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.

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!

So after my post yesterday nearly bursting with tinsel and lights and pine needles on the carpet poking into your feet through your socks… after class yesterday I went to my mom’s house. She had mentioned when I was home for my brother’s birthday two weeks ago that she had an early Christmas present for me. So she wanted me to come over so I could open my present.

Now, you have to understand, my family is HUGE on tradition. Certain things just have to be certain ways every year in order for it it be “right.” For example, my grandmother’s house has been decorated the same exact way for YEARS. When I go to help her decorate, I can go through her boxes and can decorate her whole house in about half an hour because I know where everything goes, probably even better than she does at this point.

One of these traditions we have is our ceramic Christmas trees. My grandmother has a rather large one that somebody made for her that she always puts on the table by her front window. The three ceramic choir boys that my mom made when she was little always sing their silent carols around the tree. My mom has a slightly smaller one that my dad had a friend of his make for her. I remember my mom’s routine in the mornings; get up, go to the bathroom, walk out into the living room, turn on the ceramic tree, then open the living room drapes. I loved turning off all the other lights in the room and just sitting in the light from the real tree and the ceramic tree.

Ben’s mother also has one of these trees. Ben also enjoyed his tree, and had mentioned a few times that he would like to have one of his own.

So if you couldn’t guess by now, I was estatic to find a ceramic tree of my own in the bag my mom handed me. You can’t find them new anymore, and the ones that I saw on eBay weren’t quite right. Liesle was there too, and looked at me like I had three heads when I got excited over the tree. “My grandmother had one of those,” she said, and couldn’t understand why I would want something so old-fashioned. I explained the whole tradition, but still still looked at me like I was crazy. I’m pretty sure that by now I’ve convinced her that I am.
So here’s to carrying on traditions. True, this particular one may be silly and old-fashioned, but hey, it makes it seem that much more like Christmas to Ben and me, and it means the start of a tradition for our family. And someday, we will have a whole forest of lighted ceramic trees because I hope to inherit my grandmother’s, and my mom’s later on down the road.

…will be much better than this one. Oh wait, that’s right! You have to have a first life to have a second one….and I definately don’t have a first right now.

After some mock reprimanding from Meagan (and an actual poke or two), I am finally getting around to updating my blog. I didn’t realize that it had been aover a month since I last posted, but apparently it has. i have been crazy-busy the past month, and my blog isn’t the only thing that has felt the pain of my absence.

I am officially THE worst daughter in the world. I called my mom the other Friday night to find out how to correctly have the throw personalized for Teal (my cousin who just got married). Nobody was home, so I left a message. My dad called me back Saturday night saying, “oh! you haven’t fallen off the face of the earth!!” I was confused and claimed to be uber-busy until he let me in on what he was talking about. My mom had surgery (true, it was more cosmedic than medical, but it still was medical) and I never called her to see how it went. In fact, I completely forgot about it all together. Also, Friday was their wedding anniversary. 27 years. And I didn’t even remember that. I just played it off at the time, but I feel so terrible. I’m sure that my excuse of working from 11pm to 9 or 9:30 am everyday and driving an hour to classes from 6-8 pm four days a week is going to be exactly that to her: an excuse. I barely have time or the energy to do anything else! in fact, I don’t have the time or energy to do anything else. Almost every single article of clothing I own is dirty. I’ve even starting dipping into Ben’s dresser for shirts. How pathetic is that?! Especially last week - in order to have the days off for Teal’s wedding, I had to work eight days in a row. I was so miserable and grumpy I coudln’t stand myself. Poor Ben, some days I don’t know how he does it. All I do is rant and rave and cry and sleep. He’s about ready to commit me, and I can’t say I blame him! he told me the other day that he just thinks I can’t deal with the stress. He’s right, I can’t figure out how to deal with stress that won’t go away and only keeps getting worse. Work, school, family…it just keeps piling up!

Things at work were good for a while. Our new manager Ruth came in and made some great changes. It was rough to get everyone on board and there was some growing pains, but things were starting to settle down. Now, there’s a bunch of interpersonal communitcation that is either not happening or going completely wrong, and this is affecting everyone’s work performance. So a lot of people are adopting an “if they can’t see it my way, they must not care about me, so I won’t care about them or my work ethic.” Newbies see this “I-don’t-give-a-crap” attitude and think it’s okay, so they adopt it too. AND NOBODY TELLS THEM OTHERWISE!! I try to lead by example, and I find it works. If I work hard and stay busy and care about what other people think about my work, I find that the people (or person, as the case usually is on 3rd shift) that I’m with will do the same. I don’t let them get away with standing around and doing nothing or texting on their cells. I have tasks that I ask them to do. And there’s a key: I ask. I don’t tell or order. I ask. They say yes, and I thank them before they even do the job. Then I thank them again when it’s done. I tell them I appreciate them. I try to make them feel like they’re helping me, and I couldn’t do it without them…because I couldn’t!I even thank them again at the end of the day for just being there. I feel that I get much better results that way and I create a happier work enviornment. I’m not a slave driver, but it is my job to make sure that they do their jobs.

So Teal is married. Much congrats and happiness to her and Derek. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception a blast. Visit my MySpace page to see some pictures.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Teal and Derek and their family, and especially the family of Gina Griffin. I am leaving out details out of respect for those involved.

So I seem to be making it through classes. But we’ll see because I just double checked on all of my records. It looks like I may have gotten finanical aid for the year (that means next semester too, whoo-hoo!!). I just tried to register for my (hopefully) last two classes, but there’s still a hold on my account for some reason from the financial office, so I’m going down there today to figure it out. My problem now seems to be my schedules. The one class I need is from 6-10 p.m. on Thursdays. I can just change my days off to accomodate that. However, all of the other classes that I have to choose from are either in the morning or early afternoon. That makes it really hard to work out with my work schedule. There’s a possibility if I take one of the classes that I can make it work, but I’d have to switch to second shift. There’s two classes available that I would really like to take one of, but they are both Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes. I wonder if I could talk him into letting me do one of them as an independent study. I would do all of the work that the class is doing, just on my own and we could set up a seperate meeting time. I wil have to ask him, that would really work.

…so slowly….

Sitting in class again. Everyone is setting up their blogs. Obviously, I already have one and am proficient in using it. So I’m pretty tuned out right now.

Things are looking up with the car. The check from the trash company should be in the mail in a few days. The estimate came in just over $1200, so they’re cutting a check directly to us. Plus, the estimate said that it would take 3 days to fix, so when Ben talked to them after sending the estimate, he asked if they would pay for the rental as well. Apparently, the guy said that he would stick an extra couple hundred dollars in the check to cover the rental…no questions asked! We were really surprised at how nice and willing to give us over $1000, but then I realized that they were probably paying us off. In the long run, it’s probably cheaper for the company to just pay us off rather than deal with insurance companies. So what we’re going to do is, we’re going to attempt the work ourselves. We can get a replacement bumper from the junkyard no problem, as well as the brake light cover. We’ll replace them, and Ben says that he can get the dent out himself. Then we’ll take some of the money and have the car repainted, which apparently only costs $200-$300 dollars. Plus, I’m going to take some of the money and finally get the car into the shop and get the engine issues fixed.

As for school, I don’t know. Classes are going well. I’m still worried about the money issue. I haven’t paid at all yet, and my first payment was due Sept. 20. I did a FAFSA, but haven’t heard anything from Stockton about receiving financial aid. I do still have to actually go down to the offices and see if I can get my address changed back to Lakehurst and then see if I can be charged in-state tuition. Wawa will hopefully reimburse me, which will cover next semester, but that won’t be issued, if approved, until I successfully complete the classes.

I took the rest of my vacation time last week. We didn’t really do anything exciting. A day trip to Media, PA (which has a great unique shopping area, by the way) and another to New Hope, PA, which we actually found disappointing.

I did attend Teal’s bridal shower. Talk about killing me softly. It was so boring! We got there on time at 1, waiting around for appetizers, then waited for about another hour until lunch. It was co-ed, so there wasn’t anything girlie. Plus, Teal had decided that since she’s “older” she didn’t want to play any of the games you would usually play at these things. So after lunch, we waited around some more. Then Teal and Derick opened gifts. That wasn’t even exciting because it was mostly things off of her registries. She’s been checking her registries to see what’s been bought (yes, I actually heard her admit to this). So she knew what she was getting, and everything she opened was “oh, here’s our xxx. Thank you.” It just seemed fake to me.

Plus, my mother was at it again. We went over to say good-bye to my Uncle and other cousin Dylan. I was standing right next to my mom who looked at Dylan and said, “well, I wish I could say that you’re next to be married.” Dylan looked at her like she had three heads and laughed. He said that he wasn’t even dating anyone, though one of his summer roommates who he disliked said that she wanted to marry him. Then later, my grandmother said something about my wedding, and my mom made a audible scoff. I’m millingover in my head whether or not to send her an email, or maybe confront her in person, and tell her this is not what I agreed to. I agreed to wait to plan the wedding until after I graduated. I did not agree to my whole engagement and wedding being completely ignored and prentended like it isn’t happening. I wrote an email that next Monday (the shower was on Sunday) that exactly captured how angry I was and how I felt about it. But I ended up kinda breaking down at the computer, so Ben got me and talked to me about it. Since I was away from the computer for so long, the email logged me out and my email was lost. I’ve since calmed down, so I just might wait until the next incident. Because I know there will be one, and I’ll be just as angry then as I was that day.

Oh well, I guess that’s all for now. My professor just said that I don’t have to post assignments on my blog, so I may not bore you with posts that mean completely nothing to you. But wait, do any of my posts mean anything to you? Guess they’re more meaningful to me. Whatever.

Oh joy. I’m currently sitting in my Intro to New Media Studies class. The professor has finally set the syllabus for the semester. Guess what we’re learning how to do for about half of the semester….blogs! Gee, so glad I decided to take this class! I have no idea how to blog…..

So I guess I’ll have to start making use of my categories. I’ll just add to this blog and make changes as I need to to fit assignments. I don’t mean to bore everyone with my assignment postings, but I can’t see creating a whole new blog when I have a perfectly good (and one I rather like) right here. Besides, it’s not like anybody really reads my blog anyways, right?

My cousin Teal’s bridal shower is this weekend. It should be fun (said with much sarcasm, I assure you). Apparently she has mandated that she didn’t want to do any of the silly games and stuff that are usually done at these things. It seems that a lot of people have been invited, and it’s not a girls only thing either. It should be an experience, that’s for sure.

Hmm, there was something else I wanted to quickly mention, but during the course of my professor’s rather dry lecture I forgot. I’ll post it when (and if) I remember.

So I went to Wildwood last night for my grandmother’s surprise 80th birthday dinner. The whole family was there: my parents, brother, Ben and me; my mom’s brother, his wife, their daughter and her fiancee, their son; plus my granmother’s sister and brother-in-law from Virginia are up for the week. I knew the focus was going to be on Teal since her wedding is coming up in October. But I was still blown away at how little my family cares about me.

My great-Aunt and Uncle (the ones from Virginia, Anne and Cecil) hadn’t seen either one of our engagement rings. They ended up sitting across the table from Teal and Derrick so Anne asked Teal to see her ring. I hadn’t seen Teal since they got engaged, so after Anne was done I asked Teal if I could also see it. It was pretty, rather trendy right now. Lots of sparkle, of course.

Well, that of course led into the story of picking out the ring and how Derrick proposed. Then all of the other women at the table shared their engagement stories and picking-out-the-ring stories. Of course, no one even remembered that I am also engaged, so nobody even looked at me to include me in the conversation. I was completely invisible to everybody there. Derrick asked me about school briefly and at least acknowledged my existence. Anne did the obligatory ” go around the table and ask what’s new” with everybody, and found time to give me a lecture on how I should go visit my mom more. And that’s the extent of my inclusion in the evening.

I’ve decided that I am competely different from my family. Everybody else there was involved with impressing each other and showing how “high society” they were. There were a few other tables around us that were large families. They were all laughing loudly and having a good time together. Our table was calm, quiet and proper. We drank lots of expensive alcohol and talked about how important we are to the world. We told the world how important money is to us and how much better we are than everybody else; especially those without money. The only people I really talked to all night were Jeremy and Ben. Dylan is a little bit different from his family, so we did have a few conversations, but as he gets older I realized that he’s becoming more and more like them. I just don’t understand how I came from that family and spent all of my life with them and still don’t matter or fit in with them. I don’t really want to, but the approval and acceptance of my family is still nice. I don’t think I can ever have that. I will never be as good as them and will never be included with them.

On a lighter note, I finally got a weekend off from work (the first one in three months)! So Jenn, her friend Jess and I all took off Friday night to see a band that Jenn likes. The band was pretty good, I got drunk and then that night got sick. Here’s a few pictures: click on the thumbnail to see the larger image

Me all dressed up.

Jenn.

Last Man Standing (the band).

You have no idea how excited Jenn was to get this kiss.

Jenn is friends with the members of the band, so she had a blast. They seemed glad to see her. We had a lot of fun that night.

So that’s all for now. I post some pictures of my granmother’s birthday after Tuesday. We’re having a barbeque at my mom’s that day and there are still some surprises in store for my grandmother. Hopefully it’ll be a better time for me than last night was!

So yeah, I’m really bad about updating my blog. I kept meaning too… but somehow never got around to it. I’ve got lots of things to talk about: a new trip to the Art Museum to rediscover an artist, a college graduation, a birth, a birthday and of course, Wawa news.

The Philadelphia Art Museum is hosting a special exhibition of paintings by Andrew Wyeth. Lorianne from work asked me if I would go with her. I love trips to the art museum and I had studied Andrew Wyeth some in high school and I liked some of his work, so I said yes. So we went and I discovered some more of his paintings that I really like. Unfortunately he’s a local artist, so a lot of his work is hard to find, even on the internet. Click on the thumbnails to view larger images!

These are probably two of his most famous paintings:

Christina’s World


Master Bedroom

While at the exhibit I bought a print of Wyeth’s Public Sale:

If I can remember the story behind the picture correctly, Wyeth had attended the public sale of a neighbor’s property. The neighbor couldn’t pay the bills, so all of his possessions were being sold to the public. Supposedly there were many people at this particular sale, many of which were interesting characters that Wyeth did studies of (detail practices of parts of a painting) before he actually painted. However when he finally painted it, he left out all of these unique individuals and all of the people just beyond the hill are ordinary-looking people. Wyeth had found some symbolism in the very muddy road leading down to the sale. All of the people attending the sale traveled that road. Unfortunately I can’t remember Wyeth’s symbolism. I found it more meaningful that the owners of the land, the people standing next to the truck, did not take that road. Not only did they seperate themselves from the sale by watching it from a distance, they were so sad they couldn’t even bear to travel the same road as everyone else. This painting evokes such a strong feeling of sadness in me. It told a story to me. So I bought a print of it, which unfortunatly is still sitting all rolled up. Finding frames is proving to be difficult.

Another picture I fell in love with is Christmas Morning:

Unfortunately this is the only picture I could find and I had to enlarge it so the quality is poor. This painting was very serene and calming to me. It a portrait of a man Denys Zirngiebel, a neighbor of Wyeth’s, who was dying. I loved how the figure turns into the mist which seems to then transform into streams of bands of snow. To me it represented the soul leaving the body and going on it’s journey to heavin, represented by the single star in the dusk sky. It’s hard to notice at first in the original, but there’s also a ghostly figure floating up the hill. Unfortunatly you can’t see it in either the thumbnail or the enlarged photo. I think it’s a beautiful picture.

These are two other pictures that I really like:

Around The Corner

Wishbone

I believe I saw Around The Corner when I was studying Wyeth in high school, but Wishbone I found while I was scouring the Internet for pictures. I also like a painting called Blackberry Picker. The subject of the painting was a man picking blackberries, however he was in the background of the piece, almost invisible. The focal point was a large blackberry bush. Featured next to the paiting in the museum was a study called Blackberry Branch. It was just a sketch of a branch or two of the blackberry bush, but I really thought it was beautiful.

Okay, on to more news. Liesle is now a college graduate!! She graduated from Rowan University on Friday, May 12th. She had a party on the 13th. I don’t have any pictures yet, but hopefully I can get some copies from Liesle and post at a later date. She’s still out on disability, so now she’s really bored out of her mind because she has nothing to do all day.

My friend Jeanice also had her first baby on April 20th! She had a beautiful boy named Cameron Scott Peterson.

I wish she and Cade (her husband) weren’t living so far away in Washington state. Cameron could have been the first to call me Aunt Emily…or Auntie Em as my friends and I have always joked that I would be called. I wish the new family well, it sounds as if they are happy and everyone is healthy.

Of course, my own birthday fell inbetween this post and my last one. I am now 25 years old. Dad tried to rag on me by reminding me that I am now a quarter of a century old, but then I reminded him that he is a half a century old, so he gave that up. I visited with my family the Sunday before, then Ben’s family came over on my actual birthday. Ben made me a delicious cake and my family sent me flowers on the actual day.

As for Wawa, things have gotten much better since my last post. Just over a month ago we actually got a new manager, Ruth. She’s really nice and a lot of fun. I think she runs the store very well. She’s scheduling me for approximately 45 hours every week, plus she doesn’t complain that I stay on the clock to finish my work in the mornings. She understands how third shift works and does everything she can to help me out. She’s not as nit-picky as John was either so she doesn’t make you feel like crap if you’ve had a really busy shift and the details aren’t as nice as they could be, but she does notice when you do extra and even takes the time to thank you for doing it.

So that’s pretty much my life right now. I’m almost paid off to Stockton, so I should be back there in Sept. finishing up. I’m looking towards a graduation this December. Ben and I have also set a tenitive wedding date, January 19th. No, don’t get excited, my parents haven’t come around. But we decided that it was time to set a date since everyone (my cousin Teal and Lielse, that is) have claimed their dates. I don’t want to have to push mine back any further because somebody else’s wedding will be too close to mine…though I’m not sure anybody else is ready to get married that I’m close too. But, you never know.

Alright, I’m off to eat some dinner, then take a nap before work tonight. Hopefully I’ll update again soon!

First off, got a reply message from that email I sent my mom. “If you can’t say something nice, maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all.” Maybe she should have been nice in the first place! Debating on sending a reply saying something along those lines.

So now for the latest catastrohpe in my wedding plans. When Ben and I went to my parents for my brother’s birthday this past weekend, my mom mentioned something about my cousin Teal’s wedding or something. After asking my mother what she was talking about, rumor in the family is that Teal is engaged. She doesn’t have the ring yet, but has picked it out and the wedding date is October. No official confirmation via Teal or her family and we wouldn’t be surprised if this is all just a false alarm. Okay, I need to do some family history here.

My uncle (my mother’s brother) and his family are kinda snobs. I mean, both he and my mom came from a comfortable, but by no means wealthy, background. They never lacked anything they needed, and my grandparents worked hard to provide them with their wants as well. Somewhere along the line, my uncle decided that he wanted a more lavish lifestyle. So I give him lots of credit. He decided what he wanted and he worked hard, and continues to, to have it. He’s a car salesman at a Ford dealership, and he puts in massive amounts of hours to live the lifestyle he wanted. I give him tons of credit, and I admire him for that. However, he become this unusual mix of down-to-earth and well-to-do. He can be a snob, and usually prefers “the finer things.”

My cousin, his son, Dylan seemed to have a lot of his down-to-earth qualities. Dylan is 13 months older than me, and though I hardly see him anymore, we related well to each other when we were younger. I hear updates on him now and relate to his decisions and his actions. His older sister, Teal, and I never had the same connection. She is six years older than me, so we never had much in common. I like to think I’m more down-to-earth, and I always felt that she was well-to-do and a snob. My aunt and uncle spoiled her and gave her the best everything.

She never dated (that we heard of) through high school, and there might have been one boyfriend worth mentioning from college. But after college, Teal did start dating. During most of her “big” relationships my aunt and uncle oozed all over the guy. The relationship would seem to continue okay until marriage started being whispered by her or her parents. As soon as my uncle would say, “this is it, he’s the one,” within the month the guy would be gone.

Apparently my aunt and uncle are gaga for this new guy (well I guess, it’s been months, I really have no idea, but it can’t be much more than a year I don’t think…but he still seems “new”). He’s from a well-to-do family it seems; “he’s rich” is how my slightly out-of-touch grandmother describes it. But already there is talk of a wedding in October.

I am happy for Teal, I hope this is the man of her dreams and that they will be happy together for the rest of their lives. But after I heard the news it got me to thinking about my wedding.

If my plans stay on track: back to Stockton in January, graduation in May, my wedding was planned for February 2007. But if my cousin does get married in October, it will over-shadow mine. I know my cousin’s tastes, and I know the depths of his wallet that my uncle will go to to give my cousin a dream wedding. Vera Wang everything. Designer this, designer that…money, money, money. Which granted, isn’t quite my style. I want something memorable and personal. I don’t want huge and lavish. But how can I plan a smaller wedding four months after hers? I know I haven’t announced a date yet so Teal is free to choose any date she wishes, so do I now have to change my date out of respect for hers and for the family? All of my relatives in Virgina I’m sure are going to be invited to both, they can’t make that trip twice in four months. Most of them dont’ even make it once every four years.

Ben suggested that we just push it back to the following February, but I know he doesn’t want that. If it were up to him, we’d be walking down the isle this February. Plus I’ve already asked his family to wait this long for a wedding, how much longer can I ask them to wait? How much longer can I ask Ben to wait? I know he loves me and wouldn’t leave me over it, but it’s his wedding too and I know he wants to be married. I knew before we ever considered getting married that he didn’t want a long engagement.

And I’m still stuck on the month of February. It’s a special month for us. Wow, I just realized that the original date would have conincided with our five year anniversary. That would be so neat to get married then.

Plus on top of all of this, my mom decided to add more insult to injury this weekend. She’s already bought Teal’s engagement gift. It’s an amazing gift, absolutely perfect for Teal. But how come Teal gets an engagement gift before it’s confirmed that she is engaged (again, we only doubt it from previous experiences), and her own daughter’s engagement goes ignored? How much longer do I put up with this before I throw in the towel and just throw my own wedding? It would be nice I guess, but Ben and I couldn’t afford to have a wedding for the whole family, it would have to be really small. I don’t think we could do most of the traditional things that I was hoping for in my wedding. Ben’s mom has made a standing offer that she will provide us with a wedding as a wedding present if we choose. I completely appreciate that, it really means a lot, but I can’t imagine planning my wedding without my family.

Well, my head is now swimming. I seem to have come down with a cold overnight (I blame Lisa and Krissy at work for giving me their bird flu!). Plus I have to work overnight tonight, so I think I may go lay down and try to feel better. But how do you feel better when things just keep getting worse?