Summer is proving to not be nearly the break I've needed

Jess on July 19, 2008

I’ve had somewhat of a crazy few weeks.  Kyle and I are in the midst of getting too many things sorted out and I basically just feel like I need a break.  First, we now have a couch and a tv which I don’t think I mentioned before.  It makes me super-excited to get moved down to Lubbock, probably even more so, because now I have an idea of how our apartment will look when we get there.  But mostly I’m dreading getting moved down to Lubbock because so far coordinating what kind of trailor we’re pulling and how we’re affording pulling it is sending me into fits of madness that make me doubt my ability to ever become a grown up.  Basically, my parents have had a crappy year.  After an unexpected hip surgery at the end of last year, my parents have had all the follow ups for that fall under their deductible, plus this wedding, and now all the draintiles around our house need to be replaced so our basement quits flooding.  That makes for an expensive time.  And that’s all really stressful for them.  Plus, Kyle and I are trying to orchestrate a move across two state lines (three or four for him, really) and by the time we get that done we’ll have to coast for a few weeks without really having a pay check.  Ugh.  I think everything is worked out now and we’re going to figure out how to come up with the rest of the money for the trailer if we can’t get any more help from my parents on it.  But while that situation was still up in the air, I’ve felt basically ignored by his parents and my parents alike.  I feel like people aren’t really treating me like an adult and I haven’t always felt like Kyle is on my side about it.  But I am hoping that that is all worked out now.

Today, my brother ruptured his eardrum by jumping into the pool while he was working.  I’m hoping it will all be covered by worker’s comp (and it should be) but it was still quite the stress when I was woken up this morning by my mom in a tyrade trying to get ready to take him to the hospital while he drove himself home.  Ultimately, I woke up and put on jeans and took him to the hospital, where I promptly ran into a girl I knew from class while covered in cat fur in my previous-nights shirt without a bra on.  ugh.  So we got that all taken care of and Devon calmed down on the car ride there while I explained that I knew someone who had just ruptured their ear drum and devon seemed to have all of those symptoms.  Turns out I was right, and now the poor kid is laid out on painkillers waiting for his ear to stop aching.

I’m also in the midst of helping square away the details of my bachelorette party (which I think is basically done) and figuring out if I am going to get to have a bridal shower.  Basically, the manager at T-Mobile is a pain and won’t let Tonya off work that day so we’d have to have it at like 10 a.m. which is not ideal and probably makes it not worth having.  I might look in to just inviting more people to the bachelorette party dinner and then going off to party by ourselves.  Sounds like the best solution to that problem right now, but either way, I’m just sort of mopey about all of those plans.

On the bright side, I think I figured out where we’re going to get our flowers and it sounds like we’ll get a stellar deal on that.  I also have an official inspiration photo for our flowers (thanks to indiebride.com).  Kyle and I also figured out who our soloist is going to be (Mallory’s dad) and we’re clicking away at getting the programs complete and the invitations just need to be return addressed and then they are ready to go.  Thank goodness.

P.S. I cannot believe I am at the stage of wedding planning where I send out invitations.  Gracious.

We all need a little more room to live.

Jess on July 7, 2008

I’ve spent this weekend in Blue Springs with Kyle.  Mostly, we needed to get stuff done for the wedding.  IE, we had to finish printing our invitations which we are very close to being done with.  All we have to do is print the response cards and then we are done, done, done.  We had to delay it because I needed to buy more gold paint from paper-source to get going on that.  As long as I was ordering something over the internet, I figured I should probably order some extra bulbs and extra screens, so now i’m good to go for any future gocco projects.  hooray!  i’d really like to maybe try some screen printing projects that involve more complex design.  i really like some of the digital art i’ve created over the years and i bet i could create screen prints of that without too much difficulty.  i’ve always worked with layers, and that’s basically what gocco printing is.  just layers, and layers, and layers.  i should try it out soon.

i’d also like to start taking photographs.  i’ve been lusting after some cameras that are somewhere between what I have now and an actual digital slr.  the thing is, i know that i wouldn’t take classes or at least, i know that i would not want to put the effort into having an actual slr until i have a good feeling about a regular camera that’s just nice.  i don’t want to think that i could see things a certain way and take photos a certain way and then get a camera and find out that i’m not that good at it.  so i think it’s probably worth just an investment in a really good “slr-like” camera, that’s the newegg classification.

other than that, i’ve just been enjoying the weekend.  the fourth was good.  we had a bunch of people over and partied.  mostly, kyle stayed sober and i partied.  and duker was going to fight a cow but then got inebriated and did not fight the cow, which is too bad.  because i wanted to see him verbally berate a cow.  instead, he yelled about buck o’neill on the back deck for a while.  hopefully, the neighbors aren’t too upset.  luckily, this is the suburbs and everyone goes to sleep early even on the fourth.  even us.

saturday, we slept in a bit and then printed the rest of the invitations and then kyle cleaned the house and we went out with shaw and phil and rachel to the power and light district.  it was nice and there were bright lights which were pretty. and i guess i get that it should be a hot-spot of kansas city.  especially if you’re from out of town.  but i’m telling you, it’s like a power suck, draining all of the idiots out of the places in kansas city where i would really want to go.  so that’s cool.  and the brewery and restaurants and whatever are fine.  but if i’m going to spend that kind of money on a night out, i’m going to dave and busters.  skee ball + trivia + alcohol.  delicious.

i think the best thing about this weekend is that it really calmed a lot of my recent fears about us living together, i know it will be fine. but i think i felt a little bit better about the idea last summer.  mostly because all of the semi-living together that we do now is in the context of being guests in our parents houses and that’s just stressful.  so this weekend we had the chance to hang out and live our lives with some space outside of the room we share when we’re here.  i’m sure it will change, hopefully, but i don’t always feel incredibly comfortable just wandering around his house, esp. as i’m only here a few days a week.  i need a lot of room to live and sometimes i feel like i’m being too antisocial or like it’s weird if i just hang out downstairs while he sleeps.  and othertimes i feel incredibly awkward being forced to socialize because he’s still downstairs.  i’m not sure i can fully explain it, but basically, i’m just very, very ready for us to have our own space.  and this weekend confirmed, for me, that the only thing i want is a place to live with him.

we watched definitely, maybe tonight.  it was pretty good.  as i said to a friend, “it wasn’t THAT predictable.” and that’s true.  i didn’t necessarily see the ending coming until twenty-five or so minutes before it got to the ending.  i also think it got me thinking.  mostly about some things that i’ll only share in a poem or to myself.  i guess i just think it’s weird that someone would marry someone who was not the great love of their life.  i mean, whatever, it’s a movie and a romantic comedy and whatever.  (spoiler alert?:) but for sure, if i thought there was anyone else who i would rather be with if they would just have me, i would not be marrying kyle. and i sort of think the movie made it seem like there was someone else he would have preferred to be with. it also got me thinking about the things that we keep so that we can keep just one piece of someone.  but that’s what the private entry or the poem will be about.  and it will be obvious that that is what it’s about, if i ever get around to writing it or thinking about it.

i’m back at the internship grind tomorrow.  woo.  excitement-time.  the thing is, i think tomorrow i’m just doing sort of odd jobs and tying up some projects i worked on earlier in my internship.  and unplanned days aren’t really my favorite part.  but it’s not like two weeks ago we could really sit down and make a long plan of what i may or may not be doing today.  and i had last week off because everyone in my office was gone.

I'm going to miss this

Jess on July 1, 2008

Kyle was in Topeka this weekend and on Sunday we had a barbecue with brandon, reanne, James, Lauren and David.  It was a lot of fun and the food was all very good.  ReAnne brought a pasta salad that was good as I have been craving Kidney beans but they are really too boring to eat or even find a basic purpose for in most of my daily eating… and then I made a German potato salad and a napa cabbage salad with ramen noodles and things in it, mom devilled some eggs and Kyle cooked turkey burgers and hamburgers plus a catfish filet for me.  It was fun getting to prepare a big meal all day which is one of my favorite things and to get to sit around with good friends and eat it.  I hope we can do another before the end of the summer because I really like getting together with people and I think my parents enjoyed it, too.

While Kyle was in town we also picked out tuxedos for the wedding.  The one he decided on is lapelless and I think will look really good on all of the groomsmen.  Plus, I think lapelless tuxedos just look neat and pretty much always  have.  I’m also very glad to have that done.

Another slow week, waiting for the arrival of July

Jess on June 27, 2008

I am in the worst mood for some unknown reason.  I even have reasons to be glad like Kyle is in town tonight and I have a clean room to go home to because I spent all afternoon working on it.  For some reason, there is not enough time in the day and there is too much time until the summer is over and I get to move into an apartment with Kyle who will then become my husband.  Maybe I’ll cheer up soon.

My mom and I are still getting along really well so I hope that keeps happening.  It’s nice.  Every evening when she gets home we sit outside and chat until it’s time for me to go to work.  It’s this sort of getting along that I’m really going to miss when I move away, but I’m sure we’ll keep in touch on the phone and things.

On the brightside, I no longer think that staying at home would bring on bouts of depression which is a big plus because I’ve mostly felt that way for my entire life.  There is a chance that three days without a whole lot of structured things to do is like my critical point where I feel like I have a lot to do without feeling like I have too much time to do it.  We will see, I suppose.

Kyle and I officially move on August 15.  We even have an apartment number already! Yay! 203B!  For some reason, I’ve gotten impossibly excited after figuring out what apartment will be ours.  Maybe it’s related to being able to finish the wedding programs, hah.  I still need to discuss it with him, but I think the plan is for his parents to go with us when we first head down and help us move in the furniture and basic things and then for my mom to accompany us, Logan and the wedding gifts when we head back on Labor Day after the wedding.  It should be a good time.  And I’m excited to get there.

Also, this past week I have been very good with money which is good because I am on a budget.  Go me.

Becoming the crane wife.

Jess on June 21, 2008

Welcome to my new blog at cranewife.org.  I finally bought a new domain last week and I’m excited to finally have it at a launched and bloggable state.  I also made this wordpress theme by myself so that’s pretty cool.  Turns out I’ve missed fiddling with code like html and css a lot.  And I’ve added rudimentary php understanding to my knowledge which is kind of swell.

So I figure I should update this before I get too distracted by my indiebride forums.  Anyway, my mom and I had been fighting earlier this week about the wedding.  Basically, she was upset that it was so soon and she feels like she isn’t getting to do all of the fun planning stuff.  I realized that I hadn’t actually be excluding her from planning like she thinks but actually just not doing too much planning… so the last couple of days we’ve had chats and trips to the store to get some wedding stuff taken care of.  Yesterday we thumbed through the Real Simple Weddings magazine… the only wedding magazine I purchased, btw, so that I could show her some of the things I had thought about and she could get some ideas of what I was picturing in the wedding.  Well, every chapter there are 12 or 15 pictures from an actual wedding that happened that uses some of the design elements the Real Simple people are talking about.  She enjoyed looking at those, and I liked combing through them again and we also came up with a great idea because of them.

Essentially, we both feel like we’re skipping something integral by not really feeding people at the wedding.  That’s all you need to know at the start of this story.  Anyway, so we were perusing through the magazine and came across a picture of a bunch of little folded brown bags which had little menu’s taped on them and were all set up for people to take at a picnic lunch that this couple did.  Mom was talking about how cute it was that they did that and i mentioned that it woudl be really cheap to do sandwiches for everyone and then people could eat if they wanted to and it wouldn’t be so big of a deal.  So we talked about how that would be a good idea and eventually decided that we should do pitas since those are the best vegetarian sandwiches stuffed with mediterranean goods.  The official sandwich menu is hummus/tomato/sprout pitas and falafel/yogurt sauce/lettuce pitas.  And then I want to do a grilled eggplant salad I found a recipe for and some saffron rice.  I’m really excited about this though because I was really regretting not having dinner at the wedding but we can’t really seat everyone so this way people can eat if they want to and not eat if they don’t want to and we don’t have to all do it at once.  Plus.  Falafel.  Oh em gosh.  Yum.  It’s also neat cos Kyle and my first non-date where we realized we probably both wanted to date each other was at the Jerusalem Cafe and we had most of the things we’ll be serving on a sampler platter there.  And some hookah.  There will probably not be hookah at the wedding though, despite how happy that would make people.

Today we went shopping for things we need for the wedding.  We got champagne flutes for the toasts.  They’re being engraved as we speak.  One will say “Jess/& Kyle/August 30, 2008” and one will say “Kyle/& Jess/August 30, 2008.”  That way whoevers name is on top can claim the glass throughout the toasts.  While I think it’s silly to spend that kind of money on what is essentially a cup, I agree that it will be nice to have a momento from our wedding… and we can always toss back a bottle of champagne in those glasses when we celebrate anniversaries for years to come.

We also bought our shoes for the wedding.  Mine are strappy sandals cos I decided that my patent eggplant peep-toe pumps cut my feet up too bad and hers are nice wedges that are actually peep-toe and patent but black.  They should look good with her dress and keep her from needing to hem it too drastically.  We bought  bubbles, and bubbles, and bubbles.  Mostly we got these clear wand bubbles with a “love knot” on top that we’ll use to tie blue ribbon on them…  And then we got some heart-shaped bubbles cos they were on sale and I kind of like to break things up.  We also got bells because I like ringing when the couple comes out of the church and we got these streamer poppers that I really like because they make an awesome photo of the bride and groom and they look cool and require no clean up.  So we have 14.  One for each member of the bridal party plus ushers plus two other people.  Yay.  I am so excited about them.  Also, unlike the photo I linked to, ours do not actually leave the package from which they are released so they have very little litter potential. And ours are all silver, not multi-color, which is also cool. Shiny equals awesome.

I also got Martha Stewart pom-poms because I fell in love with the ones I saw at OffbeatBride and I wanted to sort of decorate the reception site without too much trouble.  So the ballroom will now feature fourteen yellow, blue, and blue-ish green orbs.  I am so excited.

I think that’s basically all of the wedding updates I have.  Not that the updates are few, cos they are many.  I also officially feel like perhaps my mom and I are done fighting about the wedding because we mostly just chat excitedely about it.  Basically 70 days to go!  I can’t wait.  And I can’t wait to start doing everything with Kyle and getting ready for it.  He’s been in Vegas all week judging high school debate nationals and I get to pick him up tomorrow for us to spend some time together so I’m excited as ever about getting to see him.  Fantasticness.

This has been a very excited entry, lol.  I would also like to soon blog about my summer reading.  I’ve been doing well and I just finished Straight Up and Dirty by Stephanie Klein, so I’d like to reflect upon that just a smidge but that won’t happen as I’m supposed to be at work now and that’s not going to well because there isn’t a lot to do and I am unmotivated.

Here's your future

Jess on June 11, 2008

I got word on Monday evening that I am officially admitted to Texas Tech’s museum science program. Now I need to decide some things. Basically, I need to decide by December or sooner whether I want to do all of my correlative courses in history or art history or what. It’s sort of hard to say. I’d like to get into those courses quickly because I find that I tend to better mesh with historians than art historians. Although, I also really like the museum people that I’ve met so far in my internship. Of course, they’re contemporary art and not anthro/history/traditional art museum people. Also, it looks like Tech isn’t really teaching any graduate level courses in African history, or really any undergrad ones either though that doesn’t matter. Plus, they don’t have an actual art history masters program. This is fine, cos they have courses in art history at the graduate level and I don’t need enough of a course load to get a terminal degree in art history. They offer a masters in art education which requires plenty of art history courses so I can basically take whatever art history sections interest me as long as I only care about the west (this is basically true of all art history as art history is way behind regular history in realizing that something happened outside of the european tradition). So I’m thinking about taking intro to feminist thought course and then some contemporary art history. They have a graduate course on basically the art profession in its current state which I think would be super applicable for a career in museum law. It’s also possible for me to take courses through the law school on whatever strikes my fancy. I’m pretty sure that art and museum law is cross-listed in both programs which means that there isn’t necessarily a lot of courses that would be worth my while. Especially as law courses seem to be somewhat or completely impossible to transfer I think it would be better for me to just take mostly electives in art history or history or some other field rather than taking classes that I would essentially need to take twice.

I am pretty much elated to be in. It’s nice because it guarantees that I have something to do in the fall and I no longer have to say that I’m only like 95% sure I’m going. I also feel good that my official admissions decision came without any strings being pulled. Although kyle and i had offers from both Joe and the chair of the comm. department at TTU to pull strings for us, it turns out that will not be necessary because I can go to graduate school on my own merits.

I’m so excited to start school, now. I just want to get to Lubbock. We also got word that we’re good to go on the apartment down there and they are willing to pro-rate our rent for August so we don’t have to worry about paying full price to only live there half the month. Our current plan is to quit work by August 8 and then move there the following week. This should give us some wiggle room if we need to stick around for things like cable to get set up before we have to start class on the 25th and then fly back on the 27th to get married on the 30th. Oh blast.

Returning to the fold

Jess on June 8, 2008

So i’m back from the mountaintop that was the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy of 2008.  It was pretty awesome!  We got rained out of the ropes course which made me sad because that’s my favorite part and I had vowed to jump off of the pole this year, but the Hunger Banquet was facilitated better than I’ve ever seen it done before and the culture walk was also really great.  I really like those two activities and I think for the most part the kids were far more open to things and their emotions than they have been in years past.

In what turned out to be good news, Kyle and I got a phone call in the middle of the week that we could not get into the CEE session that we wanted which was a weekend in July but instead had to go to the one this weekend, thus we went. It was fantastic. We both got a whole lot out of it and we both think that it was worth a whole lot.  Basically, I think anyone considering marriage should consider going to an engagement encounter, through whichever faith… or they should even have them for atheists.  i learned so much about kyle and about myself and about us and what it means to be married this weekend.  i really feel like our relationship is really wonderfully different from when we started the weekend…  it’s much better, we love each other more, and we’re  more capable of open dialogue.  I’ve never felt so close to someone.  And I like that this relationship we’re putting so much effort into.  It’s things like this weekend that confirm to me that we’re different than our past loves.  And that he is exactly who I should be with.

my last bout of summer camp fever

Jess on May 31, 2008

Like any good director, Dave had us pick up our books with our RYLA schedules about a week before school got out.  Included is a lot of great descriptions of what goes on at RYLA and what he has tediously planned over the course of the last year.  Like any good counselor, tonight I opened my book and read it cover to cover.  I say this in jest partially cos I’m probably one of about 10% of counselors who did this and also because if I were really a good counselor I would have done it when I got the book.  Instead, I was impressed when i picked up the book from the office only a day or so after it was announced that they were available there.  It should be noted this only occured because I had a meeting in the office.  I opened it, noticed he got the dates wrong on the schedule, and made fun of him for that a few nights later.  Then I put the book in a sack in Kyle’s car.  When Kyle and I got back from Lubbock, he told me to take my sack with me.  I then sat it in a chair until Wednesday when i tried to shove it in my closet and found it too full to fit into one of my cubbies.  So, logically, I went through the sack to figure out if i could rearrange it to shove it into the cubby and forget about it for a long while.  I found the notebook for RYLA and though “Oh, i’ll need that in a few days.”  And I set it on my dresser.  After reading it basically cover to cover tonight, I’m so excited for RYLA.  People seem to think I’m crazy for doing something affiliated with college now that I’ve graduated, but I just can’t explain what  fun I’ve had the past few years at RYLA and how much I feel like I missed out on something by being sick all through it last year.  RYLA is simply awesome.  And I have very high expectations for it again this year.

In addition to RYLA being exciting, summer has been pretty great though so stressful trying to plan a move and a wedding and finishing up my last summer at work and all of those things.  I have been reading more, though, which was basically my goal.  I finished Xenocide last week.  I was slightly disappointed by the ending.  Maybe it was just too fiction and not enough science for my liking, or maybe I just don’t quite get the need to start a twist in the series this late in the third book.  It’s very good though.  We also listened to about half of Choke by Chuck Palahniuk on the drive to Lubbock and back.  I’d forgotten how much I liked it when I read it, and most of the subject matter, so it was a good refresher.  Now I’m working on Naked by David Sedaris.  He is fantastic.

I'm a college graduate.

Jess on May 18, 2008

Weird, eh?  I guess it’s more significant than is registering with me, and it will be weird to not be at Washburn most of the time anymore.  I only cried when Bearman hugged me coming out of the tunnel of faculty and said “Congratulations, Jess.”  That one pretty much did it for me.  Sad times.  But mostly, I’m just super glad to be done and get moving on with the rest of my life.  I’ve got some good plans and big dreams.

Also, I started my internship the other day and it is awesome.  Completely.  I love it.  I could work in museums for my whole life, judging from the first day. However, I’m somewhat concerned that at some age you outgrow being a hipster and have to work in a classical art museum instead of a contemporary one.  No fun.