Coming out of the fog

Fog - the definition of my life for the last four weeks (probably since my last blog post) or actually most of the last six months. It all started right after vacation..a weekend of work, that seems to take forever to catch up on. and, then it was time for the big BCS (not the horrible college bowl system)...but my mother's breast cancer surgery.

Some people know that my mother was diagnosed with BC at the end of October, but for the most part I have tried to keep it to my friends and coworkers..mainly because it is hard to answer the same questions over and over. Her diagnosis is Stage 3 Breast Cancer with treatments of chemo, surgery and then radiation.

So after 8 long chemo treatments, it was time for surgery, and soon will be time for radiation. In the end, the surgery and chemo have done their job -- clear margins and the cancer seems to be gone. The 33 radiation treatments should eradicate any remaining lone cells. However, the toll the treatments up to this point have taken on mother (who knew you could be allergic to chemo or heard of chemo brain) have really awful...she has had reactions most people do not have (again, see the line about being allergic to chemo). No one wants to watch their parent go through something like this...parents are supposed to be invincible.

This has been a grueling six months on me as well. Who knew I would feel the need to call everyday and inquire about someones protein and general food intake or the status of their drains? Let alone, the 22 miles from my house to my mother's (there have been several times that I regretted my move to the northside) for support, doctor's appointments, etc. Oh, and then there is the guilt...the guilt that I could be doing more, be there more, etc, etc.

I had not realized how much I was internalizing the stress...until my own hair started to fall out. although, it was not just because of the cancer, all the unknowns at my job have also taken their toll. For the first time in my life, I have not been able to juggle all of the balls in the air, which has probably the biggest stress of them all to me. and I have taken it out on everyone...my mother, nick, sadie, and my coworkers...for which I truly apologize.

Her surgery was three weeks ago tomorrow. She is doing well, but still has much recovering to do. and, visits from both of my aunts and a week long stay by my brother have not only meant that someone has been there 24 hours a day for the first weeks after surgery, but also that I have not had to stay overnight once since she got out of the hospital (something I did not anticipate in the beginning).

Thanks to everyone who has been there for me and said the many prayers for my mother, they have meant the world to me.

In addition to the back and forth with my mom, the aunts and doctor's visits, this is also a pretty busy time of year at work -- budget planning (not easy in these economic times) and a pre-planning trip to Louisville for National Convention (Kentucky Derby Weekend..no less), plus all the normal summer prep.

But, for the first time in weeks, I feel like I am coming through the fog. Today at work, I actually managed to get through every pile and get all of my budgets done (until the next hack). I am actually caught up on sleep (ie not sleeping like the dead and waking up still tired). and, getting excited about the wedding planning.

Speaking of the wedding...we have a date, a location, a honeymoon, and cupcakes. It is amazing what you can get done when you have six hours to sit in a hospital surgery waiting room. Nick and I finalized the location and came up with a budget (that hopefully won't lie to us).

So, the event details:
Friday, November 6 - Rathskeller

So, as the fog lifts even more and the summer is upon us, I plan to blog more...hopefully without this cancer cloud hanging over everyone in my entire family.

10 adults, 2 babies, 2 dogs, 1 house - 7 days

So, I haven't written a post in a while, but all for good reasons. The main being we took a vacation a few weeks ago. My aunts rented a house in the Outer Banks, North Carolina for the week before Easter. I brought the computer thinking I could blog, work on wedding stuff, and a few other things. However, I only managed to download a few pictures and create a spreadsheet to track wedding venues (no entries, but did create the website).

This was the first "family" vacation for Nick and my third since reaching adulthood (we did this sporadically throughout my childhood). My mother is the oldest of three sisters who are only five years apart in age. One of my aunts has a daughter a year younger and a step-daughter a few years younger...So, we all took off - destination Outer Banks.

Nick, the dog, my mother and I left on Friday evening, travelling to Lexington. Nick nor I was sure how the dog (and my mother) would do that long in the car, so we decided to break the trip up. In the end, that was probably good, since we got stuck in traffic for about two hours and through an underground tunnel.

We arrived third..my aunt, other aunt, aunt's husband and Alex the Westie arrived prior to us. The group containing my cousins, their husbands, a 20month old and a 9 month old from Texas was about 30 minutes behind us. The house was magnificent....most of the houses there are rentals and during the summer are not affordable (or at least my kind of affordable). So, we pull up to a huge house, with 8 bedrooms, ocean views, pool, hot tub, and an elevator. although, we all decided that the fact we all had our own bathrooms was by far the best feature.

as I said, we have done this several times...but this was a first for Nick. Nick is what I call an "active" vacationer. Me, give me a book, a beach chair, a drink, a view and I am good to go for several days. He likes to be doing something, seeing something, etc. One day, I will tell you about our New England vacation last summer.

all along, I was hoping that the weather would hold so that he could play golf (not to mention that we hauled his golf clubs and shoes all the way to NC). No golf, makes Nick a very sad boy. Luckily, he was able to play twice...and I relented one day (that the weather was crappy) and we went sightseeing (the Wright Brothers memorial - awesome place) and did a little shopping.

He had his concerns bout spending that much time round that many people (women..especially)...but, in the end, asked me when we would be doing this again. a good sign, I think.

Every other time we have done this vacation, there are times when we all go back to being kids. aunt Chrys making dinner, Monty making breakfast, someone organizing activities. But, this time, it was different. Firstly, the kids are all very much adults these days (Nick and I being the only ones without kids..well, besides my brother) and everyone knew that Chrys shouldn't do dinner every night and we all needed to figure out what we wanted to do (another reason, I knew we had to have access to our own vehicle).

Everyone got dinner duty. Turns out the kids all made dinner one night the first part of the week. I managed to make homemade pizza without my kitchen aide (have I mentioned the fantastic kitchen, yet?) for everyone with like 10 toppings to choose from. Nick wanted me to grill it, but the grill was out of gas (something we discovered to late).

So, basically, at least one person went to the grocery store every day (at least one someone)...and that didn't count the beer, wine, and margaritas consumed.

I could probably write an entire post about the dog and the beach, but the picture says it all. She turned into a beach bum and has been pouting ever since. I think it has something to do with running on the beach everyday for an hour...apparently she likes that much activity.

In the end, I realized that even at 33, I am an adult, but can still feel like some one's child and niece every once in a while.

the next post...the wedding location hunt....

Planning and trying to put all the pieces together...

So, I realize that I plan meetings and events for a living, so you would think that I would be a lot more motivated to plan my own wedding. But sadly, I am not. Mainly, because in my professional life, I get to spend other people's money (about 800,000 of them) and while (given the times) I am doing so much more frugally than I ever have, it still is not my money.

For example, today at worked I looked into renting classroom style tables and linens, instead of using the bigger tables that we have in inventory at our office, so that we could create a little more room in our meeting space for a large function we have coming up. almost $400 late, no big deal...but facing that figure (even that small) for my own wedding is daunting. BTW, we decided to rethink the plan and decided not to rent the tables, something I would have laughed at a year ago as we would have rented them on the spot.

I believe part of my issue is that I know what can be done and want it to be to that extreme. But, I do not want to go into debt...take that back, a lot of debt, to get married (unfortunately, the debt may be unavoidable. I really would be happy to drive down to the city county building and be done with it. Since that is the most important part of this whole process...the marriage, not the wedding.

So, it looks like it is going to be early November, but that is still in question. We have not settled on a location, but the largest percentage seems to be here in Indianapolis, closely followed by Coastal New England and Vegas.

I never thought I would be sentimental about getting married in my hometown, but as we have discussed more and more I find that I am more and more sentimental about it. Mainly, because I want our friends to all be included. We know that our families will travel whereever we go, but our friends have become a such a big part of our lives that I would hate for them not to be there.

There are some distince advantages to getting married later in life..though. When you are in your 20's (and your parents are the main financial source), you want to invite everyone and your parents everyone. We find ourselves limiting to only our really close friends and family (although, an Indy location would make the number a little bit bigger), sometimes probably being too picky.

So, now you see the whole avoidance issue. But, it is my goal to at least by the end of the week (or the end of our vacation) to have all of the numbers put together, have a date and a pretty good idea of where within the location it will be.

In the end, whether small or smaller, I know that at the end of the day it will be memorable, but getting there is the hard part!

The Story

As many of you know, Nick and I were engaged over the weekend, so I thought that I would share our story, not only of our engagement but our journey together.


Flash back to the winter/spring of 2006 - We officially met in a bar, but really got to know each other through emails and im'ing. With that, I finally agreed to go out with him on March 17, 2006. We tried a couple of Irish Bars, but ultimately ended up at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritville. We spent the rest of that spring and summer getting to know each other.


However, as most summers end with me, my job was beginning to get really crazy and I just didn't see our relationship going much further. So, I abruptly ended things that July, went off to Salt Lake City in August. Upon my return from Convention, I realized that something was missing and had been missing for a while. I decided to take back my life from my employer and learn to live again.


Sadie then enters the picture and I spend the next few months dealing with the trials and tribulations of new puppies.


And, then I email Nick at Christmas-time...knowing that he would be preparing to go home to New England, but was really wondering how he was and what he was doing. My intentions were innocent - I swear.


So, we spend the next couple of months talking, emailing and getting to know each other again. By the time our schedules corresponded again, St. Patrick's day 2007 was upon us once again. So, our second-first date took place a year to the date of our first. This time something clicked - and clicked pretty quickly.


By the time, July and August had rolled around we had met the parents (mine) and friends (his). As I began to prepare yet another convention adventure, I knew that this one would be different then most. I had two somethings to come home to and to miss while I was gone. Leaving that morning for Reno, was the first time I realized that I couldn't do what I do forever and Nick was not going anywhere.


I went home with him that Christmas and we began making plans to move in together that spring (after yet another crazy event that I was working on). We both knew from that point that we were headed for a lifetime commitment (Sadie agreed as well).


We have had our periods of adjustment (we still are arguing over the size of the kitchen trash can), but realize that we really are meant to be together.


Of course, we had both been questions from everyone - when are you getting engaged, when are you getting married? I learned to ignore them for the most part and knew when the time was right that it would happen.


Which brings me to my birthday this year....

I knew that he was working hard on my gift (after the fantastic 40th birthday party I threw for him...he felt a little pressure) and knew that I love musicals and theatre. He has a love for ABBA, so when he saw that Mamma Mia was playing in Bloomington shortly after another one of my crazy meetings he thought that would be a great gift.


Little did I know, he had much more planned.

March 7 was a very un-March-like day in Indiana, so we dropped the dog at my mother's and headed for Bloomington. We stopped at Oliver Winery, which has been a favorite of both of ours for a while. I told him once that is where I first realized that I loved him. As we finish our tasting and buy a bottle of wine, we headed to the deck to enjoy the fresh air and spring warmth. We finish our glasses and I decide that we need to head a little farther south to eat. Nick asked that we head down to the bridge crossing the little pond....being practical (and protective of my shoes) say that I had three inch heels on and navigating down a hill on soft ground was not something I was willing to do. So, we finally decided on the deck....standing behind me, he whispered, marry me and handed me the ring.


It was perfect - just us and not a lot of fuss. I am not even sure the people who took our picture realized.


and, as St. Patrick's Day 2009 approaches, this is where the rest of our story begins....

The first post

So, I have been contemplating stating a blog for a while. I am not one who has ever really journaled..in fact, it was painful when I had to do it in college for a class. But, now after following several other posts, I have discovered that I need an outlet for my thoughts and feelings without always saying them to someone else.

a few things right off of the bat...
1. My laptop lacks an "a" key...so forgive me at times, words may be missing that crucial letter (the story involves one hyper puppy and a glass of red wine). and I may forget to spell check.
2. I am in a committed relationship that I am truly happy with, but at times I get frustrated
3. My life over the last eight months has been turned upside down -- major professional changes that have led me to question my career and the organization that I still work for, a major illness diagnosis for my mother who is in the fight of her life while I sit on the sidelines, and the co joining of households with person mentioned in #2.

and with that just a few things that make me really happy -
1. Nick and the love that he shares with me everyday
2. Sadie - the puppy and her utter devotion to me (and to Nick)
3. Sunsets
4. the Ocean

So, with that I am off into the blogosphere.