Oh, Me

You know what's funny? "Being" a southerner in a midwesterner's body, ha. I'm used to weather being 10º one day and 70 the next, I like toasted ravioli and I put up with the drudgery of paying personal property taxes.

I was at work yesterday with 3 layers on burning up while it was in the 50s outside my window. I do miss the availability of toasted ravioli though, but the faces people make are funny when I ask about it. And soon enough my car will be registered here so I don't have to pay ridiculous property taxes on stuff I already paid for, whatever is the reason for that?? Honestly I'd rather have our higher consumer taxes, because then at least I choose how much I have to pay out for it.

I used to think the south was all about overly buttery and greasy foods and toothless people sitting on their front porch with a shotgun waiting for some Yank stranger to drive up in a shiny SUV for him to blow a hole in it just because. Not really, ha. I didn't used to think that, but the imagery is funny. Jonathan calls me a Yankee sometimes, hehe, when he's doing his southerner impersonation.

What I have found is that most southern peoples, in my experience, really are just lovely folks. They make you feel welcomed. Just about every stranger I have encountered will say hi or tell me some short story. Rarely do people in Missouri act that way, unless you know them. Even then they still might ignore you. Yes, the food here tends to be greasier.. where a lot of St. Louis' "home cooking" is heavy pastas and Italian foods, the south's home cooking is a lot of buttery biscuits and fried type foods, which I avoid.. except for my to-be mother-in-law's cooking. Her biscuits are delicious (I know you read this, could you please send me that recipe?), and I've watched her make home made fried chicken, and it is pretty good, as Jonathan will attest. That's pretty impressive, from someone who avoids fried food! Oh yeah, and blueberry cobbler ( ! ) (I'll also have you all know that I have not gained any weight since living here).

Aside from southern foods, I've learned a few isms that I associate with the south, only because I'd never heard them before my residency here (well some I have heard before, but I just wanted to list them) :

"Oh me" = Oh my
"As the crow flies" = the most direct route when traveling
"Shootin' the shizz" = having conversation (I think this is just a Jonathanism)
"Rooster tailing" = spinning car wheels in the dirt so it flies up in arcs at the back
"YALL COM" = (license plate on the rusty truck I was behind once)
"Ya'll" = (somehow can also mean one singular person, personally this one drives me nuts)
"Have your picture made" = (no one takes pictures, they only make them)
"Duddn't" = doesn't (yes I have heard you say this, Jonathan)
"Sweet Tea" = water (I was the only one drinking water during Christmas dinner with Jonathan's extended family)
"Sammich" = sandwich

There are more I'm sure, but now I'm thinking too hard to remember them.

Oh, Children *Sigh*

This is a non specific mention about an encounter I've had with an anonymous teenager I've been chatting with lately. And maybe also a lesson for me when I have teens some day, however I would hope to raise them to where they wouldn't force me to think the title of this entry about them and their antics.

I met a 14/15 year old girl at camp, so we started chatting. She shared some information with me that, were it happening to myself, I would freak out about, or rather freak out about telling other people about, especially people that I spoke to maybe a sentence or two one summer. Anyway, I am fine with her sharing this information with me, but I was sort of expecting her to share a problem or receive comfort about what I and others would see as a problem, however her decisions have resulted in a huuuge, life-changing event (which it is in every definition of life-changing). She seems to be in some sort of lala land that any of it is indeed life changing, scary, and requiring a bit more than just "being excited."

It's hard to share her excitement, and not want to ramble off concerns or at least skim the surface of a litany of advice I'd want to give her. She's not looking for advice, she thinks everything is fine. Apparently she has no idea what she's gotten herself into.

She seems to be doing whatever it is she's doing just for attention, and she's using Facebook as her call for it, just my perception though. She signs on to chat to me to tell me some of her tidbits. I'll respond to a somewhat shocking detail (shocking in the sense of 'what a shame') with "really? wow", and she'll "LOL!!11" and subtly act like 'ha, get a load of me!'

The teenage attention business is pretty annoying if you ask me. Be normal, will you? We will appreciate that about you more than you trying to be unreasonably outstanding, I promise. Sheesh. I'm not tolerating any of that crap from my kids. Plus a bit of common sense, reasoning and humility goes a LONG way.

I have to think the state of mind children take about life is due to the way they were brought up, whether things they emulate or things they alter by observing their parents. This indeed is what should make every parent carry a healthy worry about raising their children. I think if no challenge is perceived, then a lot of important things get over looked and not addressed.

Ugh. There's a lot more I would want to vent about this subject because I think it's so important.. I just can't tolerate children being robbed of their sunny happy childhood. Anyway, this girl is already at the height of her situation, all I can do is pray for her, and hope that the people in her life will influence her positively.

Christmas With The Meeks

Post gift-opening. My favorite gift was a super soft and cuddly light blue blanket.


Jonathan and I each got Star Wars coloring books with crayons.. see my coloring on the fridge?


An adorable fiance :)


Christmas lunch at Grandma's in Nolensville, TN. This is all the food... after everyone had finished eating. It was so good.. especially the rolls!


The guys in the living room talking about football. I was standing in the door frame that contained Jonathan's growth chart since he was very small. He was my height when he was 12. Actually so was I, but he's the one that continued to grow another foot and 3 inches ;)


Mr. Meek taking a science opportunity to show Sean how to use the telescope he got.

A very enjoyable and relaxing holiday. My favorite part was spending a late evening looking through an old photo album of Jonathan. I love the one of him around age 1 at a little piano, and the series of school photos in the hallway, but he wouldn't want me to show. He was the cutest little boy, though :) Somehow seeing those makes me love him more.

Our Christmas

We listened to Sixpence None The Richer's new Christmas album (and it is very, very good) as we baked oatmeal junior mint cookies, which turned out sort of disasterish, but still tasty.


I love fiber optic trees. See the Jonathanman cookie ornament?


This is exactly the reason I get him 1/96th scale Saturn V model rockets:
To see this face. :) It really is the only reason.

I love him.

Same New Bliss

What's weird is that the whole 'wedding bliss' thing doesn't feel any different from any other day. We're always like this :)

Planning has begun and we've already secured our locations, thankfully. We got right on top of that as soon as we came back in town from visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. It took us just about 2 weeks to come up with a guest list, plan who's doing what as far as personnel, figure out ballpark total costs and secure both event venues. Pretty good I might say, for those who don't believe planning weddings in short time periods can be done...

√ Locations
We looked at 2-3 other places for each ceremony and reception venues before choosing. Both locations will be atop the beautiful Lookout Mountain. The church we found is Lookout Mountain United Methodist, which is small, simple, old and quaint. We loved it. Plus the pastor/wedding coordinator there is very knowledgeable and helpful. The reception will be at the pavilion at Rock City, less than a mile from the church. It's so gorgeous there. You can see 7 states from the cliff lookout. I'm excited to have the party outside, I always thought it would be neat to do so, even though I was never one of those girls who planed their wedding from the age of 10 or something. I did imagine once that after being pronounced man and wife, we would swing out of the church on a rope like Indiana Jones...

√ The Dress (this paragraph is Jonathan-Safe)
Over Thanksgiving my mom and I went shopping for dress fabric. I was impressed by the selection Jackman Fabrics had.. and we found the perfect fabrics! Once we did, I had a huge feeling of relief about this project, and I knew that it was going to come together exactly how I'd imagined it to. I've also found a new pattern to use, and have completed a mock up. I'm ready to start the final thing, whenever I get the gumption to dive in...and whenever I have a good chunk of time when I know Jonathan won't pop by while I have it all laid out on the floor. Gosh I really wish I had a real sewing table, rather than a tv tray table, heh.

√ Materials
I finished the Save the Date card design, which will be mailed as soon as I can gather all of the out of towners' addresses. We're also putting together a wedsite, if you will, containing useful information for guests and family. It's not complete yet, but it'll be listed on the Save the Date card for your reference. I'm happy with how it's turning out.

There are a lot of details that come with all of this big-event planning. It's not stressful to me, though. I'm used to multitasking and managing tedious projects because it's the nature of my work field. I'm also not getting caught up in the planning and focusing too much on the event and not the marriage, duh. It does however take a lot of attention. Tasks don't accomplish themselves if you don't attend to things, another duh.

I asked Mia to be my flower girl. She's so funny, and the most adorable red-headed 6 year old ever. For the past month every time she saw me she asked, "Has Jon asked you to marry him yet!?" No, I would say. But yesterday after church I told her I had some news! Jon had asked. She had a huge grin. "And I have a question for you, Mia.. would you like to be my flower girl?" Her eyes lit up with an even bigger grin, "Yeeeaah!!!" I told her what she'll do basically, and that I picked out a really cute dress for her to wear. She's going to be great, a little actress at heart too.

And Christmas, Oh Yeah!
All the projects and tasks we've been working on makes time fly so crazy! I can't believe it's already Christmastime again. On Christmas Eve we are heading to Huntsville/Nashville/Huntsville to spend the holidays with the Meeks/Overbeys. I'm looking forward to meeting this bunch, they sound like fun. Jonathan and I are doing our Christmas on, oh yeah tomorrow! I've been torturing him with extremely vague and misleading hints about the gift I got for him. It's extremely entertaining to totally confuse him. You'll find out tomorrow! As Nathan says (because he knows what it is) "You're going to poop your pants when you see what she got you." And you will, figuratively.

Proposition.

Every 15 years the moon is just so on it's orbit so that it appears exceptionally large and bright. This happened to occur on the night of December 12, 2008.

We laid a blanket on Jonathan's frosty front lawn, with the telescope to view this astronomical event. He set up a couple alignments to view a few of the moon's features, having me peek each time. The final peek I took revealed this:



Speechless!... even though I knew Jonathan would ask me sometime soon, I'd been thinking about how I would react, but it all sort of went awry and I didn't know how to react! ha. I think I said, "Ooo, a ring!" He handed it to me and I tried to see it's detail in the moonlit darkness. The ring belonged to his maternal grandmother, given to her in 1946, which he had sized and restored just for me. I absolutely love it. Quaint and small just like I'd hoped for. Yes, I said yes! We're officially engaged!

Unbeknown to you all, planning for a wedding has already begun (since we knew we'd have a short engagement and wanted to secure the locations we wanted right away).

The day of wedding will be Saturday May 16, 2009.

"Santadu" Christmas Skate Party

Josh.. oh, Josh, nooo.


Jana.




Rachel and Tyler boogying. Oh and a slender Santa.


Chris always has a getup that makes you want to back away just a little.


So handsome on wheels.


Frame A of our super fun skate move.


Frame B of our super fun skate move (we only fell once trying it!)


Sorry most of these were blurry. It was dark and people were moving fast :)

Ah, 1998-2001.

(this is long because I'm not busy at work)....

I got one of those emails today with a list of questions about myself when I was a senior in high school. I don't usually do these forwarded surveys (although I'm always curious who is responsible for starting them) but I did this one and it was fun to recall my high school years.

I loved high school, and I loved everything I involved myself with. I have no regrets. I miss it much more than I miss my college years.. which were too much about preparing for real life, how boring! High school was too fun and carefree.

I miss being artistic in high school. There were no limitations whatsoever. English project about Shakespearean acting? Make a stop action movie! Hebrew Scriptures project on the Old Testament? Make a stop action movie! I woke up early so Mandy and I could have free reign of the photography dark room without the less passionate photographers getting in our way. My drawing skills weren't really developed beyond what I'd already accomplished. My art teacher had a lot of odd props to draw from, and we drew a lot of plant root balls (not easy). My favorite project was probably the linoleum prints we did, where you carve an image into the rubber, put ink over it and make prints onto paper. I made a few oil paintings I still have around too, one hangs over my sink. It's abstract, influenced by observations of a seashell. One of my senior projects was my prom dress.. which went on display along with my illustrations for it. I guess no one had done that before, because there was a lot of hubbub about it.

High school was the only time where I really enjoyed math, too, and I did well in it. I loved geometry.. and I still remember the quadratic formula song we sang to the jack in the box melody.. and the "illustration" for remembering x and y on a graph : X men say Yo ho, get horizontal".. wow.. that's actually pretty terrible. We thought it was funny.

I took dance all four years to avoid having to take "senior phys ed." We had a psycho dance teacher who tended to make us do moves that seemed to have us rolling on the floor as in to appear dying at the end of a couple performances. Some of the routines I did include: Footloose (wearing crazy socks/shoes), You Got A Friend In Me (terrible cowboy outfit), a Christmas one was a tap dance with suspenders, oh yeah and the rap version of We Three Kings where I wore a black sweatsuit with rainbow stripes on the sleeves and legs, ugh. Ones I wish I were in was Mr. Roboto with light up suits.. and one abstract dance where the girl wore one of those green screen body suit things, ha.

I also was a theater prop hand during my later years. I designed the t-shirt for the Wizard Of Oz, and a few props/scenery for The Music Man (which I also tried out for dancing for, and learned the Shapoopie dance haha).

I honestly didn't gain much from the computer design course I took as an elective. Old Macs suck. My photoshop skills sucked. I did make a version of the Sgt Pepper cover, replaced with my friends' heads on it though. Most things I did, I did by hand. My dad dug up that old light desk in our basement somewhere and I felt professional using it.

There were some rumors about ghosts of old nuns in the school building, which was built in like 1860 or something. We tried to keep an eye our for happenings when we had to stay late waiting for carpools. Never saw anything. Staying after school after everyone had gone was a temptation for mischief. We sneaked around to places we never went during the day... and snooped around people's unlocked lockers for change for the vending machine.

For a while Mandy and I did work study (up to so many hours counted toward tuition relief) in the science department, cleaning lab equipment. I was bummed to find the piggie in formaldehyde that we never got to dissect. Yes, I've never dissected anything worthwhile. A flower in 8th grade was all. Boring. We watched a video of a cow's eye being dissected, but didn't get to actually do anything. Biology was my other favorite and aced subject.

I had a bit harder time with chemistry... and music for that matter, ha. Jon would kill me. Actually my music class focused on the classical period and my crazy teacher would ask the most detailed questions based on sessions of listening. It was hard! I had quite a few Cs and Ds in his class. One of the few As I got, I framed as a joke. All I remember from that class is something about Handle's Water music, or some ladies' high pitched voice singing "popagano!" somethingorother. That was the time in my life where I thought I could be a musician of sorts. I was obsessed with the Beatles and their instruments looked interesting so I tried to learn guitar and a bit more of piano. I faked my way into knowing enough guitar to join the group of musicians that played for church services. I guess I had a lot of courage or something. I really didn't know much. I also made a few recordings (on tape!) of what I'd worked on a few Beatles' songs. Wonder if that still exists somewhere?

I realize how many different hobbies and abilities I've attempted and passed or failed/discontinued over the years. Pass: fine art, photography, sewing, cooking, design, dancing, writing, planning and organization. Fail: guitar, filming movies, audio/visual tech, political interest. Middle ground: piano, ice skating, gymnastics, reading.

I need to read more.

Supers

Two hours into our 7 hour drive back from St Louis to Chattanooga, we stopped in Metropolis, IL... for this! :






Too suitable.


Hehe.
It was f-f-freeezing, but an enjoyable stop.

Meeting the Behnkens

Jon pummeling astronaut Robert Behnken with his nerd questions.

Astronaut Megan McArthur (Behnken's wife) gives Jon a big smile with her spacey conversation.

I told her I wanted to design one of the future mission patches.. and that she should look out for it so she can vote for mine and my design can fly in space :)


Almost as tall as the Saturn V!

The best part was after our lengthy conversation with Megan, Jon and I walked away from our and said simultaneously, "Awesome!" like two nerds.

Alabama "Roll Tide!" Tailgating

The "tailgating" camp. I've never tailgated before but it was fun, despite the cold and windy weather.


Nathan's cold stump hand.


Keeping warm by stuffing hands into beverage holders.


Keeping warm by sharing pockets.


Keeping warm by straddling mini grills.. containing my veggie burger :)


Keeping warm by standing in the occasional sunshine.


Keeping warm by rubbing gloves on ungloved hands.


Not keeping very warm ;)


Being cold.


Having a great time!

Darth Servo

I gave him a Darth Vader trick-or-treat bucket to take some snacks to his meetings away last week, and look what my boyfriend does. I'm sure he does this just so he can laugh at himself and his ideas. That statement makes me giggle. I'm glad you have no inhibitions about your nerd tendencies :)

Falling to Work

I've been roaming around looking for houses these days, so I had my camera with me on the way to work this morning. Here's a few of my views during my drive:

It's hard to drive by this pass and not look left over the ravine with all the fall colors. (I did not try it with a camera in my hand).




This is my building. It used to be a golf resort, and people still golf on the course there. It's basically right at the bottom of Signal Mountain and my desk is right at the window of the back side of the building. The tan chunk at the top left of the photo is a cliff with some huge expensive home on top. Isn't that crazy? Yep. I like mountains. I'm glad I live here.

Halloween Floaters

Sporting the flightsuit I made.


Jonathan made me fly! It was just like being in space.. for me. Sorry I can't pick you up so you can fly too.


Making faces on the "window" we made.


Making fish faces at each other... closely ;)

Jonathan opened the door to the shuttle and Space sucked me out! Deploy tether!!

This is what the opposite side of our foam core shuttle panel looks like, we spent hours and hours on it ;)

PS my first web design work is up on kmart.com (it's the home page), check it out if you like.