The Sunday Ritual

Quick wedding update: We have officially reached the less than 3 months category. The only things we don't have right now are plans for the engagement shoot (which we want to do mid-late March anyway), flowers (ya, I'm bad), or a DJ. I'll get these taken care of... you know, at some point. And if not... oh well.

We're well beyond starting to learn the things that drive the other crazy. We both knew it would happen. I mean, I came from a politically correct Baptist upbringing (and was rather liberal growing up until high school, a couple of years before becoming Catholic), and he has always been a nerdy intellectual and coming from at least a cultural Catholic family. My family heritage/traditions can best be described as American because much of my ancestry was involved in the American Revolt in the 1770's (I'm not Americanist, can you tell?), and no one has been here less than 100 years. In other words, we're rather Protestant in upbringing and hold no cultural ties outside of America. However, if I had to point to a My family is more German in their traditions than anything else. James is Italian. Is there anything else that needs to be said?

On a typical Sunday when I was growing up, my family would go to church, come home, change out of our good clothes (it would be better if more Catholics had good clothes to change out of), and eat. We eat a rather large meal after church. Usually, my Daddy would go to the earlier service, so that dinner (the only day of the week dinner is for lunch... my family was raised in Texas) was ready when my mom and I got back from church. We would have a large meal that would almost always sit at the table for. The exceptions would be if we all sat at the TV to watch a game or just plan didn't feel up to the task of clearing off the table. This meal would be rather large. After dinner we'd do whatever we wanted, usually in seclusion. Later, we would one by one trickle off to bed for our afternoon nap. While someone else is napping, everyone else in the house talk at a whisper. The TV is down several notches, even if people are sleeping on a different floor. I don't know why this was an unspoken tradition. It just was. I rarely nap, but I do on Sundays more than any other day.  Perhaps it's because it's the whole day of rest thing.  For dinner dinner we would eat leftovers from the earlier meal if we ate at all. We'd eat separately, of course.

James and I came to my apartment after Mass today and he had told me that he was making the rest of the ravioli with sauce for dinner. I'm like, yay. I come into the kitchen to see him frying up bacon. "I thought you said we were having ravioli!" I said. "Ya, for dinner!" Ugh. So I told him I can't eat any more bacon because my stomach has been sensitive to fats lately, and he said he was making eggs, too. I don't like eggs. So I'm not eating until he makes dinner dinner. I'm rather hungry now. He says he wont start dinner until he's hungry... I'm about to die. I had nothing but carbs and fats this morning (bagel with cream cheese) and I'm dying. I explained to him that we're both going to need to give a little with this because I can't handle something like this happening every week. This is the third week in a row that something has happened like this, and I finally realized that it's because of my upbringing that I think it's INSANE to cook two meals on a Sunday. Why don't I just make myself a snack? Well, I'm trying to be more health conscious and all the snacks I could eat are empty carbs which make me feel awful later (I've also officially reached the 'overweight'category for the first time in my life and I think I'm going to die). I absolutely refuse to put the effort of cooking meat (which I really need right now), and I'm tired and grumpy at James.

Speaking of grumpy at James, he tells me that I'm not allowed to have my Sunday nap. And I'm like, say what now? I'm gonna take a nap whenever I feel like I need one which is going to be most Sundays. He says it's not leisurely enough, and I think he's full of sh*t (to those of you who are offended with VERY occasional language... you really shouldn't be reading my blog). I mean, seriously, how can you be doing LESS than when you're sleeping? I mean, duh. And today I took a nap, which he KNEW I didn't get much sleep last night, and he start yelling at his mother on the phone (he thinks that's a normal tone for phone conversations... or often in regular ones) in the other room. I'm so irritated about this. HE KNOWS I WAKE UP TO EVERYTHING! He should know that I get deeply offended when people wake me up due to lack of courtesy. I'm actually about to cry because of this. In college I would wake up sometimes by people walking down the hall outside of my room... I had to switch from a conventional alarm clock to my cell phone because everything else is too loud and shocks my nerves when it goes off (I get physically sick from that shock, btw). I told James that when he comes in my room to wake me up from a nap, he has to turn the doorknob gentler because it is loud and shocks me awake. And he thinks he can just go on shouting in the other room??? Man, he's so oblivious sometimes.

I think I'm going to try and go back to sleep because I'm tired and hungry, but too tired and hungry to make something for myself.

Just shoot me

Whoever decided that little girls were supposed to dream about the perfect wedding from the time they were five should be shot. Here I am, most wedding plans going smoothly, then suddenly...

I had this perfect plan. We wanted the reception to be close to his mother who can't travel (yet) out of the house. We hope that by having the reception close to her house she'll be able to get used to driving short distances and be able to share a portion of her son's special day. I told James this when we started dating that I wanted to have the wedding near her (when we thought we'd be in the southern half of the country) for this reason. I can't imagine not be able to go to my son's wedding, and I wanted to lighten that as much as possible. Our great idea was that there is this hotel down the street from her that has a beautiful design. She could be transported there and spend the night there the night before, hopefully taking care of her transportation problems, and then she could stay for as much of the reception as she could handle. Well... it turns  out that there is a convention going on the weekend of the wedding. I'm very disappointed because I really thought it would be perfect there, in that guests could stay at that hotel (the church is 40 min away, but in a rough neighborhood) and it would be uber convenient for everyone.

The upside: There is a reception hall even closer to his mom's house that has availability for our date. They seem to be affordable (though we're going to have to pay through the nose to have it for more than 4 hours). I just am not sure. I need to look inside of it to really know what I think about it. The pictures online don't show anything about how nice it looks inside. I don't even know if it's anything better than a shack, really. The floor plan indicates potential, but I just don't know. It also fails for the uber convenience of being able to transport her over a day or two early to make sure she's able to enjoy what she can. *insert sadface* Also, there's only two small hotels nearby and I don't know if the convention is going to take up any of their rooms, too. Well, at least it looks like we'll be able to work something out. I don't know why this bums me out so incredibly much, but as soon as I found out I couldn't get the hotel, I felt like the whole infrastructure of the wedding just collapsed.

In other news, for some reason I've been really moody lately. I'm constantly offended by anything James says (admittedly he has foot-in-mouth syndrome, but I'm taking it worse than usual). I have been sleeping at least 10 hours a night this weekend, after sleeping 7 hours a night during the week, took a 2 hour nap today, and still feel dead exhausted. I don't know if it's just the fact that I need to get used to 9 hour days with 1 hour (one way) commutes, or what. Ugh, I'm seriously thinking about moving and offering my current apartment to my friend who is getting married next month. I kinda hope I get around to telling her this before she reads it on my blog... I just want more time to... live. James has been around more and tensions have been high the past few weeks. We're both going through a lot right now.

In even other news, my medicine seems to be working! I'm off of my old medicine completely now and I have no pain in my side! I'm a little shy about putting the name of the med online because people all seem to have very strong opinions about it, and I don't care to get into a debate. There are one or two side effects that are concerning me a little and I'll talk to the doc about them in a month or two (sooner if they get worse). James is concerned about the potential of birth defects on children (oh, the internet...) so he's gonna come with me and talk to the doc about the medicine details. I don't think my recent grumpiness is a direct result of the meds, I have my ups and downs, but we'll see how long it lasts. I've found I struggle to adapt well to change. And as great as my job is, it's a HUGE change on my life and the amount of time I have. Combine that with wedding planning, low finances (due to lag, I don't get my first check till December 1st), and general womanness and you have a life worthy of a reality TV show.

At some point when I get a free moment that I'm not sleeping then I'll post about St Joseph. I'm actually really excited about it. I've learned so much already! Hagiography (the lives of the saints)  is one of my favorite subjects!