Wedding planning is crazy! I keep making progress but then I realize just how much more there is to do. Some of it is fun and some of it is stress. I've never been the girl who had a dream wedding planned out in her mind, which, I must say, is good because everything costs a ridiculous amount of $$.
Fortunately, I have been very blessed to have some great connections. One piece of advice I'd give to everyone is to find great deals by asking your friends for help! I've been so incredibly impressed by the talent, generosity, and willingness to help. Whether it's helping me find a seamstress to fit my dress, offering to help set up on the day of the wedding, or doing the big stuff like help me with all the planning, DJing, or officiating, I'm so blessed to know good people.
This past year has been filled with so many blessings. I have great students this year who make it very pleasant for me to teach. I enjoy working with them, and they treat me with respect. My co-workers are some of the kindest, most dedicated people I've ever met. They all work so hard to provide an excellent educational experience to our students. And then there's my personal life. My parents are in good health, and just this past year, they bought a beautiful log home in Oakhurst.
And most importantly is my relationship with Ben. Over the past year, we've shared so many wonderful memories together. In just 135 days I will be walking down an aisle and marrying Benjamin Franklin Medley! I can't wait for all our hard work on this weeding to come together on that (hopefully beautiful) June day.
Since my last post, I have:
1. Finished the "Save the Dates"
2. Found a DJ
3. Figured out my flower/center pieces
4. Gone to the tasting and booked the caterer!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
a full plate
So, in case it's been a while since you've checked in with me, here's what's going on in my life...
1. I'm engaged!! (as of December 19th)
2. I'm getting married on June 18th!
3. I'm working full time at Chaminade, teaching 6 classes (five 8th grade English and one sixth grade Religion class).
4. I'm planning a wedding (duh if you read #2).
Planning a wedding, in case you didn't know, is like having a 2nd full time job. Okay, maybe more like a part-time job but still. It's a lot of work!
So far this is what we've accomplished (by we, I mean, me, Ben, my wedding planner, and the assistance of my parents):
1. Venue Booked!
2. Met with caterer and set up a tasting for January 29th
3. Set up a meeting with a photographer for February 5th
4. Bought dress, veil, and shoes!
5. Bought "Save the Dates" (have no idea how to actually make them)
6. Made contacts with an officiant and DJ (neither official yet)
7. Decided on a honeymoon destination (well, sort of)
8. Decided on bridal party, flower girls and ring bearers
So much more to do...less than 5 months away!
1. I'm engaged!! (as of December 19th)
2. I'm getting married on June 18th!
3. I'm working full time at Chaminade, teaching 6 classes (five 8th grade English and one sixth grade Religion class).
4. I'm planning a wedding (duh if you read #2).
Planning a wedding, in case you didn't know, is like having a 2nd full time job. Okay, maybe more like a part-time job but still. It's a lot of work!
So far this is what we've accomplished (by we, I mean, me, Ben, my wedding planner, and the assistance of my parents):
1. Venue Booked!
2. Met with caterer and set up a tasting for January 29th
3. Set up a meeting with a photographer for February 5th
4. Bought dress, veil, and shoes!
5. Bought "Save the Dates" (have no idea how to actually make them)
6. Made contacts with an officiant and DJ (neither official yet)
7. Decided on a honeymoon destination (well, sort of)
8. Decided on bridal party, flower girls and ring bearers
So much more to do...less than 5 months away!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Why turtles?
I suppose I should start with a blog that explains the title of my blog. Really, I just decided that a blog solely about pie and hiking could not begin to provide me with the forum I need to sometimes just talk about--whatever. Work, wedding plans, family, trips, tea, turtles...and most of the time, I just want to write about what I'm thinking or feeling that day. This blog, then, is not for a specific audience. Well, I guess it is...it's for anyone who cares enough to know about my life and my thoughts. 
So why turtles? I suppose the blog's title should have been "why tortoises?" because they're not really turtles. My dad has owned tortoises since he was five and two of the three are still alive today. All three were alive when I was a child, and I grew up with them roaming our back yard--first in the "Camellia" house in North Hollywood where my father and I grew up. He lived there till he moved away to college at UC Davis. I lived there till I was eleven. At that time my grandfather passed away, we sold the house, and moved to Northridge, taking our tortoises with us. I also had started a new school, and my family had left the small Christian, non-denominational church I had grown up in and we converted to Catholicism. So basically, everything about our life had changed. New school, new church, new home, my grandfather had died... It was also probably one of the least calm times in my parents marriage (probably due to all the changes they, too, were experiencing).
So I took refuge in my turtles. They had stayed the same. Same hard shells, same desire to feed at certain times of the day and certain times of the year. They were predictable, even if, by some people's standards, "boringly" so. I loved that I could count on them coming out of hibernation every year between March and April, depending on the weather. I loved that Sherman would chase Veronica and Amy around, or that I could hold a piece of lettuce to their mouths and watch them chomp the leaves away between my fingertips. I did miss our fig tree from the North Hollywood home. It was one of their favorite treats. I used to split them open and watch them feed on the mushy goodness inside.
When I was 13, Amy died. It was the end of my 8th grade year. We think she had gotten sick the summer before when our Golden Retriever, Rutherford, turned her over in a muddle puddle, and she was under water for a while. We had no idea she was that sick, though, and it was I who found her, an empty shell, the following Spring.
I too, felt the hollowing out of my shell at that moment. The "constant," never-changing "thing" in my life, had changed. From that point on, I became paranoid about losing my other turtles, and I wished desperately that they would have babies so if they did die, they didn't completely leave the world without any evidence of being there. But babies never came and I assumed it was because they were old.
We moved again when I was 19 after a neighbor decided to become a crazy arsonist and threaten death upon my father and family. Thanks to our lovely legal system, the cops had only one advice--"move." We packed up our belongings, and moved about 5 miles, to the other side of Northridge, near Porter Ranch. The tortoises, this time only Veronica and Sherman, came with us, and for the first time, my dad had to build and enclosure for them because this house had a pool.
I moved out when I was 22, after college and after teaching for almost one full year. When I was 23-24 I had one of the worst years of my life. I fell down a flight of stairs head first. Then four days later I was in a car accident where gang members had hit me on purpose, totaled my car, and drove away. Then my water heater blew up. Then a giant pine tree that weighed 2 tons fell through my roof. Then I lost my job. I was so depressed and looking for answers. God was working in my life but I didn't know it right away. He was trying to make me let go of my control, my desire to make sure that everything worked out the way I had planned it. I had sought perfection of myself in school and in work, and it only ever led me to unhappiness, because things happened out of my control--like losing my job due to the terrible economic recession and LAUSD's incompetent spending plans.
But then something amazing happened. I got a new car (and a new water heater). My side healed from falling down the stairs (I had a slightly fractured rib). My house got a new roof and paint (no charge to me), I got a new job at a better school, Chaminade, and my Veronica and Sherman had a baby tortoise.
Petra. Petra is now almost 4 years old and she has FOUR siblings. The following spring, Veronica and Sherman had 3 babies, and yet again, the spring after that, they had one more baby. I know am the proud turtle mama of 5 babies.
Even more amazing then the birth of the turtles is the fact that I also found my fiance, Ben, who I will be marrying on June 18th of this year. For years I thought that I would end up single forever. After scores of bad dates, weird encounters, and failed "relationships," I had been driven to feel depressed about my prospective love life. But after all the good things that happened--the new car, the new roof, the new job, the baby tortoises, I took a leap of faith and told my Dad I believed I would meet him someday. I hadn't said something positive like that ever. I had always been negative about my love life. Well, 2 days later, I met Ben on Match.com, one week after that we went on our first date, and a little less than a year later he asked me to be his wife.
It wasn't until I let go that new life began. It wasn't until I accepted inconsistency and unpredictability instead of my own strength and ability to control a situation to enter my life, that good things truly began to happen to me.
I am a much happier person at 26 then I was at 22, 17, 14, or 11. When I was 11 I accepted a lie: fear has the power to control me. At 23-24 I came to a slow, painful realization that even though sometimes bad things happen to good people, it is the attitude I bring to the situation that determines the outcome. By accepting the changes in my life and moving forward with them, God blessed me--first with a childhood dream of having baby turtles, new life to possibly replace something old and dead (not just the older tortoises but my childhood--the one I lost when I was 11). Second--with a man who challenges me every day to see the world in a new way. To look at how I once thought and consider the world with a new perspective. With new possibilities. With hope.
So why turtles? I suppose the blog's title should have been "why tortoises?" because they're not really turtles. My dad has owned tortoises since he was five and two of the three are still alive today. All three were alive when I was a child, and I grew up with them roaming our back yard--first in the "Camellia" house in North Hollywood where my father and I grew up. He lived there till he moved away to college at UC Davis. I lived there till I was eleven. At that time my grandfather passed away, we sold the house, and moved to Northridge, taking our tortoises with us. I also had started a new school, and my family had left the small Christian, non-denominational church I had grown up in and we converted to Catholicism. So basically, everything about our life had changed. New school, new church, new home, my grandfather had died... It was also probably one of the least calm times in my parents marriage (probably due to all the changes they, too, were experiencing).
So I took refuge in my turtles. They had stayed the same. Same hard shells, same desire to feed at certain times of the day and certain times of the year. They were predictable, even if, by some people's standards, "boringly" so. I loved that I could count on them coming out of hibernation every year between March and April, depending on the weather. I loved that Sherman would chase Veronica and Amy around, or that I could hold a piece of lettuce to their mouths and watch them chomp the leaves away between my fingertips. I did miss our fig tree from the North Hollywood home. It was one of their favorite treats. I used to split them open and watch them feed on the mushy goodness inside.
When I was 13, Amy died. It was the end of my 8th grade year. We think she had gotten sick the summer before when our Golden Retriever, Rutherford, turned her over in a muddle puddle, and she was under water for a while. We had no idea she was that sick, though, and it was I who found her, an empty shell, the following Spring.
I too, felt the hollowing out of my shell at that moment. The "constant," never-changing "thing" in my life, had changed. From that point on, I became paranoid about losing my other turtles, and I wished desperately that they would have babies so if they did die, they didn't completely leave the world without any evidence of being there. But babies never came and I assumed it was because they were old.
We moved again when I was 19 after a neighbor decided to become a crazy arsonist and threaten death upon my father and family. Thanks to our lovely legal system, the cops had only one advice--"move." We packed up our belongings, and moved about 5 miles, to the other side of Northridge, near Porter Ranch. The tortoises, this time only Veronica and Sherman, came with us, and for the first time, my dad had to build and enclosure for them because this house had a pool.
I moved out when I was 22, after college and after teaching for almost one full year. When I was 23-24 I had one of the worst years of my life. I fell down a flight of stairs head first. Then four days later I was in a car accident where gang members had hit me on purpose, totaled my car, and drove away. Then my water heater blew up. Then a giant pine tree that weighed 2 tons fell through my roof. Then I lost my job. I was so depressed and looking for answers. God was working in my life but I didn't know it right away. He was trying to make me let go of my control, my desire to make sure that everything worked out the way I had planned it. I had sought perfection of myself in school and in work, and it only ever led me to unhappiness, because things happened out of my control--like losing my job due to the terrible economic recession and LAUSD's incompetent spending plans.
But then something amazing happened. I got a new car (and a new water heater). My side healed from falling down the stairs (I had a slightly fractured rib). My house got a new roof and paint (no charge to me), I got a new job at a better school, Chaminade, and my Veronica and Sherman had a baby tortoise.
Petra. Petra is now almost 4 years old and she has FOUR siblings. The following spring, Veronica and Sherman had 3 babies, and yet again, the spring after that, they had one more baby. I know am the proud turtle mama of 5 babies.
Even more amazing then the birth of the turtles is the fact that I also found my fiance, Ben, who I will be marrying on June 18th of this year. For years I thought that I would end up single forever. After scores of bad dates, weird encounters, and failed "relationships," I had been driven to feel depressed about my prospective love life. But after all the good things that happened--the new car, the new roof, the new job, the baby tortoises, I took a leap of faith and told my Dad I believed I would meet him someday. I hadn't said something positive like that ever. I had always been negative about my love life. Well, 2 days later, I met Ben on Match.com, one week after that we went on our first date, and a little less than a year later he asked me to be his wife.
It wasn't until I let go that new life began. It wasn't until I accepted inconsistency and unpredictability instead of my own strength and ability to control a situation to enter my life, that good things truly began to happen to me.
I am a much happier person at 26 then I was at 22, 17, 14, or 11. When I was 11 I accepted a lie: fear has the power to control me. At 23-24 I came to a slow, painful realization that even though sometimes bad things happen to good people, it is the attitude I bring to the situation that determines the outcome. By accepting the changes in my life and moving forward with them, God blessed me--first with a childhood dream of having baby turtles, new life to possibly replace something old and dead (not just the older tortoises but my childhood--the one I lost when I was 11). Second--with a man who challenges me every day to see the world in a new way. To look at how I once thought and consider the world with a new perspective. With new possibilities. With hope.
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