Yesterday was Day 2 of dress shopping. I went about 3 months ago with my mom, we looked at one store, David’s Bridal and tried on about 15 dresses in about 40 minutes. I decided I loved one there and I wanted it to be THE ONE, but still wanted to verify my decision by going to several other stores around town.
Yesterday I had addresses of all the “hole in the wall” dress stores around town. Store number one was a cute place called I Do I Do . I loved it, they answered the phone, “I Do I Do, how may I help you?” I tried on about 5 dresses; of course none of them had price tags. I found one I really liked and the lady says, oh that is one of our priciest dresses on the rack! My mom immediately tells me to find something else… less expensive. (it was a good 1000 over our budget)
The second store was a little shady. I walked in and the ladies weren’t very friendly at all. I told them I was looking for wedding dresses and went back to the section. They only had about 10 dresses, I ended up trying one on when they came looking for me. The lady was very rude and asked where I went. I told her I went to try one on and she said “You’re not allowed to try anything on until we set you up.” What the hell does that mean? I said I was sorry and that I didn’t know and walked out. I didn’t like their dresses anyway!
The third store was very cute and called, Special Moments. When you walked in they handed you a book and you marked which dresses you wanted to try on. I have a hard time with this because dresses look totally different on models than they do on REAL people, but I selected about 5. None of which I was really digging. There was one other girl in the store trying on dresses and my mom was watching everything she tried on. She walked out in this one dress and my mom said she just knew that I would like it and they threw it in my dressing room when she was finished with it. Low and behold that happened to be the dress that I fell in love with! Meant to be, right?
I had to verify, I went back to David’s Bridal and tried on my first love and decided that the dress at Special Moments was THE ONE. Yay! I had found my dress!
I must say, my mom has come a long way! When we started this dress shopping process she wanted me to only buy a long sleeve dress because I’m getting married in the winter time. We had some disagreements about that, but as it turns out she ended up finding/picking out the very dress I will be walking down the aisle in! :) Yea, Mom! I taught you well! Just kidding… kind of.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Maybe it is just me or Maybe it is just today...
Do you ever feel like you are really really good at doing nothing at work, but making people think you are doing lots of things? And then you leave at the end of the day yawning and saying how you had such a hard day, but in reality you didn’t do a damn thing!
That is how I feel today.
Trust me I would rather be really busy… the day goes by so much faster.
I’ve been eating sunflower seeds all morning, I wrote some checks, I started practicing signing my name differently, I stared at my changing picture frame and I just tore out the Sudoku from the paper.
Sigh… 7 more days at this desk. :)
That is how I feel today.
Trust me I would rather be really busy… the day goes by so much faster.
I’ve been eating sunflower seeds all morning, I wrote some checks, I started practicing signing my name differently, I stared at my changing picture frame and I just tore out the Sudoku from the paper.
Sigh… 7 more days at this desk. :)
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Sharpies and Life on the Streets
I know that Homelessness is a very serious problem in America and all over the World. According to Wikipedia, In 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless and that number is as high as 847,000 in the United States.
For some damn reason, I have been slightly infatuated with homeless people for years.
This may have all started with my grandma in California. She is a little crazy and would be bored in her old people home and watch people out her window with binoculars. She started watching this homeless man and told me that he lived in the back of a church and had a fridge back there and everything. She would go out to eat and give him her leftovers a couple times a month. I was 13 when I went out to visit her and I ordered a massive salad at some restaurant and couldn’t even eat half of it, so she made me pack it up and hand deliver it to the homeless man… he was soo thankful. (However, I have learned that they aren’t all thankful if you give them food, most of them just want money. I gave one a granola bar and he threw it away, right in front of me… grr… I soo would have eaten it, but thought I’d be nice and give it up.)
Growing up in Socorro I didn’t really see too many homeless. An occasional one here or there, but I would probably see one every 2 or 3 months. Then I moved to Albuquerque, which I swear, has one on every other corner. I would probably pass at least 5 on my way to work and school EVERY day. Insane, right? So out of curiosity I started reading the signs that they would write on their cardboard boxes. (Come on I know you do too!!) Some of them were pretty creative, while some needed some work. My favorite happened to be one that said “I’m not going to lie; I just want money for beer!” And he got his money alright! I didn’t give him any, but he made me crack up laughing and he was smiling pretty big as well.
So my sophomore year in college I started wondering… Where do the Homeless get their sign material? The boxes are pretty reasonable… I mean you can steal boxes behind any big store. But what about those dang sharpies they use?! You can’t just find one under a rock, right? Or at least I’ve never just stumbled upon a sharpie. I was baffled, do they really use their money to good use and take it to the store and buy a pack of sharpies instead of beer? Do they hand out sharpies at homeless shelters? Do they have homeless fights under bridges for the best sharpies? I just did not understand… nor do I still.
I asked several people and finally my boss at the time told me, Jackie they just steal them from stores. He said that for the store owners it isn’t a big deal and they just let it go because after all it was just a marker. I’m not sure if he knew what he was talking about or if he just wanted to shut me up, but it worked and I was satisfied with that answer.
I interned with the Department of Public Safety , NM State Police for a couple months and across the street from their office was a very popular homeless corner. The officer that I was working with told me that he believes that the majority of the homeless on Alb.’s streets are not homeless at all. He told me that he has personally seen people drop the “homeless” off in the morning and then pick them up at the end of the day so these people can collect tax free money. While that may solve some of my sharpie quandaries, I know that there are just as many people that do actually live on the street unwillingly.
I also was a psychology minor in college and one of the things I remember learning was that that approximately one-third of all adult homeless people have some form of mental illness and/or disability. These individuals were previously institutionalized in state mental hospitals, but because of a deinstitutionalization between 1957 and 1988, they ended up on the streets. According to Wikipedia, there were 50,000 mentally ill homeless people in California alone during that time.
So I do understand this is a serious issue in the world, and I don’t mean to poke fun at it in ANY way, but for some reason I am just a little intrigued. I have given many homeless people money and food and I have also gone and served food for the homeless on special occasions. Although I know many people may disagree with me about handing them money or even food because people they think they should find a job and work hard for their money like the rest of us… I just can’t help but think that the one that I helped that day will never be able to get a job because of some sort of mental illness.
So to end my random blog about homeless…
I was talking to Ryan the other day and I told him that if I was a millionaire I would buy a bunch of white boards w/ pretty markers for all the homeless people that way they could make creative signs… he got mad at me and said wouldn’t you want to help them in a better way. I would probably do that too… but don’t you think they would appreciate white boards… just a little?
For some damn reason, I have been slightly infatuated with homeless people for years.
This may have all started with my grandma in California. She is a little crazy and would be bored in her old people home and watch people out her window with binoculars. She started watching this homeless man and told me that he lived in the back of a church and had a fridge back there and everything. She would go out to eat and give him her leftovers a couple times a month. I was 13 when I went out to visit her and I ordered a massive salad at some restaurant and couldn’t even eat half of it, so she made me pack it up and hand deliver it to the homeless man… he was soo thankful. (However, I have learned that they aren’t all thankful if you give them food, most of them just want money. I gave one a granola bar and he threw it away, right in front of me… grr… I soo would have eaten it, but thought I’d be nice and give it up.)
Growing up in Socorro I didn’t really see too many homeless. An occasional one here or there, but I would probably see one every 2 or 3 months. Then I moved to Albuquerque, which I swear, has one on every other corner. I would probably pass at least 5 on my way to work and school EVERY day. Insane, right? So out of curiosity I started reading the signs that they would write on their cardboard boxes. (Come on I know you do too!!) Some of them were pretty creative, while some needed some work. My favorite happened to be one that said “I’m not going to lie; I just want money for beer!” And he got his money alright! I didn’t give him any, but he made me crack up laughing and he was smiling pretty big as well.
So my sophomore year in college I started wondering… Where do the Homeless get their sign material? The boxes are pretty reasonable… I mean you can steal boxes behind any big store. But what about those dang sharpies they use?! You can’t just find one under a rock, right? Or at least I’ve never just stumbled upon a sharpie. I was baffled, do they really use their money to good use and take it to the store and buy a pack of sharpies instead of beer? Do they hand out sharpies at homeless shelters? Do they have homeless fights under bridges for the best sharpies? I just did not understand… nor do I still.
I asked several people and finally my boss at the time told me, Jackie they just steal them from stores. He said that for the store owners it isn’t a big deal and they just let it go because after all it was just a marker. I’m not sure if he knew what he was talking about or if he just wanted to shut me up, but it worked and I was satisfied with that answer.
I interned with the Department of Public Safety , NM State Police for a couple months and across the street from their office was a very popular homeless corner. The officer that I was working with told me that he believes that the majority of the homeless on Alb.’s streets are not homeless at all. He told me that he has personally seen people drop the “homeless” off in the morning and then pick them up at the end of the day so these people can collect tax free money. While that may solve some of my sharpie quandaries, I know that there are just as many people that do actually live on the street unwillingly.
I also was a psychology minor in college and one of the things I remember learning was that that approximately one-third of all adult homeless people have some form of mental illness and/or disability. These individuals were previously institutionalized in state mental hospitals, but because of a deinstitutionalization between 1957 and 1988, they ended up on the streets. According to Wikipedia, there were 50,000 mentally ill homeless people in California alone during that time.
So I do understand this is a serious issue in the world, and I don’t mean to poke fun at it in ANY way, but for some reason I am just a little intrigued. I have given many homeless people money and food and I have also gone and served food for the homeless on special occasions. Although I know many people may disagree with me about handing them money or even food because people they think they should find a job and work hard for their money like the rest of us… I just can’t help but think that the one that I helped that day will never be able to get a job because of some sort of mental illness.
So to end my random blog about homeless…
I was talking to Ryan the other day and I told him that if I was a millionaire I would buy a bunch of white boards w/ pretty markers for all the homeless people that way they could make creative signs… he got mad at me and said wouldn’t you want to help them in a better way. I would probably do that too… but don’t you think they would appreciate white boards… just a little?
Friday, May 23, 2008
Home Sweet... soon
WE CLOSED TODAY! YAY!!! It is soo crazy! I guess today made it a little bit more REAL. We signed all the millions of paperwork that we needed to, paid our dues, transferred our utilities and then went to go look at the house with the sellers one last time before we move in.
By the way, I LOVE the sellers. The are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They are from Mexico and the husband has this awesome job, but gets transferred a lot. The wife was an interior decorator in Mexico, but now is a stay at home mom with her two kids, (who redoes her house, colors, curtains, carpet, furniture to stay busy.) They are both so warm and have awesome personalities. I never thought I would love the sellers of my house so much! The men were looking at technical things for the house and I just chatted with the wife, Elva for like an hour! She cried and said she wished she could stay and keep her house, but blessed it for us and wished us as many good times in it as they had. Isn't that sweet!
Anyway, looking around and actually seeing where our things are going to go made it very real. And we both left our new home wishing we were moving in tomorrow! We cannot wait until June, but I know it is just around the corner! (And we still have lots of things to do, like find Jackie a job, reupholster our orange couch, and see all the Dr's I can before I run out of insurance... yuck.) But we are still very excited. Ryan's sisters came with us today and got to see the house, they left saying they wanted to live there with us... I guess that means they liked it!
That's all on the home...
And... The fire got cancelled. In order for the burn to happen we pretty much needed perfect conditions (hot and dry) and well.... it SNOWED where we were supposed to burn. So I get my life back, but what a freakin' waste of time. I guess you never know... damn meteorologists. :)
By the way, I LOVE the sellers. The are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They are from Mexico and the husband has this awesome job, but gets transferred a lot. The wife was an interior decorator in Mexico, but now is a stay at home mom with her two kids, (who redoes her house, colors, curtains, carpet, furniture to stay busy.) They are both so warm and have awesome personalities. I never thought I would love the sellers of my house so much! The men were looking at technical things for the house and I just chatted with the wife, Elva for like an hour! She cried and said she wished she could stay and keep her house, but blessed it for us and wished us as many good times in it as they had. Isn't that sweet!
Anyway, looking around and actually seeing where our things are going to go made it very real. And we both left our new home wishing we were moving in tomorrow! We cannot wait until June, but I know it is just around the corner! (And we still have lots of things to do, like find Jackie a job, reupholster our orange couch, and see all the Dr's I can before I run out of insurance... yuck.) But we are still very excited. Ryan's sisters came with us today and got to see the house, they left saying they wanted to live there with us... I guess that means they liked it!
That's all on the home...
And... The fire got cancelled. In order for the burn to happen we pretty much needed perfect conditions (hot and dry) and well.... it SNOWED where we were supposed to burn. So I get my life back, but what a freakin' waste of time. I guess you never know... damn meteorologists. :)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Randoms
I just read Abby's blog and decided I could write one tonight too... (shout out to Abby, http://abbyreed.blogspot.com/ she is a much better blogger than me and has TONS more readers.)
Prescribed Fire update: The Pelona Mt. RX fire got postponed... AGAIN, but this time only for a day or two because of high winds. Today we had about 5 times the amount of people we normally have in our office. Fire dudes, state office big wigs and so much more all waiting around for the winds to die down so we can start some FLAMES... The weather is looking good for Saturday, which means we will be burning over the weekend and I won't have a weekend, but I will get overtime AND double time on Monday. I am the Fire Information Officer Trainee for the fire. :) Which is a really cool job, but I have to deal with two VERY strong personalities that completely butt heads most of the time and I try and play mediator. Good times. I pretty much can't wait until the burn starts, finishes and I have the money in my pocket... to be quite honest.
Long Walks in the Sunset: This evening we took Bailey out for long walk in the middle of nowhere. We were also kinda rabbit hunting... but only got one rabbit. It amazes me every time we take her out in the middle of nowhere w/out a leash because she is such a damn good dog. I take her for walks several times a week and I always end up yanking' her around or getting frustrated with her not walking with me right. BUT when we go out in the boonies we let her off her leash and she is SUCH a great dog. She listens, she walks RIGHT by us and never goes too far away from us at all. I love my Bailey. :)
House Closing: We close on FRIDAY! Amazing! :D I get to take off from my fire duty and drive to Grants w/ Ryan to sign all the paperwork for our closing... We also get to go look at the house again. :) I'm soo excited. Woo Hoo! Yay!
Now I'm off to bed because I had an extremely busy day at work and then a long hike w/ my doggy and honey. :)
Look at that adorable face. :)Monday, May 19, 2008
Lack of blogging due to fire
The Bureau of Land Management is performing a prescribed burn this week. Therefore my life will be taken over by flames, phone calls and supposedly reporters for 7- 10 days.
Why am I writing this?
WEll I don't think that I will be doing much blogging until it is over. I will be working weekends and even Memorial Day (double time baby!) So no, I don't intend to neglect my newfound love of blogging, but I may have too for 7-10 days.
Don't worry I will return... Blogs to look forward to : Homeless people (i'm slightly obsessed)
Moving Days
Why am I writing this?
WEll I don't think that I will be doing much blogging until it is over. I will be working weekends and even Memorial Day (double time baby!) So no, I don't intend to neglect my newfound love of blogging, but I may have too for 7-10 days.
Don't worry I will return... Blogs to look forward to : Homeless people (i'm slightly obsessed)
Moving Days
New Town
New Job
Wedding updates
And SOO much more!
Ryan's Graduation
My lovely fiance graduated this weekend and since I am brain dead and don't know what to write about here are some pictures.
Here he is getting his diploma and walking across the stage. :)
Friday, May 16, 2008
2 hours and 1 week...
So our new house closes in one week… ONE WEEK. That is soo crazy. I still don’t really realize that it is happening. I’ve been in the house twice, but only for about an hour or two all together. I know it is beautiful, but it hasn’t really sank in that it will be mine..er.. ours yet.
Since I moved out of my parent’s house I’ve lived in, the dorms, apartments, rent houses and most recently my grandma’s house. It is really going to be nice to have something that we can actually call our own. All of our own furniture, space, yard, heck even the walls!
The movers will be here on June 9 to take our stuff away and then we are gone and off to our new adventure.
One thing that I have been thinking about lately is that I will be leaving my hometown again. I grew up in Socorro, but as soon as I turned 18 and it was time for college I wanted to get as far away as possible. Funny thing is that as soon as I graduated, I returned. I really do love this town. It sucks going to the grocery store and meeting 20 people you know, but that is the price you pay for a small town. I’ve decided after leaving it that it really is a fabulous place. The people are awesome, the mountains or so familiar and wonderful and of course our family is here too. I will really miss it and the convenience of seeing my parents every week, but I really am excited to move too. Grants is really similar to Socorro, with its small town vibe and beautiful scenery… heck I think it may even have prettier scenery than Socorro, so I am anticipating the transition to be smooth. Plus, it is only 2 hours from Socorro and 1 from Albuquerque, so it isn’t like I will be moving across the country. (or at least that is what I’ve been telling my mom, lol) I anticipate lots of visits to Socorro, but I think I'm ready to grow up and move on. Socorro will always be there.
2 hours and 1 week away. Our new town, new house and new adventure await us.
Since I moved out of my parent’s house I’ve lived in, the dorms, apartments, rent houses and most recently my grandma’s house. It is really going to be nice to have something that we can actually call our own. All of our own furniture, space, yard, heck even the walls!
The movers will be here on June 9 to take our stuff away and then we are gone and off to our new adventure.
One thing that I have been thinking about lately is that I will be leaving my hometown again. I grew up in Socorro, but as soon as I turned 18 and it was time for college I wanted to get as far away as possible. Funny thing is that as soon as I graduated, I returned. I really do love this town. It sucks going to the grocery store and meeting 20 people you know, but that is the price you pay for a small town. I’ve decided after leaving it that it really is a fabulous place. The people are awesome, the mountains or so familiar and wonderful and of course our family is here too. I will really miss it and the convenience of seeing my parents every week, but I really am excited to move too. Grants is really similar to Socorro, with its small town vibe and beautiful scenery… heck I think it may even have prettier scenery than Socorro, so I am anticipating the transition to be smooth. Plus, it is only 2 hours from Socorro and 1 from Albuquerque, so it isn’t like I will be moving across the country. (or at least that is what I’ve been telling my mom, lol) I anticipate lots of visits to Socorro, but I think I'm ready to grow up and move on. Socorro will always be there.
2 hours and 1 week away. Our new town, new house and new adventure await us.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A Painted House (not the book, abby. lol)
So as some of you know I am moving to a new house in a couple of weeks. It is a marvelous house and I am super excited to move in. Before moving in there are some things that we want to do, the biggest being painting the place. Lucky for me, my dad is a painting contractor so he is going to take his crew to Grants to get it painted before we move in. The only thing I have to worry about is picking out the color…..
I watch TLC and their entire house shows pretty religiously and it seems like the popular thing is to paint rooms different colors and have an accent walls, deep colored walls, different rooms with different colored walls, etc. It seems like no house is really plain white anymore. I tried looking at different colors to see what would look good, but it is really hard to pick what would look good when you’ve only been in the house twice. My dad of course, doesn’t want me to be very extreme in my color choices, mostly because it would be easier for him, but also because if you get a factory color instead of a special one that they have to make it is cheaper and if you have extra cans you don’t use you can bring it back or always be able to buy the color for touch ups.
So I pretty much decided that I was going to go with my dad’s choice: Rainer White. It is an off-white color that he can do the whole inside of the house with. And later on if I wanted to do some accent painting or spiffy up the office I could do that on my own.
Well I was at a lunch last week and a lady was telling me that she can’t stand people that paint their walls just one color or just white because she thinks that means they have no imagination.
What do you think??
I watch TLC and their entire house shows pretty religiously and it seems like the popular thing is to paint rooms different colors and have an accent walls, deep colored walls, different rooms with different colored walls, etc. It seems like no house is really plain white anymore. I tried looking at different colors to see what would look good, but it is really hard to pick what would look good when you’ve only been in the house twice. My dad of course, doesn’t want me to be very extreme in my color choices, mostly because it would be easier for him, but also because if you get a factory color instead of a special one that they have to make it is cheaper and if you have extra cans you don’t use you can bring it back or always be able to buy the color for touch ups.
So I pretty much decided that I was going to go with my dad’s choice: Rainer White. It is an off-white color that he can do the whole inside of the house with. And later on if I wanted to do some accent painting or spiffy up the office I could do that on my own.
Well I was at a lunch last week and a lady was telling me that she can’t stand people that paint their walls just one color or just white because she thinks that means they have no imagination.
What do you think??
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Congrats Grad!
On Saturday my lovely fiance is graduating from New Mexico Tech with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. If you have ever heard of NMT you might know that it is known to be a very hard and studious school. In fact, I am pretty sure I would have NEVER made it there! You have to get used to taken classes twice and barely scraping by with a C or a D and being happy to pass and move on to the next challenge (like from Calc I to Calc II or Differential Equations... yuck). But Ryan did it. 5 years from when we started our journey into college he is now graduating. :)
He fought hard, studying for many sleepless nights to get his diploma and it is already paying off because he landed a killer job. So I wanted to commend him, I know there were times where he thought about quiting or transferring and he stuck with it. At times he talked about it being the worst confidence buster ever, but he pushed forward. So Congratulations Babe! You deserve it more than anyone I know! You worked your butt off and I am very proud of you! :D ... and now I can be a gold digger.... just kidding... kind of. :)
He fought hard, studying for many sleepless nights to get his diploma and it is already paying off because he landed a killer job. So I wanted to commend him, I know there were times where he thought about quiting or transferring and he stuck with it. At times he talked about it being the worst confidence buster ever, but he pushed forward. So Congratulations Babe! You deserve it more than anyone I know! You worked your butt off and I am very proud of you! :D ... and now I can be a gold digger.... just kidding... kind of. :)
It is a Bloggy Blog World
So my friend Abby Reed is a blogger and I have been reading her blog posts religiously since she started blogging. I found myself thinking about different things that I would like to write about and decided I would jump into the blog world too. I will at least do it until they block me from it at work... which should only be a matter of time, depending upon how much time I spend at the site. Darn Government wanting us to be productive at work! Just so you know, I am getting married, moving and finding a new job all at once so this blog has the potential to be pretty interesting... I would hope. We will see.
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