Lately the thing that people always tend to ask me is, "how's wedding planning going? Do you have a lot done"? Truthfully, I'm not sure how to answer that question. We have most of the big things done, I guess, but WEDDING! still seems so big, so immense. The things that are left kind of scare me, in part I think because I feel like there are a thousand things I'm forgetting. I really don't know how we're going to do all the food and make it work, but I'm trying not to worry about that and leave that (for now) to Bear and his mom. Right now, the most pressing thing I need to get to is designing our wedding invitations (and then printing and assembling them). I might be a glutton for punishment. Anyway, the (pretty!) envelopes and the flat cards that I ordered arrived last week and have been sitting on my dining room table waiting to be turned into something worthy of going out into the world. Our save the dates took so. much. work. It was extremely tedious at times, but in the end it was worth it and I'm incedibly proud of them. I hope that I am at least equally proud of my... er, our invitations. I suppose I should share some photos of our save the dates as a reference point, but for the time being I'll just say that I used navy envelopes and addressed them in silver pen. We also embossed a flower stamp over the flap. They turned out really nicely and we got quite a few compliments on them.
For our invitations, I ordered dark blue shimmery envelopes which will also be addressed in silver. However, because apparently it's NOT OKAY to include a return address, at least not on the front of the envelope, I ordered an address stamp from etsy. We'll emboss this in silver over the envelope flap. Of course, I'll only be able to use this stamp for two more months until we get the hell out of dodge, which makes me sad, but in this case I decided it was best to just bite the bullet. I found a stamp that would fit the narrow-ish straight flap on our envelopes, with a design that I loved and will go with our overall paper scheme. It will also save me a lot of time (since I won't have to hand-write our return address on all of our envelopes) and energy (since I won't have to worry about offending Emily Post's ghost). So, it will be worth it. I'll order another one with our new address once we have said new address and I've changed my name, post-wedding. That was one other thing I liked about this stamp; it only has our first names on it. I figure that since we sent save the dates to all our guests, they ought to know who "Sara & Charles" are, and if not, they'll know once they look at the actual invitation. I should hopefully receive the stamp right around Easter, and I was hoping to get the invites out at the end of April/beginning of May, so that works out well.
If only I didn't have a more-than-full-time job and could do arts and crafts all day...
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Decisions, decisions
Somehow a month has passed since I last wrote. Intellectually, I know how it did, but it still seems impossible. The trip to Michigan was exhausting. Traveling like that just kills me.. something like 30 hours in the car is not really relaxing. Plus, I had my bridal shower. There are a lot of things I have to say about it, a lot of emotions that I've been trying to find the time and the energy to put into words since then, and I think that I might be able to talk about some aspects of the shower a little more calmly and with more objectivity than before. Of course, that makes it sound like something terrible went down, and that's not the case at all. Overall, it was a lovely shower, I had a good time, and I appreciate everyone who made an effort to come or send a card. There were just some... things.. that overshadowed some of that. I know I'm being vague, but I'll explain soon.
Since we got back to Missouri after my spring break, I've been generally unhappy. Charlie and I had reached the point after a long winter spent cooped up together that we were just getting on each other's nerves constantly, so it's been good for us to have a break from each other while he's been out of state working. Timing, however, is a bitch (among other choice words). OF COURSE some asshole would break my car window and steal my gps (which I swear was put away out of sight??) while I was home by myself. It's not like it would have been shitty enough if Charlie had been home, too. Nope, thanks universe. So yeah, I spent the better part of Sunday dealing with that. I feel sorry for my neighbors for having to deal with my hysterics. They were super nice to me and incredibly helpful, though. Some guy who lives in the next building over helped cover my window socket (I made that up, but I think it's fitting. Or, at least I think I made it up?) and cleaned up pretty much all the glass by himself. I need to make cookies for him and my other neighbor as a thank you.. or maybe soon I'll just be able to help them out when their windows get broken! I figure it's just a matter of time. If we hadn't already been planning on moving, that would have made our decision for us. We'd been intending to move out of KC proper, probably to a suburb on the Kansas side, but...
I'm starting to toy with the idea of not coming back for a second year with TFA. I know that I committed to doing this for two years, but at some point one needs to evaluate the cost vs. the benefit. I think we all know I have a big heart (somewhere.. ha). I love babies and puppies and generally turn into a puddle at the sight of anything remotely cute, I cry pretty much every time I watch TV (and I'm a goner for Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice), I let people drill big needles into my pelvic bones last fall to give my bone marrow to a leukemia patient I've never met, and then flew to Denver for a decidely not-fun follow-up procedure for that patient.. I'm not trying to sing my own praises here. My point is that I'm a big softy and I like to help people. That's why I took this position. But, at some point I need to put my own well-being first. The stress and the depression that I've dealt with this year have taken their toll, physically, mentally, emotionally. I need to figure out what's best for me, and what's best for Bear. Everything I've had to deal with, he's had to deal with as well. It's been rough. What really set the wheels turning for me was that the school district laid off a lot of teachers last week. From my understanding, every non-tenured, non-TFA teacher was given a pink slip. I may not be a bad teacher, per se, but I do know that I don't deserve to keep my job while many of my colleagues lose theirs. That is, of course, not to say that I am a worse teacher than all of them, because that's not true, but I do know that some of the people who were fired are phenomenal teachers. Now, I haven't had anything negative directed at me from any of them, nor would I anticipate it next year when the district brings in a huge influx of new TFA teachers. However, I am unhappy with the climate here, and I'm reasonably certain that even if I stay I don't want to teach after this, so.. decisions, decisions.
Either way, though, we're moving out of the ghetto. June can't come soon enough.
Since we got back to Missouri after my spring break, I've been generally unhappy. Charlie and I had reached the point after a long winter spent cooped up together that we were just getting on each other's nerves constantly, so it's been good for us to have a break from each other while he's been out of state working. Timing, however, is a bitch (among other choice words). OF COURSE some asshole would break my car window and steal my gps (which I swear was put away out of sight??) while I was home by myself. It's not like it would have been shitty enough if Charlie had been home, too. Nope, thanks universe. So yeah, I spent the better part of Sunday dealing with that. I feel sorry for my neighbors for having to deal with my hysterics. They were super nice to me and incredibly helpful, though. Some guy who lives in the next building over helped cover my window socket (I made that up, but I think it's fitting. Or, at least I think I made it up?) and cleaned up pretty much all the glass by himself. I need to make cookies for him and my other neighbor as a thank you.. or maybe soon I'll just be able to help them out when their windows get broken! I figure it's just a matter of time. If we hadn't already been planning on moving, that would have made our decision for us. We'd been intending to move out of KC proper, probably to a suburb on the Kansas side, but...
I'm starting to toy with the idea of not coming back for a second year with TFA. I know that I committed to doing this for two years, but at some point one needs to evaluate the cost vs. the benefit. I think we all know I have a big heart (somewhere.. ha). I love babies and puppies and generally turn into a puddle at the sight of anything remotely cute, I cry pretty much every time I watch TV (and I'm a goner for Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice), I let people drill big needles into my pelvic bones last fall to give my bone marrow to a leukemia patient I've never met, and then flew to Denver for a decidely not-fun follow-up procedure for that patient.. I'm not trying to sing my own praises here. My point is that I'm a big softy and I like to help people. That's why I took this position. But, at some point I need to put my own well-being first. The stress and the depression that I've dealt with this year have taken their toll, physically, mentally, emotionally. I need to figure out what's best for me, and what's best for Bear. Everything I've had to deal with, he's had to deal with as well. It's been rough. What really set the wheels turning for me was that the school district laid off a lot of teachers last week. From my understanding, every non-tenured, non-TFA teacher was given a pink slip. I may not be a bad teacher, per se, but I do know that I don't deserve to keep my job while many of my colleagues lose theirs. That is, of course, not to say that I am a worse teacher than all of them, because that's not true, but I do know that some of the people who were fired are phenomenal teachers. Now, I haven't had anything negative directed at me from any of them, nor would I anticipate it next year when the district brings in a huge influx of new TFA teachers. However, I am unhappy with the climate here, and I'm reasonably certain that even if I stay I don't want to teach after this, so.. decisions, decisions.
Either way, though, we're moving out of the ghetto. June can't come soon enough.
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