a fragment of the girl

I'm getting really bored and lonely with the amount of time I spent at home by myself. John works Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights so I end up staying home and being bored and lazy. I mentioned having joined a couple of meetup groups...yeah, still haven't gone to any events. I swear I'm going to a trivia night on Monday though. It's actually at John's bar.

I didn't get the job I had applied for. It seems the supervisor had a friend in mind, so even the woman who's on temporary detail to that job didn't get an interview. Could be a blessing in disguise as the supervisor has a reputation for being kind of an ass. 

The wedding is coming up soon and I still feel so unprepared. UGH. I just want it to be done, but I don't want to do it all. I am reeeeeallly looking forward to our honeymoon in Mexico in mid-April!! I've never been to Mexico so I hope we like it! 

I'm seriously considering going to the doctor to see about anxiety medication. I've always been a bit high-strung and it's just part of who I am to be a worrier but it's really gotten bad in the last few months. I'll just have a gnawing feeling of anxiety at times or a little thing will stress me out and my thoughts start spiraling out of control about how wrong things are and how everything's going to fall apart. It's misery. :(

I'm going to find something to do tonight. 

I worked 11 hours today to make back some hours after taking Tuesday off for being sick. It wasn't too bad. I actually had things to do most of the time. And the most annoying person on my team was out for the day, which was awesome. I swear, when he's not there everyone seems to get along harmoniously. It's like magic.

I blew some money today in a "flash sale" of a fancy CZ necklace on a jewelry company's FB page. It might be a good choice for the wedding or rehearsal dinner, so that was my excuse.

I had Chipotle for lunch and it was spicy and delicious.

John got a new laptop in the mail today. His old one was literally falling apart at the seams. I want a new Macbook but it's so expensive. I'd like to upgrade to a 15" instead of my little 13". My current one has slowed down a lot and it's annoying, but not really annoying enough to justify $2,000 for a new one. Boo.

I'm going to a friend's apartment-warming party tomorrow night. I hate that all of my friends are at least 45 minutes away. This party is in Baltimore, which is over an hour away. I've joined a couple of Meetup groups to try and make some local friends, but have yet to go to an event. I think I'll go to a quiz night on Monday. I also started going to a stitch n bitch group but have only been able to go a few times over the last two months, so I haven't really made any connections yet. Everyone's really nice, but I dunno if there's any real friend potential there. These things take time!

Damn I never post. I've been wanting to make a blogspot since there are a few blogs over there that I follow. But I've been too lazy to set one up. I kinda want to blog about happy things...trying to live a more contented, thankful kind of life, because I can be a negative nancy at times, and it's silly most of the time.

We're having our wedding on March 24th in Reading, PA. Have I mentioned that before? I can't tell you how little I really care for all this wedding planning BS. Maybe I'd be more interested if we weren't already married. Not sure. I just really can't get too bothered about the things that most brides seem to care a lot about. I have a couple of engaged girls on my FB and they're posting about all the stuff they're doing months and months ahead, including going to appointments to look at invitations and getting invitation proofs back. Invitation PROOFS? Lordy, who cares that much about the invitations? I just ordered the invitations this week, and picked a simple design from VistaPrint. If they suck, oh well. I'm going up to the venue on the 5th to see how much decorating I need to do. It's an old, beautiful B&B, and I'm hoping it needs very little, because I've really got no creative juices flowing for this. And I don't want to spend money on a load of flowers. I plan to reuse a friend's centerpieces, which were very simple. I want to crochet my bouquet but haven't started working that out yet, eep.

The only thing I'm actually excited about is my dress. SO EXCITED about that. It's going to be awesome. I tried it on after the alterations a few weeks ago, and aside from needing to draw down the bust slightly into a sweetheart neckline, it was PERFECT. Such a relief after the drama and crying on the day I chose and ordered the dress. I had a meltdown that day for no good reason. Anyway, I also bought my head decoration, which was way too expensive, but it was so beautiful and I didn't want to spend a lot of time looking for other things and potentially not find anything, so I splurged for the ease of having it right then and there.

I hate my job with a fiery passion, but I am supposed to be transitioning to another team in another month or so after I train our new guy. Thank the stars. My team is such a pile of shit. I don't even care what I'll be doing on the new team; at least I'll be working for a manager I can actually respect, and not be dependent on a load of people who are immature, lazy, and useless. I also applied for a direct gov't. position, which I'd frankly be perfect for (even my gov't. clients agree). It would be amazing if I got that job, but competition for these jobs is fierce so we'll see. I might not even make it past the initial screen.

I'm slogging my way through the Song of Ice and Fire books (first one is Game of Thrones, which has been turned into a TV series) on my Sony eReader. Since I'm reading them on there, and it's one big 5-book bundle, it's hard to tell how far of the way I am through the 3rd book, but it must be a good way. They're really good, but it's taking me a while.

I am craving steamed crabs so badly. I think we're going to get some tomorrow. Or rather, I will get them, while John gets a burger or something. Our usual July family reunion crab feast is on hold until my parents' house renovations are finished, so I've got to source some crabs another way!

I might go to the pool tomorrow too. I tried to go on Memorial Day, which was a foolish idea. It was jammed even late in the day, so I bagged the idea. We'll have to see if it's that bad tomorrow.

I'm doing the Baltimore Women's Classic 5k on Sunday morning. Hopefully that goes well. My knee/IT band was messed up for months and months but it's been calmed down lately with lots of foam rolling.

Oh! We bought tickets to see Les Miserables on my birthday at the Kennedy Center! I'm so excited! I always wanted to see Les Mis in NYC, but didn't get the chance. This will be at the Kennedy Center in DC. I think we got really good seats too. Expensive, but oh well.

We're also planning our "wedding" with family and friends for March 24, 2012. I'm pretty disinterested in the planning to be honest, lol. I just don't want to stress about it. We specifically picked a venue that will hopefully make a lot of things less stressful. It's a B&B in Reading, PA. They do the catering themselves, have all the linens and such at no extra charge, minimal flowers will be needed since it's beautiful already. Ceremony and reception in one place. Plenty of accommodation for family and the bridal party. The only outside vendors we should need are the photographer and DJ, and we have the photographer picked already. We went with a woman who's done weddings at the venue before, so she already knows the location and the good shots. The only bad thing about the venue is that it's in Reading, PA - about 3.5 hours away. So I am pretty worried about getting the Irish people from airports and back and forth. But we'll work it out.

I'm going wedding-dress shopping in two weeks with my Mom, two sisters, and two maids of honor. We're gonna try to fit in two salons - I hope that works out!

It's not really...real yet that we're doing the whole big wedding thing, haha.

I meant to keep thing thing updated, but failed. Oh well.

John's been here since September 22, and we've been married for 8 months! We got married at the Courthouse (actually, down the street at the judge's office) on October 1st. We're planning our wedding for family and friends on March 24, 2012. I'm pretty excited about our venue. I found it like, a year ago, before John even got his visa and thought it was perfect. We visited it last month and it's as good as I thought. We only looked at one other venue before deciding. There just aren't enough places that meet our needs. We wanted a B&B setting where we could rent out the whole place for the night. We want to have the people coming from Ireland to be able to stay up late and hang out, rather than ending the party at 10pm, like virtually every place requires. The downside is that it's kind of far away, about 3.5 hours, in Reading, PA. That means we're going to have to rent a couple of vans most likely to transport the Irish contingent. But I think it will be worth it. The place is reasonably priced, beautiful, and met our needs.

Let's see, John's going back to Ireland for a visit on Wednesday - his first trip back. His oldest brother's stag is this weekend. Then the wedding is in August, so I'll be going back with him for that. I'm looking forward to it. I've been missing Ireland lately and it will be good to get back. Hopefully we can do some touring around and see some sights we've never seen before.

That's most of my news for now!

John FINALLY has an interview date for the visa! I emailed the consulate on Thursday asking if they had all his documents and they replied today with the following:

Your fiancé has been scheduled for his interview on September 7, 2010 at 13:00PM. His appointment letter was posted out to his Irish address.

Ahhhhh! I had a quiet little freak-out at work and my heart started pounding I was so happy. I called John and told him, even though we were already talking online, lol.

He might have gotten a date sooner if not for the fact that he has exams these last two weeks of August, so he requested a date in September. So if all goes well he'll have the visa a couple days after that (they keep the passport and mail it back) and he'll be able to come over when we've been planning on or around Sept 22. We're on the homestretch. I cannot wait until this is all over. Even though we saw each other a month ago it seems like it's been AGES. I just can't wait!

So we waited six weeks for John's police certificate of character. It's supposed to take "up to three weeks". Numerous calls to various stations and it was completely stalled. Finally his parents suggested contacting his TDs, which I wish one of us had thought of sooner. He emailed his TDs on Tuesday, one of them intervened on Wednesday, and John got a call on Thursday saying it was being mailed to him that day. He had it in his hand by Friday. Wtf. That's ridiculous. I mean, I'm so thankful that the TD helped out and that it was resolved so quickly, but for fuck's sake, it shouldn't come to that. So, thank you Mary Shields. You're a star.

Of course he's also been having trouble getting the medical appointment set up. Several unanswered calls and emails, and in in-person visit to the doctor's office resulted in nothing. Finally the receptionist gives John the doctor's cell phone number. John calls and gets bitched at for no reason. A couple days later the doctor calls him back and was remarkably civil, and John's finally scheduled for the medical next Friday. He's getting vaccines at the student health centre on Wednesday.

So at last there's some movement on that side of the pond, nearly two months after our petition was approved stateside. I did not anticipate this stage of the process taking so long. He'll be able to sent his "notification of readiness" to the embassy after the medical, but he has exams the last two weeks in August, so he's gonna ask for an interview in September. We'll be cutting it awfully close to the time we had planned. It's been the plan for months that he would come in the last week of September. Of course you can't make any hard and fast plans with the immigration process, but if the stupid Gardai and doctor weren't so useless and incompetent we'd be a lot further along by now. Not to mention the 17 days the embassy sat on our petition before sending out the packet 3.

Anyway.

It was absolutely fabulous having John here for my family reunion. We had a great time, and my family liked him. It was a short visit, so that kinda sucked, but it will all be over soon! It's gonna be unreal when he comes on the K-1 and we'll finally never be separated for any significant amount of time again. :)

Finally there's action from the embassy in Dublin. They mailed the so-called "packet 3" to John on Thursday. It will contain information on how to proceed and forms to fill out. Hopefully he'll get that early next week. We're still waiting on the Garda clearance though.

Baltimore 10-miler was great. I did pretty well. My minimum goal was 2:15, more ambitious goal was 2:10, and really ambitious goal was 2:05. I did 2:07:41, so I met my second goal. I think I could have met the third goal if there hadn't been so much uphill in the last few miles. But it was good. It was an out-and-back course, which kinda sucks because you see the same things twice. Plus right before I hit 3 miles the top finishers were passing me at 7 miles for them. I mean it's cool to see the fast people, but that's a bit demoralizing. At least I was really good with my pace throughout, and while almost everyone else was walking those last few uphill miles I was still running and passing them all. Before the start there was a backup of race traffic in the city and I barely made it in time. And plenty of people who were late started after me and they came blazing by me in the first few miles. Anyway walking was very difficult the next day, lol, and a bit on Monday too. I haven't run at all this past week since, but I'll be back at it next week. I don't want to lose what I've gained.

My family reunion is on July 10th and it looks like John's coming to visit for that. I'm so happy and excited! I really really really wanted him to come.

Our fiance petition was approved on May 27. Woot!! It has since gone from USCIS in VT to the National Visa Center in NH, and been forwarded to the embassy in Dublin. Based on a little trick to track the package from NVC I believe the package arrived in Dublin on June 8th. John hasn't been contacted by the embassy yet. If he doesn't get anything by tomorrow I'm going to call the DOS to ask the status on Monday. We still have things to gather, and time to spare, but I just want to make sure things are moving along. He applied for a Garda clearance last week I think so that should arrive in another two weeks. And I have ordered my tax transcripts, which should also arrive in another week or two. I have an employment letter, and I have a load of pay stubs. So we're just playing the waiting game again. We're not planning on him coming over until the end of September so there's plenty of time. It will be nice though when he has the visa in his hot little (ok, big) hand.

Running has been going well actually. I'm still slower than I was in November/December, but no other issues. The Baltimore 10-miler is on Saturday! I did 9 miles on Sunday, so I should be in good shape.

Work's not so bad these days. We're finally fully-staffed again, though the new people are still learning and not capable of taking on full responsibility yet.

I'm still struggling with a bit of lower-leg pain, but it's getting better and I was able to do a full week this week, including 6 miles today. 16 miles total. I know I was doing something wrong with my form. That always seems to be the case, but it takes me really starting to hurt before I realize it and figure out how to fix it. Taking time off for traveling and blizzards got me out of the great groove I had going on before Christmas and I just lost the feeling of what's right. I lost the habit of good form. Here's hoping my leg continues to get better.

I'm 26 years old and only now learning the basics of how to use make-up. Isn't that odd? I'm fascinated and having fun. Thank you YouTube. There are loads of good tutorials out there. I just never knew the tricks.

I want it to be September and for John to be here. Time was kind of going fast for a while, but with work sucking and running causing me issues, I've been feeling sorry for myself and time has slowed. Hopefully things will get better. It's been two months since we submitted our fiance petition to USCIS. I think we'll get the approval in another month and then it moves to the embassy stage in Ireland where he actually applies for the visa. And he might come over for my family reunion/crab feast in July. That would be awesome.

Time to find some food for dinner and make lunch for tomorrow.