I am totally awesome. This morning I found the digital rebel on Overstock for $750, whereas it normally sells for $999. My soul cried out for this camera because it's just like my 35mm SLR EOS A2 which means a) that it KICKS ASS and b) that all my lenses will worth on both cameras. AND they have a payment plan/credit thingy so that you don't have to pay for all of it at once. I made pouty eyes at Fuzzy and came up with financial stats to prove that I can afford to pay for it, et cetera. Determined to be the grownup, however, he witheld his approval. By late in the day, I had decided I was going to buy the camera regardless, but I decided on a way to buy it and actually save us money.

I'm not going to hire a photographer for our wedding.

Here's my reasoning: I have tons of friends with a good eye, a couple of whom are/were art majors, and a couple of others who have experience taking good pictures. So I'm going to pick like 10 people who I trust to take nice pictures, show them what I like, teach them to use the camera, and set them loose. It's digital, so we'll be able to preview what we have and adapt the game plan as we go. Plus, my mom and I have both done professional wedding photography, so we can direct things as much as we need to. Plus I'll be spending about half what I would on a photographer, and I'll have a pretty camera to show for it. So woot. And even Chris approves now. Muahahahahahaha.

When it gets here, I'll take pictures of our apartment and my new gardening endeavors and stuff.

So the week at home was a little stressful. I ended up leaving early (on Friday) because my Aunt called to tell me they were pulling my grandmother (paternal) into surgery and didn't expect her to make it or do very well at all, so after I damn near self-destructed, I left work in a blur of tears, packed like a fury, called Jessica and we left at 4:30 that day. Got home at 5am and crashed hard on the couch until my mom called me at 8am to ask where I was. So we went to the hospital, and saw my grandmother, who made it through the surgery and is still hanging in there. I saw her several times. During the middle of the week she was really responsive and could respond with hand squeezes or nods or shakes of the head. By the time I left yesterday, though, she was back to mostly unalert, passing in and out of consciousness. We don't know what is going to happen, the doctors keep pronouncing doom, but she's had close calls before, so anything is possible. I'm really hoping she pulls through so that she can see me get married and all, but at the very least I got to see her and spend some time with her. My dad even went to see her, which was a miracle unto itself. I wish I could have stayed to spend more time with her, but for various other reasons I was very happy to come up here.

In between hospital visits, me and my mom ran around planning the wedding. We bought my dress (on sale for $200! a $600 dress!), and have basically decided on the location and catering, we just have to iron out details. The food will be tasty italian food, and the venue is effing beautiful, seriously, better than I could have hoped for. My mom has decided to make the bridesmaids dresses, which will save about $100 a piece, so woot. My brothers are going to be in the wedding now, and I asked my friend Mikey to officiate, and he said he would. So yeah, things are going well even though I can't get Fuzzy to make a damn decision about anything or talk to his family about it. *sigh* That's really starting to irritate me.

Found out some news about my father and uncle that really breaks my heart. I don't want to talk about it on here because it's easy enough to find out who they are, I'd imagine, but lets just say it has been really troubling me ever since I found out and, even though I never really trusted either of them anyway, I really don't know, and I hate it because it shouldn't be that way. And all of this sucks because I should be having so much fun planning my wedding, and it's shadowed by all this grief and emotional upheaval.

Deanna - I'm so glad to hear you liked your package :) If the cream eggs are in short supply, I can wrangle up a box of them for you to share with your ex-pat friends. We all need a little chocolate sinfulness sometimes, right? Let me know if there are any other confections you've been jonesing for.

To my mystery GISBE sender - They filled me in on whats been happening, so don't feel bad at all! I'm only sorry US customs is so damned uptight. To hopefully cheer you up, I will tell you a little story. I go to a relatively small university in a remote area of Northern California. A package arived that was leaking a mysterious white powder, and they closed down the huge building that provides mail, food, and various other services to students for the entire day while a ridiculous number of law enforcement personnel came in to determine what it was. Turns out it was a package of baking supplies sent to a student by their mother... *sigh* So yeah, paranoia. I look forward to recieving it and knowing who you are! Thank you sincerely for all the trouble you've gone to.

Well, I drove 12 hours yesterday, and I am tired, so time for Stacy to go to sleep...

* I miss school. Seriously? Working two jobs is not my idea of fun. Especially since one job involves taking a serious amount of disrespect from the community. I don't want to write about this job for fear of being dooced, but lets just say I am journaling faithfully all of the interesting and infuriating occurences for eventual blog fodder.

* I did the whole Great International Secret Blog Exchange thing. Interestingly enough, it was way fun just putting together a package for someone, and I haven't even given any thought to the fact that there should be a package winging it's way to me. I'm far too busy wondering if the person I sent a package to will like it, when she'll get it, etc etc etc. Her blog is incredibly interesting, too, and I'll be linking to it as soon as she gets the package and I don't have to try and maintain the surprise anymore. Don't want to give the game away with referer stats ;)

* I'm going home for a week!! I have the week off at mystery job two, since HSU is not in session and half the work load is nullified, and so I got the other days off from the law office, I'm getting my car fixed on Tuesday, and I'm loading up my car with my buddy Jess and we're heading down to the 90603. My mom wants to take me to try on wedding dresses, which sounds horrific because I still feel kind of like a gigantic slug woman and would rather wait a month or two, but it still sounds secretly exciting all the same. And we're going to look at possible locations and stuff too. Plus I get to see my sister! My Amie!!! So excited :) And my brothers and my dad and my friends and eeeeee! Can't wait. I haven't been home since October, which is the longest I've ever been away, and it's been hard.

* So for the wedding, I want to have a garden theme, use tons of flowers, and for colors I want blues and purples, think like a big bunch of Hydrangeas. I'm going to do the flowers myself, because it will save money and then I can get what I want easier. My first job was at a flower shop, so I'm not totally inexperienced either. The plan is for me and my mom to get a bunch of flowers in June to practice with (that way we'll see whats available that time of year, too.) Me and Aja are also going to take a cake decorating class, so if everything with that goes perfect, maybe we'll do the cake too? It's an idea, but since I know I'm already going to be running around like crazy right before the wedding, I'm not terribly attached to that idea, so if it doesn't work, we'll just have a cake done professionally. Decor, aside from flowers, will depend on where we have the wedding. I really want to have it outdoors in a garden, but it just depends on what we can afford. Fortunately, we have a year to plan this shindig.

* We ordered my ring! So excited! It matches witht he wedding theme I want perfectly even, so woot :)

* Getting back to the hugemongous slug woman problem, I joined curves. Sometimes I feel like a victim of our ridiculous culture because of my horrible body image, but lets face it, I am dangerously overweight and it has already affected my health, so it's past the time to take action. Besides, I don't want to be a stick insect, I just want to be healthy... I would be happy to lose maybe 3 sizes in the next year, which is a reasonable goal. I don't want to take up less space in the world, I want to occupy it more fully. I want to move and not feel silly, I want to be active and really alive and not a couch potato. It's only been a week and I already have more energy. I was concerned because I heard that Curves supports anti-abortion groups, but there aren't many gyms up here and this is the only thing I can afford. I'm going to donate to Planned Parenthood, and I've been reading curvers for choice and it sounds like other members had the same idea, plus more accurate information, so I feel a bit better about it now. Plus my local curves has, as of March third, in three days time, collected over 500 pounds of food for our local food bank, so that's something to be proud of. The food drive goes on all month, so hopefully we'll raise a lot more, too.

* and.... that's it. Not much going down on Planet Stacy.