I Haven't Blogged in FOREV

Whew. Well I was all excited about blogging every day and sh*t and then I totally fell off the bandwagon. Part of the problem is this promotion I got at work. It's great cause I get paid more and stuff and have a ton of responsibility, which is a bonus since my old job really only required a warm butt in a desk chair and someone with half a brain able to push computer keys down. Ok, that's a huge simplification of what I used to do.....it was actually more difficult than that....it's just that after four years I had sort of reached the learning capacity for my job. Sure there's always plenty to learn about lymphoma itself, but since new things weren't really making their way into the database, I had leveled off. This job is so much more multifaceted - not only am I responsible for integrating new things into our database, but I have to keep up with doctor's papers and concepts and abstracts, help them with stats (ack!), make research presentations, etc. So yes, more stuff, but it's good stuff, learning stuff, and it keeps me uber busy.

What else is new? Not much admittedly. I went to the "make your own wedding invites" class, and it was awesome. I was totally inspired and I think I've actually modified my color scheme to go with the options for make your own invites. Ok, specifically I found the most amazing silk-screened Japanese paper that would be ideal on invitations, and that esentially wiped out the possibility of using a heavy influence of fall colors to shifting towards theme colors of navy and champagne with fall accents. Now I get how moronic that sounds "theme colors" and sh*t, cause I am NOT one of THOSE girls. I didn't even get that people "did" theme colors and I think it's kind of obnoxious when someone picks "Pink and Brown" (not that there's anything wrong with the colors themselves) and you show up to their reception and everything is pink and brown. blaaaah. Of course that being said there will definitely be a navy/champagne influence lol. Well the bridesmaids will be in navy....and the centerpieces will be white pumpkins....aaaand....maybe there will be some other navy stuff.....and maybe some more champagne/off white......lol.....ok maybe I haven't actually planned it all the way through, but I'll be going with those colors for the invites and letting the other stuff fall into place.

So with regard to weddings, I have this friend who is lovely and amazing and wacky and married. So naturally, she asks a lot about the wedding, which is fine, I like talking about it (to a point, I don't want people to glaze over!! oh. though my family is not spared from glaze-inducing conversation, mwahahahahha). The thing is is that she has something to say about EVERYTHING I tell her. To the point where I want to stop telling her things. She hasn't seen my dress because I fear what she has to say. My other friends are like "oooh pretty" but I know with her it will be an exhausting conversation with words that are carefully picked out so that if she doesn't like it, I'll think she will, etc etc (though she forgets sometimes that I know her tricks!!! ha!) But some days I've been really frustrated and almost upset at our email exchange because it's judgey and seemingly setting me up for failure...or sometimes simply condescending. I don't want to dwell on it too much, but it's getting to me. I've told Jamaal some of the things and he laughs it off and says "well she's crazy" but he's really not on the receiving end! I think the thing of it is, if it were coming from an unmarried friend, I'd almost prefer it because with her I'm thinking "she's had her moment, it was beautiful and memorable. The food and drinks and DJ were great and the bride look fantastic" so why is she picking on me? Maybe that's the whole problem....she's had her day in the sun....she wants it back! I just need to learn to keep my mouth shut because if I have to hear about how lucky I am for having SUCH A LONG engagement, or how I need to include Jamaal in the registry process because he might need the black and white Welcome mat as opposed to the brown one, or how I'm so lucky that I won't have to cut a guest list resulting in tragically hurt feelings and broken friendships, I may poke myself in the eye!

In other news, I changed my Ravelry profile pic to this today:
I hope it doesn't portray the wrong message, ie "I'm as vain as a peacock"!!! I took it the weekend before last at the parrot shelter and am kinda in love with the colors. Speaking of birds, I'm going to go get Lily out...he is SCREECHING! Ah quiet.

Hmmm for taking a break this post is not that interesting.

What else is new? Oh. I decided to start officially training for the Portland (Maine) half marathon in October. I figure that six months is a decent enough training window to get in shape, considering that I am NOT in any sort of shape to be running 13.1 miles. Yesterday's workout was stretch and strengthen (aka do 25 minutes of pilates, say you'll finish after dinner, fail to finish after dinner, do hip stretches for injured hip). Today was 3 miles and I decided that if I did it in 45 minutes or less I'd be happy, because even though 45 minutes is pretty slow, it would prove that I could run for 45 minutes, could run 3 miles, and on top of it all, would get a pretty decent workout in. I did it in 38 minutes! I was ready to do a victory dance...except I was too tired. The thing that sucks about this week and training in general with a busy schedule is that tomorrow I'm leaving the house at 5:30am and won't be home til probably midnight and Thursday I'm out til 9 at least. boo hiss. I guess I just have to stick with it best I can and start modifying my schedule to fit in running. The nice thing is that if I wear sneakers to work I can probably fit in a 2 mile walk, so that's cool. Hmmm I could probably even do that before work if I get off the train in the right place......sweet, 1 problem solved, now I just have to get the 3 mile run in on Thursday :)

What else? Nothing, I've bored you all enough. I leave you with a video I just made. Ignore the fact that I look like I have a mustache, it's dark as hell and I tilt my head oddly to avoid having a double chin, lol, and admire the cuteness of my bird and his demanding neediness as I typed this post:

(no video right now b/c firefox/google/blogger hate me :( will try again later!)