just enough time.

i can't sleep. it sounds very cold outside my apartment, so it's nice to be in the apartment. i like hearing snow & wind from indoors. things won't stop being cold, but i have found a place that is quite warm. now back to a place that's warmer still... underneath my comforter.

I've been up to quite a bit lately.

I started working for MCC at the end of October. It was a fantastic, and challenging change. It was hard to leave such incredible coworkers at UW, but at the same time I really think it was the right time for me to leave. I am LOVING working at MCC, it was kind of a dream of mine since University. So I'm pleased to be there. The atmosphere is wonderful.

I've also been getting a bit on the crafty side lately. Here are some photos!

FOOD!
I made this cake this weekend for Heidi's birthday.

CRAFTS!
I also crocheted two toques. Here's one of them!

fall back down.

there is a lot of change happening around me, and in me.

there are the physical reminders of change, fall is here and it's beautiful. october has been a wonderful month, almost a second summer. the days have been full of sunshine, warmth, and vibrant colors. but now the leaves have almost all fallen, and my manitoban world prepares itself for winter. the death of my grandpa this summer was particularly hard, and fall has reminded me of the natural cycle of life and i take comfort in that. fall will always come, and then winter. but it's not bad. just sad sometimes.

do you know what is silly? that i noticed when someone from my past took me off their facebook friends list. i noticed pretty quickly to be honest. some books are closing and others are opening. i'm discovering new friends, and new ways of being with friends who've been around for years. in really good ways. so goodbyes are okay too, whether we have a say or not.

my life has changed. i am married, and i love it. i love andrew a lot, and could not have asked for anything more. i am preparing for an interview tomorrow for a new job that means new and scary changes.

photodates.

my sister and i went on a fall photo date, which was awesome. i'd been wanting to do it really badly lately!

no feud tonight.

i put together an epic meal for andrew and i. it consisted of:

-garlic parmesan chicken
-rosemary roasted potatoes
-asparagus
-corn on the cob

hail to the pillow thief part 2.

so just when i thought andrew's subconscious pillow stealing days were over...

one night last week andrew was particularly fitful in his sleep. he was moving all over the place and i was woken up several times. most of these times i was annoyed, but there was one particular wake up that i just couldn't NOT find funny.

there i was, sleeping peacefully when very quickly i wake up to my pillow literally being taken out from under my head. i figured that andrew lost his pillow again and turned around to find it for him. but alas, when i turned around there he was... pulling my pillow ON TO his own which he still had. apparently andrew's subconscious requires not one, but two pillows.

So Andrew and I have been doing some "home improvements", apartment style. We can't nail anything to our walls, so we've been using adhesive strips to get our pictures up etc. We also have a lot of organizing that needs doing.

Here are some of the things we've been up to:

1. Space saver!

These marvellous inventions were brought to my attention by my new mom (Andrew's mom)

as an awesome way to use the little space you get. It goes right over the toilet and has so much room! We got this one on sale at Canadian tire.

2. Wall paper frames! I bought some wall paper that we'll be using for the about to be mentioned project, as well asa few more to come. I bought three frames on sale that were the same size, and spray painted the nicks/notmatching colors into a matte black. It turned out great! Then I put the wall paper inside, being sure to match the paper's pattern to where each frame was to go.

hail to the pillow thief.

this is a post about how being married to andrew is wonderful and hilarious.

a few nights ago, i woke up in the middle of the night, because andrew was on my side of the bed. now, that's not particularly upsetting to me, especially when i'm super sleepy.

one thing you should know about me is that my super sleepy self is an odd combo of: really out of it and therefore rather unintelligent, doesn't see unintelligence as a barrier and likes to use big words to articulate rather simple thoughts that seem complicated when having just been awakened. but i digress.

so then what happens, is that andrew slips his arm slowly under my pillow. i thus conclude that he's wanting middle of the night cuddles.

"how nice" i think to myself.

except it dawns on me that the other arm isn't necessarily wrapped around me as is usually expected. so i turn over to investigate.

BAM. insert andrew's face super close to me here.

confused, i look around and three things are realized:
1. somehow andrew's pillow is sitting on top of the covers, right around where my butt is.
2. because andrew's pillow is where it is, his close proximity is due to the fact that he is, in fact, now trying to steal MY pillow.
3. he's absolutely unconscious.

so i proceed to pick up his pillow, and somewhat roughly put it where it should be. the somewhat roughness was intentional, hoping he'd wake up a little and realize how much of my turf he's on and go back to his own darn pillow. i don't know if it happened all that quickly, because i promptly fell asleep but when i woke next, he had moved.

since then i've thought about his sub conscious pillow stealing and i giggle every time. sneaky andrew...

i lost a man who i loved and respected and knew my whole life, today. until the end, he kept his independence and his dignity, and he probably wouldn't have had it any other way. i will miss him very much, and am sad that i will never get to see, or talk, or listen to him anymore.

jill & nathan.

my good friend jill got married a week ago today. it was such a cool wedding. i took photos whenever the photographer wasn't around.

all the girls got their hair done together and went to jill's parents to get ready.

her dress was made for her, and you can tell. it was perfectly her.

we got to make our own bouquet's. i was VERY proud of mine (this one).

i love this girl.

so does nathan.

cute cute cute.

your ghost.

things i have been doing lately...

listening to the following albums:
- high violet - the national
- versicolour - aidan knight
- in a quiet world - we are the city
- islands disappear - said the whale


i saw the last three in concert last weekend. correction, i saw the first two of the last three in concert last weekend, because i had to get driven home to go to bed by the time said the whale came on. i was in a wedding the day before and was just pooped. poooooped. BUT seeing aidan knight was my favorite part. he wrote a song about knitting and i loved it. he dedicated it to me. aka to the knitters in the audience. he also had a beautiful voice and i'm happy he played.

i will be posting pictures from the wedding once i'm done editing them. the photographer wasn't there during the girls getting ready time, so i took it upon myself to take some photos and push myself to be better at a specific type of photography. so we'll see how that goes.

recently i began reading a new series. it's sci fi and nerdy and SO GOOD. i read "ender's game" by orson scott card (yes heidi, my equally nerdy significant other lent them to me too!), and am now reading the sequel (or one of the sequels) "speaker for the dead". i love books that i can launch myself into, that make me want to do nothing else.

over the course of this summer i have had my own wedding, and soon after my friend's wedding which i was in. as a result, relaxing and recreational time was not very much partaken of. that changed this weekend. i was able to swim in a pool (magnifique!) and go to the beach all in one weekend. i couldn't have been happier.

i love summer. i love being married. i love reading. i love good friends.

Living quite long.

La vie est belle. Vraiment, vraiment, belle.

We got married 10 days ago! It was the best day of life. The pictures were so much fun, the ceremony was awesome, the reception was beautiful. All the decorations turned out amazingly well. The help we had from friends & family was overwhelming, and everything was just really nice.

On our honeymoon I picked up a book of short stories by Neil Gaiman (he wrote Coraline). He's a super weird/good/creepy/awesome writer. I am really enjoying reading through these stories. I like them, because he does his explaining of the context of the story in a way that you just have to figure out. It's like jumping into the middle of a conversation. But all the pieces are there to explain it, you just have to figure it out. It's excellent.

I love Andrew and I love being married. I have only 10 days of experience, but it's a good 10 days thus far. I could not be happier with my choice. We have giggle fits at night while trying to fall asleep and it's the best.

I got a new hair cut and I love it. I have thicker bluntish bangs and it's awesome. I couldn't wait to get it cut after the wedding. Wahoo!

The other day I realized how much of my actions/life can be dictated by how much I want people to like me and what I say and do. I'm pretty okay at setting that aside sometimes, but other times it really bothers me how much I think about things. Like the way a friend talked to me at my wedding or something, making me feel like maybe they were mad at me. Really? REALLY? Get a grip.

New goal: exist in a way that respects and loves me and others. Less bending for what I deem approval, less questioning decisions that I make and have considered, and less apologizing for things that do not require apologies.

Random mix of things to say hey? Yup.

In other news, wedding pictures can be found at...
www.ashnayler.com
Click on client log in and type "July42010"
I'll post some for realz though. Just got to get them!

Ciao.

beneath the sheets of paper, lies my truth.

7 days. one more week. week. of. wedding.

it's kind of crazy. this is a lot of transition.
it barely feels like it was 11 months ago that i moved into the roslyn, and just saturday i moved the last of my stuff out and into our apartment, while simultaneously moving into my parents house for the week.
moving into my parents marks the last time i can really do this solo. i will never really live with them again.
next week i become a wife, i move, and i meet a new piece of life that i have never ever experienced.

if any of this sounds negative, i don't mean it to be. i'm a little overwhelmed by all the change, though by no means does that mean that i am less excited by what next weekend holds.

i'm really excited to live with andrew. i'm excited to acutally be moved in and have a permanent home again. i don't like being in limbo, though at the same time i really like being with my parents right now. it's nice to be taken care of when there is so much to think about.

and let me tell you, there is so much to think about.

(an aside: i successfully changed my voicemail back to english. no big deal.)

on the list of things that only i would manage to do...

so my phone battery has decided to suck a lot, and lately has been running low or dying by the end of one day of use. i have heard that it is good to have your phone die completely and then get recharged, for maximum battery use.

the other night, my battery was beeping a notification that it was low. so i decided that i should try to kill it completely in an attempt to make it last longer the next day. talking on my phone tends to take a lot of juice, so i called my voicemail and was randomly going back and forth between the main menu, and the extended menu options, just to kill time.

well, i got bored of just listening to the menu options over and over as my phone refused to die. so in a stroke of PURE GENIUS, i button mashed. once i stopped, i heard the phrase "your voicemail language preference is now set to mandarin".

"shoot", i thought to myself, "this is not good."

so i proceeded to go back through the language options to see if i heard correctly. it assured me that my langage was set to english (little did i know that meant "presently" and did not include "after i hung up the phone from this voicemail options session").

then i hung up. then i decided just to check.

my voicemail is now set to mandarin. i cannot check it. i cannot get it back to english. telus lady could not get it back to english.

true story. i cannot make this stuff up.

all this time.

yesterday i was asked what my least favorite part of the wedding planning has been.

i didn't even have to think.

easily, hands down...

the guest list & seating plan. we're not even done the seating plan but i already hate it. it's extremely satisfying when a group fits perfectly into one table, but let me tell you... those are few and far between. once we have our final final numbers submitted, it might make it easier. so we just did the pretend one to see how easy or hard it'll be, and will go from there. as for the guest list... it was painful for me. literally painful. slowly removing people from the list hurt so much. i love people. i have long lasting attachments to them that they don't even know about. so to remove them from a list of people i wanted to have at an exciting day, really stank. that said, we did the best we could and just had to acknowledge the boundaries within which we were working (aka $$).

i get my dress today.

i have never been one to dream up my dress or wedding. i'd thought about it, sure, but never really sat down to imagine the perfect _________ or the perfect __________. so when i went to my fitting on monday, i really didn't have much that i expected. not in a bad way. just i didn't know how to expect in that context.

so, i go with my mom & my sister. i'm off to a great start as i slam my elbow into the car door (only minor bruising, don't worry). but after that, i put it on and (insert angelic high pitched vibrato singing here) it was perfect!!!!! i mean, there were minor changes, but the dress fit so perfectly, everything about it is just wonderful. jill, the wonderful woman who made my dress, is truly an incredible and talented maker of epic clothing. that should probably be her title on her card, if she had a card.

so now, we are 18 days from the wedding (insert a holy crap here). i'm really excited. especially after the dress. it made it so real to me! details are being taken care of, though on occasion i have been losing a bit of sleep as i think up thing i could be forgetting and give myself anxiety. unfortunately, with or without wedding anxiety i seem to be doomed to having a lack of sleep. hopefully this little bit of kind of insomnia goes away soon. i have a (almost) sister in law to see, marathon relay to run, an apartment to pack up, a move to do, and last minute things to take care of, and oh, let's not forget... I GET TO GET MARRIED!

dark blue, dark blue.

there are 26 days until i am to be wed.

i have found that i am feeling less and less stressed as time goes on. things that i thought mattered a lot, are mattering much less.

this weekend i feel quite ill, and consequently lost a rather significant number of pounds. that is okay though, as my dress fitting is in 6 days and losing weight that fast means gaining it usually isn't terribly difficult. i (re)learned that i have a marvelous family, fiance, and set of friends. andrew stuck by me all weekend and was so willing to make me jello and homemade grandma soup and refill my gingerale cup. my friends ashli & kate came over and brought me soup and more gingerale (i drank a lot of that stuff) and did all our dishes. my family called me every day to see how i was doing.

i was able to recover in time for two important events: a friends wedding on saturday evening, and my wedding shower on sunday!

saturday was pushing it a little little bit, but andrew and i made it out to winkler and back with no incidents (aka me needing him to pull over while i barfed on the side of the road). my friend sonya and i have been talking about our upcoming weddings for months and months now, and after all that, missing her wedding would have been devastating to me. it was gorgeous.

the wedding shower was absolutely delightful also! it was my very first traditional kind of wedding shower, and i liked it. it was a room full of really important ladies in my life, who overwhelmed me with love and generosity. my sister (and mom) put so much work into it, and it was just perfect.

so, with that, i get myself back to work. i am happy.

put your hand to your forehead and let your knees buckle.

i think that perhaps i should stop looking at Green Wedding Shoes and Oncewed because i'm finding that i'm feeling a little bit of paranoia about how my wedding will look. these weddings look so incredible, and while i have a lot of ideas, a lot of small details that will be going into it, sometimes i wonder what it'll all look like together, and if it's actually going to be truly hideous...

and downward spins my thought process. the thing is, rationally, i know that while these weddings probably all look incredible, a huge amount of credit goes to the photographers who make it look extra amazing and bring out the little details. therefore, my wedding may look just like one of those, but because of my photographer (and cousin).

it will be okay!

that said, here are some of the different elements going into it, in photo form:

paper rosettes:

mason jar centerpieces (some will have flowers):

handmade triangle lanterns with our names on them:

i made felted bird cake toppers. these are not them. mine look... not as perfect. but i like them!
hand fan favors:

our guest book will be a scrapbook of pictures, people will pose in frames and sign beside where their picture will go. we have two big gold frames.

and so on. i feel better.

then spring became summer.

Greg Attonito from the Bouncing Souls and his wife wrote a children's book together and I need to own it. I will read it to my kids one day and they will be the coolest kids in the world. Primarily because they're mine, but secondarily because they're reading this book.

one thing that i adore.

our apartment will be officially furnished after today!

54 days until my wedding!

i am excited about things!

life is busy busy, as usual. work has been quite busy, and we have stepped up our wedding activities recently. we would like to get almost everything out of the way in may, so that june isn't very stressful. i hope we can accomplish this.

new apartmenting is the best. it's so fun to pick where things go in your kitchen, to put plants in your windowsill, and to plan our where things will go! it's nice to cook food together, to shop together. i can't wait until i live there for real!

in other news, i had a really bad dream last night and woke up sobbing, and was scared i'd wake my roommate jill up. it felt awful. a dear dear friend was dying and i couldn't do anything.

but back to happy, WEDDING!!! FURNITURE!!! WAAAHOOOO!

eutopia.

i am quite pleased with this weekend. while i am now sitting here quite exhausted, that is okay. because it was fun, exciting, and memorable.

saturday was moving day. andrew and i, with the help of our friend garry, my dad, and my sister & brother in law, moved all of his things from meadowood, to our new apartment just off corydon! it was marvelous. the help was just fantastic.

i got to set up our kitchen. it was so strange, deciding where things were going and knowing that it was just andrew and i who had to be happy with how it all went. that felt super.

saturday evening, though we were exhausted, we went to the social of a delightful couple. we planned on only being there for an hour, but ended up there much later (and me later still than andrew). the fruits of our staying awake labor? WE WON A FANTASTIC COFFEE MAKER AND A WII!!!!!!! Oh my goodness.

so then sunday, naturally, andrew and i played wii before church. his parents came to meet us, and then we worked hard to organize the apartment. the difference was like night and day. there were half emptied boxes all over and stuff everywhere in the morning. by the afternoon, it was all cleared up, and anything waiting to be unpacked was stacked neatly.

wahoooo!

WE HAVE AN APARTMENT! GAH!

now we are at the stage where we have gotten past the move, and now are looking at how much stuff we have left to do. monthly plans aren't going to hack it anymore, we now have weekly ones. this week is a really really busy one. i am hoping that next week will not be as much, so that i might be able to see some lovely friends.

i am very happy right now. super tired, but very happy. "our place" is a very lovely phrase to my ears right now, and i'm so excited for the months to come!

dream clenching.

top 5 reasons to smile today:

1. my boss gave me some lovely flowers as a day brightening gift

2. i've started to run with my friend ashli once a week and it's become one of my favorite parts of the week

3. it's beautiful outside, and i get to enjoy it on the walk home

4. lately i've been taking more pictures, and i'm a fan

5. andrew moves into our apartment in less than a week and a half


Also, my wedding is 73 days away. This is a wonderful thing.

La vie est belle. Merci mes amis, bon soir.

this is a tale for all the fellas.

question: what should a finace say after you've just bawled your eyes out on his shoulder for a solid 20 minutes and are now feeling alright and are in the car ride home?

answer: "it kind of feels like someone peed in my armpit"

i haven't laughed so hard in a long time. clearly, my fiance is the best. sorry ladies, he's allll mine.

two friends.

these were on the cement column things that are on either side of our apartment front steps. there were two others before, but they went away and then these showed up. i have no idea who is putting them there, but for some reason it makes me really happy. new signs of spring.

wake up april, it'll be summer soon.

i'm in the mood for my annual summer to-do list. it's a good feeling.

summer goals:
- get married. obviously.
- have fun being married and living in a new place!
- go to the beach
- camp at least once
- run in the manitoba marathon relay
- get a bike and bike a lot (that isn't actually the bike i'm getting made...)
- have success shopping in new york
- take a lot of pictures and learn how to use aperture really well
- eat smores
- go to the ex with ashli & meghan
- see the mountain goats (tickets already acquired. heckyes.)
- go fishing!
- finally... the overall goal here is really just to enjoy a lot of time outdoors with all the lovely people who exist in my life and that i adore.

it's a beautiful day. the sun is shining really brightly, and it feels like it's so bright and happy that it's shining in me. it's a good feeling. this morning i got to work and was so happy that i could just kind of pause, and feel like i could breathe here. this month has been like sprinting a 100 meter dash, and right now is the feeling that you get after you cross the finish line and get to walk off the stress your body took in the dash.

this weekend was incredibly productive. i was giddy. i managed to find most of my gifts for my bridesmaids (as in part 1 for them is now covered), and my mom bought me my necklace for the wedding. it's quite pretty. i also got someone for our flowers! the quote was just over $200 less than our first quote with a different company, so that felt super awesome.

andrew's sister is coming back for the whole summer! that's really exciting!

today i am thankful. i am thankful for beauty. i'm thankful for good friends who did not make me feel awful for being so non-existent lately. i'm thankful for being able to laugh and to pause and enjoy little moments in my day. and i'm super thankful for andrew, who is just too marvelous for words.

97 more days until i'm married!

two dreams.

after today there are 8 more days until april.
i can't wait. i would like to be able to have calm weeks again. ones where i do not feel the need to just set my head down on my desk for a brief repose, just to make it to the end of the day.

i am longing for a day that i can feel like i did in this photo again.


in other news, i had a wedding nightmare last night. this one crossed the line a little. my wedding became a funeral somehow, and i found myself being comforted by the person who had died (don't ask me how that worked). i didn't make it to my wedding. i was driving there, and then all of a sudden it was raining and i was in the basement of a church crying really hard. seriously, my subconscious needs to realize that right now, that is not very helpful. a dream about golden retriever puppies (or some cheesy crap like that) would be much better to start my day remembering when i know the rest of the day will be crazy.


i promise that when april comes i'll perk these posts up.

Bad wedding dream #3.

I had a dream last night that my shoes were awfully wrong and it was too close to our wedding to do anything about them. I dreamed that the nice yellow patterned shoes I've bought and keep on forgetting to get from Joelle so I can try them on and see them in real life, were actually not patterned at all.

They ended up being just canvasy kind of wedge shoes that were in a gross brown beige instead of yellow, and that the patterns were STICK ON's.

Seriously. Like stickers. Decorate your own shoes stickers. But they looked terrible and I ended up crying all over the place.

These dreams are HILARIOUS. Yet another perk to getting married. Being able to chuckle at what your sub conscious picks on.

growing up.

today, i just wish i could talk to my mom. growing up is such a relative term, i've decided. i think i will always just want her opinion on things as i go along. she's in kingston right now so alas, i cannot talk to her, but that is okay.

i'm sitting on my coffee break at work, with a lot on my mind. i have a lot to process right now, and very little time to do so. work continues to be busy and will be busy right until the last day of this month. april will be a sigh of relief for me. a time to reconnect with friends, to go to bed early, and to not do over time. also, it will be kicking into high gear for wedding plans time.

the future is a mystery to me. it is good that way, but sometimes i do not like it. i'm seeking the balance of what i love and what i can do for a job. i have new thoughts on that. my brain feels full.

these things are going to furnish our apartment!!!!!!

bed room set:

dining room table!

coffee & end tables (looks better in real life)!!

Couch & love seat!

YAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

blend in.

we got our apartment! tonight, andrew and i will hand over a damage deposit cheque to our future landlord, and will be getting a beautiful two bedroom apartment on mcmillan & daly. we've both been excitedly talking about where things will go, and how we'll make it ours.

ours! that's the best word ever lately. just fills me with a particular kind of happy.

things are falling into place. we've still got flowers to be taken care of, and our wedding party attire, but aside from that we're sitting pretty.

ottawa was quite fun. i learned that i do not like being in a hotel by myself, except for the one hour of getting ready where i have a well lit bathroom with a plug and counter space (none of which exist in my current residence). that was awesome. i saw an old friend and we talked like it hadn't been three years since we'd last seen each other. when it came down to it though, i enjoyed myself, but was very ready to come home to see andrew.

work is just INSANE. like, until april 1st, i will just be running around like crazy, organizing, presenting, planning, and appointmenting. dear next fiscal year, you can't come soon enough. so if you who are reading this are someone i see in person, i do apologize for not being able to see you in person very much.

goodbye for now.

toppers.

i've been making these for my wedding cupcake "topper". by that i mean, they'll sit on top of the tiered cake holder. i'll be putting eyes on them, and a little bowtie for andrew's, and feather tails. excited!

storm cloud, over my head.

it's quarter to one o'clock. i have been here (work) since nine. i have a little over seven hours left in my work day, and therefore really need to shake how crappy i'm feeling right now. don't know what it is. just want to cry, and then sleep, and then be given a reason to feel really nice.

that was all i had to say. i just needed somewhere to say it.

you, or your memory.

the next few weeks are going to be pure madness. like, really insane. i can barely keep up right now. work is incredibly busy, because the fiscal year is ending. that means more evening presentations. it's really good for our program. really hectic for life.

i leave for ottawa in one week and two days. i can't believe how fast that came up. i'm meeting an old friend on the saturday that i leave, for breakfast, and i'm really looking forward to that.

weddingy things are getting busier and busier. so much to decide on! i think i need to take a day off soon just to focus on wedding stuff and keeping myself organized and sane. i'm feeling like i'm all over the place! but it's okay.

andrew and i went furniture shopping this week and weekend, and it was delightful. we have found a lot to think about. this is one of those things:

i think it's super lovely. i like the buttons a lot!

time is flying. things are all happening so fast, and it's wonderful and scary all at the same time. i'm so excited for my wedding, i'm so excited for finding an apartment and furnishing it, and for seeing wonderful friends get married this summer too, and so on. i just want to make sure i enjoy everything right NOW just as much as i look forward to what will be. but it almost feels like enjoying the present means enjoying the past, as things are just going by so quickly!

bird's eye.

i wish we had the ability to step outside of ourselves at the end of every day, and go through a speedy version of what we were like that day for review. perhaps while watching that review, we could get a clear view of our intentions and motives behind every action and decision and see ourselves for what we really are. good and bad. i wonder how much that would change.

tag, you're it.

Alright. SO, Heidi tagged me to do this 7 things you don't know about me thing. I'll do my best to make this interesting.

1. I told this story for the first time in years this weekend, so I'll say it here - one time I witnessed a bit of a brawl in a record store. The owner had to ask a man to leave, as he had been violent on his last trip into this downtown shop, and the man's response was to take a swing at him. The very large man was hella agile and dodged it, and then forced the man out of the shop. It was epic. Then we continued talking about Bette Midler & record players.

2. I got straight 60's in pre-cal math in grade 10, except in the Trigonometry section. I got 95% on the unit test. Apparently I understand triangles.

3. I live with four roommates, and share my room with one of them. It's the best ever. People warned us that we'd stop being friends because of it, but both of us have determined that when we both get married this summer, we'll be going through each other withdrawal.

4. When I told Andrew I loved him I was really scared and crying a little and shaking, and couldn't just spit it out for the life of me, and I think I almost made him believe I was breaking up with him, because these are all the symptoms of girl trying to break up with someone. Ugh. I'm awful.

5. Facebook's latest "make your profile picture as someone you've been told you look like" thing recently reminded me that I have not been told I look like any celebrities, but I have been compared to a chipmunk. So I almost made a chipmunk my picture, but then didn't.

6. The places I'd like to travel to:

• Turkey, Israel, Egypt
• Europe
• New Zealand & Australia
• Japan
• Central America (all over!)
• Iceland
• South Africa

7. I really love budgeting. I never knew this would be possible.

I think I won't tag anyone, because I'm pretty sure not many people really read my blog. But there you have it. Seven things. About me.

slingback.

i just ordered these for my wedding!

A brief rant on customer service.

remember choose your own adventure books? here's one for you:

you're staff at a furnitrue store. it's a weekday evening, and there is no one around. you're off soon so your boyfriend is waiting to drive you home. a young couple walks into the store. if you...

approach them and offer your help, as is logical to do in the sales industry, go to page 2.

sit down on the couch with your boyfriend and ignore the couple, and then proceed to kiss him and skip off away from the couple to so something that is more than likely completely not work related, go to below.

for the record, there is no page 2. because if the girl who was at the store andrew and i were shopping at last night had anything to say about this, she would have picked the second option. and we're going to go with that for a moment.

let me say something about customer service.

[inhale deeply]

it's important. it's ESSENTIAL in business. you do not need to wait on someone hand and foot, you don't need to follow them everywhere, you don't need to be humbled by how much you have to "serve" someone. BUT you do have to do your job, which is to be helpful. most people are grateful for it. sucks when they aren't, but awesome when they are.

having worked for four years at a catering company and one and a half at zellers, i know what it's like to just want to go home and not be at work. but the fact is, that until you're done you're shift - you. are. at. work. and acting like that is repulsive to customers. if we had been planning on buying anything there that night, let me tell you that thought is now gone completely. we found a place where the guy was super helpful, personable, and gave just the right amount of space with attention. odds are good we'll pay 1/3 more if we go with stuff from there, but customer service counts for more than saving money to me, and probably a LOT of other people.

end rant.