The Family Holtwick

Quick Recap

2011-03-07T01:31:00.000-05:00

I don't remember exactly what I said or what was going on in my last post, but here's some quick updates:

~I finished my longterm in preschool a couple of weeks ago! Got a chance to do some neat things with the kids, and it was tough to give them back to their regular teacher, but I'll be back a few times over the next month as I have to keep working with two of the kids on a project I have for my class.
~Class: 5 classes down, 2 to go. Problem is, all the work so far has been easy peasy. The tough stuff is still to come, and I am the only one in my class without my own classroom/regular kids. Sucks to feel so far behind everyone else, when you've done everything you can to start your career.
~Matt was let go from his job about a month ago. Bad situation that he was in, so we were honestly relieved to not have him driving so far every day to be completely miserable at work. Definitely a good thing that we hadn't moved out yet, since we would be having trouble paying all of our bills with what I make between subbing and the dance studio. He's applied for everything and has gone on a few various interviews.
~Matt's car kicked it. We were both off (obviously) on President's Day and had just left the house when the car stalled. We had it taken to a local repair shop (not our favorite place to take our car, but the closest) and they called two days later and left a voicemail for Matt to call them back. So Matt got the message an hour or so later and called them. They listed off all the damage and the totals, and Matt said "Thanks but no thanks" as he'd said when the car was towed that if it was a lot, we wouldn't be fixing it. We were shocked to find that they'd started to work on the car without our authorization. The guy said "Well we couldn't get ahold of you so we just went ahead and started." Um, you can't do that. So we say that we don't want the car fixed, and the guy says "Well you're already into this about $150." Uhhh, no. But they refused to take responsibility so instead the guy says to bring him the title and he'd take the car off our hands as payment for the labor that was already done. Such total bullshit. Matt being Mr. Nicey Nice agreed to that, which totally pissed me off because I felt that they were essentially getting away with this and stealing our car from us. Bottom line, we just wanted to be done with this car. So we went and took our stuff out, including the $800 sound system, and apparently a guy who works there bought it off the guy for $450, just paying off the repairs that were done. We paid $1,000 for this thing 2 years ago. So stupid. So seriously, DO NOT take your car to John Pais if you are in or around Elyria.
~Matt and I are heading to London, Ontario next weekend for the biggest professional curling event of the season, The Brier. Matt went with a bunch of his curling buddies the last time it was close-ish (2007 I think) so the fact that it's close again and the fact that we're going make Matt a very very excited boy.
~Went to BG yesterday (errr, Saturday the 5th) to celebrate the final game ever at Anderson Arena. What started out as an emotional day became better when the guys won, which meant that we'd be hosting the first round of the MAC tournament on Tuesday night....at Anderson Arena. Lol, so we get one more. Still glad all the pomp and circumstance was done on Saturday though, since you never know what might have happened. We might've lost and then nothing would've been done. A TON of alums of the basketball program came back and since Matt was a manager of the team for 4 years, he was a part of the group that was honored at the game and a banquet immediately following the game. We got to sit in the VIP section, he went on-court during halftime, and we were sitting next to Cornelius Cash for the whole first half. The banquet was nice too, Matt got to see some old friends and we met Nate Thurmond. Truly a great day! Ended with trips to Campus Pollyeyes and the Cookie Jar. :) Diet went out the window this weekend, for sure!
~Matt's lost like 18 pounds. You can really tell in his face, chest, and how his shirts fit. He keeps this up and his shirts will drown him until he gets down to a size where he wants to buy a lot of new shirts. Proud of him. :) I know that as soon as he decides to hit it hard consistently, that weight is going to fly off and he will be so much happier and healthier. Both so incredibly important. :)
~Dance studio is great. My training partner moved to Florida so the training aspect of my job has gotten quite a bit different. We have a showcase coming up in May and we're all performing a few times in it. I have decided I really want to do samba, as it is my favorite style. I haven't worked on it much at all yet, but we have 2 1/2 months, so I'm sure we will be just fine. Ballroom probably doesn't get the credit it should, including from the rest of the dance community- I have had to break so many habits in the past 4 months. Well maybe not break bad habits, but learn new ways of doing things. I've had ballet/contemporary/jazz/tap/Broadway beaten into me for 19 years and ballroom is just entirely different. That's been my biggest challenge, but I have great dancers to work with and between the razzing, they are really very helpful and patient. ;)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-01-20T23:36:00.000-05:00

Well, the one guaranteed thing about life is the presence of change. We're still with the parentals....just decided that this would be the best fit for a while. We're sick of living out of boxes and DYING to have our own space and our own routine back, but we have to be smart about things. We have an opportunity to actually save some money for once, so we're trying to allow ourselves to do that.

The first week back to school in 2011, I had a weeklong assignment, which coincidentally was in the same room where I was 2nd choice for a full-time position back in August. I actually co-taught with the teacher who was picked over me. No hard feelings, she was WONDERFUL and I was never angry or bitter or anything. It was nice to work where I would have worked though and get to know people just in case something opens up next year.

The day after my position at that school ended, I received a call (and e-mail) offering me another long-term position, this one for anywhere between 3 and 6 weeks! It was at a different school, but at a school where I had subbed a few times and was probably my favorite of any I had worked in so far. I went in last Tuesday for my transition day, went back for Thursday's afternoon class (to make sure everything was set...this half day was not paid, but I really didn't care) and then I started on Friday! I've been there 4 full days so far and it is going SO well. I completely love this job and it's giving me an opportunity to try out some ideas I have for the grade level. The associate in the classroom and I get along really well too and work well together. I think I have 3 weeks left officially, which I am sure will go by quickly. We don't have any kiddos tomorrow, just an inservice class in the morning on the "Handwriting Without Tears" programs. Always anxious to learn new things.

I started my class and am on my way to obtaining my reading endorsement for my license. This will ultimately make me more marketable, open up new job opportunities, and these 3 classes will also count toward my masters when I am able to pursue that! :)

Dance studio is GREAT. Finally got my first paycheck this week (excellent timing, I must say) and I've had a pretty steady flow of students. We were recently featured on Groupon and Living Social, so we have lots of new students through those promotions. What stinks about those is we don't get commission for those lessons, we only get paid for the time. It's nice to have so many new faces around the studio though. Our group classes are SO much fun and are finally picking back up after the holidays. My mom came to last week's and I've invited lots of friends to our tango lesson next Friday. Very excited! :)

Matt has been at his job for almost 2 months and is unfortunately very unhappy there. Just an environment/difference of personality thing and it's just not a good fit. So we will be searching and pursuing other options in the coming weeks. Preferably MUCH closer to home. The expense of gas is completely killing us right now.

I cannot even begin to explain how much I love being married. Seriously, best choice I ever made. Matt and I hit a little bit of a rough patch around the holidays and the very beginning of this year, but we're all good now and this whole thing probably brought us even closer. :) We're so anxious to make some progress in our life together and finally be able to move forward with buying a house and having a baby and making some REAL money instead of just working to pay the bills. Stinks. And that stress kind of gets to us sometimes. But no worries. :)

New Life, New Blog

2010-12-14T10:59:00.000-05:00

Okay so it's not technically a new blog, it's the same one I've had on my account for a while. But I rediscovered this thing yesterday and would like to start making this a regular thing. Maybe I'll try that "30 Posts in 30 Days" thing I keep reading about.

Well, since my last post (a long long time ago) we have officially moved back to Cleveland! I have been subbing for a month and Matt is in his third week at his new job at Morgan Bank. I'm also in my third week at the dance studio, and will officially start taking students next week. It has been SO much fun there and has been a dream job in my experiences thus far. Everyone is so nice. As far as subbing goes, I've had a lot more work than I thought I would for this time of year. It's been wonderful and I've had a lot of success and good experiences so far. I believe I'm on around 10 teachers' preferred substitute lists which is a great thing because when those teachers put an absence into the system, I'm one of the first people called to fill that position. It's going to take me a while to feel comfortable having this as an income source because of how staggered paychecks are, but we'll figure it out and adjust. We always do. :)

We're switching back and forth between being at my mom & Steve's house and Matt's parents' house, and so far I think that's working out pretty well. We're not home very much during the day, especially me since I teach and then go to the studio for a while. It's a little difficult living out of boxes and not having a place of our own, but I don't want to rush out and get right into a place of our own until we're more consistent with getting paychecks and having income to rely on. Roo has adjusted super well to living at my mom's though, so that has been a big relief for us. She's practically running the place. ;)

So far this FEELS like the right choice. It's been so great being back in our hometown and close to our family and friends. I just hope that this choice leads to some progress for one or both of us career-wise and we can start making some steps forward in our life as a family. We are both very ready for a house and have been ready to start a family, but we won't do these things until we can do it responsibly. I'm just looking forward to the future and trying to remain optimistic!

Update...again!

2010-03-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

Well, some quick updates for you!

~Regarding my last couple of posts.....the problem girl at work?? Not there anymore. :) To say the least, my work life has improved by leaps and bounds. It's been 3 weeks so far and it's great to just be able to go to work and be comfortable. Lots of changes happening though.....5 of my kids are moving out of my room. Two already had their final week with me last week and are now in the toddler room- originally 3 were going to be getting ready to move this week. Now only one is moving up, one is transferring to another center at the end of the week, and the other will be leaving at the end of the month. Having them leave my room is usually tough enough. Having them leave for good and I don't get to see them (or their families) anymore is just plain awful. This is going to be one rough week.

~Just got back from Synchro Nationals yesterday- had quite a a bit of fun in Minneapolis, and a very different experience than the ones I had with Crystallettes. Some of it was different in a good way, others in a bad way. I loved how professionally everything was run by them and how everyone was so serious about it and what we were there to do. But then that also was bad because it sucked the fun out of all of it. It was nice to skate and not have to worry about anything- just have fun. Very refreshing. I was a little worried about having to sit there and watch my old team skate and possibly win, but the watching them skate part wasn't really bad at all and the winning part ended up not happening. So no awkwardness! :) And I got to see a few of my old teammates that I really liked a lot. As for my skate, my mom's team has had some issues with putting together a clean skate at Nationals for the past several years. The week went SO well with practices and we were feeling really good before the skate. Skating at Nationals is SUCH a rush, and it's better when you're not terrified. :) We managed to put together the best skate of the season when it counted most- however, so did a lot of other teams so we ended up 6th. Maybe could've been higher, but we really wanted the clean skate. We did that, so the weekend was successful. :)
~Not much to report on the job front or anything. I just have no idea where we're going from here, we don't have any answers or any leads. We've come up with plenty of different gameplans, but it's SO important which one we pick. It could set the course for the rest of our lives. I want to pick the right one. I don't want to do anymore treading water and spend another year just coasting. It's time to make some progress, but our careers are so locked up when it comes to getting new jobs right now. Seems like it'll never happen.
~I really want to update this thing more often. We'll see how that goes. :)

~Mom surprised me last weekend with a brand new laptop. We really needed another computer, and it was a TOTAL shock. It's a really nice souped-up laptop, it's been so nice to have two working computers.

2010-02-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

So, after my little rant a few weeks ago, I decided to make my blog private for a while. Not like that stops anyone from reading that rant now, but I just really needed to do that. Things are better at work right now, but I know they won't stay that way for long. Things never stay good for long.

Time is just flying by super quickly. It's a little crazy that it is already February and I'm rapidly coming up on my first anniversary at work. Don't know how long I'll be there past that. I really truly have no idea where life will be taking us in the next several months. It's a touch exciting, but quite a bit unnerving. We've come up with a number of options and will get down to discussing those and picking our top preference next month once things calm down a bit for Matt. It's so difficult to say which one is the right choice, because that choice will possibly shape where our lives go from here. It can either lead to better things or stop us dead in our tracks again. I think my favorite for now is moving back to the Cleveland area (as much as we'd like to stay in NW Ohio, our family and lots of friends are back near Cleveland) but there aren't any real longterm job options out there for now. Another is sticking around here and doing grad school, but again that keeps us in a holding pattern for yet another year or so. Plus we could only afford to do that if we had GA positions. And then there's another possibility of working for the same company as one of my former school kiddos' dad in an administrative position, but I went to school to be a teacher and how long would I really want to be an administrative assistant? Bottom line is, the odds of getting jobs in our fields of choice is not looking any brighter any time soon so we're needing to come up with a back-up plan. And a damn good one. Not so great for a person who is totally dying to buy a house and have a baby. :-/

We will see. Any thoughts??

Won't Back Down

2010-01-10T00:18:00.002-05:00

I've been having a bit of a rough time at work lately. I was hired for this position, hand picked for this position by the owner's daughter after a huge search, to run this department. It has just become an impossible thing to do. It's been tough all along but lately things have just taken a nosedive. I'm not upset because I refuse to let a couple of miserable people take me down with them (since that is ALL they are trying to do.) I just need to get all my thoughts down in one place. One girl has been an issue since my very first week, and here I am nine months later still dealing with the same stuff. For the past few months, another girl, who used to plead the "I'm only nice to her because it's easier for her to like me than hate me" act has now joined with her and in my opinion that's almost as bad if not worse than the other girl. This girl is my age, presumably mature, a mother, married, has a degree outside of education....that's why it's so disappointing to me that she's doing it now too. The first girl is just COMPLETELY disrespectful, has the worst attitude I have ever been in contact with (even with the director of the school) and she knows it. She admits it all the time..."I have issues with authority." So WORK ON IT. You won't be successful at any job where you have superiors if you can't take criticism and respond to it tactfully. She just cannot deal with people and it's getting worse and worse.

This entire time, I've just been trying to do my job. Back when I took over the coordinator position in September, I made a questionnaire for everyone in the department asking them what they liked about the department, what they would change, what they wanted to see from their coordinator, what they viewed the coordinator's job responsibilities as, etc. I thought that was pretty cool, giving them a voice. Didn't get a single one back. So I just went ahead and ran the room as I saw fit. I've never been in a position like this before so I've been taking it one day at a time, and as I've been given more responsibilities and more tasks from MY boss, I've been doing different things and doing what needs to be done in the room. Last week, the younger girl complained to me about something, so I took it to my boss (as I am supposed to do) to work something out. When I told this girl about it, she was appalled that I would say anything and gave the usual attitude, saying she didn't want anything changed. So basically, she just wanted to complain, not actually fix the problem. All of this happened in front of my boss. So then my boss was super irritated (at her, not at me.) When I left work, I sent this girl a quick message saying that all I was trying to do was find a solution to the thing she was frustrated about and she responded with "Do NOT contact me about dumb shit after work, I clocked out so that means I'm not at work so that means I don't want to talk." I'm paraphrasing. So I responded by saying that sometimes my job continues after work hours and if I feel it is necessary to contact staff, I will be doing so. I got another nasty text back saying "Not about petty bs but don't text ur a waste of my time." I was FLOORED. This is this girl's attitude. Nice, huh? So the next morning (Friday) I told my boss about it. She was actually embarrassed by it because sh ehired this girl- she was furious, a lady at corporate was furious, and you could tell. The girl wound up getting a 3 day unpaid suspension and I sat in on the meeting where she was told that. She's flat out awful to the boss too!! Disrespectful, insubordinant, you name it. Felt she did nothing wrong, that it's acceptable for her to talk that way to a superior, and that she shouldn't be punished since she was off the clock. The fact that she was off the clock is the ONLY reason she wasn't fired on the spot. She left the meeting before I did and went and bitched to the other girl.

I got home that night after a very awkward afternoon and look at the other girl's facebook. Her status is something about a chinese proverb she got in an e-mail that says "with money you can buy position, but you can't buy respect" and the immature girl "liked" it and commented "love this....it is so true. :) " Even consequences don't matter to her. Then this morning, I saw a status from late lastnight that said "I remember a time when I enjoyed getting up for work in the morning....I should never have made that move a year and a half ago." (I'm assuming she means the move to the infant department.) So all of these events got me thinking. I'm apparently doing my job so horribly and they are both so miserable, but neither of them has EVER said anything constructive, given any pointers, never given ideas of how to do things better, NOTHING. I guess it is much easier to sit around and bitch all the time. But will things ever change or improve if you sit and bitch? NOPE. I guess it's just "Misery Wants Company." Well guess what ladies? It ain't gonna be ME being dragged down to your level of unhappiness.

I know that both of them are unhappy with their current situations. The older one doesn't like her job and the other is in an awful relationship that no matter how much crappy stuff this guy does, she won't change anything. I personally am of the mentality that if you're unhappy with your current path, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Sitting and sulking and talking shit about people behind their backs won't improve your situation and your life. These girls must have forgotten that I have my degree in education. This is not exactly where I planned on being and it's not near as far as I want to go in my life career-wise. I'm thrilled to have it and I really do love it except for the unnecessary drama, but this job is a stepping stone for me. It's what I'm doing in my field until Matt & I can figure out what our next move is going to be. So I'm not in my dream place in life right now either, it's definitely not as high as I can go in this career. But the KEY DIFFERENCE is that even though I'm not right where I want to be, I'm making the best of it and when the time comes, you can bet I'll be as proactive as possible in getting where I want to go and changing my current position.

It's all about attitude. Are you a person who sits & whines about the bad stuff that happens or are you more the take charge type? Are you an optimistic glass-half-full type or is it always about negativity? And what this situation has made me realize is that as long as there is that difference between us, things will NEVER be smooth sailing in my department. I'm generally a happy person. Always have been, and hopefully always will be. If something sucky is going on in my life, when I get to work, I put a bandaid on it (metaphorically speaking), I love on the kids, and I do my job. I guess hanging with them is like therapy for me in some ways. All I hear on the other side of the room is complaining most of the time, and I guess I just don't get it. Life's so short, so why spend all your time being unhappy and not doing a damn thing about it? The thing is, the last coordinator encountered lots of issues with the two of them too. Hmmm. Who's the common link here? I'm pretty sure that NO ONE will be able to be an effective coordinator and still be "liked & respected" as long as it is this group of people in the room. The ONLY reason why I'm not respected or whatever is being I'm doing my job and reprimanding someone for having a crappy attitude. And I'm probably hated for being happy too. Dumbest reasons EVER for disliking someone or not respecting someone. And the one girl, you'd think she'd be open-minded and be able to see that. That's why it's so disappointing with her. I know full well that I pretty much can't trust anyone in that department. I used to think I could trust the older girl, but I learned full well a few months ago that that's not the case.

Earlier today I went to the mall for some me time and on the way home, Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down" came on the radio. It's a good song, but its meaning and words really spoke to how I'm feeling and my current situation at work, so I cranked it up as high as I could tolerate and just belted it out. Which is probably why my throat hurts right now, but it was fun. SO Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down" is officially my new theme song/mantra until further notice. :)

Back in the saddle again

2010-01-03T01:08:00.003-05:00

7+ months later, hello again! It's late and I'm tired and just wandered back here again so quick recap I guess. Although a ridiculous amount of stuff has happened since May 20th. Obvio.

~I'm still at CDC. Same job. Same bull. LOVE my kids and parents and basically everybody there.
~Matt did not get any of the jobs he applied/interviewed for. Came in 3rd for the Notre Dame job and a VERRRRY close 2nd for Central Michigan. And he knows people at both of those places. So here's me feeling like this next step thing is never gonna happen.
~Matt was unemployed for about 2 months. Probably the most stressful 2 months of my life. We moved right in the middle of it which eliminated everything we had managed to save up.
~We moved from BG to Toledo in mid-July. Like our new place but have since found 2 other places where we'd probably rather have selected.
~Matt was hired back in another internship at BG, but this time in the ticket office. It's a job, but not doing what he loves in the least. Better than Burger King though!
~I turned 25. First birthday that I've gone "Damn, that's old."
~We went to Mackinac Island twice! First for our anniversary (slightly belated) and we also took photos in wedding garb there during that trip. It was expensive but SO worth it. Second time was in October to experience our first fall there. VERY different but still AMAZING.
~Oh yeah, we celebrated our first year of marriage on July 26th! That little detail. :)
~I actually auditioned for Cavs Girls! I had the BEST time, it was so much fun, I couldn't move for like a week afterward and of course I didn't make it, but the experience was fabulous and I'm pretty sold on going back next year depending on what life presents us with between now & then.
~Steve moved in with my mom! Finally! Definitely some crazy changes happened in my house during that time, everytime I came home there were more drastic changes, but it is definitely for the better. It's really nice having him around all the time when I go back home. Steve moving in also means that Matti the dog came with him, she is SUCH a sweetie. Anyone who thinks all pit bulls are terrifying and mean needs to meet this dog. She'll snuggle and pass out on your lap after licking your face off.
~My dad finally ditched the hermit life he was pledging himself to and is now dating someone! I've been having this worlds colliding experience because this is a woman he went to high school with and ironically enough, Matt & I graduated with her two kids.
~I went back to Sylvan! I had no idea there is a Sylvan literally a mile from CDC so I had my first day back just before Thanksgiving. I'm only doing 6-8 a few nights a week but the extra bit of money has been super helpful. Plus it's nice TEACHING again.
~Finally chopped my hair! After a love/hate relationship with it since the wedding, I chopped it a few days before Thanksgiving. Five inches. Whack. LOVE it now.
~Christmas was awesome! This is my first year not having the traditional break between Christmas & New Year's and it is definitely a lot different, but then I don't have that break with no paycheck this year. So good and bad things with that.

Now for what we're doing now and a little about the future:
~I decided not to skate and am MUCH happier this year because of it. Being away from it, hearing things about the team this year....it's just very clear to me that I am SO much better off without being a part of that particular team. I am however the official alternate for my mom's team and will be skating in some of their smaller competitions. I was supposed to skate Sectionals later this month but I guess not.
~Matt's new job ends in April which puts us right back into the same boat we were in last year. So I'm figuring that I will also stay with CDC until that same time and then we'll figure out our next move, whether it is going back home or another option we are VERY interested in. We don't even really know if it can be an actual option yet but it's definitely a big interest. :)
~Roo is great and we're researching breeds to see if we can find our dog, to be named Remy. We can't get Remy until after we're out of this apartment though, sad. :( MAN, Roo will be pissed.

It's Official

2009-05-20T21:32:00.003-04:00

I'm auditioning for the Cavs Girls.

I figure if I put it out there into cyberspace, I won't be as likely to wuss out. I was bound & determined to audition two years ago, but literally 4 days before auditions, Matt was hired at BGSU. I couldn't very well drive 2 hours into Cleveland and the east side from BG (if I would've made it) so I just didn't go. That year three girls I know (including 2 of my friends) made it. Since then they've brought up my auditioning on several occasions. Now that there isn't anything permanent tying us down to Northwest Ohio (more on that later), now is as good a time as any. And with our baby clock that we currently are thinking about, this next season will be my last chance pre-kiddos. I have a tad less than 2 months to get ready. So with this announcement, I leave you with a photo of my beautiful friend Jamie, who is gracing the cover of the swimsuit calendar this year. :)

2009-05-08T00:17:00.002-04:00

So a few things:

The Cavs are in the second round of the playoffs! They swept the sucky Pistons in round 1, and we finally got to go to a game when we went to game 1. :) We went with my in-laws, which was fun! We never get together and go anywhere. Although that'll change later. :)
The Cavs need to take advantage of this awesome season and awesome team and win a championship. Otherwise I feel it will never happen. This is our shot. It needs to happen.
I have completed just about 5 weeks at my new job! I love pretty much everything about it. One aspect of it has been really troubling to me but at least this week I found out I am not alone in my feelings on this subject. So that's comforting, but I don't know how everything will be resolved. My assistant is leaving for the summer after next week, which I'm super sad about. But I adore my kids, love the parents and the staff is great. Paycheck's not bad either. For the first time in my life. It's a nice change.
Matt had an interview with Notre Dame last Tuesday! He nailed it completely, it was over the phone but it is taking a while for them to get back in touch with him. Of course I think about it constantly and his mom and my mom are both asking all the time, but he's so calm & cool. It'd be nice to go there since Darin works there so we'd already have at least 1 friend in the area. I'd have to lave my job but he'd be getting paid pretty close to what I am right now, plus benefits. We've never had a job where we get benefits so that part is bright and shiny for us. PLEASE let him get this job so we finally have some direction!!
Our best friends, our favorite couple to hang out with every and the "parents" of our puppy nephews got married this past weekend!!! Oh. My. GOD. What a blast!! After our wedding I felt this overpowering feeling of "wow I want to do that again!" (hell I still feel that way, I know quite a few people who want to too) and I didn't expect to feel that way about any other wedding. Until now. :) Great crowd, great party, great friends. Just a total blast. And now they are in Punta Cana for 8 days. And I am Elphaba green with envy. :) I love you guys!
Speaking of weddings, Matt's cousin is getting married on the 24th so we will be leaving that Friday afternoon with Matt's parents and driving to Minnesota for the wedding! I think it'll be a fun time, we always have fun together and we love weddings. But it will be so tough to top Joe & Jill's. The whole time we'll be like "Where are our friends?!!" So weird. But looking forward to it!
Crystallettes try-outs are next Saturday. No intention of going. Not even a little tiny bit of an urge. So I guess that answers that. We can always see if time changes anything and if I'm wanting to skate once the season actually starts but if Matt gets this job at Notre Dame (please please please!) then there's no way I will skate at all. But I don't want to anyway.
My brother Kyle thinks he may have found "the one" in the girl he is presently dating. It's funny because I met and started dating Matt when I was 16 years old and within a very short time I just knew that he was who I was going to be with. 16 didn't seem so young when I was actually living that age, but to now hear my baby brother saying similar things, we're both going "How could he know that, he's only 18!" Kind of hypocritical of us, yes? So it's very exciting, I am really looking forward to meeting this future sister-in-law of mine. ;)

Okay I think I covered just about everything! :)

2009-04-11T01:23:00.003-04:00

So, this took a while. {shrugs} Is anyone really surprised anymore?? Hell, is anyone even reading anymore? I really doubt it, lol.

I love love LOVE my new job. Oh that's right, I never posted about that, did I? I alluded to the idea of being up for a job at a daycare. Little did I know, I'd get a call that following Monday from the director of another location of this preschool center that they had a full-time position open as the head teacher and coordinator of their infant program. She wanted me to come in and meet her and have another observation and interview. I was honored that the person I'd interviewed with initially recommended me for such a high position and thought I was way too overqualified to sub (which I am...obvi.) I observed. Did an art activity with the kids, which totally bombed. Meh, not a big deal. How was I to know their last head teacher hadn't been doing much with them and they were more interested in how the fatty crayons tasted rather than putting them onto paper? Loved the teachers, the director took me around to meet everyone (which is where I started to get super sneaky feelings that I had this job already) and then took me in to talk with the coordinator of the pre-k section of the school. That's where I was like "Ooh, okay. So I have this job." It was obvious to me that she hadn't done that with any of the other interviewees. Back into her office. Walked out with the job. Even though I told her I wanted to continue with Sylvan on my schedule and that we could be moving after only 3 months of me working there. Apparently pretty much every teacher from the 2 classrooms I observed in (I'd be their head teacher and {gulp} "boss") came out while I was speaking with the other coordinator and told her how much they liked me and my attitude. She'd never had that happen before and knew that that counted for a lot more than my schedule issues.

So I've just completed my first week. Boy that first day....wake-up call back to what I felt like those first couple of days at Goddard when I worked with this age group. Just absolutely exhausted. "And I have to do this for FOUR MORE DAYS this week??" I adjusted, all is well. I came on a unique week- not sure if it's good or bad yet. We were super low all week. We could normally expect 10 kids and today & yesterday we had 5. So it's possibly good because I got to ease in and get used to the schedule without being overwhelmed by all these 1 year olds. But it could be bad because I'm all happy and "I can totally handle this" but what I've just experienced is not the norm. So we'll see. But yes, getting on great with the rest of the staff, and I LOVE my kids. I'm sad because 1 is leaving after this next week and he was my snuggler this week. :( But it has been nice to have a set schedule and place to BE everyday. Not to mention the paycheck will be VERY nice and very welcome. But Roo is not pleased to be by herself at home all day every day now. But it's so sweet coming home to an extra lovey dovey cat. :) Not to mention my husband, lol.

On the Matt front, there isn't any news for him as far as jobs go. I'm taking that as good news for now as those job postings have just recently disappeared from off the websites. So I'm hoping they are perusing resumes and he'll get a call soon. I mean really, who wouldn't want him? I may be partial though.... ;)

99.99999% positive I am through with skating. By this time last year I missed it. Nationals was over a month ago (hard to believe!) Try-outs are next month. And I have NO interest. At all. I don't miss it one bit. We'll see how that changes once the season actually starts, but I felt like crap just about all the time when I was there. And it ended up so disappointing for me because I COULD skate that program. I'd proved that for so many months, even at Tri-States when skating at Nationals was on the line. And I skated SO well! Even after the program changed, I was doing it really well. But then I started sucking. But the ability to do the program didn't suddenly vanish from my person. It's all in the attitude and mentality and it was NOT a healthy atmosphere mentally to skate in and be a part of. I enjoyed the experience but I'm done.

The new job has opened a few new options for us should Matt not get a job after his BGSU contract expires at the end of June. It's not just "get hired or go home" necessarily anymore which is nice. And less scary. We'll just have to see what happens. But say some major prayers and send job juju to us because he's applied for one in Toledo and that would (obviously) equal total perfection for us. We can then be settled, plant some roots, save money, buy a house and move up the baby clock just a bit. :) Start our LIVES!!!! What a concept!! =OD Big time. BIG TIME. Pray for that for us. Send some good vibe action. :)

Update time!

2009-03-18T10:25:00.004-04:00

Hey 2 weeks....that's not awful! :)

I'm all done with skating! Nationals was 2 weeks ago and everything went pretty well. Practices were wonderful, the actual skate wasn't quite as good as the practices had been. But still good enough to win, so we repeated our National title! More exciting, I think, was that our Novice team stepped up big time, delivered an amazing performance and won as well!! So Crystallettes came home with 2 teams as National champs!! The first few days after we got back, I missed it and everyone quite a bit. But now I've had a bit of time and I'm feeling like I'm done with skating. I don't feel an enormous pull either way, but I feel like if I decided to hang up my skates now and be done, I would be satisfied with that. Plus skating with Crystallettes next year probably won't even be a possibility proximity-wise. Which provides me a nice segue...

We still aren't sure where we are going to be after June 30th. Matt has applications in at 3 places at the moment. Any of them would be wonderful to have. 2 in particular would be better for us in the long run but will likely be super competitive to obtain. We both really want the one that is close to us here for quite a few reasons. It's full-time, benefits, within driving distance to BG so we can continue to go to games here, it's permanent so we could plant some roots around here, get a dog, buy a house, and I could entertain the idea of skating again if I feel compelled to do that again. Matt could also still curl with BGCC which is really important to him. The other two aren't too far from Elyria...they are out of state but it's still driveable. Skating would not be possible with those other 2 jobs. At this point I will be thrilled to get anything just to know what's going to happen and we can start planning....but I really REALLY want the one close to here. Matt does too. So if you read this, send positive juju for us! :)

I am also up for a job at a local daycare center. I totally LOVE this place. It's a brand new center, it still has that "new construction smell" to it. But I've had 2 interviews and an obsrvation on Monday morning. I'm just waiting to hear back. I'd just be subbing there for now because th eposition they have open conflicts with my schedule at Sylvan. This week has actually been busy for subbing, but unfortunately only aide positions. I don't know if I'm just missing opportunities or what, but there is just NOTHING available. Subbing is just not cutting it for me anymore. But I'm glad this week has been busy- yesterday was my only full day off.

Matt's busy season with BGSU athletics is basically over. Baseball is just starting so he'll be working those, but he won't be quite as crazy busy as he is during the winter. We attended the MAC Tournament in Cleveland over the weekend. Both BG teams went in as the #1 seed which was SO exciting, but unfortunately the men's team lost in the semis and the women's team lost in the championship game. :( Big bummer, but both will be playing in the NIT/WNIT since they both won the MAC. :) Matt's cousin Drew's high school team won their district championship game on Saturday night though so they play in regionals starting tonight! It was a very intense but very exciting game! He'll be starting at Miami and playing basketball there in the fall. It was quite a basketball-filled weekend!

My high school BFF Sara and her husband Doug welcomed their son Hunter last week on Tuesday, so I got to meet the little guy this weekend!

Coming up we have Jill's bridal shower on Saturday (!!!!)...their wedding is only 6 weeks away, which just totally blows me away! Matt's birthday is on Friday so we'll be heading back home for that as well. And not only is Saturday Jill's shower, but it's her birthday too!! Lots to celebrate!!

I thiiiiiink I covered everything. :)

Are You Ready?!

2009-03-04T01:45:00.004-05:00

Yay me, I am getting the chance to post before Nationals! Well turns out it won't be quite as much of an anxiety-ridden experience as I had originally thought. Me getting nervous for practices so much lately turned out to result in the end of my season. I got pulled out of line during our Saturday morning practice, which quite honestly came as a relief to me at the time. Between changing like half the steps in our program recently (God I was SO comfortable before then), my anxiety in the build-up to Nationals, my slight lack of confidence with the changes and me trying to work on my mental game for Nationals, I just wasn't skating very well. The more I focused and tried, the worse it was. It's frustrating to me because I was doing so well and of course no one wants to be the alternate. But the bottom line is that we need the best group out there and I am not doing well enough right now to be in that group. I made it very clear to the coaches that I have been struggling a lot with nerves and that I did NOT want to be the one who messes up and costs us points and potentially a second gold medal. I had a goof at Mids and spent the time between our skate and results terrified that I might've cost us the gold. As it turned out we won by a pretty comfortable margin in the end. Being an alternate might stink, but nothing can feel worse than that, and I'm not comfortable enough with the program since the changes to go and put myself out there.

I'm a total team player...I'm not selfish enough to say "Well I want to go out there and I want to skate, whatever the result/consequence." So that whole practice I'm thinking "This is NOT good, I need to pick it up." And quite honestly if I wouldn't have improved from that point, I would've pulled myself at the end of practice. But the coaches, knowing how I felt, beat me to the punch.

I totally respect the hell out of what they did because they KNOW that I want what is best for the team, not just for Ari. I wish I was able to pick this up quicker, but honestly skating is NOT my niche. It never has been, it's always been something I've had to work at (and that's OKAY), and while I've gotten pretty good over my 15 years in the sport, I'm not anywhere near the level of the girls on my team. More than half my team was on the 2004 senior World team! It's like I'm a minor leaguer playing for the Yankees now. And I've stuck with them all season somehow. It's been SUCH a fantastic season and definitely a huge improvement for me from last year. I spoke to Holly on Saturday, really a convo that lasted all day, and she re-emphasized to me over and over again how proud she was and how much I've earned my spot all season up to this point and worked so hard and deserve to be on this team and that she appreciates that I feel the way I do and can sacrifice my spot on the team for Nationals.

Having these anxiety problems has really come and hit me full force this season- my doc has wanted to put me on meds for it but I didn't want them to have negative effects on skating. Same with asthma and my inhaler...whenever I'd use it, I'd shake like a leaf. Not safe. So this is definitely the right decision for everyone involved. Is it gonna be rough skating off the ice and watching my amazing team skate that kickass program without me? Sure, obviously. But it is WAY better than the alternative. I will be out there with them not physically but definitely in spirit and in heart. :)

Random other quick tidbits: session 2 of Sylvan/NCLB in Fostoria is done! Hooray for having yet another thing checked off my list and more time opening up for me in the future (not to mention my car will be very happy!) Boo to having fewer hours. We also get to pick up the new car tomorrow! Hooray!! I get to work during the day again! Seriously, feeling the heat financially. SO glad that is almost done. Having 1 car blows. Did I ever explain how we got this car? I shall have to later. And one of my high school BFFs is due VERRRRRRY soon with my "nephew" Hunter. If she gives birth while I'm in Maine I will be very super bummed. And yesterday marked the 2 month countdown to our BF's J&J's wedding!! So excited! Another potential job prospect was discovered by Matt yesterday as well. I won't post details but both jobs he is applying for we want a LOT. This newest one is higher up and therefore will be tougher competition to get, but we have friends/connections at both places. Good job juju....please send/vibe it our way! You know what a planner I am so knowing what exactly we will be doing and where we will be next year would be SUCH a relief. Skating & Sylvan might be ending, but March is shaping up to be another busy one, kids!

So NOW it's time to go and defend our title!!! My question to Maine is: Are You Ready??!! :)

Wow, a month!

2009-02-27T11:35:00.002-05:00

Okay I'm just going to stop saying "I promise I'll write more" in my posts because obviously, that's never true. :) Here it is: I'll write when I write. Not like anyone is reading anyway. :)

So update time!

Skating has been going well....we are still undefeated (whoohoo!) and I thiiiiiink the last time I wrote we were getting ready for Sectionals in Denver. Well we went there, the altitude was totally fine (yay!) and every practice we had pretty much, I skated great. Novice FINALLY beat Chicago Jazz which had us all pumped and emotional, and oddly enough, I found myself to be strangely calm all day...totally unlike how I am normally am. Well nerves hit the moment we stepped onto the ice in the form of crazy shaky legs. So I didn't skate quite as well as I had in practice. We still won though, and by 5 1/2 points....despite the fact that we didn't get like half of our calls. New judging system lingo there...I won't explain it. But we could've won by 15+ points had we gotten everything called at the right levels. We spent 2 weeks fixing things and then it was do-or-die time for me at Tri-States. If anyone was noticed a lot (in a bad way) by the technical callers (one of whom is a former Crystallette who knows all too well that I've had a hard time in the past) that person would be pulled for Nationals. I actually fully expected to be yanked to be honest....but after a few good practices I actually skated really well. We still didn't get a few of our elements called though, so the next morning those 3 elements were changed. I actually like the new stuff better than the old stuff, but I'm still working on adjusting to it and making it "muscle memory" so I don't have to think so much. Practice tomorrow morning with Novice (which I hate to be honest because all we do is runthroughs usually...that stuff can wear you out quick!) This time next week, I will be in Maine for Nationals! I'm trying so hard to get pumped like I used to but I can't lie: I'm super nervous already. Which maybe is a good thing....

Matt and I drove to Baltimore a couple of weeks ago for Syd & Dave's BEAUTIFUL wedding!!! We had such a great time, the drive ended up being really nice (road trips are fun!!) and it was wonderful to catch up with some old skating friends! :)

Meanwhile, we are now in need of a new car. :( Yippee, right? Matt's car bit it when I was driving home from Tri-States on Valentine's Day. It just died. A half a mile from our apartment. And then I had to pay 30 bucks to get it towed. A HALF A MILE. Thank goodness AAA is reimbursing us, otherwise I'd be pretty pissed. So I haven't been subbing for a few weeks since Matt needs the car for work. I'm hoping we can work something out so that I can sub next week a little bit. I am definitely ready to get back out there.

Oh and I had a nasty cold for 2 weeks. Fun fun! At least it's happening right now and not next weekend though....yikes! :)

Wish me luck....I might not post again before Nationals!

Oh boy...

2009-01-27T13:44:00.002-05:00

Does anyone happen to have a confidence chip on them that I could borrow for a while?

Fraser two weeks ago ended up going pretty well. We skated really well and won (and beat last season's high score by a lot) but there were a few elements that we didn't get called. I went into that competition thinking I looked bad and stood out. My mom and member of my old team told me I didn't, but they're kinda biased so I wasn't sure I should rely on that. Then I saw the video of our skate- I didn't look bad at all! A couple spots where I was like "Whoa lady, stand up straighter than that!" So I went into Wednesday's practice pretty confident, skated great, and came out of it so excited. FINALLY I was on the right track. Sunday morning wasn't so great. I only got a few hours of sleep so I suppose that contributed, but it wasn't the tone I wanted to set at our last home practice before Mids this weekend. So now I seem to be in need of a little bit of confidence. I KNOW I can do this. I did it on Wednesday. The part I'm struggling with I'd done just fine all season. I can do it. I just need it to happen soon. Like....this weekend. My teammate and I decided that this weekend, we will be badasses. We will have confidence and we won't let anything get it the way. We will be amazing like we know we can be. I like that thought. :)

So I fly out on Thursday afternoon, but I'm heading to Cleveland tomorrow. I'm flying out with my mom and a few members of her team. :) We have both unofficial and official practice on Friday morning, we're touring the Olympic Training Center with Novice on Friday afternoon, and we compete on Saturday night. I'm excited about going to Denver, I've never been there before! Ooh, and our hotel is amazing! And I have the best roomies ever. :)

So wish me luck! :)

New Look

2009-01-13T12:39:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone likes the new background! It was time for a change- no more boring white. :) I'm not absolutely dead-set on the one I have now, but it's great for now!

Fraser is this weekend! We have a new skater on the team...I totally miss Trent but am excited to now have Teff on the team! We're finally teammates which is awesome! =OD And I'm skating pretty well I think. Everything still FEELS like crap but I'm trying so hard on everything and I talked to Holly on Sunday after practice- she said I'm skating well and she has no desire to take me out. :) That's all I wanted to hear! And Fraser has always been my favorite competition. Not sure why, especially with that awful warm-up before competition in the freezing cold rink, but I love the ghetto plastic tunnel we go through to get to the competition ice and my old team will be there too. :) This is also the one competition Matt can always make it to. We skate on Sunday (waaaaaay too effing early) and then go straight into getting ready for Denver. Yikes, the season is just flying by!

Sylvan is also getting ready to wrap up. We start assessments this week and we'll probably only be doing this until the end of next week. While it'll be nice to be done (it's been a challenging couple of months with a couple of my students) I'm also beginning that panic that I won't have that nice little extra cushion of income after this. My boss said that she will try to get me in teaching at the center in BG as much as possible, but I'm one of those girls who wants to know what to expect. So hearing that I might be able to teach like 4 hours a week in-center...that's not enough of a cushion for me. It's what I want to keep doing, but if I'm not going to have enough work, I might have to try to look into other areas and jobs. Not a CLUE where to start.

No news on the job front for Matt. He's still plenty busy and plugging away with winter sports at BGSU, but his contract ends now in less than 6 months. Yesterday he found a posting for University of Florida. There wasn't a whole lot of info in the posting about what exactly this job entails and about salary and (important) stuff like that, but we figure he should apply anyway. So we'll see! I keep hearing that lots of jobs open up in the spring. I just hate having so much stuff up in the air. Whatever happens though, I know we'll be okay. We have eachother, we're a great team, and we have a top-notch support system in our parents, families, and friends. So we'll be good. :)

2008-12-29T11:28:00.002-05:00

Christmas was awesome! It always comes and goes so fast. Going to church was nice too, it was our first time in the church since the big day! :) Got a lot of wonderful things, we are definitely very blessed! :) And some of my favorite members of Matt's family moved to Texas right after the wedding (the youngest daughter was one of our flower girls) and we didn't think they'd make it back up here for Christmas, but sure enough, they found some great airfare rates and surprsed everyone last weekend. SO amazing to see them, and who knows when the next time will be.

Skating is stressing me the eff out. How many times do I have to say "I can't afford to come up there 2 or 3 times a week" before I feel that it's actually an acceptable excuse to them? I live 1 1/2 hours away from where we practice...it adds up quick. But I feel trapped into going because I feel like if I don't, I won't skate. And that's just not acceptable to me. So what is one to do??

2008-12-15T23:06:00.007-05:00

It's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I can't believe it's NEXT WEEK! 10 days away! That is just completely crazy to me. Not to mention that next Friday, we will have been married for 5 MONTHS. How insane is that?! It just boggles the mind. Truly.

Our apartment is all decorated for the holiday! Well not ALL...we only brought about half of our Christmas stuff from my mom's house since we don't have a whole ton of space in here and as it is, we don't have enough room to put out everything we brought. But we have our tree up officially for the first time ever (well we had a tiny one 3 years ago when we first lived together, but this is totally different.) We have some other cute little things out too. Love it. I leave for home on Saturday morning where I get to go directly into some girl time with Jill and the rest of her bridal party! Very excited about that! I am very psyched with hos great our tree turned out though! Excuse the cell phone photo here...a bit too much reflection coming from the lights! :) And Roo has been quite comfy sleeping under the tree all the time. :)

Matt got sucked into being Santa Claus tomorrow night at his staff holiday party so tonight he brought home the whole get-up, so I helped him get into everything. He spent some time looking up videos on how to act like Santa. Pretty cute. He's not looking forward to it, haha.

We got our Christmas cards all designed and ordered! I get to pick them up tomorrow and we have our list of who to send them out to. As it is, it's too long- if you don't get one this year, don't feel too jipped. We only ordered 30 of them just because we don't have a whole TON of money to spend on cards. Maybe next year we'll go all out. :) But we have friends who are sending out over 100 and really, it's making me feel like a slacker. ;-P So here's the picture we took on Friday, and then there is a smaller wedding photo on them as well:

Confession: I haven't started shopping yet. :-\ I'm not usually this last minute but I have just had to push it back a bit this year. It stresses me out but I have all day by myself on Monday. It'll get done by then for sure! :)

Anyone notice how often I use smilies and exclamation points? Just checking.

No news on the job front yet for Matt. He still has another 6 months left on his contract and knows lots of people in the business so we should be okay. Apparently lots of jobs start opening up in the spring. But one of his good friends and former colleagues from BG works at Notre Dame now, so he said he'll keep us informed and put in a good word. Good friends in good places. :) Maybe then we can actually get a house and start thinking about moving forward with our goals and our family.

BTW, thanks everyone for backing off with the baby questions. Now I realize that no one who reads this asks me the baby question ever. Probably because most of you are either newlyweds and are being annoyed by the same question or sane enough to realize that just because you're now married doesn't mean you immediately start popping out kids. I'm just putting it out there.

Ooh I think I got us a new teammate! Makes me happy! =OD

Darn. I really intended this entry to be a short one. Oh well, you know what they say: the best intentions..... :)

Porter

2008-12-08T22:47:00.002-05:00

Warning label: This is likely to contain a lot of rambling. :)

Well, Porter has come and gone. That's right, the competition that my wonderful team has dubbed "Nationals #1" is all over! This is the part where the season starts to fly by and before you can blink twice, it's done! The competition season is the fun (albeit lately very stressful and mildly terrifying) part! I love being a part of this team, really I do. I laugh so hard. Every day that I am with this group of people. The dramatic increase of my pre-competition nerves has surprised me quite a lot. Like the "Can't get a full/good night's sleep the night before because you're nervous" kind of stuff. Like the waiting-to-get-on-the-ice-and-thinking-"Oh god WHY do I do this, but yet I'm so excited and oh my GOD I have to pee!" sort of stuff. I'm got a whole jumble of feelings about this sport right now. It's growing SO fast. By leaps and bounds. My mom was saying last weekend how amazing it is that I'm skating with this team. A team I'd looked up to for my entire career. More than half my team was on the World Team in 2004. A whole lot of them have their senior and gold moves tests. I came from two teams where skating was fun but we weren't super competitive (and I was okay with that, I loved skating for the Edges and BGSU..nothing but proud of that.) But I didn't come from a background that prepared me for this level of skating. I tested my dances pretty high but only got the levels I absolutely needed to have for moves in the field. But yet here I am, somehow holding my own with all these girls who are fabulous skaters and have so much more technical experience than I do. I mean REALLY, what the hell?! It didn't happen last season, but this season I'm sticking with them. Thing is...I HATE the feeling I have before I get it. I hate having that much ground to make up while it feels like everyone else has been doing it for years. Well, they have. But somehow I get it. And that feels GOOD. So I'm not sure which feeling is more overwhelming right now: the pride and excitement after Porter, the relief that I won't have to feel that "Oh God I suck" feeling I inevitably get sometimes during the season, or the sadness that I have to leave this team and probably the sport altogether after this season. There was a discussion before our official practice at Porter of "How can anyone just stop skating? I just don't get it." At that point, my nerves were HIGH so I chortled and thought "Oh, EASILY." But after the nerves were gone and we were having team dinner after the competition...I'm right there with them. How do you invest so much of who you are and so many years into a sport or activity like this and then just stop cold turkey? It's gotta suck. I guess I'll find out next season!

So wasn't I going to talk about Porter? So after the last competition, we changed all the footwork in 3 of our major elements and one thing I was struggling with a bit. I was really at risk of being pulled for Porter, which would have KILLED me. It was like last season revisited. I went from being super-confident to "Oh no, not this feeling again" within a week. Anywho, I drove up to Ann Arbor an extra time last week to skate with a few girls from my team, was nervous as hell for Wednsday night practice (it was do-or-die after all) worked my little ass off the whole practice, and lo and behold: I was in!! HUZZAH!! But oh boy did the nerves follow. I felt pretty good about everything, but they had faith in me. What if I sucked? Porter is always a VERY crowded competition, so finally this year, they decided to move the judging tables to the other side of the ice to free up seating on the side that has literally 95% of the seating in the whole arena. It worked out well, but man was official practice weird skating with our backs to the stands, especially after many of us have competed there countless times. It wasn't too big of an adjustment and it wound up being totally fine. We did two runthroughs back-to-back...thought I was gonna DIE. My first run personally sucked, but I got my jitters under control and my 2nd run was much better. Went back to Lindsay's house, went to bed early, woke up at 7 am (after waking up at 4:30 and 6:30 and saying "Eff THAT!") and waited around for Matthews to get up. Got to the rink, watched senior, warmed up, locker room, yada yada yada, had the best run EVER personally on the practice ice and went in feeling pretty pumped. But then, that feeling of 'Why the HELL do I put myself through this/OMG this is SO cool!/Seriously, do it JUST LIKE YOU JUST DID IT!" Lots of emotions. We skated pretty well, I didn't personally do as well as the practice run, but overall a good confidence builder! We got 2nd...we won last year and beat this really good team from Canada, which was a HUGE shocker. We beat everyone this weekend we wanted to, with only the really good Canadian team beating us. We're good with that. Some things to fix, but overall it was a good showing for us. :)

Seriously, can this entry get any longer?? :)

So far subbing 1 1/2 days this week and hoping to book 1 more full day. It'd be a good week subbing-wise since it is the 2nd to last week before break. I also have 4 days of Sylvan which is GREAT! That will be a nice paycheck right before Christmas. Good timing, I say! :)

Okay I swear I'm done. I told you it'd be one big ramble for a while.

First Skating Event

2008-11-24T09:53:00.002-05:00

So I'm finally feeling better...officially, for real this time!! The last thing to go has been the cough, but it seems to finally be on its way out the door. :) Now its time to start pounding the vitamins so that I don't get sick AGAIN when I return to school after this week's break!

We had our first event for skating this past weekend at the Kalamazoo Kickoff! We only finished the program on Wednesday night so everything was kind of last minute, but the program was looking great! Well...I think the nerves and pressure of having our first debut as defending national champs got to everyone a little because we skated like crap at our competition ice on Saturday. We had a fall, but that wasn't even the worst thing. We always say "One element at a time" and that just went out the window. We still won, but last season we'd usually beat the team we skated against by 10+ points. We only won by .03! That will not do. Our monitoring was SO much better and we scheduled an extra practice for yesterday morning since we won't be having our regular Wednesday night practice this week. We totally redid the choreography for 3 of our major elements but I think it will end up being so much better in the long run...though I'm very sad that there is no longer a fan in our circle. It was only my favorite part. :-\ Porter is next weekend (the 6th) and it's going to be another very big competition. Last year we were calling it "Nationals #1" and while it isn't quite as big as it was last year, it's still really important. It was such a surprise last year because we won, beating the Canadian team (which we never expected to do.) So now it's hard because we want to do it again and it feels like such an impossible task this year. As long as we beat our American competition, we're good. :) But I really need to get on the ice and drill this new stuff, and there isn't a whole lot of time to do it.

I'm so excited that it's Thanksgiving week! We have yet to figure out all the details as far as where are we staying, etc. but it will all work out somehow. But we decorate my mom's on Friday & Saturday (which is like its own holiday in my mom's house), I have a family get-together in Lexington on Saturday afternoon, and then I should have practice on Sunday depending on when it is. I love Thanksgiving week...I don't really know how to explain it, but since I was little it has become one of my favorite times of the year. Plus, I can't wait to bring back our Christmas stuff and get our place decorated for the holiday too! So exciting!

And I am BEYOND excited to see my little peanut Jordyn! I haven't seen her in 2 weeks, but it feels like so much longer than that! I can't wait for Matt to meet her either. Seeing him with her is just going to be awesome, just like it was with Rachael back in 2006. :) Well, before she peed on him!

We went to Ontario last weekend for a curling tournament- I was a little unsure about it because of the costs, but seeing Matt so happy...well worth it! He got to meet everyone from his favorite team, see them play two games, and hang out with everyone at a party Saturday night. :) Then on Monday, we went up to Detroit for our first ever Red Wings game! it was a wedding gift from Dave & Jodi (they totally rock) and I'd been there before but just to work concessions for skating. It was so cool to be there, and Matt looked like a little kid on Christmas day. =OD So we had a very exciting (albeit expensive) weekend!

Overall everything is going very well! OH, and our wedding videos came a week ago so on Tuesday night after I got home from Sylvan, we took out our wedding glasses and a bottle of wine and watching it. It's AMAZING. I cannot stop watching it! It's currently posted online at our videographer's blog and will be there for 2 months, but our family and friends back home haven't seen it yet, so I am sure we will be watching a lot of it this week! I don't mind one bit. :) PLUS, I came home from work on Friday to see a package from my friends Dustin & Pam. They had used their professional camera all day on our wedding day taking pictures, and they made and sent us a photo book! It's so exciting because you think you've seen everything there is to see and then here come some totally new photos from these great new angles. The pictures are fantastic, I absolutely loved the book! I immediately called Pam to chat and tell her how much she rocked. :) I mean seriously, wow. :)

So anyway, here is our video! It's pretty long, about an hour and a half since it's technically 3 different things- our Love Story (including same-day edit), Rehearsal, and the Wedding Video itself. So you might want to take it in parts. :)

http://2ndmileproductions.com/weddings/matt_arianna.html

Enjoy, and let me know what you think if you do watch it (or leave a comment right on the page!)

Feeling Better

2008-11-13T14:37:00.002-05:00

well it's Thursday and I'm happy to report that I'm feeling better! I'm not sure if I wrote about this yesterday, but I had scheduled a doctor's appointment for this morning. Late afternoon yesterday, I decided I wasn't going to need it and canceled, a decision that my husband didn't so much agree with. :) But seriously, all I would have been going in for was a stuffy nose. A trip to the doctor would have been ideal on Tuesday when absolutely EVERYTHING was sucky and going wrong. But today I think I'm on the way out of this. I'm seriously thankful that we didn't end up going any runthroughs lastnight at skating because doing it in segments was hard enough after having been on the couch for 4 days. I really need to figure something out to try and boost my immune system, because from now until the end of January, I am going to be SUPER busy, especially if I start subbing as much as I want to. I decided not to sub at all this week, which isn't good for the paycheck aspect, but I really needed to listen to what my body was telling me and get some rest this week. I think matt's right: I need to be careful with this schedule of mine and how I plan things because it can quickly get out of hand and I can run myself down and burn out FAST. Sylvan NCLB is only going until the end of January which is good- it's nice to have an endpoint for something. Then skating ends in early March and after that I'll just have
subbing and hopefully a few nights a week at BG's Sylvan. So there is a finish line in sight! I just have to be smart along the way. If not, I think I will be sick quite a lot in the next couple of months. No thanks! :)

Gotta get ready, then it's off to Sylvan in Fostoria!

I'm an aunt! And sick. I'm a sick aunt.

2008-11-12T10:07:00.004-05:00

Jordyn Nicole is here!!! She arrived on Friday night at 6:35 pm weighing in at 8 pounds, 15 ounces and 20.5" long! She was the biggest baby born that day at that hospital! She went home Sunday afternoon and is doing great! Mom Nicky is doing well also. :) I got to see her 4 times over the weekend which was WONDERFUL, but I'm sad because I won't see her again until we are home for Thanksgiving. So that's kind of a bummer, but I am looking forward to seeing how she has chaned in just that short period of time. =OD

Meanwhile, I think I wrote a few weeks ago that I was sick? Well I had that sucker all the way up until last weekend (the 1st) where I'd be basically fine but if I coughed once, I would be hacking up a lung all day. Well my immune system clearly wasn't yet up to the task to protect me during a lengthy time in the hospital because sure enough, I'm sick again! Right now it's mostly congestion, but Sunday-Tuesday I had this awful rocking headache that just would.not.stop. I took everything we had in the house to knock it down and nothing worked. Another teacher at work gave me a 500 mg super Tylenol and it didn't even touch it. Not fun. It's still there a little bit but not anywhere near what it was before, so I am very thankful for that! I made myself a doctor's appointment for tomorrow morning so I have to go pick up my
new patient forms today so I can fill them out and have them tomorrow. I really wish I could just see Dr. Rish but he is all the way back in Avon. He's just such a great doctor, I'm so comfortable with him. But now I'm second-guessing my appointment thinking maybe I don't need it. I've heard "Well unfortunately what you have is viral so there isn't anything you can take to help it antibiotic-wise. You just have to let it run its course" so many times that I'm figuring I will hear it tomorrow. So it'll be all of that stuff and the co-pay down the drain. Worth it for the peace of mind though I suppose. Okay well now I'm just rambling so I'm going to just end this one now, lol. Wish me luck for skating tonight so that I can actually breathe. Oh, and that they don't kill me when they find out I can't be there on Sunday afternoon. That will make me really not popular with the team but I guess I'd rather be unpopular with them than with my husband (to make practice I'd have to cancel the Canada curling trip he has been looking forward to since July.) So...not so much excited for that. :)

Today's the day!

2008-11-07T08:32:00.002-05:00

I'm going to become an auntie today! Or, if my niece besides to be a bit mean to her mom, perhaps tomorrow will be the day. :) But Nicky & Chris went into the hospital this morning at 5 am, the doctor arrived at 8 and they are probably just about to break her water if they haven't already (at 8:30.) So I'm getting my stuff packed up and getting ready, then heading out for Cleveland! I'll stop at my mom's first to drop off everything before heading to the hospital. Very exciting! i will be sure to put up an update and hopefully some pictures too! :)

Oh and on a random note, apparently the loud noise that woke Matt & I up this morning at 7:05 when a gunshot fired on campus! We're more than a mile away from where the shot was apparently fired and everything is fine- no injuries, suspect is in custody, etc. But gosh, that's just weird! We'd been wondering what that sound was and gunfire never entered our minds, but my mom called to ask if we were both okay!

Election Day!!

2008-11-04T09:05:00.002-05:00

AT LAST Election Day is here!! No more ridiculous ads taking over the television after today! That will be wonderful! :) I have already voted- Matt and I decided to wake up and get to our polling location when it opened. We arrived a little bit before they opened the doors and quickly realized that we needed to run back home and grab mail with our names AND current address on it since both of our licenses have our parents' addresses on them still (as those are going to be the most permanent addresses for each of us for a while.) So we went back, waited in line (which only took about 25 minutes or so) and Matt was being particularly goofy and obnoxious. If it wasn't for the adorable baby in the carseat behind us in line, I might've been much more annoyed. :) So we get up to the table and they look for my name. Not in the book. I kind of suspected that just a little bit because Matt got his voter info card in the mail last week and I didn't. So I had to vote provisional while my husband got to be cool and vote electronically. I was seriously annoyed. I went to the Courthouse, stood in line, filled out my form, and handed it directly to the dude behind the counter. Matt filled it out after I brought it home and dropped in the box. You'd think mine would be more guaranteed to get through the system since I put it in the guy's hand but I guess not! So hopefully my vote counts! :)

So now I will nervously wait for the results tonight!! :)

WTF?

2008-10-31T19:37:00.002-04:00

I was just watching ET and saw Piper Palin carrying around her very own Louis Vuitton bag. Isn't she like 7?? A 7 year old with a Louis Vuitton. Oy vey!!

And if they kill Jim off Ghost Whisperer, it has better be for damn good reason! I may just end up quitting that show after 3 seasons. :(

Brief vent

2008-10-31T17:17:00.002-04:00

Where in the hell is our wedding video?? I got an e-mail a week ago that it should be done by the middle of this week. End of the week. No video. Not even an e-mail with an update. I was rocking in the patience department for quite some time, and it is rapidly wearing thin. Not to mention I noticed that an enormous portion of my videographer's day yesterday was spent commenting on a colleague's Facebook, which was basically them engaging in a political debate. Okay, we've been married MORE than 3 months. 14 weeks. FOURTEEN WEEKS. THREE MONTHS. That just seems all kinds of insane to me! It's taking away quite a bit of the excitement I had a week ago (and for the past 3 months) and instead I just want to get it so I don't have to be annoyed anymore. I'm not annoyed very easily. But seriously, our photographer was admiring my patience when we picked up our wedding photo proof books. That was 1 1/2 months ago! My mom and Matt both started getting all "Where's the wedding video?!" on me about a month ago and I went into my "Relax guys, it'll be here!" A month later, I am joining them! My brother Kyle is coming up to visit BGSU on Tuesday and I told him it would for sure be here by then. I even thought that we'd have it to show my mom, Steve and Steven tomorrow when they come up for the football game. But it's Friday, no video, not even any kind of communication to let us know what's going on. It's really getting ridiculous.

Okay, vent over. Seriously, pissed off.

RIP

2008-10-21T00:31:00.004-04:00

Not about who you think....

You know how once you graduate high school and get kind of out of the loop with news and so word gets back to you rather, um...late? A girl Matt and I were rather close-ish with in high school died in June. Actually, on my cousin Stef's wedding day. She'd had leukemia I guess. 23 years old. I just don't get it. She was such a great girl! Matt was her squad leader in marching band, they both played saxophone and just to get under his skin, she called him "Hootie"...he loved DMB, yet she insisted on calling him Hootie. Matt and I still talk about that from time to time. And now she's gone. Too late to attend any services. Now it's on to figuring out how/when/if to tell Matt. It took nearly 4 months for this news to make its way back to me so I can't imagine when/if it would ever make it back to him. But my husband has a difficult time with death. A girl in his class died over the summer when they were in 7th grade and I guess it was incredibly tough on him. This would be another hard one, not because they were close friends, but because she was so young and because she'd touched his life at some point, no matter how small it was. Don't take a moment for granted.

Take a moment and please say a prayer for Lauren Elizabeth Brian. 5/20/85-6/28/08

TTD!

2008-10-19T23:53:00.002-04:00

Well we did our Trash the Dress picture shoot today! It was seriously SO much fun!! We were out for 4 hours, went to 3 different locations and our 2 photographers took over 2,000 pictures! Crazyness! We had so much fun...Matt wasn't nearly as excited about it as I was beforehand (he didn't so much want to do it because he didn't understand what it was for) and even he had a really good time! We clicked with our photographers so well, which is really important. I got to see a few shots on the camera and what I saw looked fabulous!

We started out at an old abandoned railcar and took pictures in the car, under a bride, and on the tracks themselves (right after a train went through!) Then we went to a bridge and walked to the top of it...the view was absolutely GORGEOUS up there, I couldn't get enough! That was one fun location because we had all these cars honking at us as they passed us and since most of the pictures up there were just of me, Matt got to wave to all the cars after they honked, which he loved. :) At one point, I even stood on the partition between the side of the bridge and the road of the bridge itself. Very cool! Then we headed to Maumee Bay State Park, which was BEAUTIFUL. I've never been there before, but we definitely plan on going back.

I did end up getting in the water there...I really don't want to know what the water temperature was, but it was the 2nd to last thing we did there. I stepped in to make the "final call" and though tit wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. So Matt and I went in about knee deep to take some shots, then Matt got out and I found some guts and went all the way in! The worst part in my opinion was the arms...it took so long for those to adjust! But I saw a few of the shots from the water...SO worth being cold for a while. My body temp was actually 94.8 degrees when we got back home! And then we rolled around on the beach for a few minutes, were chased by a psychotic bee (seriously....) and then we were done! The pictures should hopefully be up within the week, I am already so excited to see them! I'll post the link here once they are up and ready but for now, enjoy checking out their blog to see some of their other great work! :)

Everlasting Images

Updates again

2008-10-14T22:14:00.002-04:00

I know I know....I suck. :)

Grandpa is still hanging on. They moved him from the hospital to a rehab nursing home type facility 2 weeks ago. His kidney function is stable but not great and it took him a while to recover from the penumonia. He should be going back to his regular Alzheimer's assistance facility pretty soon.

My pseudo stepsister Nicky is 36 weeks pregnant today and all systems are go...whenever little Jordyn Nicole is ready to come out!! We're so excited to meet you and auntie Ari is ready to spoil you rotten! :) We had a mini shower for her on Sunday at my mom's- it was great!

For the love of Pete, I think it's about time for Cloris Leachman to be off DWTS. She gave it a good run and is very entertaining off course, nothing but respect for her. But if any other couples leave before she does now, it'll get a little ridiculous.

Trash the Dress pictures on Sunday!!! I'm really really REALLY hoping that the weather stays as gorgeous as it has been lately...it'll make going into Maumee Bay just a little bit less uncomfortable. :)

Started subbing AND logging some good hours at Sylvan. They threw me into teaching real live children after only 7 hours of training, lol. It went great though and I did my 2nd teaching night tonight. Even went up to having 2 kids at my table during math hour, which was a bit more of a juggling act but manageable. Next step: 3 kids! Dun dun dun! Hopefully you got that reference, otherwise you're staring at your screen in a state of confusion right now. :)

I DOCed a wedding over the weekend...I was a little more nervous about this one than usual, probably because the bride was SO organized. Sounds weird, but it almost makes the stakes a bit higher for a coordinator. But the wedding day was BEAUTIFUL and went off without a hitch! CONGRATULATIONS to the new Mr & Mrs Wainwright! Such a beautiful couple!

Skating practice is moved to Sunday mornings...not too sure how I feel about that one yet! I can do the whole program (thus far) this year, but I just don't LOVE skating anymore. The longish commute doesn't help either. I do love my team though; our program is FIERCE to say the least and I love being a Crystallette. This is my last year of synchro, so I am looking forward to the start of the competition season! 5 weeks until Kalamazoo! Once competition season starts, the skating season goes really fast because you just count the weeks between competitions.

Analeigh is still going strong on ANTM! Very excited! I know all of that happened and the competition was finished over a month ago, but I'm still anxious to see how far she got.

And I've got the baby rabies big time. The fact that I know about 16 ladies who have either recently given birth or are currently pregnant probably doesn't help. But I've got 2 babies coming pretty close to me, so I'm hoping that helps ease it up a little bit. We're nowhere near ready to take on a baby of our own right now, but knowing it is something that can be talked about seriously now and knowing that it's relatively close is VERY cool.

Update City

2008-09-27T20:48:00.003-04:00

Sorry to leave you in the lurch! :) So I did get that update and it was better, but not great. Wednesday, we were pretty sure that he wasn't going to make it through this thing. But Thursday he started to make a turn, passed his swallow test (he failed the first), and started being able to eat. He also started PEEING!!! Hearing that was like the hallelujah chorus- he had been in acute renal failure so we weren't sure if his kidneys would recover or not. My mom fed him his dinner on Thursday night (it was all pureed) and he ate basically all of it, which was great news. So now it is looking like he'll be okay and will be heading back to his 'home' once he recovers from the pneumonia. :)

And we picked Everlasting Images for our Trash the Dress shoot! Very excited for that to happen in 3 weeks!

Oh and it looks like I'll be starting my "other" job pretty quick! Turns out I'll be on-site for the first few months rather than in the center itself, but oh well. Work is work, income is income! I go in for a formal interview first as a formality and then start my training. :) And I should be cleared to start subbing pretty soon too, or as quickly as the staffing service I book jobs through can get me activated and get all my info out to me! I'm hoping to have some jobs this week, but I am not holding my breath. But the last step was my BCI/FBI fingerprinting and those results came back that I haven't committed any felonies in the past year. Thank goodness, I was really worried about that one. :-P

The apartment is coming along too! I finally got a fire lit under my butt this week since Matt was super busy at work. He came home one day and I'd finished unpacking and organizing and sorting stuff. My mom (and hopefully my brother Kyle) is coming up this weekend and I'm really hoping she'll be able to fit the bookcase we got for my bridal shower in her SUV....but I doubt it. So we have a smaller one that she is going to bring instead if she can't fit the big one. Huzzah for vertical storage! That's a huge part of why so much stuff was still packed. We just have way too much stuff, but I guess that is a good thing. So once it's all done officially, I will post some pictures! By the way, we're not allowed to use nails on the walls but I am itching to hang up some things (our signature mat, some photos and awesome frames we got, a sconce, and I have these cute shelves that I want to hang but they came with nails.) Any ideas on what I can use to hang things on the wall without damaging it?

Top 2

2008-09-23T21:15:00.003-04:00

Okay so after talking to Matt when he got home, pretty sure we're between Everlasting Images and Sarah J Photography. Now we just have to choose between the two. Which is proving to be...difficult, at best.

And my mom has been out of work since 5:00...5:30 at the latest. It is 9:16 pm. WHERE IS THE GRANDPA UPDATE?! I am seriously sitting here in a panic as I have been all day and not sure what to think. I even called Steve like half an hour ago and he hadn't heard from my mom since this morning either. Now THAT is weird. I don't know what to make of that. Yet I'm too much of a chicken shit to actually call her myself for fear of hearing the worst.

TTD...and a prayer request!

2008-09-23T17:42:00.003-04:00

I know, I know. Long timey, no writey. I know. :)

These past 2 days have been spent with me contacting a bunch of area photographers trying to get information about trash the dress pictures! We're so excited and hoping to do them next month once I get a chance to go to my mom's and grab my wedding dress. I probably contacted 10 or 11 photographers and heard back from, in no particular order:

~Sarah J Photography (did my b-pics...love her!)
~Everlasting Images
~Mattson Photography
~Ty Photography
~Shutterlove
~Considering Lilies
~JP Photography
~Mike Brice Photography

So we have our list of photographers. Now we just have to sit down, compare all the costs and packages and make a decision! We're so excited about doing these though! I keep hearing from a few of these photographers I've talked to about Maumee Bay. I've never been there, so we'll probably head out there for our shoot. Very exciting!! Now it's time to do some looking online to find some inspiration photos...I just may post some here!

Meanwhile...I've been on pins & needles all day because my grandpa is in the hospital back home. Those of you who don't know, my Poppa was diagnosed with Alzheimer's when I was about 16...it is NOT an easy or pleasant thing to watch one of your most cared loved ones deteriorate until they don't remember you. Kinda sucks, actually. That's putting it mildly. Anyway, he's in the hospital with pneumonia, the last update I got was this morning but my mom was going to go see him after work today, so I'm anxiously waiting to hear word from her. So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers...he and my mom were always VERY close and this whole thing has been unspeakably difficult for her. Yet she is SO strong. I'd really appreciate the good thoughts, though. Thanks so much!

So....

2008-09-11T22:12:00.003-04:00

After reading through a couple of posts of mine, I realized that I start a LOT of sentences with the word "so."

Might want to keep an eye on that, eh?? :) Sorry if that got annoying, but you'll soon learn that I say the words inside my head while I type them, so my posts come off conversational. The language winds up being exactly the way I would speak it. I'll work on it, and seriously- call me out on it! Not the best habit to start. That's right up there with saying "like" all the time as recent generations have been known to do.

7 years ago....

2008-09-11T15:49:00.002-04:00

I can't really even believe that it has been that long since September 11th, 2001. I mean WOW. Just take a moment today to think about those who were lost that day. Lost, but never EVER forgotten. And say an extra "I love you" or two to your nearest and dearest- not just today, but every day.

Matt and I will be headed to BGSU's campus tonight for their annual candlelight vigil...we've never missed it since we've been here and it's an amazing, beautiful, poignant, touching thing to be a part of every year.

Letting Go

2008-09-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

I have a difficult time letting go. When something ends, no matter what it is, I seem to have a hard time with it. I'm one of those people who is big on closure. If someone dies or leaves, I want to knwo why. It's part of my process. If a friendship ends, I want to know why. If people are so incredibly enthusiastic about being in your life one minute and the next can't get out fast enough, you'd want to know why, right?

I've been reflecting a bit on college lately, probably brought on after I attended BGSU's Campus Fest on Friday. This was probably one of my favorite events as a college student, and while I'm so glad that Matt got a job here and I've gotten to attend 2 more Campus Fests than I would have otherwise, I couldn't help but feel a bit of jealousy over seeing all of these college students there. I LOVED college. Can't really express enough my love for college. Even seeing students with giant bookbags walking to class, I'm a bit envious. How messed up am I? Maybe it's just because we're still new to this adult world of working and paying bills, things that bring on a bit of stress and are wonderfully absent during college. College, BGSU...they just agreed with me. I'd go back an dlive it all over again in a heartbeat. Even the bad stuff. I went through gall bladder's disease my sophomore year, my back windshield shattered, had my share of rough classes, papers and professors. I'd do it all again. Except one thing.

We made the best friends we'd ever had (well, up until then at least) my sophomore year. A friendship that was unlike anything any of us had ever experienced before. Everyone else I knew (and they knew) in college thrived on going out partying and hooking up with random people, while we were more than content with our 2 year+ relationship. We had a ton in common. It was fabulous. Friends for life, right? We'd even been told by this other couple that we would later move in nextdoor to eachother, have our kids together, they'd grow up and then get married to eachother. Sounded amazing back then when I was 19, now I have to admit it's a bit cheesy and unrealistic. But we went from that extreme to being told that we could no longer be friends shortly after junior year began. From one extreme to the other over the course of a summer vacation. You'd think that if you had been doing stuff to bug your BEST friends, they'd have the courtesy to let you know before abruptly cutting you loose. Especially if we meant that much to them. I guess it's just still something that baffles my mind, and if you're wondering if we ever got those answers that we were looking for....nope. Not a word. Any questions we had about it were met with silence. Great thanks, that really helps so much, former best friends.

We've since met our best friends. People who are so fantastically wonderful that we've finally been able to clear that hump we'd built up where it was difficult to trust people for a while. They're the type of people who are rarely ever bothered by anything (seriously the most laidback, level-headed people on the planet) and if we did ever by chance piss them off, they would have the decency to let us know about it.

So then why is it still so hard to let go of the events of 4 years ago? We've let go of the people themselves, which was even easier to do after discovering that they're not so much the kind of people we'd want to be best friends with anyway. But the occurence as a whole I think still has both of us wondering about what went wrong and how to prevent the same from happening again. We've both grown up a lot since then and maybe this all just comes from reflecting on the past chapter of our lives as we begin a new one together as husband & wife. I think the people they were when we first met them would be proud of us and who we are and how far we've come as a couple and as individuals. Maybe it's hard because when we remember that friendship, we remember those first early versions of those people. I guess it would be nice to have some closure on that one big mystery from the last chapter of our lives. But in the absence of answers, we can be happy with the people we are and enjoy the company of the people who were actually meant to be in our lives and be our best friends. We're SO thankful to have the friends that we do and people who love and appreciate us for who we are.

So, sealing up one chapter of our lives for the history books and very eager to embark on the next. So very excited to see what adventures lie ahead of us!

Welcome Kristiana Grace!!!

2008-08-27T16:04:00.000-04:00

Yay!!! My friend Amanda and her husband Craig had their baby girl!! Her name is Kristiana Grace, I don't have any specs yet (heehee) but had to say CONGRATULATIONS!!! Since her mommy is a dancer, she will probably be in ballet lessons starting next month. :) She couldn't have a nicer, more flippin' gorgeous set of parents and I so excited for Am, Craig, Kristiana, grandma Mo, and godmommy Olivia!!

2008-08-26T16:22:00.001-04:00

Oh and if I have one more person tell me I'm pregnant, I might just go off the deep end. Yes, I may have been having some issues with my stomach lately, but it doesn't mean I'm pregnant. I've had issues with my stomach for the better part of my 24+ years on the planet, but now suddenly since I'm a newlywed, those same issues= a bun in the oven. I guess it figures.

But if I'm pregnant for real, I'll feel like a total douchenozzle for giving everyone a hard time about harassing me. :)

But seriously, I'm not pregnant! Just sick!

Monthiversary and job juju!

2008-08-26T15:41:00.001-04:00

We've been married a whole month already!!! That is some craziness! I have the best husband in the world...he makes me smile and laugh every single day, we are such a great team...how did I luck out like that? Love him! So one month today...seriously, wow.

The month flew! As much as the days have been crawling lately while I'm waiting to get back to teaching, the month as a whole just whizzed by. Yes, I said whizz. Poke fun if you must. :)

So the juju we need...yeah. So Matt's contract at BG was extended last spring (hooray!) but this position is only 2 years, so as of June 30th, 2009 we'd have nowhere to go. We'd been holding out some glimmer up hope that we could stay here but the only positions in the department are Matt (the assistant guy) and Brian (the director guy.) So unless Brian decides to leave and Matt leapfrogs up 2 or 3 steps into this position or they create a new position for him (which won't happen because there isn't the budget for it) we won't be staying here. Sooo Mattie needs to find himself a new job by then. So I decide last Tuesday to mosey onto ncaa.org and see what's there, but I didn't actually get into the job postings. So when Matt gets home for lunch, he finishes that task while I'm in the kitchen getting food ready. Low and behold, there is a job posting for a position at University of Akron in the next position up from Matt's current one. Akron is an hour from our hometown (score), UA is D-1 (score again), a MAC school (yet another score) and did I mention we'd get to stay in Ohio? Fant-abulous. They would make the discussion we'd had in the car the previous weekend about "What to do when we have kids and we live out of state?" now a mute point if he gets this job. So he applied and got his stuff revised and out to them that day. Saturday we get a letter from them with something for him to fill out and send back. The letter basically said "We got your stuff, we're hoping to pick finalists by the end of September."

This would be AMAZING. We'd probably be there for a few years, we could get a house, get a puppy, have a baby...it'd be awesome. All close to home so we wouldn't have to leave all of our family and friends and start over- it has some adventure and appeal to it that way, but staying around here sounds great to me. Plus, a pay raise. A big one probably. Holy wow. Darn that my husband is in a field where you have to claw your way up the ladder before you can get your due. But he truly loves what he does...can't ask for more than that!! :)

So seriously people who read this lovely blog o' mine....think good thoughts for us! Hope first that he gets an interview (which he really should easily...a guy who does hiring for athletics at Ohio State said last summer that Matt's resume was one of the best and most stacked he'd seen...and that was before this past year and all that experience he got at BGSU!) Then we can hope that he gets the job, but really, hope for good things for us! Last year was tough despite the overall wonderfulness of it just because we're not in great job positions yet.

The downside of leaving? Well it's been wonderful living in BG and being so close to our alma mater. We seriously LOVE BGSU and love to be here. And I'd be done with Crystallettes probably. As it is, driving an hour and 20 minutes each way can kind of get on your nerves, but from Akron to Dearborn is over 3 hours each way. Gas prices alone would make that tough. But we'll see what happens. No use in worrying about it until something actually happens.

Yay for one month!!!!!

Gahh, love this man!!! :)

Rough Week

2008-08-24T02:57:00.000-04:00

Well, it was a bit of a rough week emotionally in the Holtwick house. It was shaping up to be a good week- our TY cards were coming in (OMG, effing finally) and Matt was busy at work preparing for the first big event of the season on Saturday. We'd made plans to meet a few friends out for dinner on Tuesday night, and just before that, Matt decided to check antsmarching.org a message board for DMB that he frequents. There was a thread with a rumor that the saxophonist LeRoi Moore had passed away. Now LeRoi was in an ATV accident on June 30th and had been in the hospital for a while. He wound up back in the hospital on July 18th for complications and then suddenly we hear that he was in LA (with the band) to begin his physical rehab and died! So we were nervously on our cell phones all during dinner (great company we must have been) staying on the forums and checking for anything official. About an hour after we got back home, Matt's dad called saying that Larry King had made a live announcement on CNN. Matt barely made it through the phone call before he just melted and broke into tears. Roi was Matt's favorite member of his favorite musical group on the planet. I really wanted it to be false, not just to keep this fantastic human being on the planet, but I wanted it to be false for Matt so that he wouldn't have to go through that. So after trying to be the strong one for a while, I finally broke down and allowed myself to get emotional. The band was somehow able to get through their show that night (for Roi obviously) so we stayed up for the whole concert which wound up being pretty late for us since they were playing in LA on PST. It was definitely a setlist with a purpose. All pretty mellow songs which we soon found out that they were trying to play some of Roi's favorites. The next day was rough for us both, but better than I thought- we tracked their setlist again that night. On Thursday, 2 days after he passed, the audio for the concert was released online, so I downloaded it and we listened to it that night. It was like emotional bulimia. Not to make light of bulimia or anything, but it was like we forced ourselves to sit together on the couch and listen to this incredibly emotional and difficult concert and not just bawl. A few songs and moments were tougher than others and this was also my first time hearing Roi's temporary replacement, Jeff Coffin, playing in his place. He did well, but he's no Roi. Gotta hand it to him- this had to be one tough experience for him.

I think we're finally out of the dark on this a bit. We're both able to listen to songs with Roi playing again (I was able to even on Thursday) and we watched a few videos of him online tonight and on a few DVDs Matt has. And we could just laugh and respect what an absolutely hysterical and brilliant person he was. As more and more details about not only his accident (we never knew how bad it truly was) but his last day and what he was like when he wasn't onstage, we came to feel so much respect for him and also feel incredibly sad that we weren't able to ever meet him or to know what he was like offstage until now. He had taken a young girl, a new rising star under his wing and was getting her career going before his accident. People as good at LeRoi Moore shouldn't be taken off the planet so swiftly, so soon. It happens quite a bit though, I suppose. It never gets any more fair. Did you know he was to be married in November? Hearing that added a whole new layer to the giant suckfest that is his passing. This is a link to a letter that upcoming artist I mentioned before and her mom each wrote about Roi. It's beautiful and while it helped us a lot to hear what a wonderful person he was, it made us hurt a bit too.

http://www.antsmarching.org/forum/showthread.php?t=229751

So, RIP dear friend LeRoi Moore. Thank you for the amazing 17 years of wonderful music you gave to my husband, myself, and countless millions of others. You will be SADLY missed but always always remembered!

"Rest high above the clouds, no restrictions..."-DMB

LeRoi Moore 1961-2008

My Weekend

2008-08-19T16:29:00.000-04:00

I had a bit of an interesting weekend. Let me preface my post by saying that I won't make the full actual wedding day post until I have professional pictures and video links to post with it. I figure that's fair. :) But for now, amuse yourself for hours (no really) and visit my new married bio which I just finally finished last week! Fun fun!!

http://matthewandarianna.googlepages.com/marriedbio!!

So hubby-boo and I went home for the weekend for the first time since the wedding and honeymoon. This was also our first time leaving Roo at home for a whole weekend for a while. We used to be cooler with it but we had what we affectionately refer to as the "Roo Cam." Well the website that hosts the Roo Cam conveniently decided to shut down since the last time we used it so we couldn't even watch her while we were home. Obsessive yes, but it offers us a bit of peace of mind. Can you tell what kind of parents we will be?? Yikes. Sorry kids!

So we head home and were planning to head to our good friends' house to hang out for the night and it was our only shot basically because Joe was going to a bachelor party Saturday night. Well we ende dup getting held up, watched the Michael Phelps race (whoohoo!) and then my mom and Steve got home from the movie (they say Tropic Thunder {I believe that's the name} is HILARIOUS) and we got delayed even more. So we called, made plans to possibly get together on Sunday afternoon and hit the sack.

Saturday morning we wake up and I get ready to head to the bank, Matt has a haircut. Matt gets into my car to leave, looks around and notices that something is definitely not right. Stuff was EVERYWHERE. All the little doors and compartments were opened with everything out of it. Didn't take us long to realize that the car had been broken into and ransacked. Matt's duffel bag was in the backseat and everything was taken out of it, clothes thrown everywhere. The trunk was popped. My wallet however, was nicely on the front seat opened but with everything still in it along with Matt's Oakley sunglasses. The CD holder on the visor is still full. So what exactly did this guy (or girl) get? After a quick check, the only big thing we noticed missing was my digital camera, which sucked but there was only one picture on it and it was a picture I had taken of another picture. Not a big deal. Sure it sucked that I had to replace my camera now, but at least I didn't lose pictures, which are obviously irreplaceable. (duh Ari, ya think?) So a bank visit, haircut, and police report later, we went to my Booma's for a get-together. We had our gifts and cards hidden outside this time which was something new and fun, but while I was there I got pretty sick with a stomachache. Not the biggest deal since there is obviously a working toilet. :)

Meanwhile I got a call from Jill that Joe had decided to nix the bachelor party that night in order to hang out with us (hooray/aww!) So we headed straight there and our regular drinking game fun ensued. I came out of there learning a very important lesson. Mixing Cosmos with Mike's Hard Lemonade is NOT a good choice. Eew even thinking about it is not a good thing. Blech. So by 2:30 am I wasn't feeling the greatest so we cleaned up and headed upstairs. Really nauseous and I just wanted to sleep so that I could wake up and feel better. Woke up at 6:30...did NOT feel better. thinking it was the booze, Matt advised me that I should throw up and I'd feel way better. 6 hours, 14 pukes, and a trip back to my mom's later I finally forced myself to eat some Jell-o and go to sleep for an hour, after which my stomach finally calmed down enough to allow me to stop puking. That was a fun day. Over the course of my barf-fest my mom and Matt finished opening our gifts from the wedding (I know we got Catchphrase...twice. And a vase and some glasses but other than that, I don't remember anything because I wasn't really conscious at the time.) We also got a surprise knock at the door from a lady across the street. THEY FOUND MY CAMERA!!! It was down the street a few houses down in the curblawn. The picture was still on it, still in perfect condition, and the $25 cash I had stashed in there was still there. Dumb criminals! We got a gift card to Olive Garden and took it over to the lady later that night, but she refused to take it! She said she believes in karma and she believes that if you do something good, it will come back to you (but not from the people you did something good for) So she wanted us to have a nice dinner together once I was feeling better. Awww. So we thanked her profusely, packed my car, and headed back to BG.

Oh! Another cool thing! My mom's boyfriend Steve works in marketing and he works for a bunch of different area companies. One of them is a local athletic equipment provider, and he was working on an ad campaign for a line painting machine (for football fields, soccer, etc.) Guess who got to model the machine for the ad campaign?? Me! Of course I'd been sick all day and needed to lay down between takes (and probably didn't look all that cute or pretty) but it was still fun to do! :)

So that was my weekend. So glad we wound up getting some time with Joe & Jill! And that I stopped puking. Oh, and I lost 3 pounds on Sunday because of being sick so I weigh as much as I did in the middle of high school.

7 Things

2008-08-19T16:21:00.000-04:00

Per request of Colleen (which by the way, don't say I never did anything for you because I SUCK at this game.)

1. I count everything. Stairs, steps to my car, cars going by. Anything that doesn't need to be counted, I count it.

2. All of my money has to be in order from small bills to large bills, smoothed out and all facing the same direction.

3. Now that I talked about money- I RARELY carry cash.

4. I'm actually okay with this waiting game for my wedding photos and video because once I have those, there isn't anything left. It's officially over.

5. I could eat several foods everyday and be totally fine with it. Cheerios, strawberries, pasta, french fries (especially from Arby's...yummo) and ice cream to name a few.

6. I love peanut butter. especially with chocolate and on top of ice cream. And my sister Abby hates peanut butter. Like you can't even open the jar and hold it next to her face without her screaming bloody murder (our brothers have done it.) And I hear we're related?

7. I like to eat hot dog buns with just ketchup. I'm a bit of a bread freak.

And now following this, there will be an actual post. Huzzah!

The Week Before The Best Day Ever

2008-08-04T12:27:00.000-04:00

So it's been over a month since my last post (GOD I'm a slacker!) Or maybe I was just really busy with a little thing called the wedding! If you've checked the calendar lately, you see that that wonderful date of July 26, 2008 has indeed passed, which means that I am now MARRIED! Kinda crazy, right? I'm definitely okay with claiming the title of organization queen leading up to the wedding, but let me tell you people, NOTHING can prepare you for those last 2-3 weeks or so. I was getting e-mails and phone calls from my mom constantly reminding me about this, that, the other thing, and while it was nice to have someone else with their brain working overtime so as not to forget anything, it majorly stressed me out. I just wanted to be DONE and get to the wedding so I could marry my love and have a fabulous time. I begrudgingly got stuff done and was happy to finally get out of the apartment and BG so I could go home and actually be where the wedding was taking place. The Saturday before was my bachelorette party! Despite only 5 of the invited 16 being able to make it, we had SO much fun. Prior to that, I got to go to the airport and pick up JUSTEEN!!! oh my GOD, did we sprint at eachother and have the biggest hugfest known to man outside of baggage claim door 4. It was so amazing to see her again.

So Sunday morning with met with the fabulous Angela Wish, our DOC (or for those not currently residing in wedding land, our day of coordinator) in what ended up being a very long but successful meeting. Then we went over and did some major damage at B.A. Sweetie's candy store while shopping for the candy buffet (that place is AMAZING!) We rewarded our fantastic progress by spending the rest of the day at CP with Matt! :)

Monday I had a dentist appointment early to follow up with the whitening appointment I'd had 3 weeks earlier. He did etch on my teeth and they came out looking FABULOUS. Justeen, meanwhile, was at my mom's folding together 255 chinese takeout style favor boxes. That girl rocks. :) Crazy errands followed for the entire rest of the day until our DJ meeting with the wonderful Eddie Ault that night. Another long meeting that I was picked on mercilessly for the rest of the week. Great thanks, guys. Attention to detail, here! ;-)

Tuesday was a fantastically wonderful free day! We did some errands in the morning (incuding having some drama because we couldn't find nearly enough of the ribbon color that we had bought the day before. By that point, I didn't care and we branched out to using pale pink and coral ribbon in addition to the fabulous shocking pink we fell in love with on Monday!) We had the final cake appointment at noon (and the totally necessary purchasing of Kiedrowski's baked goods while we were there, obvio.) and then headed out on the boat with mom, Steve, and Karlovec for 4 hours of tubing fun. My arms hated me the next few days, but that was one amazing (and much-needed) day of fun! We went straight to a meeting at the photographer's studio with the fabulous Bruce Bishop and then to Friendly's for dinner (YUMMO!)

Wednesday was pretty much the day from hell. We had wanted to have basically everything done by the end of the night so that we could just enjoy Friday. I spent the morning putting together the seating chart while Teen finished up the favor boxes and glued on the blinigies that we had placed on the cake topper letters on Monday. Crazy errands, crazy errands, and finally got the seating chart taken in and printed off. I take it home and do the big reveal to my mom, who responded with "Looks great. I'm not on it, but it looks great." Um, what?! So for letters A-E, I wasn't sure I'd have room in the columns to put both names for each couple, so I was putting only the first name in each party. Obviously, my mom was listed then as a part of Steve's party, but her actual name wasn't listed. I realized at letter F that I could fit both but forgot to change A-E. So after having a major emotional meltdown and sobfest (MUCH needed, I was SO stressed out) I fixed the seating chart and went to Staples for the 4th time that day to have it reprinted (it was fine because printing the placecards at home with our laser printer wasn't working too great, so I would've been taking those anyway.) So then we worked on favor boxes like crazy and waiting for word from Cindi that her flight was taking off for Cleveland because it was delayed. Except that at 10:00-ish I get a text that she landed in Cleveland. Oh. Shit. I made record time getting to the airport (25 minutes, that is fantastic) and yet another hugfest ensued outside of Cleveland Hopkins baggage claim. =OD Took her home, ate delicious pizza, and continued the favor box fun into the night. Cindi & Teen, of course, hit it off amazingly and were soon giggling like longtime friends. Makes me happy. :) Matt & I also had a meeting together with the DJ since Matt couldn't be at Monday's meeting.

Thursday= CEDAR POINT!!!! We wrangled as many bridal party members as we could (many weren't in town yet) as headed out for a day of fun. The guys met at Matt's parents' house and the girls met at my mom's. On the way we had to stop at AAA for tickets for a couple of the girls, and AAA happens to be nextdoor to Staples {magical fairy sound plays} so I picked up the placecards and seating chart while we were there. Anyway, we spent the morning and early afternoon separate and then met up as a full group after lunch. The whole day was just ridiculously fun and it was another opportunity for everyone to meet eachother and bond a bit.

So then we arrive at Friday. We got our nails done bright and early and then headed back to the house to pick up all of the reception stuff and the things that were being taken to the hotel (my dress and accessories, the girls' stuff, all food and drinks, etc.) We took everything over to DeLuca's and Matt met us there so that we could go through our first dance on the floor and figure out where everything would happen and which way to face everything. We then headed to the suite, unloaded everything, and Matt & I met at our hotel for the wedding night to leave a car so we could get home on Sunday. Then it was time to finish up last minute things (Teen did some serious rehab on my ribbon bouquet which had waaaaaaay too many ribbons on it...it wound up looking fantastic!) The rehearsal was great but ran way longer than expected. It was amazing getting there and seeing everyone and people mingling and getting to know eachother. Such a great experience. Brian was there so we'll have footage from our rehearsal and RD on our final video...very exciting! The rehearsal dinner at the Oberlin Inn went so well! Everyone loved their gifts and my dad cried at his. :) The food was delicious and I ate a lot, which was good since I couldn't eat anything the next morning. Saying goodbye to Matt was so strange and emotional, knowing that the next time I saw him, I'd be walking down the aisle. :*) Woz was wonderful enough to give Cindi, Teen and I a ride to the suite and she could tell that I was already feeling the nerves, so she grabbed my hand and held it the whole way back, which was so comforting. That night in the suite was SO much fun though! We took pictures, we talked, we laughed...SO much fun. We finally went to bed at 12:45-ish and I woke up a short 4 hours later. Some of the girls woke up and stayed up with me, which was really comforting and distracted me a bit from the enormity of the day ahead.

So next up: the wedding day!!

Uh...

2008-07-01T02:29:00.000-04:00

...so I have been TERRIBLE about this blog and it just began. :) I have lots of updates so I will write again tomorrow with all of those!

So it begins...

2008-06-19T09:50:00.000-04:00

Ah, the beginning of my first blog. You know, screw the early pleasantries, this wedding stuff is starting to drive me nuts! Honestly, I don't stress ever about stuff getting done, because I know between the two of us and our families and friends, somehow it will. The biggest worry for me right now is $$$$$$$. Whenever I work the numbers and finally relax and think it'll all work out, something happens. Like Matt overdraws himself and we get hit with all kinds of fun fees ($120 in one week, in fact. That was a month ago and then it happened again, another $30 down the toilet. I might just kill him, then I don't have to worry about wedding stuff anymore because I eliminated the groom from the picture. Kidding.) So there was that, and then I had to go be a genius and have 80 things on my mind and totally ignore that little 25 MPH speed change sign through Portage (seriously, it's 25 mph for about 300 feet) and continue going 41. Too bad that cop was there. So there was another unexpected cost. And now that extra job I picked up for 2 1/2 weeks just got cut short by 2 days. So there's about $100+ that I thought we'd have which we now won't. So yeah, I'm stressing. Not to mention I will now have to sit at home all day, every day (well at least after this next week when we have vacation- thank GOD) which I really hate because it only overemphasizes the fact that I'm not working and am not bringing in any money. And Matt only gets paid once a month. Ughh. I greatly look forward to the day when I don't have to worry about money every single freaking day of my life. I'll bet Matt does too, if for no other reason than he gets his regular, happy, carefree, lets-herself-have-fun fiance back. No matter what I do though, I cannot stop thinking and worrying about it.

So besides the clear issue of money, I'm pretty happy! We're in the process of moving into our new apartment which gives us 200 extra square feet that we don't have here and will be easier on the purse strings every month (by $70 to be specific.) So other than the usual stress that accompanies moving, that is going very well. I'm taking advantage of my unexpected time off the next 2 days and getting some stuff done.

Our other big stresser is the honeymoon. Yep folks, we are 38-ish days away from the wedding without having booked a honeymoon. I'm figuring we'll end up with Mexico like we originally planned, but I have an incredibly indecisive fiancee. I've talked to his wonderful mom about this before and she's encouraging me to just go ahead and book it without dealing with all this unnecessary stress Matt is bringing on. He is always unsure about things, and then when it actually comes time to do the thing he was so unsure about, he has a great time. It's just frustrating. Could've been booked a while ago. :(

So this weekend is my first flight solo as a DOC! It is Alison & Josh's wedding day at Sawmill Creek in Huron. We've been talking and planning and discussing for months and now finally, it's here! Tomorrow is the rehearsal, which I get to run all by me onesie, which should prove to be a good time, but she has a really great bridal party, so I'm not really that worried. Plus I get to be a pretend officiant. How fun will that be? Then I set up their candy buffet and head home to crash before the wedding the next day. So after their wedding is done (it should be a lot of fun, Alison has worked really hard on all of these details) we leave for Mackinac Island with my dad's tour! I'm SO excited, but I'm sad because Butch just had surgery and probably won't be our driver. :( I'm still holding out hope but we'll have to see. I'm seriously SO excited for Mackinac! I feel like I need some time away in the worst way. Hopefully I can put all of my worries and stress aside for just a few days and enjoy our time there. Somehow I doubt it. :-\

So even though i just spent forever bitching and venting and stuff, I have TONS to look forward to! New apartment, Stef's wedding is next weekend, vacation, ZOOM (next Friday!!), oh and that little thing called THE WEDDING!!! I am seriously out of my gord excited. Is that even a phrase that makes sense? Probably not, but I think all of you hypothetical readers understand what I mean. I'm seriously so so excited for our wedding day and to start my life with Matt afterwards. All this stuff will get figured out. We're a really great team, even if I lose track of that sometimes. We can get through anything and everything as long as we're together.

And on that sappy note, I am off to go pack or shower or whore myself out for part-time work. :-D