We said goodbye to Lizzie this morning, who died about 9am. We tried everything we could to give her a happy and peaceful end, but there comes a time when you can't keep an animal alive any longer without it being cruel. She was a wonderful dog, full of life, always underfoot, quick to take a french fry from you, and always ready to sit at your feet or with you by the fireplace in the evening. We got her as a puppy, the runt of the litter, 11 years ago. She was a big part of our family, and is already severely missed.

          

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Dan and I are getting ready to fly down to North Carolina this afternoon. I'm ready to be home. We're doing a lighter Christmas than others in the past, mainly because we have the huge expenses of buying a house this month and booking the reception venue. Dan's out right now getting the down payment for the house, 21 grand in a cashiers check. I can honestly say I've never held that much money before. The reception is probably going to be 2500- 3k for deposit. Oish, talk about money pit these days! So, all of this means we're going easy on gifts and just getting one nice gift for people, instead of several nice gifts.

Along with closing on the 28th, I have a couple interviews for other jobs in Cisco. We'll see where they go. The one I kinda really want, the one with 50% travel, I'm underqualified for, but I'm pitching myself as a fast learner and ambitious, so maybe that will win out over old and stodgy folks. We'll see, shant we? Oh wait, I forgot that we're going to be moving too. Need to think about how we're going to get the big furniture in the new house. Dan keeps saying we should wait for someone to help in a week or two...but my thoughts are then why are we even moving the small stuff?

Oh I dunno what else there is other than the constant pressures and stress of my job, the move, and the wedding. I put off the MBA on the basis that if I do change jobs, then the funding for the MBA doesn't follow. There is plenty of time. I guess I would say that my life right now is hectic, stable, and complicated.

We fired our realtor, finally. All he's done is find this house, and all through the rest of the process, the multiple copies of the purchase agreement, the questions we had, he made us go through Centex. Now that we'rre closing he wants an update from us on why we made changes to the way we're doing our mortgage and whatnot, and I snapped! How can someone with no input, and a week behind on everything we've been doing to make this happen, demand that we keep him updated? Asshole. If there was a way to keep the commission from him, I would do it. We're at the point where the mortgage is approved, the final walkthrough is scheduled, we've got our closing appointment, and then the realtor checks in to see how it's going? Hello, we could have used your help, but you redirected us to the other folks, so now you're out of the process. This is a major pain in my side, a thorn if you will. I don't understand the gall some people have -- or the assumption that because this is our first home, we are somehow too young to read and figure out the legalities? Dan and I are both engineers, of pretty much equal intellect...I think we can figure it out.

This is a common trend with people in Minnesota. Because I'm not from here they try to be nice and act like my parents and attempt to shelter/guide me. I have parents, thanks but no thanks, and they raised me extremely well. I can read, I have a very good job and ample income, and I've been living alone since I pretty much moved to college. Back off Minnesota.

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Check our the "Our New House" tab on the top there for a walk-through of the house we're closing on Dec. 28th. We're very excited, you'll see why in a few minutes. The process has been going well, too well in fact. We had the final walk-through Sunday afternoon. We learned how to start the furnance, how to make water squirt out of the fridge (it was an accident...funny story though.)

So the field manager was showing us how to change the water filter on the fridge. He bends down and pulls the filter out and cold water comes squirting out all over him. He was --very-- embarrassed. I secretly hope they don't fix it so when Dan changes the filter it get's him too. I am evil!

But alas, the house is soon to be ours and our real estate agent is practically worthless. I wish we could fire him. We keep getting annoying emails asking us if we were ok, or if we had any questions on plain English documentation. I feel like emailing him back and telling him that we're young, not stupid.

Anyway, I will not let him take the cheery goodness of the new house away from me. Now, we just need to pack and paint the apartment. sigh. I hate the act of moving.

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Those of you who know, we put a big down on a townhome before Thanksgiving, and then retracted it because the sellers were asking a heaping bit too much. Anyway, am I thankfull, because we found the "perfect" townhome for us. For starters, it's a brand new ~1700 sq. foot, 3 bedroom, loft, with gas fireplace beauty, in a new neighborhood, and in an area where things are a little less like Queens or Brooklyn and more like Cary... like North Carolina home.

In a whirlwind, we have a purchase agreement, are having the final walk through next Tuesday, and are closing on December 28th. It's a mess...but completely awesome. I love this place, I cannot wait to decorate, and take pictures to share with everyone here. Keep your fingers crossed that everything else works out for the next 2 weeks, and then plan to visit- we have way too much space now.

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Now that my wedding budget is no longer, blow away by increasing reception costs and unrealized expenses to marriage, I've taken the stace of "hell with it" and assumed that the next time there will be an event this nice is when I die, and frankly, I won't be around to see that. Though, there is the slim the chance that I'm planning my wedding and funeral in the same swing, I doubt that could happen...but it sure is funny the way Summer says it.

Anyway, back to topic...because expenses are about 7k over what they should be, I'm trying to cut some costs that can be cut. Out goes the Vera Wang dress I was planning on dropping a cool chunk of commission check on, and in comes David's Bridal, the discount warehouse and bridal gown giant...aka, Walmart in white. I have no problem with scaling down the dress since I'm only wearing it one day and then it'll be in a box for the next 40 years. And since I don't desire ruffles or heavy beadwork, the plain satin ivory dress will do just fine.

When I went online to register for an appointment, now that I'm finally getting to my point, they of course ask for your email address. What I didn't realize is that David's Bridal is one of those bastard companies that panders your email address around it's group of cohort companies in the beauty, wedding, and gift registry industries. Enter Tatiana W., a rep from Mary Kay, who proceeded sending me email about free Mary Kay consulting. I despise Mary Kay products, and usually the people pushing this crap on you.

Don't get me wrong, I think Mary Kay was a great idea in the 50s and 60s, perhaps even into the 70's. Women needed a way to get out of the home and nto the world, and Mary Kay provided a conduit for them. What I don't like about Mary Kay is that the company teaches women to essentially use and manipulate their friends and their friends' friends into buying products that they don't often need and are substandard to their drugstore counterparts. I could say I hate companies like this, that ask people to create giant pyramid schemes of friend usage.

I've gotten roped into oo many of these to count...and have the crap to show for it. There's the Pampered Chef platter set that I planned to use for the first time yesterday on Thanksgiving, but alas, did not...again. From Mary Kay I have this lotion that makes my arms and legs tingle. The tingle is supposed to be good, but reminds me of ants crawling on me. Yuck. There's the Stampin' Up holiday card set that I have, designed for crafty people with time to spare and who like to make their own holiday cards. These stamps are made for people with no creativity or talent...somewhat appropriate because they're stamps.

So now, I'm on some random woman's Mary Kay spam list... after trying for years to get off the first one, and the Pampered Chef one, and the Stampin' crap one. I think it's time to get a new email address.

On another note, we hear by noon today about whether we got the house or not, having made our best and final offer Wenesday night.

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Today we met with our realtor and put a bid on a townhome .5 miles from our apartment. It's not the perfect home, at least I'm not in love with it, but it has features we like a lot...and it's on a lake, which we can see from our master bedroom balcony (yes balcony) in the winter, and sail on in the summer, which is why Dan loves this place.

I guess one could say that we "low-balled" on our offer, but since the townhome has been empty for 4 months, we assume they want a fast close, ie...within 3 weeks.

As much as I'm excited about not throwing 820 bucks away a month on rent, I can't say I'm really excited about the house. It will be nice to remodel it and make it our home, but it's just a starter home, 2-3 years at most. It lacks a 3rd bedroom for company, and the kitchen needs some work, as do the bathrooms. It's not worth what they're asking for it...they must be crazy to be asking so much to be honest. But, they're asking it, and we have reasons why to not offer it. We'll see if they bite.

Other than that, nothing exciting...or too much excitement has numbed to the sensation. Families met this weekend for a 3 hour dinner @ Maggianos in Durham. It went beyond well, so that makes me more relieved than happy. I met with the Carolina Inn folks, and they sticker shocked me to death with a minimum surcharge that is impossible to reach on max capacity food and drink alone. Small print...the bastards. But either way...still moving forward with that craziness. Oh and yeah, we're getting married... too much damn excitement!!!

So to summarize...buying a house, getting married and planning a fiasco wedding, planning an amazing honeymoon, and some other craziness going on. Oh yeah...my MBA...sight, my GMAT is tomorrow!

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Today was a busy day, but for some reason I couldn't not think about some of the people I've known from college, especially now that I'm going back for my advanced degree. I doubt I'll run into the same characters again; the people who severely angered me, the people who betrayed my trust enough to change my entire psyche, the people who micromanaged every aspect of life because they were afraid someone would find out they were incompetent, the people who can't spend a solitary moment just being still because then they would realize they were frauds...

People need to be well rounded, to do things they enjoy, to be alone, to be quiet, to be engaged, to be active...Life is not meant to be one night on the town after another filled with mindless jokes and guffaws of laughter that no one will remember in two weeks time.

I decided to Google a few of the people that I knew like this, the synthetic Stephanie, the micro-managing Matt, the apostate Andrew, and the bible-thumping Brittanie... AND... guess what?

Eh. Still the same.

Do people ever really change, heart and soul, for the better (or the worse?)
Sometimes, and these are few and far apart, I question myself and how I reacted to these people that treated me so awfully in any opinion. I think people have to do that, to go back and reconsider how they would act now (as they have grown) to past situations. In thinking back I would only change 1 thing.

I would have cut them off sooner before they damaged me so.

I hold no regrets for these people, and I believe that everyone has people they encounter and bring into their lives where the two just don't mix (or create an explosion!) You gotta hold onto what's right, and get rid of what is wrong as fast as possible...to save yourself and yourself alone.

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In no particular order...

1. Psycho Suzi's Tiki Bar. Tiki drinks served with lots of rum in fabulous tiki glasses. Each tiki is about...oh...6-7 shots of alcohol, so for 7 bucks each, it's a steal. Fabu hummus platter as well!

2. Bylery's drive up grocery service. This is the "ultimate" laziness in my opinion...but essentially, you get your groceries, and then they put them in these plastic containers, and you run out to your car and drive up to the loading area, and THEY put everything in your trunk! No more cart dings on your new Volvos kiddies!

3. AquaFina Citrus Blend flavored water. Somehow, they make it like sweet grapefruit and tangerine...but alas, without the sugar or teeth rotting compenets of sugar! Touche.

4. My 17inch MacBook Pro is going to be my DJ, complete with scheduled pauses in the music for speeches, toasts, first dances, bouquet tosses, and crazy Polish ceremony stuffs where guys pay for a dance with the bride by shoving dollars in the apron. Oh dear... Oh yeah, and the damn thing comes with a REMOTE- could it be any more useful?

5. The Carolina Inn because for 1 price per head, they provide a full bar, seated meal, signature drinks, the freaking cakes, tables, chairs, flatware, china, napkins and assorted fabrics, AND a room for me and my bridesaids to get uber primped before the wedding. Go Carolina! and Go Carolina Inn!

6. Battlestar Gallactica on iTunes. Seriously, two nerds, when they get together and shack up, need some sort of nerdly release, and this is it. It also helps me save money because I only spend about 8 bucks a month on cable, instead of 55, courtesy of shitty Comcast.

7. Airfare on the cheap to Boston, as every girl needs to have a chance to see her best friend at least once a year- hopefully more often!!! Oh...and because I need my Finale chocolate platter fix for the year...*drool*

8. The Eagan Community Center and their splended gym facilities. Gotta love the price too.

9. Tattoos. Enough said!

10. My new Pink RAZR cell phone. I finally splurged and got a trendy phone after having cell service for over 7 years now. But hot damn, it's cute, fun, light...and I found out that the adapter I use for my digital camera also plugs into the phone so that I can charge the phone via USB. Oh...now that is priceless because I'm not always near an outlet or my car charger, but hot damn, there are always two fully charged laptop batteries in my briefcase! Oh baby...

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I've been wanting a new cat since Meiji, my 14 yr old Tabby from Japan died 2 Julys ago. In the interim, there was Sabrina, a beautiful Lilac Point Siamese, with a foul concept of "where" the litterbox actually was in my apartment. She lasted 20 days. It wasn't so much that she was a bad cat, she and I just had a rough start. For instance, she was "spayed" when I got her, but then she went into heat, which I assumed was something else because she was supposed to be spayed. Turns out, they forgot to remove her ovaries. So, bad start there. While she was in heat, she decided to spray just about everywhere, but to give her credit, she did at least poop in the litterbox. She especially liked to urinate on my bathmats, which is how I think the urination led to her aiming for the beds...since I used to throw laundry (and the washed bathmats) on the guest bed... Doh.

She went back to the shelter, but I heard she was adopted 2 days later and hasn't been back since. I think it was a urine problem...but I could be wrong.

Fast forward to today...and you'll see Dan and I with our new kitten, Linus "Leiny" Torvalds. Why did we name him this you ask? Well, he had gigantic ears, two green eyes close together, and he sneezed when we picked him up... Linus is a nerdly looking cat, and it's awesome. He's white, with a burnt orange back and ears. Not to mention the orange tail, he's going to ruin every black suit I wear from this day forward- but of course, it's totally worth it!

And he just ran head first into Dan's metal desk chair legs! Gotta go!

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I'm sitting in our spare bedroom/office/den space in the apartment, the area where my desktop computer is with the space heater at my feet, and though some may wonder why there's a space heater at my feet...others soon remember that I'm living in Minnesota now, and it's damn cold here most of the time.

oh and yeah, the heat pump for my building is out so the apartment is a chilly 58/60 degrees. YUM!

And onto my point of writing...Monday mornings I have concalls usually until 10am, and during these calls in which I hardly participate, I like to to look at wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses. I'm getting married in a year, I suppose I'm allowed to look now... but either way, the one consistent thing I've noticed is that all of the models in these gown photos look neither happy to be getting married, or particularly of the marrying type.

In short, they look like whores in white dresses. Someone should pass this information on...

For instance, take a look at this gown from David's Bridal. She looks neither happy...rather sultry, sad, angry...like she's looking over the banister with the defeat of something gone awry on her shoulders. Oh yes...that's EXACTLY the kind of look I want for my wedding!

This Bride looks like she's going to sneeze...or something.
This lovely lady here looks like there's a firing sqaud behind the camera...
And my favorite is this bride...who looks like this man she's with is the best man and not the groom! Oh, and yeah, he has WINGS too...
Then there's this bride that got caught in a torrential hurricane on the way to her wedding and decided to take a ride on a carosel.

Why why why? Just dresses, and smiling brides, please!!! Help me imagine myself being in a situation to wear that dress, and not sleeping around, being angry, riding a horse...or whatever.

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Thank god I can turn off my work laptop for at least one night this week! I'm looking forward to this weekend- we're celebrating Dan's new job with 3M, and his dad is going to be in town so it should be fun. We're going to Ike's in downtown Minneapolis tomorrow for brunch, then planning on Axel's for dinner, the original one of course, in Mendota.

Wedding planning is going well...got most everything figured out, except how many people are coming- well, ok, there are many loose ends, but it's coming together. We're throwing up a wedding website next month, more to keep track of everything than anything else. Dan and I are also getting a portrait done, since all we have are those pictures you take of yourself holding the camera at arm's length. I'm looking forward to that.

Any way, either way, every way, I need to roll and be ready to go once Dan gets home, in...in whenever traffic lets up. Later!

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Arguably, I have taken the concept of photography to the limit with the ideal that more is actually more in my quest for the steady, and not slightly leaning to the right shot. I've been going through the myriad of pictures I have taken, and when I say myriad, I mean in excess of 10 gigs of images from all over the country and 3 continents. I've been going through in the quest to populate my ipod with some images I find exceptional- for no other purpose but to force a smile throughout my days.

It's a lot of photography to go through, and now with myself in the market for a new camera, a smaller more candid hunk of gear, I fear this collection is going to explode. I guess I'm just one of those consumer pro-hobbyist photographers that makes good use of hard drive, dvd backup, and high volumes of flash to keep my images alive.

On this website I'm going to add have a new photo every entry, which will then be pushed to the snapshots/series page- most obviously not up yet. The idea being to take the images that are not 'for sale' quality and to bring those into people's lives. We'll see if this experiment of mine turns out to be nothing more than a drain on my time...let's hope not.

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So, after a long haitus in the blogging world, and an addictive stint on MySpace for about a year, I've decided to revamp my sites- castic.com for blogging and personal pursuits, and Casticphotography.com, which, though still under development, will be solely for photography purposes. Maybe I can make my big break off of it, who knows. It's a dream, and we all need dreams. Without them, what's the point?

Why do we get up morning after chilly morning from the confines and safety of our beds to go to work. Some believe it is for the better good of humanity- which in my opinion is a sad belief in Communism- but I believe it is because we all have a dream that without the funding from our 8-5 pursuits, could not happen.

What's the main reason I wake up these days? It's to make some money so that I can spend money on a major life event- my Wedding! Anyway, it's getting to that time, and I need to earn some to spend some... and stop tinkering with this site now that it's up and running.

Ah, the never ending joys of PHP!

Oh, and I know the links don't exactly work so well. It's getting there. Give me a night or two.

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