*Overwhelmed*

So now that the wedding is done and school is over, I should be chillaxin' right?
Argh! Of course not! I have found myself to be somewhat overwhelmed by life!
Why?
Well, earlier this year, I was able to defer invites, coffee breaks, happy hours, parties and any event that required staying late at work or even remote use of social skills for school. We all know that I was running the slight risk of not graduating and I couldn't let that happen, so every night except the rare few where I was attending something local, like bookclub, I was at home, buried in a pile of books.

Now I am FREE!!! Which is fantastic, but all the crap I put off while in school is fast catching up. We had that whole bill problem back in May, where I forgot to pay sh*t. Well I am paying now, LOL and have caught up, but I still find a mountain of credit card/bank related paperwork on my desk needing to be filed or shredded. Then there are my loans...I haven't even checked out consolidation plans, which needs to happen soon, while rates are down. Then there is the whole getting out of debt for good (no excuse for this one, my credit card debt is dwindling, yet I'm dragging my feet) and having a savings plan for house/wedding. Note house is first! I realize Jam and I may not be able to move into a house right when we get married, but if I blow all my savings on a wedding, as much fun as that one day might be, I will be sad. The end. LOL. So yeah, there's the money junk.

Of course when you think money junk, you think NEW JOB. I am so disheartened by the job market right now. My mother is all "you have a fine job now, don't be discouraged, you can hold out til something fantastic comes along." Yeah. Well. I'm trying to make it. But my job is kind of dull (I am blogging at work after all!) and I am going to have to start paying dearly for that master's degree. Do I really want to hang around here?? It's a great and rewarding place to work, just not my field (and because it's not my field, and my master's is in conservation, I cannot get the requisite master's degree raise. suckage!) I guess I need to be more uniform with my searches and set aside time each week for job searching. Also I need to be more organized with my current job DOING, it's really kind of here and there lately. Hmm.

Then there's the wedding junk. I am sooo disorganized, yet feel like I have enough time to plan ok. I don't think I can be one of those people with a wedding planner. As much as I'd love to hand off some of the tasks to a professional, I can't see myself letting go to that point (or paying one for that matter.) Luckily my sister is ready and willing to take on a lot of responsibility, but Jamaal and I are really the only ones who can set a date and pick a place, which is what we need BEFORE I can start handing off responsibility. With him wrapped up in work and school it's pretty hard to pin him down for anything, unfortunately, and when we are together we're always going to someones wedding, bday, baptism, random party, cookout, etc. I know he knows that we can't wait on all of this til he gets out of school (fall 2009) but I don't want to bug him either. Then again if we want to get married in CT we could meet in the middle for just a day. He's always got a ton of sh*t to do though. Ugh, so frustrating. Anyways, I need to start getting more organized. Maybe I will have to break down and keep a wedding binder! OH NO! I joke about having one now, but it is really just a three ring binder filled with ripped out pages from magazines, mostly of lingerie (hey, I started it in high school!!) soooo yeah, may just have to get organized. Plus with Jam in school it will be easier to make a "presentation" for him, LOL. Can't you just see my showing up at his office with a wedding power point? LOL. And after we're married when he's a fancy business consultant that I can't pin down for more than a couple hours at a time having the "do you like 'celery' or 'celadon' for the wall color dear?" power point....oh hilarious.

So there's that. Then there is just the general CRAP that has to get down. I have to get rid of so much stuff I've accumulated. I just have to. Plus our family is going to be inheriting even more stuff from Catherine. It's already started to trickle in. I feel like the best way to honor her is to make sure her belongings are used. It's one of those "it's the least we could do for her" situations. Our cousin and my father are dividing everything between the two families, and it's worked out nicely, no fighting or griping, thank goodness (because it's tacky to fight about dead people's sh*t. and I can say that without being nasty because we've totally BEEN there in that situation, fighting over possessions and it's tacky as hell!) I'm getting a corner cabinet that belonged to my father's grandmother. I'm not sure what else, though probably wouldn't turn much of anything down at this point what with getting hitched and all. The one drawback is storage though, and figuring out where to put stuff. This means we're going to have to do a purge of possessions. My goal is to get rid of 100 items. I think it might be easier than it sounds......

Finally, my last really overwhelming thing is crafts! I am so behind on gifts I owe...running about 4 months behind at this point. Now I would say f8ck it normally and let it go, BUT I have fabric for all but one of the gifts I owe people, so I have just piles of fabric waiting to be quilted, and it's to the point where I probably won't use it for another project, so I need to just make what I owe. Phew. With it being July and summer weekends booked solid to August 29th, I'm not sure when I'll catch up. Though this weekend is a 3-day weekend and I have a huge Joann's coupon...maybe this is the moment to make a serious dent in the project backup. My sister and I have tossed around the idea of opening a cross stitch shop on etsy, but obviously we can only do this if we have inventory, and the only way I'm going to help add to any inventory is to clear my backlog!! Agh!


Ok enough bitching :) All in all, the summer has been a lot of fun, even if it has been overwhelming. I think it's that way a bit because I'm trying to get back into the swing of busy life after playing the grad school card so often. I'm sure I'll handle it.

With that, I leave you with goals for the rest of the summer (fun...mostly) and pictures!

1. Go to NH for 5 days or more (something I haven't done since I was a kid)

2. Take my kayak out at least 5 times (0 down, 5 to go)



3. Play hooky from work to hang out with my sister and do something that requires pretty much no thought, effort or responsibility...(maybe go to the beach? the RI one? with sandwiches from CROSSROADS!!!?! How's that sound Ame??)

4. Catch up on crafty projects (I owe 7 at the moment)


5. Spend non-school, non-other people's events time with Jamaal. Not sure if this is doable yet.....hmmm.

6. Fly a Kite. For realz, I'm not even joking. http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2008/04/26/psst-secret-beaches-revealed?blog=183

7. ORGANIZE MY LIFE IN ALL WAYS AFOREMENTIONED!
Hmm. Right.


8. Hang out with this little lady and her hot mama.

9. Have a family girl's day where we explore a needlework shop down the cape and maybe (maybe) g0 see Mama Mia.......is that hooky from work yet again??! Maybe I will just need to put in for another week's vacation lol.

10. FINISH the COSTA RICA DVD. It's almost been a year. Oh the shame.


END OF YEAR GOALS

1. Finish 100 books.
2. Go out to Northampton so Jam can meet Anne and Michael and I can show him my old haunts..
3. Give away/sell/donate 100 things
4. Have an all-girl's party


Notice there are themes here. Playing hooky twice, two hundreds references, two fives....but there are only 14 things to do, and most of them fun. I'm so on it :D