"I am older then I once was, but younger then I'll be that's not unusual

"It isn't strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same..."
-The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel

So it's been a crazy time since I last sat down to journal back in early April. There have been a few times I have tried to write, but found my head to be so clogged up that the thoughts would not budge. Like that big hairball in the drain that the "other drain cleaner" can never move. How's that for a visual?

The past almost-two months have seen friends and family fall ill, both Pete and I have a birthday, me find a friend I thought I had lost, and lose something else I was hoping to find. It's been some of those stretches of time when I feel like I have learned more and felt more and done more then ever in my life!

Work, mainly, has been what's been taking up my time. With the wedding coming up and my hopes with Pete to have a future together, I have been working pretty much every hour God sends and putting away money in a way that I know would do my penny-saving Mom-Mom proud! Thankfully, the hospital has been shorthanded, so any hours I want are there for the taking! The bad news is that even my endless enthusiasm for work is starting to strain a bit, so I am looking forward to not only the wedding and the honeymoon, but just having a partner in general to lend reason to all of this hard work.

Of course, for a few reasons, a few roadblocks have come up in our path to Grown-Up Land and our habitation there, all of them which leave me with so much on my mind. But, hopefully, the next few weeks will make things a little more clear.

One thing I have been doing the past month, something for MYSELF, is that I have gone back to my pole dancing class!!! It's a blast and so good for me! I know it sounds like an insane thing to do, and in my heart of hearts, I am in it more for the sort of off-kilter Cirque de Solei factor then any deep dark dreams of a job at Club Risque! It pretty much just feels bad-ass when you can hang upside down using your own strength!! And after a long day of work and planning and sometimes being sad for other people or sometimes even being ashamed of yourself, a little dose of bad-ass is a good thing!

Oh, and I also turned 31 on May 3rd, or, as I like to call it, 29...again! That actually was such a fun night! Pete and I went into Philly to see "Hairspray" at the Academy of Music, which was awesome!! And the Flyers won that night, even though they then went on to get massacred by the Penguins (God damn stupid Sidney Crosby- I hate that little jerk!).

Another downside to the past few weeks is that we found out two people Pete and I love very much have cancer- his Uncle George and his best friend Bob. They were both very difficult pieces of news to get, but with good doctors and lots of prayer, they will both be just fine.

It's all been so crazy, and I kind of feel like I only journal when I am feeling crabby about something. But, it's nice to have a place to get it all out, and a far cry from the days of my little cardboard-bound journal since in this case, there's the slight chance I might get some construtive criticism/advice! So, I'll just keep tapping away on this keyboard and hoping for the best!

:-)

"I know that I am like the rain, there but for the grace of you go I..."

So, thankfully, I have a brand-spankin'-new drivers licence, since I found my birth certificate and social security card the other day (see last entry!). I am such an idiot! And the kicker is that I am just going to have to do it again in a few months when I get married!! So annoying! But isn't my hair getting long? For me, anyway...

So, it's been a long few weeks here! My poor girls have been sick on and off for a month now- Ellie has strep for the third time!!! YIKES! We did manage to get out for breakfast one day after a whole week stuck in the house sick. We went to IHOP to have the Horton Hears a Who breakfast and it looked...well, it looked like this: Yeah, it was gross. But, the girls LOVED it!! What little girl wouldn't love a stack of pancakes with weird, pink and blue syrupy stuff on it? Ew. The girls got to enjoy a great Easter in Tennesee and I got to enjoy a few days off, but we're back in the swing of things this week, strep and all! My poor little muffins! They are going to corner the market on antibioitcs!! Thank GOD they are good medicine-takers! I got lucky there!!

The wedding plans are, uh, moving along! Like I keep saying, I am not terribly bridal, so I have to be pushed a bit to try and care about things like color schemes and my bachelorette party (I don't go out very much, so I am not sure what I should be saying I'd like out of the evening!). But, rest easy, bridal doubters, because there is a bit of the bride in me yet- I picked out and ordered my wedding band and every time I look at my engagement ring and think about how in a few months there will be a band nestled next to it, I get all fluttery!

I feel terrible though, because I am so, so excited to be getting married to Pete- there's nobody on earth who is meant for me more. But there are, um, extenuating circumstances that have made my heart so heavy, and sometimes it's hard to get caught up in something that is, for all intent and purposes, a party!

Oh, wait. Do you hear that sound? It's a bunch of Knotties in a ferver over an unethused bride!!! It sounds like a cross between tafeta rustling and cats crying.

But, stop your tears Knotties- here's a secret. Planning a wedding really is not my thing. But, in my heart, when I think about the moment I walk down the isle towards Pete, even my heart, which for the record has no Knots in it, starts to beat a little faster! And I know that it will all fall into place and that I will have my wish- to have everyone I love there with us to celebrate!

So help an anti-Knottie out and keep the people I love in your prayers!

OH! A big PS: My dad had an appointment last week to monitor his leukemia, which by the grace of God remains in remission, and an appointment this week to monitor his prostate cancer, which again, by the grace of God, turned out great! His levels are back in the normal range and with luck, will also be classified as in remission soon!!

"I am retarded, do do do do do do..."

So, this story pretty much sums up the way the past few weeks have been going:

I have been looking for my birth certificate and social security cards for months. I need to renew my drivers license, which I am ashamed to say is expired. Under normal circumstances this is easily corrected, but in this post 9-11 age, you need like, 900 forms of identification, which include your birth certificate and social security card...

So, I had been thinking yesterday that I need to go get new ones, so I could not only renew my drivers licence but also apply for my passport so I can go on my honeymoon!

Tonight, I was going through my wallet- putting my change in my change jar, cleaning out reciepts, and in a pocket...my birth certificate and social security card. In the wallet I carry every damn day!!!!! And I have been looking for them for months

It's official. I have lost my damn mind. But, thankfully, I can go get everything taken care of tomorrow!!