of our family and close friends and everything came together as we hoped.

We took a short trip to Lake Placid for a honeymoon trip. Most everything seems to shutdown in that region during April, but we still managed to have a nice time.  I would recommend researching the local activities if you plan to go up there between March and May though as even "year-round" or "four season" advertised things were still closed during April.

On our last day, we took a drive to Ausable Chasm where we had visited during a camping trip almost two years ago.  The last time the waterfall was barely flowing.  This time, due to the long winter, the sound of the water raging was sometimes hard to talk over. It's nice to think of it as a prediction of what our marriage will be like - strong and flowing together.

Summer 2009

Spring 2011

Sagittarius started a new job on Monday.  It's the first job in his chosen field of IT.  He's happy there and we are hopeful of his future.

My sister's baby girl was born this winter.  Just like Sagittarius' brother's baby boy was born early, so was my sister's baby.  They both just couldn't wait to be born.  I was busy making baby blankets while I was also planning the wedding.  I unfortunately got bogged down with that, that I didn't get a chance to get the blankets out to their recipients until the rehearsal dinner.  The good part about that, was I got to see each mother open the present.

My brother is getting married this fall, and a relative who I have never met before found me - two exciting things to look forward to (finally meeting his boys and fiance, and getting to know more about this new relation).

With getting some more time now that this huge event is over, I intend to dive back into reading.  I plan on finishing Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet and then moving on to Love In A Time Of Cholera.  Both were book club selections that I had hoped to finish by the wedding.  Of course, getting back into the swing of Craft Nights is also on the agenda.  My first night back was last week, and it's my turn for dinner this week.

So as I sit watching King Of Kings, coming down from my Peeps induced sugar high over the past couple days, I thank God that his son died and rose for me, and I thank him that he sent a wonderful man my way for me to begin my life again. I am in anticipation of this new life that has begun.

Enough Is Enough

I hate to do this here, but some people don’t get the hint.

You ignored my presence for so long, now you chose to stalk my sites and leave nasty messages when I ignore you.  Be gone.

To MALE:  Own up to the fact that I did call you and email you to see how you were doing on several occasions because I knew you were taking your brother and your mother’s death hard. YOU NEVER REPLIED.  The only contact to you was through your fiancé, and she only occasionally replied herself.  Through her, you were supposedly staying out of the family drama, so when your family asked that I give you Jake’s watch, a watch that I spent good money on as a gift to replace the one he broke, I delivered it for your birthday because I felt it was a good thing to do.  Yet, you never even called or sent me an email to say you got it.  You seem to also forget that at the very beginning I opened up my home to your family to come and take mementos of him.  Others took, you never did and said you didn’t want anything.

Oh, and on a funny note – you called me a loser for blogging.  Yet, your sister blogged a whole hell of a lot more often than I ever have.  So you think your sister’s a loser.

To FEMALE:  Keep it in your twisted head that I cranked called your family.  Is that your conscious playing tricks on you?  YOU called and left harassing messages, and emails, when I finally put my foot down to what your family was doing.  I went with everything your family wanted, up until the headstone – the one thing that I made clear I and your mother was to be involved with.  When your father excluded me and your mother and spread lies that I wasn’t going to pitch in anything (which is BS because at one point I thought only myself and your sister where going to putting any money towards it) and that I didn’t return his calls (good thing about only having cell phones – call records), I finally halted everything. I NEVER CALLED YOU PLAYING STUPID GAMES.  I didn’t have the emotional strength to play games. At that point I was doing everything I could just to get out of bed and go to work everyday.   I wanted all the drama to stop and I wanted a connection to Jake by maintaining a relationship with Jake’s family – there was no way I was going to jeopardize that by playing games.  Once again, the great thing about cell phones – call records. YOU’RE THE ONE THAT MADE HARRASING PHONE CALLS, NOT ME.

To BOTH:  I sleep at night with the comforting knowledge that I tried my best to do the right thing.  Did you?

You attacked when I would no longer just roll over and do what your family wanted.  You’ve said there’s two sides to every story, but you’re choosing to forget a lot and how you treated me.  Your family said they would help – even after I took care of the headstone myself.  But I knew not to hold my breath.  None of you ever came by for a visit, not even to see Jake’s dog even if you didn’t want to see me, and you never lent a dime.  With the exception of Jake’s plot, I paid everything MYSELF – when financially, I couldn’t afford it.

Then you have the NERVE and AUDACITY to ask me to give you the plot I bought next to him and give you his things, now that I am finally happy and planning a life.  HIS THINGS ARE MY THINGS.  You decided to ignore me and act like I died when he did.  So accept the fact that this is how I am now treating you.  This is the last I will speak on the matter.  You no longer exist.  The answer is, and always will be “NO”.

Book Reading Fool

Seeing as I got a Nook for Christmas, I've decided that I need to get back to one of my first loves, reading.

About two and a half years ago, before I got into knitting and crochet, I had joined three book clubs at once.  Friday Night Knitting Club was one of the selections for one of these groups that made me want to pursue an interest in knitting that I've had since I was a little girl.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, as soon as this interest was peaked and Rose and Sara started showing me how to knit and crochet, my reading went to the wayside.

Once I received my Nook, I started looking into finding ebooks that I could load it up with.  I was happy to discover that books published before 1928 are considered public domain and can be downloaded for free legally. Project Gutenberg is probably the most popular website for such works, but you can also find them through Google eBookstore, Borders and Barnes and Noble. I loaded up some classics such as Little Women, A Tale of Two Cities, Persuasion, Treasure Island, and Iliad of Homer, to name a few.

Of course, silly me joined five more book clubs.  Why?  I know I am planning a wedding, still planning on doing craft projects, and yet I've tacked on five more groups that I know I might never contribute to.  I must be out of my mind.

However, I have already managed to complete two book club picks for this month.  The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes is old enough to be public domain so I downloaded it for free and read it on the Nook - a fun experience for my first ebook.  Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter was a Nook bookclub pick, yet I borrowed it from the library and read it in hardback because it was a little too expensive for my taste to buy the ebook and the wait lists at the libraries were too long to borrow the ebook version in time for the book club discussion.

Both books were both good in their own right.  Now I have time to get in another book club selection before its time to move on to the February pick I've decided to read - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  I'm particularly interested in this one because so many suggest it and its the first of a series, not to mention its the first ebook that I've actually purchased for the Nook.  Here's hoping I don't drive myself crazy trying to stay on top of all these clubs and manage to get some good reading in.

Getting The Job Done

We have been busy, and frankly, I need a nap.

For Christmas, my folks came over and spent the night like they did last year.  Sagittarius baked cookies before they arrived so that the smell of cookies would fill the house.  I cooked a ham and my mom cooked her spanish rice.  My father's contribution was in the form of laughter.  He rented a Sci-fi thriller titled Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus, which was more of a comedy since we all couldn't stop laughing at just how ridiculous it was.

We exchanged presents at midnight.  Even with funds being tight this year because of saving for the upcoming wedding, we did well.  Sagittarius got me a Nook e-reader.  The Barnes and Noble website gives a great overview of the features of both the regular wi-fi black and white e-ink reader that I got and the Nook Color.  I had decided that the black and white one was the one I wanted because it gets longer battery life and is easier to read outside than the Nook Color.  We both received the Nintendo DSi XL (mine in burgundy and his in Blue).  We loves games of all sorts from board games to computer and video games, so this was right up our alley - not to mention that Sweet Boy in his destructive phase had gotten to my DS Lite and although he didn't destroy it he did a good job of messing it up. 

My mom was the only person that I made a gift for due to being sick, missing a lot of craft nights, and working on the projects for my pregnant sister and soon-to-be sister-in-law.  I knitting my mom the Texture Scarf from Fall 2008 edition of Fons & Porter's "Love Of Knitting".  I have previously made two of these for myself and thought they came out too skinny for my mom's taste so I doubled the cast on.  I chose Vanna's Choice yarn from Lion Brand in Rose Mist because she likes colors in the pink and burgundy palates.  She loved it.

Since shortly before Christmas, I have been dieting trying to loose some weight before the wedding. Since about the day after Christmas, I have also been working out on the treadmill and the Wii.  I have lost about six pounds and Sagittarius is now getting in on the action as well.  I've set a goal of six pounds a month.  I would love to loose more, but I don't want to kill myself with an unhealthy task.

We have done a lot of work for the wedding.  We have the wedding blog for the details, so I won't get into too much here, but I am happy that I have found my dress, the tuxes have been picked out, most of the ceremony accessories and some of the reception items have been picked out and purchased.  This has been the most tiring of everything over the past month.  After spending the entire work day in front of a computer, I've come home to spend the entire night looking at different wedding websites to get ideas.  Yesterday, after running to the post office for Sagittarius to process his passport application, the bank, Staples to see about ink for printing our invitations, then to pick up my dress, I spent the entire rest of the day in front of the computer picking out items with Sagittarius and selecting wording for the invitations.

We are less than three months from our wedding.  In some respects, I am excited for it.  In orders, I just wish it was already over so I can get some rest.