one score and 3 years ago...minus 2 days

saturday, I "celebrated" my 23rd birthday. (if you do the math, that makes my birthday 8/7/87 = most badass, unforgettable birthday ever!) I say "celebrated" because I didn't really do much. I'm actually quite disappointed. heartbroken even. since we've been together, chris and I have either not been together or hadn't had time due to school to celebrate my birthday. (even though I always took the time to celebrate his in february.) so I told him I wanted to do something special. just him and I. something fun. and then I told him I wanted to go to san diego. stay at a cheap hotel. and lay on the beach and relax all weekend long. that's all I wanted. I wanted us (mainly chris) to take a break from work and just relax and enjoy life. I know how stressed chris has been with work (not that he tells/talks to me) and wanted to try to ease his stress. I wanted him to remember to enjoy life and not think about work all the time. I would have drove (because I have to). and I would have made the arrangements. but throughout the week, chris made it seem like he was going to surprise me but not wanting to tell me what we'd do for the weekend. then friday comes around and I ask again what the plans are, because my parents wanted to know if I'll be home or not for my mom to make me dinner and sush.

chris's angry/frustrated reply: "how about for your birthday I buy your plane ticket to new york" (not that I asked him to or didn't offer to pay him back) "or how about I pay for pepper's vet bill" (again, not that I asked him to or didn't offer to pay him back) "you're stressing me out more than I already am."

um what? how can a relaxing trip to san diego be stressful? especially when I don't want to plan anything or stay anywhere fancy. I just wanted to go with the flow. that's all. be spontaneous. be fun. be free. I guess he also told my mom that I wanted to go to sd so that it will be "all about me." ha.

soooo we didn't go to san diego. my mom tried to comfort me by reminding us how unreliable my car (paula) has been lately. chris didn't have any other plans for me for my birthday. I didn't get anything from him - not that I wanted anything, but didn't even get a card. my mom made tacos for me and that was my night. how boring. scotty & megan got me some cool stuff to use/take with me on our trip to new york (how thoughtful!) and my mom gave me one of her potteries from work and some cookies.

aaahhh the beauty

I'm pretty heartbroken that I didn't get to go to san diego though. I was really hoping for a getaway for chris and I so we can reconnect and do some bonding (like our first trip to sd back when we first started dating - which, by the way, is where my favorite pic of us on the right is taken). chris later told me he felt really bad and that I didn't deserve that and that he'll make it up to me blah blah blah - but he was drinking at the time when he said that so I'm still not very hopeful.

I know we have this trip to new york coming up next week, but for some reason I just can't get excited about it. we won't be close to any of the major cities (I think we're closer to pennsylvania) and we'll be staying at his grandma's. I'm just afraid we won't do anything. I mean if we don't even do anything when we're at home, why would we do anything somewhere else?

I'm trying to be more positive and optimistic, really I am. but I feel so boring. I'm young - only 23 - and I don't do anything. I want to do fun things as a couple with chris. but by the time we get home, chris just wants to relax and we only have so many hours to get things done around the house before the day's over. and then on weekends all he wants to do is "relax" and sit on the couch and watch tv. come on now.

I want to be doing fun stuff. I want to be active. I want to be young and crazy. I want to be spontaneous and adventurous. I want to live life to the fullest. and I think I'm mainly disappointed in myself because I haven't yet. I haven't been living life to the fullest and I should be. I should create a "bucketlist." maybe that will motivate me more to do fun things.

annoyance of the day: person I work with

uuuggggghhh! not only do you ramble on forever about things no one cares about but you can also be a dick. you complain that there's a lack of communication in this company yet you don't mention to another coworker that someone else gave you the information you asked from him. instead of making a quick call to say, "hey, so-and-so got me those drawings," you wait until you (fortunately for him) pass him crawling on the ground around a tank looking for a label. then instead of apologizing for not telling him, you laugh and try to be funny. how rude. no wonder no one here respects you. (except your master of course.)

how I feel

and when I send you a file that you asked for and you decide to modify it (no surprise there because you don't seem to trust anything I do nor do you ask me to adjust it to include what you want), don't put the new file in my personal folder. why can't you just ask me to update it? I don't want your shit in my folder - especially if you're just going to add one additional calculation. just add it to the spreadsheet I sent you and save over it for god's sake. I don't need two spreadsheets with the same shit on it. and if you're going to change things because what I did wasn't right, why don't you talk to me and let me figure out why? how am I supposed to learn if you aren't giving me any opportunities? why did I waste half my day on something you're just going to do yourself anyways?

this is the second time you've been my "annoyance of the day" and I have a feeling this won't be the last. you suck. I hate how you put me on the spot by asking how I think of you as a boss. what do you expect me to say? I could vent forever but that doesn't exactly make me look good now does it? and I hate that you're only a little bit older than me and I'll have to spend my whole career with you. please move to al abra. or tenke. I don't care. just leave me alone. you're not mentoring me and you're not teaching me anything important or useful about how to do my job.

my solution

so I've been slightly paranoid about chris. the last thing I want is for him to have another seizure. I have a feeling that he finds his seizures embarrassing. I see it in his eyes when I visit him in the hospital. I can tell he doesn't want people to pity him. he doesn't want people to doubt his abilities because of his medical condition. he avoids the topic rather than openly talks about it. and I don't completely blame him. but I'm scared his seizures are inevitable. I'm scared they're always going to happen.

at least I was scared. I realized that I can't be scared of life and situations we're faced with. I can't be scared of conditions we're born with and have no control over. because maybe we do have some control over it. I said previously that the two things that were the same between this seizure and his last seizure were that he didn't sleep well the night before and he was really stressed out. so what if I do my best to ensure he gets a good night sleep? I can make sure he goes to bed a decent hour. and take pepper out in the middle of the night so his sleep isn't disturbed. I can make sure a fresh cup of coffee is prepared for him in the morning (once we figure out how to fix our coffee maker).

and I can do whatever I can to de-stress his life. starting operation: de-stress our lives. some ideas I've got so far: 

• go on walks with the pups in the evening
• go to the 'rents to swim at least 3x a week
• talk to him in the morning about random stuff
• ask him how his day was after work
• drive him everywhere (not my favorite)
• make dinner together
• watch movies and our favorite tv shows
• play silly wii games
• play with the dogs

hmm...that's really all I can think of so far. all I know is that I'm not going to surrender to his condition. I'm not going to let it control our lives. I'm gonna do something about it.

the results of stress and lack of communication

not only is it hard when your significant other doesn't find the need to discuss important issues or feelings with you, but it's so difficult when he doesn't confide in you when he's stressed out. this is my life. I've been getting used to the fact that chris won't talk to me about things or what he's thinking or feeling and such, but it hurts when something bothers him and he doesn't give me the opportunity to try to help him.

he's been stressed at work. waay stressed. we work at the mine, which is starting production again, and he's in charge of short-range planning. short-range planning is the planning of day by day - deciding how many tons will be hauled each day and where it will be hauled to. (as opposed to long-range planning which is determining how many tons will be hauled/processed on a year by year basis.) here's the issues I find:

1. he just graduated from college - pretty much brand new
2. he's never done short-range planning before

so I had an idea that he's a little stressed out. but he never talks to me about his tasks at work and if they are stressing him out or anything. so I didn't know how bad it was.

because I'm sure I wasn't making it any easier. if I had known, I would try harder to not nag as much. if I had known I would have urged him to get more sleep. if I had known, maybe what happened thursday could have been avoided. of course, I'm not sure if I could ease his stress enough to prevent what happened, but I could have tried. I didn't even know it was bad so I didn't even try. that's what hurts the most. that I could have helped, but he didn't let me.

so thursday, chris had another epileptic seizure. I was working on some spreadsheets at the sx control room (not my normal office) when I got a call from chris's boss. last time chris had a seizure, it was over a year ago - before one of his field trips for class. this is the second seizure that I've experienced with him since we've been together (almost 5 years now). both times I was not directly with him. but the commonality between his previous seizure and this one that I found:

1. he didn't sleep well the night (and/or few nights) before
2. he's really stressed out

supposedly, he had another forecast report he needed to get out by the end of the day. I know he's been stressed about the forecast, because he's been working a lot on it. each version he's given, he's gotten a lot of crap for. the manager of the mine has been giving him a lot of crap for not putting out the "right" numbers. my department (not me, but my bosses) has been putting a lot of pressure on him to put out the forecast (since our forecast is based on the mine forecast). the president of the company has even contacted him telling him his disapproval of the forecast numbers. so I knew he had to be stressed. but he never talked to me about it. and when I tried to talk to him about it, he wouldn't say much. so I didn't try to ease his stress.

it's scary when I get a call about chris having a seizure. last time it was terrifying since it was the first time I was faced with his seizures. and last time, he face planted the cement so he busted up his lip and nose so there was blood everywhere which in all in combination caused me to have a panic attack when I saw him at the hospital. so I was scared it was going to be the same. and on top of it all, it happened at work. (thank god we work at the same place.) so I get the call at work, and of course word gets around fast and everyone who doesn't know yet wants to know why I'm crying and it just turns into this mess. luckily, at the time, I wasn't thinking about all that. I was just trying to figure out how to get to my car to get to the hospital.

my boss, sam, took me to the hospital and I was more than relieved to see chris in a stable state. in fact, he looked real good. he had a bump on his head from hitting it on his desk on the way down. and a scratch on his cheek from an unknown source. but there was no blood everywhere like last time. when I got there, he took my hand and cried a little, and then he went into a deep sleep. (which I guess is normal.) I guess the doctors did a catscan (I wouldn't of known since none of the doctors or nurses told me anything) and it came out clear.

I sat next to his bed for about three hours. the most excitement was the lady in the bed next to him who was suspected to have overdosed on some percocet. a couple of times she tried to escape (which I had to get the attention of the nurses to let them know they're patient was trying to escape because they were flirting with the male paramedics). and she kept saying weird things. after three hours or so, they released him and we went home. and I'm stuck with driving him everywhere for the next six months or so. but that's ok. my main concern is trying to get him to talk to me when he's stressed out.

back to square one

pepper's not doing too swell again. it breaks my heart. yesterday was supposed to be the first day of us "weening" her off the bland prescription food and back to her regular good. I was super excited because that meant we'd be fattening her up and she won't look like skin and bones anymore. I think we gave her too much regular food though because she's got diarrhea and has been vomiting. last night she had to go out every half an hour. after the 50th time of waking up and letting her out (at around 11:30) I ended up just letting her stay outside (she didn't want to come back in) and sleeping on the couch. I still woke up every 30 minutes or so, though, so I could make sure she was still out there and alive. and she's been lethargic again. she doesn't want to play with ginger. she doesn't want to nip at your feet. she just lies there. it absolutely breaks my heart.

when we first heard pepper's got parvo, I cried so much. my heart was broken then. they gave her fluids under her skin (which created a huge bulge on her back) which made her whine and squirm. I literally felt my heart ache watching her go through that pain. she's just a puppy (which, by the way, lessens her chance of survival) - not even 2 months old. she doesn't deserve this. she is a complete sweetheart. they gave her four shots as well which just made more tears flow down my face. I felt like a waterfall. I couldn't stop crying. I imagine it feels like watching your young child having to go through various shots and pain. not only did it ache watching her in pain, I was terrified. what if she doesn't make it? my eyes well up thinking about it now.

so yesterday, when I discovered she was acting the way she did a week ago - sad, sick, and not wanting to do anything - I cried so much again. she really doesn't deserve this. and I feel horrible. I didn't know what we were doing going into this so my confidence in being able to cure her ourselves wasn't very high. (on the other hand, I didn't know if leaving her to be taken care of by strangers woulda helped either.) but when she started acting like her normal self and eating and vomiting/diarrhea stopped, I was so hopeful and so positive that we'd be able to kick this damn thing. and yesterday, I feel like I was just crushed - stomped on by the giant foot of god or whatever. he must really be testing me. I think he wants to watch me fall apart. again. and I feel horrible since it's probably our fault she's sick again. we really have sucked at this at-home treatment stuff. we can't seem to get anything right.

bundled up after a quick "swim" (6/16/10)

but I love her so much. I can't lose her. so we're not giving up. we just realized that we need to be slower in weening her back to normal food. we'll be giving her just the canned stuff until the diarrhea stops. then we'll just add a tiny bit of her regular food and slowly keep adding some until she's better again. she's a tough cookie, that's for sure.



I'm stressed out about so many things right now, it's not even funny. I feel like any moment, and small action or word, will break me. every moment of the day, I'm fighting back tears. everything isn't going my way these days. but more on that shit later.

sick puppy

pepper's got parvo. the adorable puppy we got less than a week ago, that we've already fallen in love with, is sick. we're pretty confident that since the person I got her from didn't give pepper her shots yet, that pepper got it from one of the girl's other dogs. because both ginger and cheyenne (the two dogs we've exposed her to) have had their parvo shots.

sick puppy. :(

I noticed wednesday evening that she wasn't acting her usual self. I know I've only had her a few days and all, but I could tell something was wrong. sunday, monday, and tuesday she was very playful and active. she would chase ginger around and play tug of war with you. she would follow you every where and nip at your feet. she'd hop around like a little spotted bunny rabbit. she was a puppy. wednesday evening she was lazy. didn't move much. she looked sad - kinda how you'd look when you just don't feel good and don't feel like doing anything. and I noticed a change in her poop. it was a little runnier and looked mucus-y. I thought maybe it was just the change in food. or since it was later in the day, maybe she was just sleepy - played too much during the day. maybe she just had a puppy cold. but she started vomiting mucus-y-looking stuff and I thought the food was making her sick. she refused to eat, not even treats, and she barely drank any water. by thursday I was worried and told chris I wanted to take her to the vet to at least get her shots. I was planning on taking her friday after my dentist appointment. although I was going to pay attention to her behavior to see if she gets worse or better. I was concerned, but didn't think it was anything serious.

I googled local vets to get some numbers I could call to set up an appointment. at the bottom of one vet site, there were links to pages with addition information on common issues. one of them was "parvo in puppies." I wasn't really sure what parvo was, so I clicked on it. I'm glad I did, because I only read a few lines before I was 95% confident that that's what she had. vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, and not eating where the symptoms - the exact symptoms pepper had! I immediately texted chris saying "what if pepper's got parvo?" and not more than a minute later chris replied with "we can go now."

two things I found odd: (1) it was only 1:50. we get off at 2:30(ish) and I knew chris had a lot of work to get done that day and he told me earlier that morning that he probably have to work late. and (2)he replied within seconds. again, I knew chris was super busy and when he's super busy, he doesn't reply back. which is understandable of course. so I really started to freak out. did chris agree with me? when I got to his office I asked what he thought. he said he made an appointment that evening at 6 with a vet. he thought it was parvo too.

we went to the vet and they took a fecal test and it indeed came back positive for parvo. although, it was a "weak" positive. the vet explained that there's a dark blue dot where they put the sample and if another dot appears then it's positive. the darkness or lightness of the dot indicates the severity. pepper's dot was a rather light blue. they told us we had two options: hospitalize her there for 3 days/nights for almost $2,000 or take her home and give her a home treatment (strict diet and medication schedule) for about $300. we decided to treat her at home. that way we can continue to give her love and support and make her as comfortable as possible. so now it's time for operation: get pepper healthy again.

I'm hoping, praying, I'm right about this one. because I don't know if I can handle losing her. I have to thank my family millions for helping out though. the vet gave us a strict schedule of when to feed her, how much to feed her, and when to give her medications and we had to start today. well, since we both work, my family is amazing enough to step in and care for her for the day while we're at work. especially thanks to megan - it's her birthday weekend and I first ruined her birthday dinner at mint thai (by not being able to make it before it closed since we took pepper to the vet) and then having her take care of my sick puppy. but also thanks to my dad and brother. couldn't do it without you and I don't know if I can show you my appreciation. because of you guys, we have a chance - pepper has a chance. so thanks.

I'll keep you all updated and I ask for your prayers. I know she's just a puppy, but she's like family to us.

hopes and dreams

I think I have a major problem. well, I have a lot of problems, but that's a different story. I think my major problem is that I get my hopes up too easily. it's always caused me issues. and now is no different.

I wrote yesterday that we were going to another broker to get another appraisal - turns out that's illegal. whoops. our realtor, who has been beyond amazing thus far, wanted us to be proactive and wanted to show us another house that may interest us. we got there and she informed us that she decided enough was enough and called and informed the builder that we were walking away.

wait, what? when did we say that? oh, that's right, we didn't. we were completely blind sighted. I didn't know what to think or feel. one minute I thought we were waiting for another appraisal and the next we're not getting the house at all - by our choosing. I didn't understand. I still don't understand. and I definitely didn't appreciate that cathy (our realtor) didn't talk to us about this decision first.

we went home. I cried and freaked out. I mean I thought this second appraisal was going to work. wrong. chris and I talked. he wants to offer more money. I don't think we should pay more than it's worth. but we both don't want to give up on the house. walking around the other house with cathy, I couldn't imagine myself falling in love with another house. I couldn't feel the flow of the house and my openness feeling we had with ours was gone. I hated it. I was mad. I know there's still other houses and we just looked at one, but when you spend five months falling in love with a house and making it your own, it's going to be hard to do it all over again. I didn't want to wait for another rebuild. but at the same time, the spec homes were subpar. they had shitty upgrades. no granite countertops? really? straight and not diagonal tile? we went through so much trouble to turn the tile 90 degrees. I felt like it's going to be inevitable that I was going to be extremely picky.

the other broker guy, tim, called chris and they talked for quite some time. he told him he was going to send the appraisal to a board for them to review and decide if it should be amended. then the builder himself called chris and they talked forever. he wants it to work and wants us to still do our final walk through today. he also told us that a house that's two houses down from ours appraised for $170 - and it's not even as nice as ours (trust me, I snooped through it many times). no one knows why our house appraised for so little. but I definitely do agree that it's worth more than $148. chris thinks we should still pay more. maybe we should? the appraisers may not think it's worth more, but to us it is. to us, it's already been our home for the past 5 months. to us, it's an absolutely beautiful home in the perfect location. to us, it's priceless.

we're doing our final walk through this afternoon and possibly meeting with the builder afterwards to negotiate. so here I am again, thinking that this will work. thinking, well, if we agree on a price today, we could still move in this week. dreaming about having ginger home and sleeping in our cloud supreme. hoping it's still ours. I've already got my hopes up again which means if things fall apart again, I'm going to be devastated, again. how much heartache and stress can I take? I'm so anxious to be done with work so I can see what's going to happen - so I can know what's going to happen.

got my fingers crossed. because that's really all I can do right now.

anxious

we still haven't heard anything about the house. cathy told chris they're hoping to find out what's going on in a few days. a few days?! a few days would be like the end of this week. our closing of escrow date is set for the 19th - next wednesday. our furniture - couches, entertainment center, beds, dressers - are all scheduled to be delivered on the 20th.  I'm really hoping to hear back from them sooner than later so that we can be ready to move. or not move. I'm so anxious about moving - I just want to be in my own home, sleeping in my wonderful cloud supreme. but right now I'm not even sure if it'll be our home. we already have everything ready. the delivery schedules. I took that thursday and friday off - my mom is supposed to take the friday off too to go shopping with me. but it's all going to be pointless if we can't even move in. frustrating. very frustrating.

I'm also becoming more and more anxious to get a new puppy. another reason I want to be moved into our house, because the sooner we get settled in there, the sooner I get my doggie. Here's my pick for the puppy(ies) of the day:

pit pups

I think both of these are adorable (out of the 8 available). I'm not sure if I can choose one. I just can't wait to have a little doggie running around the house and getting to play in our (relatively) huge backyard with ginger - hearing ginger go through the dog door followed by a little one - having two doggies to cuddle with in bed - watching them play tug-o-war and such. it'll be sooo cute! I think I'm going to go insane if we don't hear anything from them by the end of the day.

awesome: ritz crackers.

lame: nyquil - pill or liquid form.

house? or no house?

with only about a week and a half left before we can close and move in, our house was appraised last week. and it was appraised for significantly less. I'm not a realtor or a broker nor do I really understand everything when it comes to buying a house. what I understand is you want a house, you get a loan based on how much you make, you make a down payment for the house, you move into the house. so when I'm told that the house that we've been waiting for 5 months has been appraised for much less than what we're about to pay for it, I'm not really sure what that means. cathy, our realtor, says she's never seen something like this where the house is appraised for significantly less than the asking price. which isn't comforting.

so I'm not really sure what's going on right now. I guess they (our realtors and broker) got some "comps" or proof that what they're asking for isn't unreasonable. I guess the development is closing on a house more than ours is. don't ask me what that means. but I guess they sent that stuff to the appraisers and hopefully the appraisal will go up closer to what the builder is asking for? if it doesn't, I'm not sure if that means we have to negotiate or what.

I do know that cathy told us to be "proactive" and find some other houses that we like. which means we may or may not get the house we've been falling in love with for 5 months now - the house that we spent time at every day to watch it progress - the house that we put our heart and soul into designing (what we could at least) and picking furniture - the house that we added custom touches (speaker wire throughout, ginger's door, etc) to make it ours - that house. we are not sure if we are getting our house. when I found this out on saturday, I was heartbroken. I couldn't believe it. a week and a half before we're supposed to move in, we're not sure if we'll get it. and now I have to look at other houses and find one that's comparable? and on top of that, if we opt out of the contract we have now, we'll lose our $8,000 home buyers tax credit.

like I said, I'm not completely sure what's going on. all I know is we're supposed to hopefully hear back from the appraisers today to see what the adjusted appraisal for our house is. and then I don't know where we go from there. I just hope it's all sorted out in the next week the latest. the sooner the better though, because all this stress is killing me. like seriously, by body cannot handle this stress (combined with stress from work) and if I don't become stress-free soon, I'm never gonna get rid of this bug.


as an update for operation: get new, young, well-trained dog, I thought that idea was crushed too when chris was being a turd last week. my parents and I were looking at puppies at shelters near our area (don't as me why) and I'd ask chris what he thought about a couple and he would be short and rude. then he got mad saying that he already told me that we can't have a dog right now and then I got mad since I told him I wasn't looking for it right now but within a couple of months of us moving in to our house. but since then he seems he's wanting a new dog soon since I caught him looking at puppies the other day. he told me he wanted to get one within a couple of weeks of moving. *squeeeaaaal* now I'm just hoping we'll have a house to move into.

awesome: kings of leon "closer"

lame: being sick for over a week

annoyance of the day: stress

today sucks. here's why:

1. I have to start presenting the process data during our daily morning meeting. I have to know where all the numbers come from & if there's any variance, why. presenting the numbers doesn't terrify me that much - it's the explaining if something's wrong. I feel like I don't really know the process & all the details that much yet and fear the moment when someone asks me a question I don't know the answer to (although I should) and everyone realizes how dumb I really am. no pressure.
2. WARNING: possible TMI moment - skip to number 3 if you want to avoid TMI. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. not too big of a deal, except it's a pap smear appointment. my first one ever. not looking forward to it too much. although I am thankful I get to finally get one (thank you company paid insurance!) I'm a little terrified of what they'll find. nothing serious, I just know that I have a reoccurring pain-in-the-ass (not literally) aka yeast infections. I mean I have them a lot. I've been taking this stuff called azo which helps treat & prevent and it works really well if I take it every day. I just hope she doesn't look in there and tell me it's a different problem.
3. the suns game is tonight - game 1 against the spurs. ugh. if we lose I know I'll pay for it at work tomorrow. so I'm really hoping we'll win. if we win, not only do we win, but it'll also increase my confidence in winning the whole series. at least the hydromet manager (my boss's boss's boss), troy, is on my side. he bet with mark that if the suns win, mark has to wear a suns hat for a month & if the spurs win then troy will wear a spurs hat. so to clarify - if the suns win, mark has to wear a suns hat and a suns jersey. priceless. I just hope we win this first game, then I'll have more faith.

that's really it, but it sure is bringing a lot of stress to me. I can't wait until today's over.

to make things better: puppy of the day:

2-3 month old shepard/lab mix? how
can you say no to that face?!

16 days until we get to move into our own house!

awesome: the rocket summer's new cd.

lame: being uber tired at work

making bets

I made a bet. I don't like making bets in fear of the possibility of losing regardless of how confident I am. and not only did I make a bet, I made a bet with the mine manager at my work. the bet? the suns will either (a) win the championship or (b) beat the spurs if they ever play. how stupid I am? I (a) made a bet with my boss's boss's boss's boss & therefore can't talk too much shit since, well he's pretty high up there, (b) made a bet that is very difficult to win since the spurs have beaten the suns the past 4 years we've played them in the playoffs, and (c) made a bet that is soo important to win since I'm the "newbie" and need to impress/gain credibility around the office rather than make stupid bets against someone who has always won bets (the hydromet manager made the same kind of bet last year & lost).

I feel sick. I'm terrified of going to work next week. I know shit's gonna go down & I'm not one who has witty comebacks & even if I did - he's the mine manager! I'm screwed. I prayed the mavericks would beat the spurs last night, but they failed me & even though we won, I felt like calling into work because I know we'll be playing the spurs in round two which starts monday. every game they play I'm gonna be soo stressed out even more than I would normally be. and even though I'm rather confident we can beat the spurs - when we're hot, we've played better defense & we'll have home court advantage - I really don't wanna deal with the spurs beating us. hopefully they won't let me down.
the stakes? suns win - mark (the mine manager) has to wear a suns jersey for a month. spurs win - I'll have to wear a spurs jersey for a month. *shivers*


update: mark showed up to work today with a spurs polo & spurs basketball shorts over his pants. I think this is war.


puppy of the day:I really love the color of this one.

6 month old female lab/pit mix 
crate & potty trained

aww isn't she precious? would be perfect for our humongous yard.





awesome: la roux's "bulletproof."
lame: presentations.

to be completely honest...

I am scared of getting married.

I love chris. there's no doubt about that. he's the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I know that. but when I think about our wedding and all the planning and stuff that goes into it, my stomach gets in knots. I start breathing heavily. my heart starts beating faster. I feel overwhelmed. and I feel like I don't deserve my fairy tale day. I've always told people that I didn't want an extravagant wedding - and I still don't believe I do - but at the same time, maybe I do. I do want a perfect day - at least perfect in my eyes. I do want it to be beautiful. and I do want plants and flowers and lights everywhere. but at the same time, everything I want cost money. and not just a little bit of money - my dream wedding is hella expensive. I still want it to be simple, but elegant at the same time. but my idea of my dream wedding is expensive. so I guess in that way, it is extravagant.

but we can't afford a wedding that costs $15,000. I just graduated college. chris hasn't even graduated yet. we just started our jobs - yes they pay well but we have student loans to pay off and we just bought a house. we can't save up enough money by march of next year. no way. not without living and buying anymore stuff for our house. and when I think about the fact that I'm not going to have my dream wedding, I get sad. and then I get angry. I get sad, because every bride should have their dream wedding. and then I feel angry like I'm being a spoiled princess. it's tearing my apart. I shouldn't be crying because I'm not getting what I want. I should be happy that I'm marrying such a wonderful guy. but why should I give up something I've always dreamt of?

I tell chris I'm ok with something simpler but I'm not so sure I am. I'm not sure if I can handle the stress and task of putting together my dream wedding by myself. I've been beyond stressed just trying to find a venue that meets my dream (something with a beautiful view & plants/flowers). and now I have to try and find a banquet hall type thing for our reception? and on top of that I have to find a florist, photographer, amazing dj, an officiant, a caterer, a cake maker, invitations, and decorations?! are you kidding me? the all-inclusive plans from my favorite venues were expensive, yes, but it saves me that trouble and stress. I won't have to spend every night crying because I feel overwhelmed. because I don't wanna settle for less. I don't want my wedding to look tacky or cheap. so I'm gonna have a hella-hard time trying to find the right stuff to match my dream. and I'm afraid it's gonna end up being more expensive in the end.

and when it comes down to it, I don't want to plan my wedding.