Wedding dresses

Today I am going to try on wedding dresses for the first time.  The wedding isn't for a year and a half, but I figure I might as well start with something I can kind of understand.  Plus, I am 5'2" and let's just say curvy, so finding a dress is going to be a challenge.

This is something girls are supposed to like right?  So why am I nervous as all hell?  I'm kind of scared that the people in the store are going to tell me I don't belong there, and that I am just going to end up looking like a big white marshmallow puff.  Hoping I'll get some decent pictures, and get a better idea of what I am looking for in a dress by the end of the day.

Doctor Who

It's Friday....which means that yesterday was Thursday.  And Thursday at our house means two things:  brinner and Doctor Who.  Now I am not sure when this tradition got started, and I have no idea what we are going to do once we watch through all the episodes of Doctor Who on Netflix (unless we go back and watch the old Doctor Who episodes...and I am not sure if I am that brave).

Doctor Who is a British Sci-Fi show about a man (or well a Time Lord) who travels throughout time and space in his blue police box called the Tardis.  Throughout the seasons he has different companions with him, and encounters many different enemies including the Daleks and Cybermen.  We seriously love this show.  Last year for Halloween my fiance dressed up as the 10th doctor.  Oh yeah, the doctor doesn't die, he regenerates.  So far we are on our third doctor, although in chronology he is the 11th doctor.  Even though this is a sci-fi show, it has a ton of heart.  We love the show so much that we have painted our bathroom door to look like the Tardis, have multiple props from the show in our living room, and we have a beautiful Dalek poster above our DVD display case.

If you haven't watched it, give it a chance.  And if you don't cry at the end of series 4, then you have no soul.

Thursday

Blog a day is going strong...for two whole days!

And, for granted anyone reading this blog probably already knows this cause I bet only my friends (if that) ever read it...but I'm getting married!!!!!

Last week, on our one year anniversary, my very awesome boyfriend (now fiance!) and I got engaged.  I'm excited, in love, elated, happy, and SCARED TO DEATH!  Why?  Because I have NO clue how to put together a wedding.  Now, I have a year and a half.  We haven't set an official date, but we are thinking Fall 2013.  But, that doesn't make me feel more relaxed at all.  I am not sure where to start exactly, other than looking at dresses and color schemes because those are fun to Google.  I signed up at The Knot website, but they are kind of fancy and complicated.  Anyone out there want to help a girl?

Do I start figuring out a rough guest list?  Do I just go try on pretty dresses?  How do I figure out a budget?  The only thing I know for sure is that I need to hunt down a gluten free bakery so I can have a wedding cake that I can actually eat.

Blog a day

Ok, well, I've decided I am going to try doing this more of a blog a day thing.  Because honestly, I suck at blogging....which is pretty darn obvious.  So, I figure maybe I can challenge myself to blog almost every day (I might take weekends off).  Even if it is small, I can post.  Maybe I will get followers, maybe I will connect with people, or maybe I will just feed my own ego.

So, today I will start with a picture, because everyone loves pictures right?  Here's my "hopefully this works...is this a good idea??  What is the cat doing over there?????" face.

The National Book Award controversy

Everyone in the book world is going to be talking about this, so I am jumping right up on the bandwagon.

The National Book Award chooses 5 finalists every year to compete in the category for Young People's Literature.  Due to a snafu, this year there were 6 finalists.  My Name is Not Easy, Inside Out and Back Again, Okay for Now, Flesh and Blood so Cheap, Chime, and Shine were the 6 finalists.  Apparently Shine was never supposed to be on that list.  So, instead of allowing all 6 to compete (which was the original plan), Lauren Myracle (the author of Shine) had to withdraw her book (before they withdrew it for her) from consideration.

Now, mistakes happen, people read off the wrong name, hell there is still a rumor that Marisa Tomei was not supposed to get the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress because the wrong name was called blah blah blah.  That said, there is a way to handle the mistakes, and that would be with class.  I get that there is some tradition and that the sanctity of the award needed to be kept intact, or whatever.  But, seriously, did they need to do this?  How does this make the award better?  They embarrassed and hurt an author just to keep their award intact?  I don't see how this makes the award better, or is in the spirit of the award at all.

I have my issues with book awards already, *cough*The Printz*cough*, that I think are given out more for librarians and other people on book committees to feel all important and award books that are great for adults to read, but aren't so much great for teens to read.  But, this goes beyond my normal problems with book awards and goes more to the core of a new issue.  Awards are meant to lift people up, to give special notice to someone who has gone above and beyond.  Yes, people who don't win an award often feel bad, but they aren't being specifically singled out to feel bad.  This situation singled Myracle out and told her she was inferior.  That goes against the very reason to give an award.

Matched by Ally Condie

Now that I've finished school I can enjoy some leisure reading time again!  With that time I was finally able to finish reading the book that everyone had been talking about months ago:  Matched by Ally Condie.

This book is set in a dystopic 1984-esque future where the population does not get to decide anything.  They don't get to decide what they eat, what they wear, who they marry, or what profession they will have.  Cassia has the unthinkable happen, she gets matched up with her best friend Xander.  But, when she puts his microchip in to view his information another face pops up on the screen.  The different face changes everything for Cassia, and now she must decide what to do when the infallible Society makes a mistake.

Once I had the time I raced through this book.  Cassia did get on my nerves a little bit with her selfishness near the end, but then none of us are saints.  This book is the first of a planned trilogy, so it isn't tied up at the end and readers are left wanting to know what happens.  I did start to wonder why people would want to live the way that they do in this society.

I'm looking forward to the second book in this trilogy and can't wait to get my hands on more books and just READ!

Milestone

Warning:  This is going to be one of those sentimental type posts.  If sentiment is not what you are looking for, feel free to scroll down some and enjoy the snark in my earlier posts.

Obviously, I suck at blogging regularly and I seriously need to get on it.

That said, today is a momentous day for me.  Or well yesterday was, but I was too busy enjoying it to blog about it, so I am blogging about it today.  Yesterday was a day I'd been shooting for for over 3 years.  I finished college, I lost 150 lbs, and I finally have a clean house.  While one of those doesn't seem to fit with the others they are all tots important goals for me.

3 years ago I was mega heavy, married to a douchecanoe hoarder, and without a college degree.  I'm a smart person, but college just never worked for me.  Between being bored, and having some serious social anxiety issues, I just couldn't deal with it and made a few failed attempts that panned out to a whole lot of nothing.  I finally got my shit together though and went back to an online program and worked hard.  Along the way I did learn a lot of stuff, but I mostly learned that I don't have to be perfect.  Getting a 4.0 was not worth my sanity, and A or a B is just fine.

A few weeks ago I ran my first 5k.  I've walked 5ks before, and technically I probably more jogged this one than ran it, but it was more than walking and that's what counts.  3 years ago I wouldn't have been able to walk a 5k, let alone run one.  Hell, 15 years ago I'd barely have been able to run a 5k.  I've never been able to run long distances.  I've always been short, and heavy, and only able to sprint.  Once I lost the weight I decided to do something challenging and started running and now I love it.  I may never be able to do a marathon, but I can do something I couldn't ever do.

The final thing I accomplished is my house.  Now mind you I did not do this alone.  I've had help along the way, most recently I've had the help of lots of energy drinks pumped into my amazing boyfriend which make him uncomfortably energetic and make him clean a lot.  But seriously, I lived with a hoarder for years, and my house was a mess, and I couldn't have friends over.  It sucked.  Now, my house is nowhere near perfect, but it's cleaned up, it has a pink wall in the living room, is soon to have some awesome graffiti on the walls (thanks to my awesome BFF!) and I can have people over!  It sound lame, but it is super awesome.

Today is the start of a new part of my life where I get to make new goals and work towards them.  One of the is going to be getting my Master of Library Science (MLS) degree.