Weddings

It disgusts me how people take advantage of couples trying to plan their weddings. As a bride trying to stick to a budget, I am stressed to the point of tearing my hair out. Everything is ten times more expensive than it usually is. White shoes cost a fortune where the same style in black is on sale. Flowers for any event is less expensive than a wedding. And while everyone is getting upset with me for doing everything myself, no one seems ready to jump in themselves. 

My mother keeps getting mad at me for not making decisions on music or flowers. But I just don't care. I don't care about flowers, I hate flowers. Flowers die, why would I want them as a centerpiece of my wedding day. How about a fossil, they last forever? I know what I want for my bouquet, and that's it. I don't really care about everyone else, let them pick. I mean, everything is just so far beyond my head right now. Between the budget and school and my mother all over everything; I'm just exploding. I'm trying to sort out ceremony music two months before the wedding and people are laughing at me. How does anyone get married on short notice?

I've decided to become the poster child for why couples should elope. Just run away and spend your ten thousand dollars on a cruise or a trip around Europe. Share a month together with just you and come home and let people be jealous. Don't make a day that's about everyone else but you and then have to go into debt to pay for it. The pictures of you not quite smiling aren't worth it.

I really didn't expect to be this bitter about this experience. And, if I'm honest, I'm sure five years from now I won't remember all this stress and I will just remember the dress and the fun. And I will say I am very excited about the prospect of Dave and I being able to pay for this ourselves. That was very important to me. I get that it's a huge debt for us for awhile, but this way I get what I want and no one but me can complain about how expensive it is. So I guess I'm just bitter at myself for wanting expensive things. It's all about perspective, isn't it?

Logan

One of the hardest lessons I've learned in my short life is that everything needs perspective. My dog died today. He was an amazing pet that my family will miss greatly. It was one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life, bury pets. It's process that tears me up inside, not merely for physical act of digging a very deep hole in the rain (for some reason it's always raining), but because there is nothing that kills me more in the world, than see my father cry. It's the most horrible thing to endure. But, as I hurt that a member of my family is gone, and one more of my childhood pets has left this world, it's all about perspective.

Tim Russert, cherished news anchor, father and husband died quite suddenly today. I can't imagine his wife and son (who recently graduated from college) and what they must be going through. Or my aunt, who had to deal with her husband being slowly taken by  brain cancer. Their immediate and enduring feelings of pain. How simple my life seems where all my grandparents are still living and I can count funerals I have attended on one hand. How the most tragic events in my life so far were the deaths of two of my childhood pets. Both passing at home and with minimal pain. 

So, while I hurt for my puppy and will miss him throughout my life, I consider how flowered my path truly is. How much worse things could be and are for many. As Iowa floods and thousands are evacuated; as boy scouts grieve for friends lost to a tornado. I must remember that my father's tears will cease and he will heal. That everything will be ok, if not entirely whole without my big polar bear.

For Logan (November 2, 1997- June 13th, 2008)

Summer news

Well, baby steps. My parents are home from Ireland, I'm getting married in 78 days, and I can't wait to move to Pittsburgh in August. So now, it's just not letting any one of those things drive me crazy. 

I got a great job with the Pitt partners program. Since my department doesn't offer assistantships they hire us out to local businesses. Which, gives them the chance to offer us money for classes and the businesses get good workers that they don't have to pay as much. So I get money for school and hopefully will make enough a month to cover rent. Yeah!

I've actually decided to venture back to my junior and senior thesis and see about publication. It's very interesting to me how some journals require very little and some expect a complete reformatting. But, I've got one around to send and hopefully will get two more out by the end of the month. 

So, as long as I can keep spending next to nothing the next few weeks we should be good.