Picking My Brain

For those keeping score, Ben and I have been engaged for three years now. We postponed the wedding to keep my mother happy. She refused to have anything to do with wedding planning until I had graduated college. I was devastated, but I couldn’t imagine planning my wedding without my mother.  So we put off even discussing the topic of marriage with my family until my mother’s terms were met.
Like I said in my last post, I graduated on Dec. 17. So I waited a while for my mom to bring up the wedding, but of course she didn’t. So on Jan. 19th we went to my mom’s for dinner. I didn’t really want to approach the topic because I knew it would end in disaster. So I kept putting it off and putting it off. Ben kept giving me looks trying to get me to bring it up, but I just wasn’t ready to engage in the battle that I knew was coming.

So I self-sabotaged. I waited until we were getting ready to leave, and decided to mumble to my mother, “We’ve picked a date for the wedding, if you even care.” After she had deciphered what I said, she got a major attitude with me. We got into a screaming match, which made me storm out. So I thought that was it, I was on my own for the wedding.

On Tuesday I decided to stage another attempt. I sent an email to my mom suggesting that we forget about what’s happened in the past and focus on the future. She invited us over for dinner again last weekend.

I still didn’t want to approach the topic. I can’t imagine planning my wedding without my mom (despite all of our differences), and I was terrified that she was going to tell me that she still didn’t want anything to do with it. So I was still putting it off a little.

Surprisingly though, my mom actually brought it up at dinner. My parents are all in for the wedding! We actually had a nice conversation that night about what I already had in mind. She gave me some honest opinions and brought up things that I hadn’t though of. So we’re getting ready to launch a fact-finding mission before we make any definite plans. I actually think she’s starting to get excited about planning a wedding. She called me on Monday to say that she had already found a bridal show for us to go to!

We’re having some difficulty in deciding on a final date, however. Ben and I had been planning a February wedding ever since we got married. We wanted February because we both love the winter and snow, and because February is when our anniversary is. However, my mom has kinda thrown a monkey wrench into the whole works. Since she’s a teacher, she has off during the summer. Since I’m living in Pa and she’s in NJ, it would be easier to plan the wedding if she is free to do any running around that needs to be done at the last minute. She has a hard time taking time off during the year, and she especially can’t take time off backed up to a holiday. She recommends a mid to late June wedding. Ben on the other hand is dead set against a summer wedding. He absolutely hates the summer and doesn’t want to hear anything about a summer wedding.  Plus, he doesn’t want to wait any longer.  He actually would have it this coming November if I said okay. So here I am somewhere in the middle between the two again.

I wanted February at first to be as close as possible to our anniversary, Feb. 13. However, I was convinced that since it falls on a Friday in 2009 (people would have to take off of work) and since it’s so close to Valentine’s Day (I refuse to have a single heart, dove or calla lily anywhere in my wedding) to give up that date. So since I gave up that particular date, I’m not really tied to February anymore. Since I had been thinking about a winter wedding, the colors I had picked out were burgundy and gold. They won’t work in the summer, and I didn’t really have any “inspirations” about theme and decor for a summer wedding.

This morning though I was doing some looking around at theknot.com. I do like a sage/olive green and had recently seen some spring green ‘maids dressed that I kind of liked. While poking around, I saw the bouquet to the left (click on the picture for a larger image) that did give me the spark I was looking for. I could do a very nice spring green with pale pink accents and white accents.

I think I’m going to take a diplomatic approach.  I’m going to ask Ben to sit down and make a list his pros and cons of a winter wedding and his pros and cons of a summer wedding.  I’m going to do the same.  Then we’ll compare lists and see what we come up with.

Well, I have some work to get done before I am unemployed tomorrow.  In case I said in my post yesterday that today, Thursday, was my last day, my supervisor emailed me late yesterday to tell me that I was on the payroll until tomorrow.  Basically I’ll have a half day tomorrow, I have an eye dr. appt. in the morning then the whole department is going out to lunch to say goodbye to one of the other girls.  Which is interesting…

The job I had applied for and was passed over for was for a Course Designer position.  Unexpectedly, one of the other Course Designers resigned.  So as of this morning, there is another posting for a Course Designer.  I really don’t know if I should post for it or not.  I feel that I have an advantage now that I have worked as a Course Designer for a month and that I have my degree.  But if I wasn’t hired the first time, would I really be hired this time.  I’m going to see if I can talk to the person doing the hiring and ask her for her opinion on whether or not I should post for the new position.  So I’ll let you know how that goes tomorrow.

Yeah, that Wednesday was not the greatest day ever. In fact, except for the snow, it was a crappy day. I was tired and anxious all day.

Here’s how it went that Friday:

Step One: Snow. COMPLETED. Yep, it snowed again.

Step Two: Ace my interview and get offered a permanent job. FAILED: Well, I thought I had done well in my interview, but not really. Apparently when I was talking about working for the newspaper and said that I enjoyed writing but didn’t like the “just the facts” and no creativity, she thought I wasn’t right for the job. She was also disappointed when I chose the more creative project to work on last week instead of a more factual one. I also couldn’t compete with the level of experience the other girls had. They’ve been with Wawa for over 10 years each, and I’ve only been here 2 1/2, 2 of which was in the store. I’m disappointed,and actually pretty bitter. I feel a little let down, I knew I wasn’t being promised anything, but it seemed like I was being kept so I could just slide into the new position. I knew it was a long shot, but of course I was still hoping. It also kinda got on my nerves that the two who got the jobs, were the two that already had pending job offers in another department. So now they’re going to turn down those jobs and take this one. I’m happy for them because they’re my friends and they deserve the jobs, but I’m still left out in the cold. I’m sending out resumes like mad now trying to find a new job. So far, as of Jan. 31, I will be unemployed.
Step Three: Find out if I’ve been approved for graduation. COMPLETED! I got a grade higher than I needed in the class to graduate. Graduation was on the 16th of last month. Here’s the pix to prove it! Edit: I seem to be having technical difficulties with the uploads. I’ll post them as soon as Ben fixes it. I’m going to my mom’s today to pick up my diploma. They didn’t have them at graduation, so they mailed them out and for some weird reason, it seems mine ended up at my mom’s house.

Really, I think it is. I couldn’t even sleep last night. I’m so wound up over everything, I’m physically shaking and I have a headache. I can’t concentrate on anything.

So here’s my plan for the greatest day ever:

Step One: Snow. Completed!

Step Two: Ace my interview this afternoon.

Step Three: Finally be approved for graduation.

Okay, here’s what I’m talking about. Step One: The weather forecast has been mentioning snow for almost a week now, but of course we haven’t seen any. So suddenly someone looked outside and said it was snowing. It’s been snowing pretty good for about two hours now and it’s starting to stick. Ben said that it’s supposed to snow until midnight tonight. We could get a good coating!

Step Two: My boss has been talking about two open positions in the Training and Development department here at Wawa Corporate for a few weeks now. The job sounds amazing, getting to create and design training and other materials. Plus, it’s a permanant position. I could actually say I have a career! This whole time my boss has been saying that there’s no guarantees, she can’t promise anything. Out of the blue yesterday, she called me to set up an interview today for the job! So at 3:30 this afternoon I’m interviewing. I don’t know how fast I’ll find out anything. There’s two positions open, and I think 4 people are interviewing. Out of the 4 people I probably have the least chance. The others all have at least 6 years of corporate experience and have lots of other Wawa projects on their resumes. But who knows, for the next few weeks I’m actually working for Joyce, who would be my boss if I get the position, so hopefully that’s a plus for me. She’s already seen some of my ideas and how I work.

Step Three: My professor is supposed to post my grades from the class I took this semester by 6pm tonight. According to my calculations, I’m like 2 or 3 points from the grade I need to get a 2.0 GPA to be eligible for graduation. Right now it’s 1.97. I think if my grade estimate is correct, I would end up with a 1.99. So I sent an email to the professor as soon as I was done with my final to see if there was anything I could do to earn those few points. He hasn’t gotten back to me, so I guess I just have to wait until tonight. I’m just hoping that a miracle occurs somewhere along the line and I can get approved.

So that’s my day today. I’m completely nervous and anxious. This could either be the greatest day of my life, or the worst. So far the signs are that it’s the best, it’s snowing and the cafeteria had exactly the lunch I wanted today. Of course, it’s probably all in my head. I’m delusional from no sleep last night. But as soon as I know anything, I’m sure the world will know.

So here’s the sad, weird, demented and whatever else you can think of to describe the latest fiasco between my mother and me.

This all started somewhere at the end of January. My brother called and left a message on my answering machine telling me that my Mom was looking for me and to call her. I hadn’t called her for two weeks, so I decided to give up some sleep (I worked the night before, then had class that morning so I didn’t get to sleep until late that afternoon) and call her back. We were on the phone for about an hour and a half, and most of which was her ranting and raving at me. She berated me about stuff that we had already gone over and I thought was past history. She made me feel like nothing about my life was ever right. Like school for instance. A big part of me pushing so hard to finish school now is because it means so much to her. No, it’s not my only reason, but it’s a big one. But when I told her that I have to go to class 5 days a week this semester, she freaked out. She said that my schedule was hard enough last semester going 4 days, basically, how could I handle a worse schedule this semester. I reminded her that I, in fact, got As in both classes last semester, so I think I can handle it just fine. But it wasn’t good enough. According to her, if I hadn’t waited so long, I might have been able to get into the other class that was only one day a week. But I had issues with holds on my account that weren’t supposed to be there and getting in touch with the professor who had to sign me into the class. For some reason, my mother didn’t believe me that no matter when I tried to register for the class, I need the professor’s permission since it’s a required class for the program and this way they can make sure that only Comm. majors enroll in the class.

Her other big topic was Ben. All she did was put him down. She criticized the way we run our home, specifically what bills are in my name and what are in his. First of all, it’s none of her business how we decided to work it out. Chances are, we have a very good reason for why we decided to do it the way we did. Second, apparently I need to not have so many things in my name because I have to “be realistic, it’s 2007. He could leave” me. That’s probably the remark that hurt the worst. Of course he could leave. But I know how much he loves me. I’m 99% sure if anyone does the leaving in our relationship, it’s going to be me - and I’m certainly not going anywhere. But she just kept coming back to him and just kept talking bad about him.

I should have known when she basically started the phone call with “you’re probably going to be mad and you can hang up any time…”. I should have hung up. I just lay there sobbing in bed while she ranted and raved like a lunatic about how Ben and I are such losers and how after leaving home the way I did I should be grateful that they even still talk to me. Way to bring up stuff from 2 YEARS AGO!! And no, if that’s the way we’re going to be treated, then I’m not grateful that they still talk to me. That wasn’t talking; that was berating and belittling. Me showing gratitude does not mean that she gets to say whatever she wants and I have to always go crawling back for more.

So far it really looks like I’m going to finally graduate this May (pending the final okay from the Academic office). Not only was I really looking forward to finally have that out from over my head, but it also meant that I met all of my family’s requirements and we could finally start planning our wedding. However, I don’t see how my mom is going to be able to get over her whole “I hate Ben” thing and actually have fun planning a wedding for him. Liesle was talking to her awhile ago and she thinks that once I graduate college she’ll get excited about the wedding. I’m graduating college in about a month, and all she was focused on was what I had done wrong in the past three years, not the fact that I’m graduating college in four months! So why should, or would, she get excited over me marrying the guy she spent an hour berating!

I’ve been going back and forth between planning the traditional wedding that I’ve always wanted and something completely different. If my mom doesn’t do a complete 180 for my wedding, then I had the idea to just cancel the whole traditional wedding thing. Ben and I would disappear for a week, just the two of us, and we would come back married. No families, nothing but the two of us. Of course, this would never happen. First, Liesle would kill me if she couldn’t be there for my wedding. Second, it wouldn’t be fair to Ben’s family. They’ve been happy and supportive from the beginning. They’re looking forward to the wedding. Plus, the rest of my family, or at least my grandmother, would be disappointed. Actually, I’m not sure how much of the rest of the family would even really care if there wasn’t a wedding. Most importantly, Ben isn’t thrilled with the idea. He knows his family would be upset. Plus he knows that I was really looking forward to a traditional wedding and I wouldn’t really be happy with eloping. Still, there’s something about the whole idea that I like. I like it being about just the two of us. So we’ll have to see what happens.

As for my mother, I haven’t spoken to her since the phone call. I was emailing my dad every week or so, but I haven’t heard back from him either. After about two emails he sent me one that said “I’ve been really busy, I’ll get with you ASAP.” That was the last I’ve heard from him. And that was about early to mid-February. My brother has been giving me some information from the home front, and apparently my dad hasn’t told her anything. He didn’t even bother to tell her in the beginning that I had emailed him.  So a few weeks later of course it came out in conversation between my mom and brother about the email.  She said something about the “fictitious” email I had sent.  So apparently my father is not even telling her that I’m emailing him, much less the mundane, everyday things that I’ve been telling him about.

And the visit with my grandmother?  It was enlightening.  She feels that my mother treats her the same.  She shared stories with me about time my mother had done the exact same things to her.  The only difference is, my grandmother always forgives her.  She advised that I do the same.  I am very willing to let all of this go and have it be water under the bridge.  She doesn’t even have to say I’m sorry.  All she has to do is contact me and ask me what’s going on.  She has to make the first step in fixing it.  I’m ready to be done with it all.  I miss going over there and talking to her.  Plus, Easter is not this weekend, but next.  Oh yeah, and my birthday is this coming Tuesday.  But I’m pretty sure that my mom won’t call even then.  I’ve mentioned Easter to my Dad twice, but he’s not telling my mom anything about me, so I’m guessing that a holiday or my birthday won’t even be a good enough reason for her to make the first move.

So who knows how long this will go on.  The way my mother remembers things and holds grudges, she never will try to fix the situation.  But she’ll never learn that it’s not okay for her to treat me like this if I don’t stand my ground.

It’s been quiet the past few days.  This week has been spring break, plus my boss finally put me back on second shift.  I am enjoying very much being able to be up during the day, especially since the weather has been in the 70s the past two days.  I feel like a real human being again, and not like a vampire doing most of my living after the sun sets.

Tomorrow I have off of work and school, so I’ve decided to go down to my grandmother’s for the day.  I haven’t seen, or even talked with her since New Year’s Eve eve. I am anxious to see her for several reasons.  One is that I really do miss her and her house.  I guess I never realized how much I was there until it became a two-hour drive to get there.  If I find myself homesick, it’s always for her house, not my parents.  She and I have always been close, ever since I spent lots of time with her while my mom and dad were in and out of the hospital when my mom was pregnant with Jeremy.
Second, I’m anxious to see her because I’m hoping she can make me feel better.  I’m not really sure if she can or not, but maybe she can offer me some insight into my mother.  There was an incident about a month and a half ago with her that I haven’t blogged about yet.  I really even can’t think much about it without getting indescribably angry and sad.  The abridged (for now) story is that my mother said things that hurt my feelings terribly, and I am not refusing to have contact with her until she reaches out to me and apologizes for how she treated me.  I going to talk to her about the situation and ask her for her advice and input.  I’m hoping she can give me some insight on why my mother did what she did, and if I’m doing the right thing.  Plus, I want to run interference on whatever my mother may be telling her.  I want her to know that I did not do anything wrong, and that I am not the one to be blamed.

Maybe my grandmother will even talk to my mother after we talk and get the message to her that she needs to be the one to fix this.  I’ve been trying to get my dad clued in,but I think it’s useless.  I’ve been regularly emailing him to keep him updated with my life, but all I’ve gotten back was one short email that he was really busy and that he’d get back to me ASAP.  That was like three weeks ago.  And I know from my brother that he hasn’t told her anything…not even that I’m emailing him.  Anything she knows is because my brother brought it up, and I’m trying really hard to keep him out of things because I know my mother will take things out on him.

So if nothing else, maybe it will be theraputic for me to talk to my grandmother.  The only person I’ve really talked to is Ben.  I know he supports me and thinks that I’m doing the right thing.  But it’s  really starting to get to me that nobody else in my family, the people who are supposed to care the most for me and be there when I need them, have seemingly left me out in the cold.

Well, I need to go get ready for work.  I have some posting to catch up on, I have lots of neat pictures from when Ben and I went down and spent some time with Liesle and Chris.  I also have pictures from last week when Ben and I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show.  I should also have some pictures to post from this coming Saturday.  I think Liesle, Liz and Lauren are coming up to go out to dinner then to go out Irish Pub hopping in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.  Plus, I do have a post that I’ve been working on about the whole incident with my mother,and I’ll tell you how things go with my grandmother.  What a time for our desktop computer to decide to crash.  My laptop is not doing well, and it’s difficult to type on such a small screen.

So, I’m off.  Hopefully I’ll be all caught up soon!

Lots of things to tell you about, I’ve been uber-busy the past few weeks!

So nothing happened with that scumbag at work. Supposedly he got written up again for saying malicious things about employees (he had an incident a few weeks earlier where he said that he didn’t want to work with P. because he though P. was gay). I didn’t talk to him for a few weeks. I’m talking to him now and acting friendly, but if he even breathes wrong he’s going to regret it. I’ll take the high road now that my anger has subsided, but I won’t forget.

The other day I happened to decide that it was time to rotate my Christmas Cactus so the other side could get some direct sunlight. I’ve been concerned that I seemed to have a healthy plant, but it had never bloomed since I bought it about two years ago. Well, when I turned it around, I found four flower buds! I was guarding them like they were gold to make sure they bloom. One has, and is now almost done, but the other three are about to pop. How pathetic am I that this is something exciting in my life?

Ben and I went to our first Flyers game on the 8th. Apparently Ben’s work gets all kinds of tickets and stuff, and Ben was given a pair of Flyers tickets as a thank-you for all of his hard work. So we decided to go, considering it was free and neither of us had ever been to a hockey game before. We had a good time. Our seats were amazing, we were in the 11th row at just about center ice right behind the flyers box (they were worth like $80 or $90 apiece!). Since the box was there, we were 8 rows back from the players. They played the Pittsburg Penguins that night, and lost in an overtime shootout when Gagne missed the shot. We’re hoping he gets tickets again sometime so we can go again. Click to see larger images.

Up against the Pittsburg Penguins

Go Flyers!

That’s how close to the players’ box we were!

Simon Gagne

Yeah, we were really close!

Gagne setting up for his shot in the overtime shootout.

Gagne missed the shot to loose the game.

I found a job that I applied for. It was only a part time job, but i though it might be a good starting place. It’s was a Communications Coordinator for the Tyler Aboretum down in Media. The job responsibilities were publicizing & promoting Tyler’s strategic mission, programs, activities & exhibits to the public; producing Tyler’s newsletter, annual report, website, brochures & signage; and acting as media contact. Between all the groups I was involved with at Stockton, plus the newspaper, I thought I’d be a good candidate for the job. So I sent out my resume. I emailed it in, but before I had a chance to mail a hard copy as well, the guy emailed me back saying that they were already in final interviews with people they felt were more qualified. I think that means that they had somebody in-house they wanted to give the job to, but had to advertise the job to the public for leagal purposes. I haven’t seen anything else to apply for yet, but I’m hoping to find something soon.

The day before Valentine’s Day was Ben’s and my 5-year anniversary, so to celebrate that and Valentine’s Day I took off and we went down to the Brandywine/Chadd’s Ford area for the weekend. Ben found a package deal at a very nice place called The Mendenhall Inn. We had a very nice and fancy dinner at the Mendenhall on Saturday. Sunday we slept in a little then had breakfast there too. The package came with tickets to a bunch of places, so we used the ones to the Brandywine River Museum. We were also going to go to Longwood Gardens and Winterthur (one of the du Pont mansions) but it was cold and windy and there’s still like 2 inches of snow and ice on the ground here. We found out that the tickets are good for a year, so we’re saving Longwood and Winterthur for the spring when everything is in bloom. Winterthur apparently has some beautiful gardens. So instead we were going to go to a little town just across into Delaware called Hockassin, but we weren’t sure of the directions and ended up taking a long ride down Rt. 82. It’s a beautiful drive, it winds all though some huge hills and we oogled the gigantic mansions that we came across. Apparently that area of Delaware is very affluent.

The other week I was a little early to my Tuesday-Thursday class. I walked into the classroom, and the professor from the last class was still there talking to a few students. I happened to look at her, and realized that she was my old neighbor who I used to babysit the triplets for. We small-talked for a little bit, then she told me the cutest thing. For the Christmas that I was still babysitting for them, I have the triplets these really soft, fleecy blankets with a snowflake pattern. She told me that the kids still had the blankets and Alexis had hers out the night before and told her that it was the blanket she used when she was hoping for snow. That made me so happy. I’m sure they don’t remember me at all, but I’m glad that they are still enjoying and getting use out of something I gave them.

So it seems so far school is going well. I have my graduation application in, so I’m waiting for final word on that. My one class is incredibly easy, basically it’s “how to use Microsoft Office”, which I’m already practically an expert in. My other class is much more time consuming than I thought. There’s a lot of homework. So I made the decision last week to cut back my hours at work. So now I’m working four nine-hour days instead of 5 nine-hour days. I’ll miss all that overtime pay, but I was really stressed out at the beginning of the semester because I was already really far behind in my class and I had absolutely no time to get my work done.

So I guess that’s all. I keep trying to update more often, but I really do have a tough schedule. So bear with me!!