So we registered today...

...and I don't think I'm a fan.

Plus, it seems so strange - like we're thinking "You don't have to get us anything, but if you do - here, get this..." All I really want is for some people to show up and have a good time.

We don't know what we'd want, have pretty much gotten over anything we would "need", and we are used to getting by with what we have. We don't know how we'll want to decorate in the future. We've kind of always been in a constant state of limbo and have no idea how to be in one place yet. By the way - when I say "limbo" I'm talking about our job/school/apartment status, not our relationship. Our relationship is more or less the only constant we've had in our adult lives.

We bounced around in the army, obviously. We've moved every year. Sometimes to a new apartment, sometimes to a new city, and once to a new state. This summer isn't going to be any exception since we're hoping to find a cheaper and better place to live. I've got a little under a year and a half of grad school left, and then there will be yet another change and finding yet another job.

Right now the thought us of ever needing/wanting some kind of nice non-everyday dishes (aka - china) is ridiculous - let alone needing 12 PLACE SETTINGS worth of it. No way. We aren't fancy. We don't entertain. Then, factor in the part where we wonder who the hell would even buy something like that for us anyway? No one we can think of. And if we did end up getting a couple settings, would we ever go buy the rest of them? I doubt it. The least expensive set we saw happened to be the one we liked the most, but still - I'm pretty sure that stuff is all coming off of the registry.

Honestly, with the exception of the lifetime warranty pots and pans and the wine/champagne/beer/drinking glasses, I'm tempted to delete the entire thing. I won't do this, but still.

Can't we just register for a new catalytic converter for my piece of shit car? New tires? An oil change?

Well hello, shitstorm.

I realize that not a lot of people really know what AT’s do, but after 7 months of explaining it repeatedly to a bunch of physiotherapists from India (aka my classmates) you’d think that something would have caught on.

Now there is a big ignorant (on their part) can of worms opening on our class discussion board. And for once it wasn’t a product of something I said. My new and current philosophy of class participation will keep me sane and happy and I will sit back and not get involved or give a shit.

The Jonas Brothers? Really?

First of all, I'm having deja vous. Hanson, anyone? Mmm bop. Gross.

Second: What the hell are they doing performing on Dancing with the Stars? Shouldn't they be on something like Hannah Montana or The Amanda Show?

Third: They should think about taking a break for a few years because all of that pubescent voice cracking is really rough on the ears. I should ask my sisters about them. I need to know if a 13 year old girl even finds them our their music remotely "dreamy". Gag.

By the way, I realize that Dancing with the Stars was on a couple days ago. I had it recorded and watched it while I worked out (yes, I worked out!) today.

Reflections on the road

I'm rarely in my car alone for longer than about 25 minutes at a time, but on the rare occasion that I am, I tend to use that time to reflect on whatever is on my mind. Yesterday I drove to Madison from Milwaukee. Not a long drive, but at little over an hour, it's much more than I'm used to these days.

Once I got on the 94 (Hi Jess!), I almost immediately started thinking of my extreme dislike of grad school and my classmates.

What have I learned in last 7 months?

Is it worth all of this anger and frustration?

Is there a way for me to get passed all of this anger and frustration or at least put a damper on it?

My immediate answers? Nothing. No. No.

After some thought? Not much change, but a little more clarity. Some of you probably aren't going to like this, but I have an answer to all three.

I have learned that I make a mean excel spreadsheet that transforms me into a descriptive statistics master. More importantly, I've learned that I don't need to work nearly as hard as I have been. My answers don't need to make that much sense. My classmates don't know WTF I'm talking about anyway. When they respond to my posts with dumb questions that don't make any sense, I'm not going to answer. When they will ask me a question that was already answered in my original post, I will tell them to drop out and come back when they speak English to read it again. When I have to answer their original posts, I will give the same wishy-washy crap cop-out answer that they give each other: "Very good answer, I agree." (even if I don't) because really - no one cares.

I'm going to try this for the next week or so and see what happens. I'm sure my stress, frustration, and anger levels will go down a bit. If for some reason I start losing points, then I'll find a new strategy...preferably one that keeps me from wanting to reach through my computer screen and choke people and doesn't involve drugs or alcohol.

My focus is going to stay on the important thing, which is my non-thesis that is pretty much still a thesis. My masters degree depends on that thing. Not the bogus bullshit discussions with my classmates. Not the A's I'm getting. I'm going to go the C student route for awhile.

And I'm going to love it.

First full day of spring, my ass!

Yesterday it was sunny and warm (by our current standards) and most of the snow was gone except for where it was piled up from the plow. Today, we get a foot of snow.

In other randomness...

I'm rocking my NCAA basketball brackets, which is funny because I don't like basketball. Well, I didn't anyway. Now I am more than happy to have it on all day long so I can cheer for my picks. Why the sudden change? I'm taking part in fundraiser for National Athletic Training Month. The winner of the bracket pool thingamawhateveryoucallit gets the money donated to the athletic training program of their choice. Mine, of course, would go to Fresno State (much to the dismay of my fellow participants in this). I miss those bastards. As an AT, it is illegal to personally profit from any type of betting etc., but from what I understand, we can donate to any organization. I'm glad I wasn't the one in charge of figuring these rules and loopholes out.

In other news, I'm back to the beginning with wedding dress shopping. I'm not happy about it. Neither of my dresses (I have two) fit me properly. One I gained too much weight for. The other is not flattering. At all. I have no idea what I want, other than to not look like a puffy white marshmallow cow on our wedding day.

I'm really looking forward to going to Madison on Tuesday morning and spending the night at a friend's house for some quality chick-time. We're going to eat, drink, and play Wii. Maybe we'll do each other's hair and talk about boys and have a pillow fight. At some point I might even go try on a few dresses, ideally after I've had several drinks, but we'll see.

I also have this crappy prospectus to write for my crappy "non-thesis" grad school option. I use the term non-thesis loosely, because in my eyes, it's still pretty much a freaking thesis. Maybe at some point during this spring break (only from work - not school) I'll sit down and find the articles I should have looked for a week ago. Maybe.

Dreaming in stereo? Almost...

Have you ever had eerily similar dreams to your SO’s? We’ve had some weird dreams, but they’ve never been about the same thing.

We both dreamt about me being pregnant, with a girl, and the dream was centered around the name. His dream was simply that we were at the hospital and I had a girl and we named her Gracie. In mine, my friend Rachel was also pregnant with a girl but 2 months ahead of me. We had talked extensively about what we were naming our girls. She had her baby and stole my baby name, which was Madigan.

Madigan?

Weird.

I’ve never heard of someone named Madigan. The only Madigan anything that I know of is Madigan Army Hospital at Fort Lewis, Washington. That has to be where I got it, but I haven’t been to or thought of that place since I left there in 1999.

Corey has no idea where he got Gracie either, but at least that is a cute name.

I’m a little giddy that he had a baby dream.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I’m watching a morning show on TV right now and they’ve been having segments with “Irish Wit and Wisdom” and I liked this one:

Here’s to a long life, and a merry one

a quick death and an easy one

a pretty girl and an honest one

a cold beer and another one!

The day I knew my parents were grown up

My mom emailed my dad.

As in...they communicated.

We're talking about two people who haven't been on the same side of a wall in about 20 years.

It was in reference to something else that came up that I won't get into that is making me feel like total shit and has my parents conspiring to find a way for me to not beat myself up so much about it.

Now I know for SURE that my parents have grown up. I mean...I have been suspecting it for a long time, and it took my dad quite a while longer than it took my mom, but everyone knows that girls mature faster than boys. ;)

Weird. But cool. And unexpected. I am feeling much better about them all being in the same place for our wedding. Almost...excited!

The vicious cyce of suck.

So I just logged in to blackboard to see whats new for my online class this week and SURPRISE! my other class starts today.

I'm not sure if I just didn't know when it started, or if I just totally blocked it out. I'm betting that I chose to block it out.

Shit.

The Gazelle: Day 1

Today is the first day I make myself workout on The Thing That Blocks My Path To The Kitchen. Corey's been doing it every day and thinks it's ok. He hasn't sprouted a ponytail or a lunatic smile yet, thank God.



I plan on trying to do this through the span of an entire hour of Y&R (which I haven't seen in 3 weeks now). Too much for a first workout? Probably. We'll see.

Anyway, I'm off. The happy jingling of a Price is Right showcase win is signaling that it's time to get changed and move my ass.

Edit to update: 50 minutes, it wasn't too bad. It is low impact and takes a little bit of coordination (which I lack), but I worked up a decent sweat.

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

So it's no secret (at least in this neck of the woods) that Brett Favre announced his retirement today.

Some people are devastated. Some people don't give a crap.

I say good for him.

While I don't have the lifelong attachment to Brett Favre like many do, that doesn't mean I don't love and admire the guy. I wasn't surprised to hear the news. He had an awesome and unexpected season, broke every record there is to break (good and bad), and was ready. I'm sad to see him go, but he's going out on a good note.

Good luck Brett!



Now someone find me a highlight video of all of his funny on and off-field pranks and goofing around.

The delayed monthie beerfest recap

Ok. so I never blogged about meeting some crazy monthies last weekend, and I'm currently on a quest to be in bed by 9:30 (lame, I know). What I'm about to write will not accurately portray how fun that night was, but if I don't write it now - before grad school sucks me in to the thesis/non-thesis abyss - it will never happen.

Definition of Crazy Monthie (for the non-knot folks): Girls from the message boards that are based on the month of a wedding. So no matter what month/year a person is getting married, there is a place where other brides getting married that same month/date can be found. Those message boards tend to be overrun by crazy, bridezilla-ish, sunshine, rainbows, and smoke-up-your-ass girls. And they are crazy.

The one I happened to be on is the OPPOSITE of that. One of the girls I met on there happens to be from Milwaukee, and another is from DC but happened to be in town last weekend. She was with her friend and her step-sister in law who also joined us. We met at the Lakefront Brewery, ate at the fish fry (Lent is a busy time for friday fish frys), did the brewery tour, went to the Irish pub at County Clare (where we were never empty handed and didn't pay a dime, thanks to sweet old drunk Irish men), and then somehow found our way to Pizza Shuttle.

It was like we were old friends that hadn't seen each other in ages and we had a fantastic time! I'll summarize with pictures:

The first picture at the beginning of the tour, still sober, random guy wants to be in the picture...



Our awesome beer-guide Bob, telling the story of Larry, Moe, and Curly (a story I don't remember)...



Posing with my (nick)name sake...



Kelly, performing her duties as Bung Queen (something about some wood and a hole) which includes pushing "play" for the Laverne & Shirley song...



...which we sang.



Posing at the end of the tour with Bob and a good buzz.



Getting drunk at the County Clare with old Irish guys! He was the best!



Dancing...maybe...



Funniest expression ever...



At some point shots were introduced between beers...



My shoes were not made for all of that walking around and at some point I had taken them off. But now it was time to get pizza. I'm clearly not too sophisticated to sit on the floor of a bar and put my shoes on.



So who is ready to come visit me and repeat this tour de Milwaukee?

Good. Hurry up.