Starting Early

So, my mother sent me photos tonight…13 e-mails’ worth, in fact. The photos are of my father’s side of the family; my grand father (my dad’s dad) turned 90 last week, and part of his gift was a slideshow of photos from as many of the years as we could manage to get our hands on. There was, however, one image that hit me square between the eyes. It was of my father playing his guitar. It seemed oddly familiar. Look below and you’ll see what I mean.

 

 

 

…aaaaaand like Father, Like Daughter, apparently.

 

 

And for those of you who are paying attention…yes, that is the same guitar. If there were a fire and I had time to grab one thing? One Thing and the rest of my stuff would burn up and I’d never see it again? I would grab that guitar. Love.

Whoa.

Things are crazy around here in LindzML land. Really, really crazy. I’m shocked at the crazy, honestly. I kind of wish a lot of the crazy would just work itself out…but I’ve got a feeling that won’t happen.

So.

I’m sorry, I suck and have a whole lot going on and wish that I didn’t have quite so much to do. There’s lots of work and wedding has kicked into high gear and trying to find a place to live and trying to work out Bobby’s job situation and racing situation and more wedding and then there are these little extra things that I have to find time for like eating and sleeping and doing laundry and I don’t even want to TELL you the last time I had an actual workout in a gym with other people (I’ll give you a hint: the month may or may not have started with an “S”). No worries, though because I’m pretty sure the constant acid indigestion I have is allowing food to seep through the growing hole in my stomach, so I’m not really gaining any weight.

I’m joking. Sort of.

But! There is a light at the end of the tunnel. And that light? Is NaBloPoMo, which I’m not doing as a part of the actual group where you win prizes and whatnot, but for myself so that I can remember to take a few minutes for myself every day (which means reminding myself that, no, washing my face at night does NOT count as today’s “me time”). So! More posting! Less complaining! Probably means a lot more wedding! But I think that a strong number of my readership has been invited to the wedding so….hey! Guess you’re getting a sneak preview (please oh PLEASE RSVP sooner rather than later so as not to add to my food loss via HoleInStomach).

Get excited.

 

 

p.s. I don’t actually have an ulcer. That’s just dramatic. I could just hear my phone ringing in an hour with my mom going “WHYDOYOUTHINKYOUHAVEANULCER?! Go to the doctor Right. Now.”

In Which I Lose My Cool Regarding Interior Design

I’m sitting in the common area at a surgery center in Sarasota, a room that is practically identical to every other waiting room I’ve lingered in over the past 22 years. It makes me wonder: what draws physicians and their office staffs to create these boring, blase, run-of-the-mill waiting rooms? They’re awful!

If you’ve ever been to a doctor’s office south of Georgia, you’ve probably noticed that the interior decorator attempted to remind each and every patient that HEY IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING WHERE YOU ARE? IT’S FLORIDA! CHECK OUT THESE MIAMI VICE SWEET TURQUOISE AND PINK COLOR COMBINATIONS! FLORIDA! LET’S ALL GO TO THE BEACH! Even if you’re in the center of the state and the closest beach is over an hour away, the decorators seem drawn toward the color palette of “beachy” circa 1986. The major issue that I have with this particular palette is that it honestly doesn’t look sanitary. Nope. Give me clean lines and whites and deep blues and glass and just about anything other than high-traffic carpet and a magazine rack made of faux wood. Please. There is (I kid you not) a giant mobile on the ceiling made of tarnished metal (not in a cool, kitschy way but in a “we don’t bother to get up on a ladder and polish this beast” way) and the SAME pink and turquoise combo that graces the walls, desks, carpet and furniture at this center.

This photo was taken in the reflection of the window behind me. That thing is about fifty times larger than what you see right there.

This is, by the way, one of the best places to have facial surgery in the state of Florida. So, if this is one of the best places to have your deviated septums (yeah, Bobby has not ONE but TWO…both of his nostrils are at least partially blocked) worked on…why don’t they modernize this place? I understand that it’s not about the interior decorators, it’s about the quality of service…but if I didn’t already know the caliber of doctor that worked here? I would have thought I’d walked into a free clinic downtown.

Maybe I’ve watched too many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and this is simply the way things are. But COME ON! I know that insurance company is giving you more than enough for this surgery and my guess is that the surgery is overpriced for the work that needs to be done. Take a little bit of that and spruce this joint up! We’re in one of the richest counties in the state (actually…probably the country, though I don’t have any empirical data backing that up whatsoever) and I feel like the chairs really may have been sitting here longer than I’ve been alive.

Yikes.

NO WORDS.

I have no words for the strangeness that is happening right now…it’s enough to bolster my desire to get off facebook. I’ve thrown the idea around for awhile now, and after the last 24 hours? I’m the closest I’ve ever been. I’ll explain more when I’m not feeling like a Single White Female is five mouse clicks away from trying to be me, but let’s just say this: I was already wondering whether or not to put my engagement photos up on facebook. I made them private, only able to be seen by my friends, but I was still shuffling back and forth, trying to decide if it was a good idea or not. I’ve had people tell me, straight to my face, that I was being a jerk for choosing not to put (and asking my guests not to put) my wedding photos on facebook. TO MY FACE.

After what’s happened in the last few hours? I think everyone will understand why I feel that way.

More when I can figure out how to put my thoughts into sentences.

Bad Day

I had a crap day. To show you just how crap it was? I bought my rehearsal dinner dress, an adorable Lilly Pulitzer…the last size zero, on sale for less than half of its original price (and less than half of the original dress I was going to buy for my rehearsal dinner) with no sales tax and only 10 dollars shipping…

…and this day still managed to blow.

Frustration after frustration…some day it feels like people sit down and go “How can I possibly make this person’s life a little more difficult?” “How can I do something to make her feel badly about herself?” “How can I find a way to take the one thing she’s looking for away from her?”

Within a month, Betsey Johnson managed to take the dress I wanted out of every store (and outlet store). ONE MONTH. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? In just minutes, a server deleted a third of the work me and a few of my co-workers had been working on for QUITE a while. I just feel like today was a day in which the universe conspired against me and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed…but there are still things to do.

Flower orders to decide on. Homes to find so Bobby and I have a place to live. Budgets to create. Thank You notes to write. Laundry to do. And all I want is a break. I never understood how people could just live their lives day to day…I was always looking toward the future. I couldn’t wait to get out of my school, my town, into college, out of college, into a Real Job. It’s amazing. I love where I work, I love what I’m doing, but I completely understand how people can get stuck in the monotony and begin to live in moment to moment, not noticing what’s going on past that day.

I often feel as though everyone that I’m around thinks that I’ve got this huge wealth of energy and desire to do whatever it is they want. I’ve been telling my Mom about this a lot lately…that it seems like everyone expects me to come to them, everyone thinks that I owe them something, simply because I’m getting married. I knew this would happen, that people would expect I’d be so oblivious to the real world because I’m getting married. That I wouldn’t notice 5 hour drives every weekend and “one more addition” to the guest list. But I notice. I’m not so innocent and oblivious that I don’t notice that it’s always my job to do the traveling, etc. I would, for a little while, like to get what I want. I would like someone to come to me. I would like to hear that someone’s thought of what might make life easier on the Bride for once, instead of  what seems easier for themselves. I don’t think I’m being a bridezilla, I just want to get out of this rut of feeling worn out, like I’ve given all I’ve got, and I know that I will…it’s just getting there that’s difficult.

Everytime I Watch This, I Cry.

The Blind Side looks absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to see it in theaters…Sandra Bullock, Kathy Bates, Tim McGraw and Quinton Aaron are only the beginning of the lineup. In case you’re wondering if I’m just full of it…watch the trailer:

Who wants to see it with me?

100

100 days to go. 100. I’ve ordered everything from the food to my veil and there’s still more to do. The invitations need to go out at the end of the month and I don’t have all of the addresses. Not even close :-/ Or everything I need.

But I am beyond excited. Last names and oh, I don’t know where we’re going to live aside…I can’t wait to get married. Every day gets me a little more thrilled to be marrying who I am in the way I am. And the fact that we booked the honeymoon last week (cruise) is icing on the cake.

The Bad Thing About Changing The Locks…

…is that if you’ve got, say, a fiance that’s not around as much as she used to be (since she lives in a new town) and you haven’t made her a new key and you leave to go on a training ride, leaving her to her own devices, and she decides she’d like to go spend some quality time with friends in the town that you live in and you haven’t left her any keys to lock up with and she’s the only person left in the apartment?

She ends up having to spend her Sunday watching CMT Top 20 Countdown and trying to decide if it’s worth it to make the trek to the kitchen to get a nectarine. Happy Weekend, y’all.

To Take or Not to Take?

Bobby and I have been having the discussion that I always knew my husband and I would have…and we’re on the exact sides of the conversation I always expected to be on with whoever I married. So, it’s nice to know that I have been right all along.

I just wish I weren’t.

The topic is whether or not to take his last name. Part of it is simply that I’m a pretty independent female and I don’t like the idea of changing my name. It’s MINE, after all, and I don’t like the fact that it’s just assumed that I’ll change my name.

I’m the kind of person that really, really hates being told what to do (or being told what is expected of me). I love having the freedom to make a decision for my self. I like having my options open, even if there’s a particular choice I ought to be making. Don’t worry…I’ll make the right one. I just like being able to make the judgement call.

This isn’t the only reason that the issue is even an issues (though it’s one of two biggies). The second is a little more straightforward: my sister and I are the final two people in our family with our last name. I am so proud of my family and proud of my last name and the ridiculous history that goes along with it (it IS ridiculous…I promise). If I had a brother, this wouldn’t be an issue. As long as I had the OPTION to keep my last name or hyphenate my last name everything would be just fine. But I have no brother, and my dad was the last one in his generation with the last name, as well. And I just can’t stand the idea of our last name being gone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m going to stay “Loe”…I’ll probably be “Loe-Sweeting”, but I just don’t want to have my Dad be the last Loe. I don’t want to be the last Loe for that matter, but Bobby’s pretty serious about our kids not having a hyphenated last name (though I think that would be VERY progressive of us).

People take so much pride in their last names; it evokes memories of family histories, family gatherings, even family dinners around the dining room table. Men are so adamant about keeping their last names intact…why shouldn’t women be the same way? Am I alone in my desire to keep the “family name” going? I see so many women on sites like “theknot.com” touting themselves as “the soon-to-be Mrs. XYZ” and I always wonder why they feel the need to change something about themselves that has been an integral part of their lives thus far. When two people get married, they’re not LOSING who they used to be…they’re gaining a new partner in life. Why, then, would you let go of the biggest marker of who you were, the way in which you used to identify yourself to others? Why wouldn’t you keep what you were while adding onto that who you are becoming?

Am I alone in asking this question? Do you want to keep your last name when you get married or if you already ARE married: did you change your name? How did you go about making your decision (and I’m definitely NOT judging one way or the other…we all have different reasons as to why we do what we do).

Pride

No matter your political leaning…this speech is truly inspiring. I don’t care if there are political motives. I don’t care if you don’t like him, or if you didn’t vote for him. All I care about is the fact that this speech could have changed the course of someone’s life today. This speech could have made the difference between a bad decision and a good decision. This speech could have motivated a young person to become something more than they were planning to be. I absolutely LOVE the line “don’t think you’re going to drop out of high school and drop into a great job”.

I hope that people everywhere that look up to our President make the right decisions today and into the future. I think that these addresses need to be a regular occurrence, if not by the President then by someone. Kids need inspiration. Kids need a reason to continue the drudgery of high school, they need a reason to keep trying when it feels as though their teachers have given up and their parents haven’t ever cared. I know this speech made a difference today in the lives of students across the country. Whether you like our President or not, take a look. It’s not about politics…it’s about the future of our nation.