Upcoming shows:
(in Toronto unless otherwise noted)
Velvet Revolver May 21 (Kool Haus) Hayden (w/ Sarah Harmer) April 27 (Winter Garden Theatre A Perfect Circle April 22 (Ricoh Coliseum)
VirgoHoroscope for 9/18/2003
Yes, you may have another cookie from the cookie jar today, dear Virgo. Enjoy it and don't feel guilty. Guilt is a useless emotion, and you should use this day to help rid yourself from all feelings of regret. Express your emotions but don't dwell on them. Let them go. Your sensitivity is extra acute, so make sure your psychic shield is up. You might find yourself picking up on the intense energy of others, so be careful. Sympathizing with others doesn't mean taking on their garbage. They need to take out the trash for themselves.
The wedding is becoming more and more real. Not only am I getting my wedding dress fitted today, but my mom told me to bring my chequebook down so I can pay for a few things. Fairy tale and reality, all at once!
The timing is good for these appointments as now I get to spend a little time with my mum on Mother's Day. Unfortunately, she works most of the afternoon on Sunday, so it won't be much time. Better some time than none, especially in such an important year when she has done so much for me. (not that she doesn't do anything when I am not getting married, but she's done most of the work on this wedding - that qualifies as a special year!)
I have just been stupid busy. Between some very busy times at work, school (just saw that I got an A+ on my Illustrator II class-yay!), trying to have a life (life? what's that?), managing life in the new (now not so new) house and planning for the wedding, I've been a touch busy. Oh, and my computer was acting up for about three months cuz someone (not me!) bumped a piece of RAM outta position, and my computer would not do much of anything before crashing repeatedly, so I used Sean's machine for necessities and not much else. Pretty pathetic all around I'd say.
The renewal is coming up for both this domain and my webhosting, and I'm just not ready to give this up yet. I suppose I really should redesign though, or at least update the pictures...I never did put up my San Francisco pics from last year's trip.
Oh, had I said I was getting married before? I know I said engaged, but now it's real. The invites went out on Tuesday, and we are getting married on June 26th. I'm not going bridezilla yet, but I'm getting really, really excited. :) things are getting finalized, thanks to my mom, Doug Sean's mom and my sister, not to mention everyone in the bridal party, and oh yeah, Sean.
My wedding reception is going to have fireworks. That is going to be so frigging cool!
Not two days after that last navel-gazing, self-absorbed entry, I found out what was wrong. My stupid roof had a huge chunk out of it, and my office and kitchen ceilings were leaking. The roof was finally fixed on Friday (almost a month later). The inside still needs to be done though, and will not be done until after Christmas. Insurance is paying for all of this though, so that is a good thing, considering we had been living here for barely three months when it happened.
Just in case 2003 wasn't enough of a life-changing year with new arrangements in home and marital status, we got a new vehicle. Okay, so it's an old vehicle (a 95 Plymouth Voyager van) but it's new to us, and 13 years newer than Sean's car (which by the way is only a year younger than my sister, to put things in perspective). I am insured on this vehicle, so I may finally start to drive in the city. I drove Sean's car less than five times in the seven years he had it. My excuse was that it was a tank and I didn't feel in control of it. Well, I've driven vans before, and I like them, so now I have no excuse. Sean is going to have to go out with me the first few times so I can get used to city driving. There are so many lanes and the 401 confuses me once I get past Oshawa. I want to be able to drive myself if I want to, so I have to get over this silly fear. Driving in Toronto can't be as scary as I think it is or no one would do it at all.
As Krusty the Clown would say: "So, have a merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, kwazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan."
Everytime I discover a new hobby, I go out and buy as many books and supplies as I can possibly afford on the subject. Right now, the new hobby is melt and pour soapmaking, and I want everything I see. I want to spend spend spend like there is no tomorrow on all these fun new toys. Sometimes I think I get comfort knowing that I have them in the house, cuz I have yet to try the new bumblebee mold that I got a week ago last Saturday. But I still want everything.
At least I can justify this hobby as being full of gift giving potential. The turnaround on soap is way faster than knitting, and I don't think that anyone is ready for scarves that I knit yet (I haven't even finished last year's scarf for me, and winter is coming!)
In other news, I finished my last course for my DTP certificate last week. Once I get my grade, I can apply for the certificate. I'm really looking forward to getting said piece of paper - it took me almost two years to finish all the courses, and I'm looking forward to the closure. That said, I plan to take three more courses next year and get the advanced certificate, but that still feels like ages away, since I don't even have the first piece of paper yet.
Despite doing all of this, it feels like it's never enough. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. It's good to keep striving for more, but it's also good to enjoy the accomplishment too. Maybe it's just cuz I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with this stuff. Hopefully that should change soon - I need to believe that.
the cats are getting along better now. Haven't heard any growling in the last few days. We had a cat peeing-in-the-closet incident, that involved me doing laundry at 6am last week, so I'm glad the cats are friendlier now. I don't think I could handle the stink of cat pee on my clothes that early in the morning again.
So the lesson of the day is: when you have a new cat, pick your clothes up off of the floor. Otherwise, someone will pee on them to show that they own the room.
For the last two days there has been an occasional cacophony of yowling, growling and hissing as bucKley gets used to his new friend Jasco. Jasco is our friend Andy's cat, and they both live with us now. The two cats currently sound like that Jingle Cats music that you hear around Christmas time, but with more growling and hissing. No swipes have been taken yet, but they tend to stick to separate floors so they don't cross each other's paths. Jasco is cuddlier than I remember him being - I think he likes having people around. (Andy is a shift worker, and lived alone so the cat was often by himself.) I'm worried that bucKley is getting jealous, and we are trying to pay equal amounts of attention to both cats. It's hard though, since bucKley has taken to spending most of his day hiding in the basement, coming up only to growl at Jasco and hiss at Andy for bringing this intruder in.
In other news, my sister is now married - the wedding was two week's ago and all went very well. I was her maid of honour, and she was not a bridezilla. Now I have no excuse to not plan Sean's and my wedding. However, an island wedding seems to be calling our names. (If you know a Toronto travel agent who can hook us up with something reasonable, let me know - thanks!)
Beyond that, everything in my life is same old, same old. Ridiculously busy at work, still taking night courses (my last course for my DTP diploma ends on Tuesday - must do homework!) and my house is still a disaster. Not as bad as when we were in the apartment, since there is more space now, but still not as clean as I'd like it to be. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
We've been in the house for almost a month now. I guess we must be fairly settled, cuz it feels much longer than that. I'm really happy here. I finally feel like there is room to move around. To actually do things rather than just sit amongst the clutter. My home, and by extension, my life doesn't feel so cluttered anymore.
It's been a wild three months. A major trip, Sean's and my engagement, deciding we want to buy house, buying said house and moving into it. It hardly feels real. I turned 25 on August 31st, and I still feel like a goofy 17 year old most of the time. Albeit a 17 year old with credit cards and the ability to buy liquor, lottery tickets and porn. But I don't feel as adult as my circumstances warrant, and I haven't yet decided if that's a good thing or not.
There is nothing like being woken up out of a dead sleep at 2AM worrying about something you did at work that day, checking your email to reassure yourself, then finding out that stuff actually *did* go wrong due to technical issues beyond your control, and now you have to try and redeem things. Hopefully the emails I sent a few minutes ago don't sound too much like I was awake at 2AM on a weekend thinking about this stuff. Wouldn't want to sound too work-obsessed or anything.
We are now one week away from moving and six days until the house closes. The packing is going slowly, and our stuff must be mutating in the night cuz I can't believe how many boxes we've already packed with so much to go. Of course, I always get pretty bent out of shape during moves, so maybe we're doing all right. We signed the mortgage papers on Thursday, so it feels a lot more real. Maybe now we can start doing some hardcore packing.
No wait, the hardcore stuff is already packed, we kept the softcore stuff out. Oh, aren't I funny at 3 AM?
Once we settle into the house, we can then start doing some serious thinking about the wedding. I was reading some unpacked wedding books yesterday, and they were sending me into worrying fits and dreams of Vegas, but we'll see what happens. Like I've been saying to everyone "I have to think about one thing at a time or my head will blow off."
Events that have occurred in the last 10 days that have shaped my life in varying degrees:
1) July 5- saw Metallica at the Skydome. Despite the cruddy sound (which I didn't notice much - I wear earplugs to most shows - you only get one set of ears you know), they put on a great show as usual. I really liked the stills they projected on the video screens of old pictures, covers from various singles and film footage. A really neat touch during the montage was the illustration of Rob Trujillo done in a similar style of the band illustrations done for the Black Album. The Skydome was disgustingly hot and crowded. Not letting beer into the stands or onto the floor made walking on the concourse very crowded.
2) July 7- Looked at our first set of houses. Was not a successful night. The last house reeked of cat pee and mothballs, was dirty to the point of being disgusting on top of crowded and cluttered. (An old lady was recently put into a nursing home, so obviously that's a difficult situation, but the house won't sell if you don't make it attractive to the buyer.) Oh, and there was a guy sleeping out front on the lawn. We walked by him twice, kids were playing loudly across the street, and it wasn't that far from the Danforth, but he never even stirred. The seller was there, and he didn't even flinch or comment at his friend on the lawn.
3) July 9- looked at more houses, somewhat better luck, found two we liked.
4) July 10- after almost deciding firmly that we wanted one of the houses from July 9th, we go look at one more place just so "we can compare our options". Sean has a good feeling about this one.
5) July 13- we sign papers to purchase said house from July 10th. Closing date is August 15th!!! At least we'll be moved in before fall and before our rent goes up again here at the apartment. Starting to feel less nervous and terrified and moving into excited and antsy.
6) July 15- went to the gym in the first time in over two months. At 7:30 AM. I rather like working out in the morning, and I could get used to that. Must try it again.
i had my first wedding anxiety dream last night. Of course, it was about my sister's wedding and not my own.
We were getting ready, and my mother decided that I needed to wear a headpiece resembling a swimcap made of fake flowers on my head. This was attached to my hair with bobby pins, which I painfully discovered when I ripped it off yelling "Why would I wear this stupid thing when I paid to get my hair done?" (My hair was done in poodle curls similar to my grade 8 graduation - maybe i should have kept the headpiece on.
my mother and sister also wanted me to come down the aisle with a huge beige blanket wrapped around me. This was to be a tribute to my dearly departed grandmother who was always warm and comforting. I protested again, not to disrespect Grandma, but because I had paid for my dress and what was the point of that if no one was going to see it?
And on top of all that, Sean wasn't showing up. I was so ugly at him, and was trying to get him on the phone to yell at him, but I couldn't reach him.
I think I was also worried of tripping while walking in the blanket, but I guess that's beside the point, isn't it?
