Can Somebody Explain this to Me?

For some reason I can't access my e-mail at my grandparents. I can get into my inbox but I can't read anything, delete anything, or do anything else while I'm in there. In fact, nobody that has a yahoo account (as in everybody in my family including Tannan) can access their e-mail either. IT'S REALLY REALLY FRUSTRATING.

(Sorry Winter! I'm TRYING!)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I'm on cough medicine so the following may be a little hard to follow. The thing that sucks about having a family of 47 is that somebody is bound to be sick and therefore is going to get everybody else sick. This year it was laryngitis (I'm not even going to bother figuring out how it's spelled). So singing on Christmas Eve was not exactly a joyful noise as it was a really strained and painful to listen to noise.

We've been up in the mountains of Georgia (before I get any crap about not telling anybody, I had to pack up my life for 3 months plus finish all of the important wedding stuff that I was supposed to have done so I basically didn't sleep for 3 days before my trip. And that's with not getting everything done) but we're back in civilization so I'm wishing everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I miss you all and love you all and will try to blog before we leave for Germany on the 3rd. We're flying into Frankfurt and then taking a train to Vienna where we're going to meet Aimee for a couple of days before we head out to Italy. All in all it's been a good year for travel for me which is good because pretty much we're going to be dead broke for the next few years so traveling is going to be out of the question. Unless we end up moving to Beiing. Anyway hope you all are good and peace out.

MY ENGAGEMENT PHOTOS ARE DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our photographer Kelly is incredible and wanted to take our picture at the theater where we met and Tannan proposed. Out of the 48 that she gave us there are probably 10 that aren't my favorite which means that I am very excited for our wedding pictures. Here are a few of my favorite favorite--they are low res so if they look funky that's why.

The Thing That Sucks About Being Engaged

My Christmas List of people to buy gifts for doubled this year.

And I'm broke.

And I'm still in the place where I'm convinced that buying the perfect Christmas gift will ensure that (fill in the blank) thinks that I'm wonderful and good enough to marry Tannan (whom everyone he's related to pretty much thinks is the greatest person in the history of people).

Darn it.

Why I Was In Philadelphia

Yay Matt and Kal for inspiring me to blog again today.

Ok, last weekend I went to Philadelphia with my parents to go to the Army/Navy game. As some of you might know my dad graduated from West Point so every once in a while we do Alumni things. While my dad was at school he was on the parachute team which had a major jump competition on the same weekend of the game so my dad only got to go 1 game his freshman year. This is back in the day where they were still hazing so he didn't really get to do much. My mom for my parents 25th wedding anniversary got us all tickets to go. I was not prepared for the hugeness of this game--100,000 people fly into Philly for the game. It is INSANE. Army got the crap kicked out of them, but compared to the USC/UCLA game it wasn't THAT bad. Just frickin' freezing--25 degrees but with the windchill it felt like 18. In the 3rd quarter I began to question my ability to go to Italy for the Winter games. The big bummer was that we were just there long enough for the game and after much begging and pleading I was very sternly told that no, I couldn't take a train into New York to see Matt and Brenda despite me swearing I'd only stay for a little while. Whatever.

Being the not-so-patriotic person that I by and large am, I had to admit I was a little worried about doing the whole nations-first-capital touristy thing. Believe it or not, I actually had a blast and highly recommend going to Philly and doing that stuff. I was really impressed with the honesty of the places we went to--they didn't try to cover up what our nation was and is with the Aren't-We-The-Best-Country-In-The-World attitude that is so pervasive in the country today. When we went to Independence Hall most of the time they talked about what the constitution didn't accomplish, acknowledging the taking out of the original document a clear date for abolition of slavery and the exclusion of women and Native Americans. I was actually really impressed. What did help though was that in the airport before we left I bought a copy of Reading Lolita in Tehrahn. I'd been meaning to read it since Merissa gave me Persepolis last year, and since I just found out that a friend of mine who is originally from Iran is moving back to be with her sister I thought that it would be a good time to read it. Let me tell you, nothing can make you more appriciative of your stupid, backward, tremendously flawed country then something like Reading Lolita. Not only did it make me grateful, but it also made me feel tremendously guilty for taking for granted all of the lovely books that I have to read. The section on Gatsby was particularly so because I remember in high school looking up cliffs notes because I was too lazy to read it while these women had to hide the fact that they even have a copy. So yeah, it helped.

Ok, that's all I gots for now.

It only took me 3 months to update again

Let's face it, I don't have the attention span for this. This, or e-mailing, or letter writing of any kind. Now you see why it was a small miracle that I managed to be a history major and graduate. But, because I do like the idea of blogging and because I'm going to be in Italy for 3 months I'm going to try something new: short updates. And it pretty much doesn't matter because there is no way that anybody even bothers to read this anymore. So that makes it awesome and more diary like. Here's my new thoughts:

WEDDING: we have a location, photographer, officiant, and florist--but no food so Round Table it is. Speaking of Round Table, we went there the other night and there was a guy in his 30's that it was his first night. He was SO PROUD of his new job, he just--and I hate this term and don't use it lightly--beamed while we were there and was so excited. You could tell he was just stoked to have a job and get a paycheck. It was very humbling for me. If that were me, I'd be so embarrassed that I had to work at Round Table, like it were beneath me somehow. I came to realize that I think entirely too much of myself sometimes. Anyway wedding stuff. Gonna have it at friends of Tannan's in Ramona. That's right, you heard me. Ramona. Actually it' gonna be fun. Plus they have goats.

ITALY: no job yet, but I got a really cheap ticket from my aunt and everybody keeps saying that once I'm there it'll be no problem so there you go. Regardless of work, it'll still be awesome to go to Italy. And frickin' cold.

HIP: found out 2 days ago that My hip is actually fixable. Instead of it being the laundry list of things that the OTHER doctors told me, my hip specialist (yes I have a specialist, and that's only because I pretty much have really bad pain daily and can barely walk sometimes so the "sorry kid" bullshit that I was getting before didn't fly well with me) said that my hip joint is twisted so that what is supposed to be on top is pointing out. It means surgery, but that'll fix it so I'm all for that. It'll take me 10 weeks to recover so we don't want to do it until after the wedding, but you gotta feel bad for poor Tannan. Barely a newlywed and he's going to have to go 2 months without sex. Needless to say we're looking at doing it next fall. Anyway I'm stoked.

Ok, that's it for now. Bye Bye