Chet and I are very stretched financially right now. I know we’re not unique, and I count our blessings that currently we have a roof over heads, food in the refrigerator, and we just payed our bills for the month.

But both of us are jobless. See, that comes as a shock to me even typing this, though I know it in the back of my head 24/7. “Nicole, why is that a shock? This is a shitty economy. You’re both new college graduates, who have moved away from all of your connections!”

Well, dear reader, it’s a shock because I am in a Ph.D. program. And a lie that I was told when applying to programs was that “ALL DOCTORAL STUDENTS ARE FUNDED! YOU’LL HAVE A STIPEND AND YOUR CLASSES WILL BE PAID FOR!!!!” Lies.

I graduated with no student loans. Chet did the same thing. I did everything I possibly could to become an ideal candidate for a Ph.D. program. And I have no funding. We’re living on a student loan. A loan that I figured would be plenty for this semester. $10,000 — pssh! That’s more than we’ve been making in a year for the last 3! We can do this!

Well, $6,500 of it went to pay tuition.

So, that left us with 3,500. That’s not enough. It should be, maybe. That’s debatable. But, it’s seeming to not be enough.

This is not a post asking for money. Or to make anyone feel guilty for having money. Or any other possibilities. This is just a frustration.

And a note to say that Chet has a job interview for a temp. agency. It’s today at 2. Please pray he gets it.

found here

So, I just bought our plane tickets for the wedding.

We will arrive in Houston on November 19th (our 3 year anniversary!!) at 1:30pm.

Oh my goodness.

It’s only 83 days away.

The spacing here is awkward, so, head over to www.ourkindofday.blogspot.com to read all about the journey.

Promise to have wedding stuff once everything settles down (yeah, right).

Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.

El Salvador was amazing. It was beautiful. The country, the people. Probably one of the best service trips I have been on.

I realized a few things while I was away. I suppose there were realizations and rememberences.

First, I’m getting married! I’m marrying my best friend. Someone who knows me better than I know myself most days. Someone who can bring me back down to earth when I’m going crazy. And so many other somethings.

Second, I’m getting married… I’m going to become a second half, which is so cool, but a little scary sometimes, too. It means that I have to stop being selfish about somethings. Realize that there are somethings I won’t do: like join the peacecorps or travel to Africa and work in clinics. But, that’s okay.

Third, I’m getting married. I remembered that the wedding doesn’t matter. It’s just a giant celebration of us. And that’s it. It’s making a commitment in front of our nearest and dearest friends and family, and that’s all that matters. The dress, the flowers, the food, the booze, the dancing.. I don’t care. I got swept up in all of it, but I don’t care. I just want to marry him.

Fourth, I didn’t miss my wedding blogs. I really, really didn’t. They are great for ideas, but I was way too swept up in all this wedding mumbo jumbo. There’s WIC and then there is Indie WIC… and I’m tired of it. I’m remembering that my wedding is not a contest.

Finally, I am a lucky, lucky girl.

I’m going to do a post about El Salvador soon, but for now, I am going to enjoy the AC, and pack to go party in Huntsville with mi amigos.

Love!

… for 10 days.

See, I’m going to El Salvador. I know, right?! I’m going to be working in an orphanage down there for the next week and a half, and I am so excited about it. However, my friends, I will not be having internet access, so that means no wedding planning!!!!! (That was a little excited, huh?)

Anyhow, Chet and I are going to use this time to reconnect — through letter writing. We are going to (maybe) relish in this time apart to think about how much we love eachother, and want this marriage to take place, more so than any wedding.

And it’s going to be amazing.

So… see you later, alligator!

First topic of the post: Flowers.
These are still a bit up in the air. I’m not really into flowers. They make me sneeze and cost  a LOT of money. And, like everything else, we’re planning on DIYing the flowers, just because it helps cut the cost down some. Since we were going to handle it ourselves, I had considered scrounging the craft stores for pretty silk flowers that look would good in the center of the table(s). And then, like with everything, I started thinking about having to cut the wire stems and shape them and… my head began to hurt.

But, eureka!  Sometime this week, I found this post by A Backyard Wedding. I can’t remember how I found it, and I don’t really care, at all. I’m just stoked I did.

“Nicole, why on earth are you ‘stoked’ you found that post?”, you may be wondering. Because, dear friend, I get all of my inspiration from blogs. And her wedding = uh-mazing! It was a backyard shin-dig (which you might have guessed), the kind that I would love to have if we had a house, or knew someone who had a house big enough.

But! Within this little treasure of a post, she provides links to The Flower Exchange and to a video on how to create bouquets. Now, the flower exchange seems pretty awesome, and legit. Both of which are good things. She said her experience was good with them and the flowers lasted forever. Yay!!

Centerpiece inspiration:

So, I began browsing. And they have these wedding combos. For example, the one I think we may go with is this:

-100 Roses (your choice)
- 60 stems gerberas (any color choice)
- 10 stems of hydrangeas (only blue or white available)
- 5 Salal Tips
- 5 Bear grass
30 bunches per box
$253.00

We’re still trying to figure out the “bunches per box thing”. I’ve sent them an e-mail and am waiting for a reply. But! I think this is awesome.

They also sell Baby’s Breath for $10.00 for a bunch of 6 or sixty stems. For this, of course:

via: Once Wed

Next up: Catering
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. That’s about all I can say about that. Actually, it’s not.

Since we’re going through the university, we have to use the university catering. No problem. When they want to, they’re food is delicious. Absolutely delicious. We’re not talking about any kind of cafeteria-food-that-I-have-to-eat-as-a-freshman-which-makes-me-gain-45lbs*. No, this is good stuff.

If you could ever meet with them. No joke, we’ve been trying to meet with the catering director since March. She canceled our date in March because she was too busy. She said she would call in a week, and never called. So we called her in April. Set up an appointment, she was too busy, canceled. Said she would call. Never called. (See a pattern evolving?)

So, I called her yesterday and said look, “I’m graduating, we’re leaving, we can’t be back before July, and then on August 10th, we’re leaving the state and won’t be back until November… for the wedding.” Her response? Oh, well, let’s meet at 10. Great! Perfect.

Not even an hour later, she calls us back, and guess what?! She’s too busy. But, she can squeeze us in between 4:30 and 5 but closer to 5 because she has another meeting. Are you effing kidding me?

She then asks us if we’ve looked at their menu online. Online?! (Side note: they have a fantastic option to order your food online and then they verify it and whatever, it’s great, when you’re planning student organization stuff. Or minor events.) My response, which was a bit curt, was along the lines of: this is a wedding, we need to discuss what we want, alcohol service, set up, our cake service, etc. I cannot do that online, we have to talk to you, in person; is there anyone else we could meet with? She said that it had to be her because she didn’t know who would be there in November.

So then she gets all nosy and asks why we can’t be back in Huntsville before July, don’t we live here. And I explained that we do, but we’re graduating and moving, so it’s not possible. And then she said well, you’re moving back in August? NO!!!!!!!! WE’RE MOVING OUT OF STATE! Oh, well why are you having your wedding here.

I was speechless. But, I persevered. However, we’re not meeting with her until July I guess. Whatever. Chet suggested calling someone we know who is higher up and having her tell us what to do. Despite how annoyed I am with the catering director, I don’t want to get her into trouble, which that very well may. Any suggestions?

Edit: she called us back and said that we could meet Friday or Saturday. Really? She made it sound like it was so difficult for her to meet with us, and she’s such a martyr for doing it with commencement. Yeah, well lady, I’m graduating with family coming in. I can’t meet with you. Perhaps we should have done this in April, no?

Finally: Life as it it.
Y’all can skip this part. It’s just me being sentimental, a bit. No really, just go comment and don’t worry about this part.

I’m officially done with my undergraduate work…. and I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve been waiting for this moment for about 4 years, but now that it’s here, I’m nervous! I don’t know what’s coming up next or what to expect. I am going to miss my friend severely. It’s going to be so strange to have to write a new script for my life, and I don’t know how ready I am to do it. I try not to get all sentimental, but still… oi vey.

And besides that, I’m packing, and dealing with moving and everything. We’ve just about sold all that we wanted to sell, which I am so happy about. Now we have to put our lives from the past three years into carefully marked boxes so they can being their journey to my parent’s home and then Lincoln. It’s all just very, very weird. How do y’all cope with big life changes?

*Yes, it really did. Bastards.

But, that’s okay. Why? Because I am in graduating in 13 days. Uh huh.

That means that I am packing up our house (not really, though I should be), writing papers, studying for exams, reading books, and altogether trying to forget the fact that we are preparing to leave our very comfortable life in Huntsville, to move somewhere we don’t know anyone and start afresh.

In some ways, this is awesome!

In other ways, not so much. It’s a little nerve-racking. A little unsettling. A little terrifying.

But, here we are. Weddings aren’t really on my mind, because I am focused on graduating (again, 13 days!! Oh.. em.. geee!).

My only concern at this point is the above. Oh, and getting the wedding dress made! That process will begin on May 19th.

So, if I’m a bit gone for the next couple of weeks… sorry. I’m graduating!!!

But don’t worry, the wedding has been on my mind. Is that good or bad?

We have appointments at 4 different places in Austin to look at. That’s our Thursday and Friday. But it’ll be good. Reviews to come soon. Hope everyone is having a good week.

We’re going to Coldspring, which is about 45 minutes from us. It’s going to be fabulous to get away for a little while.

I hope you have a great weekend!

So, I flew in yesterday from my interview at UNL, and it was incredibly wonderful. It even snowed!! There were some mishaps in getting to the airport from home, and I probably wasn’t dressed as warmly as I should have been. But, oh, how I hope that I can get into their program. It would be absolutely amazing to be there. They have the perfect marriage between practice, assessments, research and academia. We’ll see what happens. I should know by mid-February what their decision is…

So, for now: here’s to hoping!

In other news: no matter what anyone’s belief is about Obama, or his  administration: It was so cool to see his inauguration. I was at work and watching it on CNN.com. I thought that it was pretty fantastic.

[source]

It really was.

I have also mailed out all of my support letters. And, we’re getting closer to the final budget and the goals…