I haven't died...

well...perhaps a little on the inside.

Its been a really long time since I've posted here. I'm like still alive and stuff, but most of you that read this know that. This week I've lost 4 days of school to our 5 inch snow that happened between Monday and Tuesday. During this time I've paid some bills, played several games of Age of Empires with the husband, gone grocery shopping, and got a hair cut.

I'm still trying to work on reviewing for the GRE so I can get on with getting into school. I suck at math so its taking me a bit longer, but I won't suck at math when I'm done. Otherwise, life is going swimmingly.

Well..almost through band camp...school is starting very soon.

The summer has been so incredible that it's really hard to go back to work. I think its hard to go back mostly because Wes and I don't get to see each other much during school. :(

I'm a little sad because we hadn't even been married for 2 weeks when I lost one of the diamonds out of my wedding band. They are really little, so it shouldn't be too much to repair it, but I don't want to have to leave it at the jeweler. I think I could cope with leaving my engagement ring at the jeweler better than my wedding band.

I'm also having having difficulty dealing with our honeymoon being over. I mean...its been over for a while, but I didn't realize how much I enjoyed it until this past week. It was so nice to stay in the Outer Banks some where it wasn't over populated. I would definitely go back to the same condos again in the future. I think what made it so enjoyable was staying somewhere pretty nice after living in our really not so hot rental here in VA for so long. I really miss our house in MD...but after visiting there, I remember why I wouldn't want to live exactly where we lived again.

On a happier note, mom gave me a humming bird feeder for my birthday. I love humming birds...and its pretty funny to watch them all attacking each other to get to the feeder. Although they can consume sugar-water at an annoyingly high rate.

Yay for tomorrow being Friday!

After months of planning, Wes and I are finally married.

Everything was absolutely perfect. I wouldn't trade any of it. We were a bit worried early in the morning because it was raining, but it stopped and by the time the ceremony was starting the sun came out. Everything went incredibly well, and the only minor hitch we had was that the unity candle didn't want to light during the ceremony because there was too much of a breeze.

The reception was also amazing. The food was great and the DJ was awesome. We were glad because we didn't have any recommendations. There was a really good vibe and everyone seemed to have a great time. I can't wait to get the cameras from the tables developed. Most of them were used completely so we probably have quite a few very interesting pictures.

However, none of this would have happened this well if it wasn't for our completely awesome friends. Everyone who was involved made sure everything was taken care of and made it so that Wes and I could really enjoy our day instead of trying to take care of everything. Christine's Mark was awesome. He took on the task of doing a huge amount of stuff for the reception, including decorating, and everything turned out great!

Mark C. did a fabulous job with the photography. We have tons of great photos and best of all he had them all printed out and we got to pick them up the day after the wedding.

I feel so fortunate that everything worked out so well.

Although, it seemed to be a bad wedding for cars. Christine's car died making her miss the rehearsal, Dave's car had issues but could be fixed so he could make it back to Radford, and Chrissy got into an accident. :( But, at least everyone is safe.

Off to Cape Hatteras for our honeymoon tomorrow!

I'm so glad I have tomorrow off...5 more days of school and then a band trip and it's all over!

Every day we get a few more RSVP's in the mail. I swear many people are trying to wait until the last possible minute to send them back. Some people I'm sure we'll be luck to see them back and I'll end up hunting the people down. So far, many more people from my side of the list are coming. Some of that has to do with proximity...and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that most people who live out of town have family or friends in the area to visit while they are in OH/PA. There have been quite a few pleasant surprises when it comes to the people who are actually attending. My mom has been relatively pessimistic when it comes to some people's attendance while Weston's mother seems to have been overly optimistic. Either way I look forward to seeing everyone there(especially Chrissy because its been forever!).

I'm also waiting to see how Weston's extended family cope with Youngstown. They harbor some less than tolerant beliefs about people of a certain minority group. I'm really hoping their stay in Y-town passes without incident.

I've always liked my extended family a lot. All in all they are a great bunch of people. Every family has problems and from what I've seen the problems in mine are fairly small. After meeting several other people's families, I'm fairly convinced that my family is just pretty darn awesome. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying I think everyone else's families are messed up, I just have a greater appreciation after seeing others in action.

I think Wes and I have gotten pretty comfortable with the whole marriage thing. I was getting cold feet for a while, but I'm pretty sure I'm over that. I think if we can talk for a good half hour about what color hair and eyes our children will have without either of us feeling freaked out, its a pretty good sign. By the way...Wes has never been freaked out talking about children...he's always been in love with the idea of having kids. I however, haven't been. He's been talking about kids since we first met. That's just so weird...

I want someone to tell me how a person can be a racist Christian. Many people over history have claimed that they are Christian, and yet the are openly racist. How? Or is "thou shalt hate blacks/asians/etc..." in part of the Bible I haven't read? Although, I guess it doesn't matter because the part of the Bible I have read says that I shouldn't judge people, and that God will judge them...which mean that he'll sort out the hypocrisy...either that or karma will catch up to them!

Well...it's been a while.

I'm getting married real soon... like really soon...as in two months soon. Can I file for an extension of single life and then come back in a year to the same situation? I don't want to "play the field" but I don't want to be committed...quite yet at least.

I bought a new reed knife. This was really exciting because I haven't bought anything oboe related for quite a while. I bought a bevel edge knife to replace my current double hollow ground one that has really sucky metal for the blade so it almost never even manages to get sharp let a lone stay that way for more than 3 seconds. These different types of knives feel different to me and I really liked Kerry's that I used when I had lessons with him. So, I got my knew knife in and of course it isn't sharp because it's straight from the factory. Obviously, I sharpen it because I want to use it. Now...for my whole oboe career, I've sharpened my knife 10 degrees toward me and 45 degrees away. So this is exactly how I sharpen my new one. This is the only way I've ever sharpened a knife. Now, after about a half hour of sharpening, it still hasn't occurred to me that I've never had a beveled edge knife before. Finally, I give up and start scraping with it. It works pretty good and I'm much more consistent with it which is awesome because now I get more playable reeds and destroy less cane. While scraping reeds I notice that some spots are sharper than others. So this morning before school I search the net quickly to see if I can figure out why this has happened. Anyway, finally I came across knife sharpening directions. Evidently, you are suppose to sharpen beveled edge knives much differently than the double hollow ground ones. I spend a half hour sharpening my knife the wrong way! Its probably going to take me an hour to get it back to what it was supposed to be! Grrr...I should have double checked directions since it was a different style of knife.

Sorry for that really long story no one probably cared about. That's the current excitement in my life.

Oh...except I get to play Mozart's Coronation Mass (K. 317 I think) at UVA-Wise on Monday! and get paid for it! Only I'm playing Oboe II, which makes me wonder who's playing Oboe I since I'm like the only real oboist in the county. It's probably someone from down in the Tri-cities area. I don't care too much, I just hope they don't suck. It really annoys me when the first chair sucks worse than I do. Quite honestly, I'm getting really used to being the only one in my section I've done a lot of playing where that is the case. In the community band I'm playing in there is a flutist that now plays oboe, but in orchestra and when I played up in MD I was usually the only one.

Thinking of orchestra...I actually found a community orchestra down here in redneck central! And boy were they glad to see me! They aren't too bad for a community group. Some sections are sketchy but otherwise its alright. Although...I never realized how much I took good clarinetist for granted. Its usually pretty easy to find passable clarinetist no matter where you are since so many people play it. I won't say anything more because I don't want to hurt to many feelings...

I'm going to go back to school for my masters degree in the next couple of years. My job gets to me a lot so I'm using that as an escape when I'm financially ready to go back. That and I've forgotten mostly everything from theory and history. I'm much better at the oboe now, but I still have to pass proficiency exams in those subjects. So my new hobby is reviewing music theory! That and studying for the GRE because I'm pretty sure it's going to kick my ass since I haven't had math since my freshman year. I need to start communicating with someone of the colleges I've decided on to make sure they really are what they appear and make sure I have any chance of actually getting in.

Anyway...I guess I'll save the rest of the excitement for later!

It's been a really long time since I posted. I'm not dead...yet...

At school the band boosters and I have started working on finalizing the details of a beach trip as a "reward" for the students being in marching band this past fall. I guess I can't really comment on this in an open post...

So much stuff to do before the wedding...I want to be married. I think 20-30 guest is a small wedding and everyone else thinks that our guest list 60-70 probable attendees is a small wedding. One of my biggest peeves so far are the invitations to people that we have never met and aren't family. Of course these people won't come, but the whole idea of bothering someone we don't know with an extra piece of mail that they don't want and spending $20+ that could be better spent all because someone thinks it would be a good idea (for social reasons of course) to send out these extra invitations is quite frankly a bit absurd. I hope when it's all over with everyone enjoys our wedding. Hopefully I will too although I don't like being with lots of people and I don't like being the center of attention so we'll see.

My wedding band is in, but Weston's had to be sent back out. Our wedding bands have diamonds channel set into the band, and when the jeweler sized Weston's band they must of knocked one of the stones loose because when we went to pick it up a diamond was missing. So much for quality control.

Today I spend a lot of time cleaning our tub and re-caulking it. Right now we live in a rental. When we first moved in, in order to get in quickly we told the owners we'd take care of cleaning. Well, the caulking around the tub has looked like it was growing a new life form from day one. Originally, I just thought it was dirt, but of course it didn't come clean when I scrubbed. It was getting to the point where I didn't want to even shower because of how nasty it was and then after 3 days in Christine's apartment over break and actually enjoying bathing again I decided it was time to do something about it. So as we speak the caulk is drying in our tub which no longer will be able to prove the theory of evolution. The downside is we can't bathe again till Monday morning.... I promise we'll stay home. ;)

Weston and I have pretty much decided we need out of here. Everything here, except Weston's job, is quite frustrating. There really isn't anything to do. The most exciting things that happened this week for me were having a band booster meeting and caulking my bath tub. That's about one step up from watching paint dry. Weston and I aren't really the most exciting people to begin with, but we'd like our retail options to be greater than a Wal-mart that is 30 minutes away. Maybe we could move somewhere with a Target...
don't want to dream too big.
There is a Magicmart not too far from Wal-mart. Maybe we should try that sometime we're bored on a Saturday...or not.

The saddest thing is that around here you learn when not to go grocery shopping. If you go to early in the day or too close to the end or the beginning of the month you end up shopping with people you can't even stand to wait in line beside because of how bad they smell or make you want to run home and take a shower because they look so unkept that you're pretty sure you had to have caught something from them standing so close. These aren't most of the citizens where I live but there sure seems to be many more of these people here. I get that not everyone is going to look and smell good all of the time. I respect that sometimes workers are going to stop in to a store on the way from mining or working construction and they aren't going look great, but if you don't have a good reason to be dirty or smelly or to not bother combing your hair, maybe you just need to buckle down and take a bath every once in a while, at least before you go out in public.

Anyway, this summer I'm going to take the GRE so that I can retake it if I need to and then start looking into grad schools. I'm looking forward to being back in college. The real world sucks.

Off to bed for the night...more later maybe.

My fiance is excited about getting married to me...

so much so that randomly at dinner he tells me how he can't wait to get his wedding ring and actually be able to wear it...

that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I just thought everyone should know that I have a really cool bruise on my big toe that looks exactly like the edge of the suitcase which fell on it.

I also wanted everyone to know that according to one of my music depreciation students a chinchilla is a definite pitched percussion instrument. I told him that if he chose to hit a chinchilla several times that I doubted he'd get the same pitch out of the chinchilla each time.

thus...chinchillas are indefinite pitched percussion instruments.

Don't tell PETA.

I called Mill Creek Park today and reserved the Kidston Pavilion in Fellows Riverside Gardens for our wedding on June 28, 2008!

We decided on our rings a few days ago and now we just need to purchase them, and my dress came in a couple of weeks ago.

We are inching closer, but we still have loads to do before June.