randoms.

Three blog-worthy things about yesterday:

1) i wore white shoes. yes, after labor day. and it made me smile because there is still that little part of me that gets a kick out of breaking stupid rules.

2) i went to my first jazzercise class. and i had a pretty good time. i did feel a little under dressed though. turns out they were having a Halloween party, so as the only person not in costume, i was pretty obviously the newb. it was a lot of fun though - the instructor was a sailor, and i got to work out in the midst of a couple demons, a black widow, a fairy princess, and even Charlie Brown. it felt good to do something active again, something that made me laugh and sweat and made me want to die a little at times too. my legs are a little sore today and i am loving it!

3) Rocky Horror GLEE Show! need i say more? yes? well in that case, "darn those cool ranch doritos" and "now give me a candy bar or i will cut you"    LOVE IT!

a prayer.

in the days and weeks to come...

...may i not lose sight of the great adventure that is life.
...may the every day grind not beat me down with its repetetive drone of
   minutes and moments.
...may those moments not go unnoticed as i wait for the 'next big thing.'
...may i treasure every weeknight dinner at home with my husband,
   whether it be a frozen pizza or a culinary masterpiece.
...may dishes and laundry not be enough to overwhelm me.
...may i not become stressed just thinking about making a grocery trip.
...may every knowing look, smile, hug, kiss, and hand-in-hand walk make
   me smile uncontrollably like it did the first time.
...may my focus be on the joy of the moment rather than the multitude of
   undone to-do's around me.
...may every miniscule deviation from 'the plan' not make me dissolve.
...may i present myself as the strong, capable woman that i actually am
   rather than the whiny, needy girl i have been lately.
...may i be striving not to be perfection, but rather to be an enjoyable
   person to be around.
...may i always remember that every day that begins and ends with me
   being married is another exciting part of the adventure.

and may i please, Please, PLEASE just get out of this funk i've been in for the past few days?

what a farce.

yesterday afternoon at work, i was slapped upside the head by a very real epiphany:

the four years of college education that i have under my belt did very little to actually prepare me for the reality of working as a real life engineer in a world of real life complications.

it seems to me that the world of academia is as unrealistic as a televised cooking show. teachers and professors at every level of education are just as decieving as Rachel Ray or Martha Stewart. they flit about their kitchens with their hair perfectly coiffed, smiling and chatting away as they effortlessly assemble the most beautiful, and we are to believe also the tastiest (is that a word?) creations we have ever seen, all without ever breaking a sweat or even a nail!

but what they dont want you to know is that in reality, the first time they attempted to make that masterpiece of a kiesh, it took hours of yelling and cursing, a couple failed attempts, and a lot of wasted time. they probably even ended up in a heap on their kitchen floor, slumped against the cabinet lamenting their new status of an utter failure of a cook and a complete waste of space. ok so maybe that last part's a stretch, but it definately took more than the 20 minutes it takes them on the show to dump all the pre-measured ingredients into a bowl, mix it up and throw it in the oven.

academia tells you all the same lies, but they hide them under the pretense of 'preparing you for the real world.' they tell you that it doesnt really matter if you get the right answer, that the only important thing is that you learn something. that if you ask the right questions, there is an easy answer to every problem. that when all else fails you can check your answer in the back of the book. that just passing is acceptable. that if you just go through the motions of doing the work, there will be a great reward waiting for you.

but in reality there are no easy answers, no looking the answer up in the back of the book, and no one person who is secretly in possession of the 'right' answer. there are some times and some situations where you can ask all the right questions, go through all the right steps, spend three days working towards an answer, and in the end be no closer to a workable solution than when you started. there is no one who has already done the work and is just dying to tell you exactly how to most easily come up with the answer.

just like there is no such thing as magically pre-made perfect casseroles hiding out in your oven just waiting for you to open it and pull it out as though it were really that easy, some things in the real world are difficult and messy, and you have to be willing to get a little messy to deal with them.

jiminy crickets!

once upon a time, there was a cricket. (i will call him Chaz.) he moved into our house about the same time i did. however, i was not aware of his presence in the house until i moved my bed up from the basement into the guest bedroom.

Chaz lived either right outside, right inside, or right under our front door. he loved to sing. very loudly. and very early in the morning. but Chaz was a shy cricket, so he never let himself be seen. however, a few of his friends and cousins were slightly more bold, and met their maker right after they met the bottom of my sandal.

(there was one super quick cricket who evaded me one morning as i tried to catch it under a glass in the master bedroom. it might have been Chaz, but i cant say for sure.)

last Monday morning, the first work day after the wedding, Chaz was singing in full force as i got ready in the morning. Mark, in his groggy half-awake morning grumble asked 'is that cricket always so loud?' and i said 'yes, he is' which just evoked another groan from Mark.

when i got home that afternoon, talking to my BFITW on the phone and juggling an armload of stuff, i opened the door to see Chaz himself scurry right under the very flip flop that had been the unfortunate end of so many of his friends. so of course the only logical response was to STOMP REPEATEDLY on said flip flop while screaming "Die Cricket! Die!" unneccesarily loudly. i then scraped his icky remains off of my sandal and onto the front porch. and that is how Chaz died.

when i told this story to my very pregnant friend from work, she proceeded to immediately google crickets to prove to me that they are good luck, and that it is considered bad luck to kill them. she told me that it was considered a blessing to have a cricket on your front porch and that google confirmed that in the Far East it was considered not just bad luck but very bad luck to kill crickets. i tried to explain to her that she had it backwards, and that being serenaded at 530 in the morning by a cricket was not what i would consider to be a blessing, and that i was much more blessed to have it gone.

also, i do not live in the Far East.

we can do stuff!

ok, so call us naieve newlyweds if you must, but Mark and I are pretty excited about the usually boring everyday kind of living stuff that we've been getting to do together since we got back from the honeymoon. we've made dinner together (so what if it was only Hamburger Helper?) gone grocery shopping, and done laundry and ironing, all of which made us each marvel at one time or another, "Hey! This is the first time that we're **insert normally mundane activity here** as a married couple!" who would have thought that putting on one more ring could make me excited to pack two lunches every morning when i used to dread having to even pack one?

So yesterday when i got home in a rather foul mood after a less than productive day working on the job from Hades, and finding out that my handsfree phone device doesnt like my new phone, and realizing after driving around for two days with the 'low tire pressure' warning light lit on the dashboard that i must really have low tire pressure and its not just confused (after all these are the same dashboard warning lights that tell me that a half-gallon of milk sitting on my passenger seat needs to buckle up) i was a little worried that all of the badness of the mundane would finally outweigh the awesomeness of getting to deal with it as a married couple. but have no fear! enter awesome husband in a good mood who will hug and kiss me, check all my tire pressures to figure out which one is low, help me to figure out how to take off the hubcap so i can retrieve the air valve lid that i dropped into the rim, not freak out when he finds out his little air compressor no longer works (not even to blow fruit flies off the dresser...) take a break to mow the grass and eat dinner, go with me to the gas station to put air in the tire to just the right pressure, help me search the driveway for the OTHER valve lid we dropped, and not laugh at me when, upon finding said lid, i proceeded to drop it back between the rim and the hub cap.

it felt pretty awesome to do all that stuff. its cool that we are capable of doing things like that without freaking out or needing to call anyone for help. its nice to have someone to do those things with.

thank you to  my husband who rescued the evening from a foul mood and turned it into a good one.

(bungee, bungee, bungie wungie fungie, here we go bungee - come on!)

with this ring.

a week ago today, i got married. i walked down the aisle on the arm of my Daddy to where the man i love waited for me at the other end. i somehow made it through my vows, even though i could hardly read them through the tears. i put one more ring on my left hand. i danced the night away with the people i love most. if i had a chance to do it all over again, i wouldnt, because it was perfect just the way it was.

i spent a beautiful, relaxing week in Chincoteague Virginia. i biked 20 miles in one day. i ate way more good food than one day of biking could make up for. i flew a kite on the beach on a VERY windy day. i saw the wild ponies run along the shoreline. i spent an entire afternoon just reading a halfway decent book. just because i could. i took pictures of the dolphins swimming right by the boat we spent an evening cruising on. i watched the sun set over the ocean. i killed my camera battery. twice. i filled my memory card and i still feel like so many moments slipped by undocumented.
i woke up every morning this week to "Hello, Wife." that one is still pretty weird. i have a husband. i'm going to change my name. its not all about me anymore. (just mostly) 
We decided that we are good at vacationing. we also decided that this whole living real life thing is gonna take some practice. There is a lot of stuff to do. a lot of life to live. and a lot of learning to be done. but we're in it for the long haul.
"Always and forever, no doubt whatsoever."

wedding-eve!

tomorrow is the day that i will tie the knot. jump the broom. take the plunge. become a married woman. become a wife.

Whoah.

practice makes perfect.

rehearsal in the morning. rehearsal "dinner" for lunch. hanging out and relaxing today.
its also the last time i'll see Mark before i'm walking down the aisle to marry him!