Did I get anything done?
Yes! I took my teapot home and played some Wii.
Yeah...not even rockband was accomplished :(

But that's okay. I'm going to go ahead and make Monday's list too, since I need to go ahead and do that.

I also had a pretty good night again. I have an amazing partner in life. He is my everything, and he makes everything bad better somehow. I told him something that's been bothering me for weeks now and tonight I feel so much...lighter. More peaceful. What gives, awesome Andy?

Sunday:
Clean Apartment
Call Danielle
Church
Take stuff from Mom and Dad

By clean the apartment, I mean, IN THIS ORDER,

Catbox/Hall
Living Room - Couch, Table, Floor
Bedroom - Desk, Computer Stuff, Nightstands, Bed, Floor
Bathroom
Closet
Kitchen - Counters, Fill dishwasher, Handwash, Put away candlesticks!
Laundry

I like putting the kitchen last because I'm neurotic and want as much space between the catbox and that as I can have. Normally I save the catbox for last, but it really needs to be done.

Monday:
Call MC. Find out about payment.
Call Dr. G, Dr. D, and Dr. F. Ask them to start a rap group of some sort.
Start my World Lit Class! Right?
Create Zen study space. Perhaps IKEA on Tuesday for a TV stand?

Tuesday:
Ikea?
Prepare for class!
Library
Michael's - need some glass paint, and I want to work on those magnets.

A bit slow...

I had a wonderful evening last night! I got almost nothing done. Books are ordered, but that's about it. Oh well, I can get stuff from Mom and Dad's today and do the cleaning tomorrow. Hopefully dad will sit down with me and pay for classes today. Then again, the website's not being very useful.

We saw Black Swan. It was a little disturbing; part of the disturbance was that eating disorders, a drive for perfection, and overbearing parents are things that a good portion of young ballerinas face, and I do mean young. It's a beautiful form of art, but it demands a specific body type, and it favors the young. It's competitive and it's the only reason I'm kinda glad that my parents didn't sign me up for it (the one exception to, I got everything I wanted as a kid except for a horse). But, the acting was good.

I'm calming down on the wedding front. As Billy Joel says, don't ask me why. I guess I'm just getting to the point where I could wait two years to marry Andy if I had to. I obviously don't want to, but it's not like it'll hurt us, unless we want to have kids in the next two years, which we don't. I expect to get crazy about it soon, but for now I'll enjoy the peace.

To do:
Clean Apartment
Get stuff from Mom's
Pay for classes
Rock Out!/Wii Fit (yep. I did that)


Library will have to wait for Tuesday.

Men are from Mars...

But this isn't a male female thing I think. Well not so much. It's wedding related, so obviously, there will be some division along sex lines, but whatever.

So I've already pitched a whiny little hissy-fit about the photography. But here's the thing. Our wedding will be complicated. We're Catholic, but I'm waiting for an annulment to go through...that takes a year at minimum. Then we'd need at least 4 months beyond that to inform guests. If a priest won't do the pre-marriage counseling until the annulment is through, that's a year and a half. I don't want to wait a year and a half to marry my soulmate!

But, thanks to an epic game of telephone tag, we have yet to actually talk to our priest. This is unfortunate, and driving me crazy, because I want to plan. At least it gives us more time to save for our wedding, unless we want to go ahead and do a non-Catholic marriage.

When I plan, I feel secure. Hammering out all of the things we can't have also helps me not fall in love with things we can't have. It is too late for photography, because this is the first time in my life where I have ever decided that photography is not essential. When you are spending that much money, you might as well have pretty pictures. But, differing worldviews, lack of money, blarg.

But, now I know that pretty much the only thing we can have is the food, some modest decorations, invitations, my dress, and...that's it.

I'm okay with that. And had I not talked to Andy about wedding stuff, the photography would still be in the "MUST" category for me, and it would be a way harder fall later in the game.

But it really stressed him out. Seriously stressed him out. We've got a guest-list of about 100 people. So I have so many ideas and I want to talk about them and I want to figure things out so we have a plan so I'm not stressing out like this, but me not stressing out comes at the cost of stressing him out. THAT is what love is, taking all of your crazy and stuffing it up into one big fuzzy ball of implosion and BLARG.

But, I turned in my paper. I mailed off the SSI forms. I called my pastor.

All that's left is to:
Pay for classes, order books
Clean apartment
Get stuff from Mom and Dad's house
Library - Confederacy of Dunces, GREs, Upcycling: The art of Paper blah blah blah

I should probably email my professor as well. Blarg again.

Because I can't sleep: A food plan

I have really been trying to sleep, and it's not working. I might a well get this on virtual paper.

My plan for food is going to be:

Breakfast:
2 scrambled eggs with a slice of whole wheat toast

Lunch:
Half a sandwich

Dinner:
Bowl of soup

Snacks:
Salad
Peanuts
Grapes
Carrots

Dessert:
One scoop of soft serve yogurt (vanilla).

I'll drink water (bleck) and diluted cherry juice. We'll see how it goes. I'm a little worried about the nutrients, but if the soups are veggieful, I should be getting enough. The eggs and sandwiches should take care of my protein? Every Sunday I plan to have some tortellini with a tomato cream sauce. After I get into this routine, I'll allow myself one more day a week for something extra.

I'll start next week, I think. When I go to Andy's, I'll pack a lunch with a sandwich half, and maybe I'll freeze a batch of soups to keep there so I'll stay on track.

With the self-pitying out of the way!

Okay, so now that I am done with the self-pitying nonsense, on to what I'm juggling.

I just finished my paper. Hurray! Everyone cheer for me, it's not the night before it's due...it's two nights before it's due. But I had computer problems, family problems, was really sick, and on a positive note, I got engaged, so whatever.

Tomorrow, I need to get the SSI papers done. I'm surprised they came through, and fully preparing myself for them to reject me after I send these in (I applied in April. April! It is now January! This doesn't bode well for the annulment).

I also need to call my pastor (speaking of annulments, right?).

I need to turn my paper in, and if I'm well enough, go to the Scholars meeting thingy.

Finally, I should probably pay for my classes. First I need to figure out what to drop from my schedule. Never do today what you can put off until the summer. Okay, bad message, but 17 credits (with 13 of them being Honors credits) is a lot. I've had a month where more days than not, I haven't been able to get out of bed. I need to be realistic.

Oh yeah, and I'll have to apply for colleges. I bet I'm already too late for some of them!

On a related topic, I'm really considering going with a school with a good online program. Then my health won't matter so much, right? Chadron and UMUC both have psychology programs online. Then I'd also be free to move anywhere without worrying about transferring schools.

So to recap:
Disability Papers
Call Pastor
Turn Paper In
Attend Scholars Meeting
Pay for Classes, Rent books

I should also call my mother. I've been a bad daughter <-ends on self-pityingish thing.

The thing about things....

Especially the things we can't have. I'm not quite sure why we do it; is it Satan in our hearts, whispering that we need things we don't actually need? Some holdover of days when we had to horde whatever we could get, and working for more was what set us above the rest of animals vying for the top spot in the food chain? Is it capitalist conditioning, a result of growing up in wealthy America? My sister's mother-in-law told her that she shouldn't have more kids, because of money. Even though my sister and brother-in-law have an income that is very capable of supporting the family, "your kids will see things that the other kids have and want them." It was as if the idea of not giving your children everything they want is scandalous.

This is a weird topic for me, because I always got everything I wanted as a child. Did I want to play a sport? Sure I could play that sport, no problem! Four sports a year? Of course! I wanted to learn to play an instrument, even though in the past I had never practiced anything consistently? To the music store! Even when I failed to practice but still wanted to be in the band each year, the clarinet was rented each year until we'd paid enough on it to buy it outright. Every gift I wanted for Christmas was under the tree (except for the horse, but hey, wishes aren't horses). The same thing happened with my birthday. When I was married the first time, I have no idea what the budget was, but it was definitely 5 digits. Wow. My wedding dress alone cost 1.5k with alterations and accessories.

And yet here I am. New Year's Eve, I took advantage of David Bridal's $99 dress sale to buy a real wedding dress. I mean, I liked the dress. It's pretty enough. It's simple, but whatever. I need to lose a little bit of weight or have it taken out, but it was cheap, new, and a real wedding dress, so rock on! Saturday I went dress shopping with Jessica, for her wedding. She tried on so many gorgeous dresses, and there was no way I could afford a single one of them. The quality was so much better than my dress. She finally found THE dress...the perfect one, that looks absolutely gorgeous, compliments her in all the right ways, and just screams "perfect!" Brendan is going to be floored when he sees her in that dress.

I got home, and don't think that I wasn't thrilled for her. I was entirely thrilled for her! But I felt so much despair. It's about wanting pretty things like that and not being able to afford them. Kudos to me for being responsible, but I'm still ashamed that I got so bitter. I feel awful that I made a bad choice that led to having an awesome setup with an abusive jerk, and now the price of that is there is no way to do the same with my soul mate.

The dress thing made me feel bitter, but the photography situation makes me feel way worse. We're not having a photographer. We're just asking friends and family to take pictures with their digital cameras and send them to us. It was Andy's choice and I agreed with it because it makes sense, but darn it, I want to look at beautiful photographs of our wedding. Those pictures are going to last more than a lifetime. I love looking at the photos from my Nana and Papa's wedding, done by a professional photographer. Those are family heirlooms that we lovingly keep. They open up to stories from the wedding day, and even set the stage for stories about their marriage itself. My sister and brother-in-law have their photographs up on their walls, and they're so beautiful. My sister is gorgeous, but like me, she doesn't photograph well. You would never know it from looking at these pictures. She looks amazingly beautiful. The happiness that she and Anthony had that day is perfectly captured. Every time I look at those pictures, I'm reminded of how much they loved each other that day, and how much they still love each other. I want that.

Is it shallow and vapid of me? I don't know, but probably. Beyond food, if I would put money anywhere, it would be in professional photography. That's the biggest thing we won't have at our wedding that I'm upset about, and I think the only thing. I think I'll get over the dress pretty soon, but I'm afraid every time I look at the pictures on my sister's wall, for the rest of my life, I'll be a little sad because I want that.

Still failing...

At least I can fail consistently. I haven't gotten anything done. Granted, I'm sick, but I have a paper due soon, and then I need to pay for classes, if I'm even still signed up for them, and then I need to rent my textbooks, and apply for colleges, and I'm sure I'm not going to make the deadline for some of them.

Why am I putting it all off? It's because I'm stupid and letting myself fall back into a bad place. I've felt it coming since November-Decemberish, but it's becoming pretty obvious to me now. A big part of it is my health; it kinda sucks sometimes, and that makes the future a little scary. How can I finish school like that? Forget that, how can I get a job like that? Have kids and raise them? I'm marrying someone amazing, and how can I put that on him? I'm much closer to the ball and chain metaphor than anyone else I know.

On the one hand, I keep clinging, and telling myself to get past it. And I'm happy. That's the weird part; when I sit down and think about what I have, I'm so happy. I'm not plagued by bad dreams anymore. I'm in a bit of pain, but it's nothing big. I have a fantastic family. I'm fed, sheltered, etc.

I don't know. It's this creeping sense of hopelessness that never seems to let up. I think I've been relying on Andy too much lately. I'm putting too much on him, and I can't let myself do that. It's not good for either of us. My resolution for the week is a simple one: Do for myself, spend my time here instead of at my parents', and make sure 4 hours of every day are productively spent. That's a good ramp up to school, right?

Well, I failed to get a lot done today, but I did make some progress! I threw away a bagful of trash and started filling another, I made it to the bank...man I suck at doing things.

I will do more later tonight. If I get more done, I'll edit it in!

Wow, looking back over these, I am a spoiled brat. I really would delete them, but that feels so dishonest.

And about honesty, I'm discovering the depths of it in my partner, and it's really highlighting where I fall short.

I want to be honest. No one wants to think she is a liar. But have I ever had a perfectly honest day? I don't know. Today my mother was venting about my sister's problems, and said Danielle should tell a little white lie to her mother-in-law to fix things. For once, I bucked at the idea, and then a second later, Papa came in and offered me lunch but I said, "No thanks, I already ate."

Dear reader, who is not really there, I had not eaten all day. I had eaten the night before, perhaps, and I guess I wouldn't have made it this far in life without eating, but I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch or anything. He's 105 and it's easier to say that I ate already so he doesn't worry.

And the thing is, even though it's a lie, it's one I'm comfortable telling because I was not going to eat coldcuts (my stomach was upset) and it kept him from worrying!

Andy is so very honest. It is one of the things I love about him, and probably something that repulses him about me is how easy it is for me to slip into "white" lies. I'm not willing to say that a tiny lie to make someone feel better is wrong, not yet, even though my religion dictates that it is a venial sin, but I know that many of my white lies benefit me and me alone. If I don't have the confidence to tell the truth at all times, what does that say about me? If there is one thing I don't want to be, it is a weak person.

And so begins my year of honesty. Stupid, stupid honesty.

Tasks for tomorrow (if I can):
Clean the basement - box up my things, fold laundry, clear off the tabletops and shelves, throw trash away, etc.
Go to the bank and the post office
Grocery Shopping
English Project