Handling the Holidays: A Lesson in Time Management

Thanksgiving (last Thursday) gave the Fiance and I the opportunity to learn a new lesson about being engaged...

How to Handle the Holidays. 

It turns out, once you get engaged, you start becoming a part of your fiance's family (if you weren't already before) and he (or she) becomes a part of yours.  That said, you have new family celebrations to attend on the Holidays and are still expected to go to your own.  In my (and my fiance's) case, I have 2 separate Thanksgivings to attend (my mom's family and my dad's family) and the fiance's family also has a celebration and their own traditions that he has never missed.

Now this year, we chose to attend our own separate Thanksgiving celebrations.  However, as we travel through our lives together, this will no longer be a great solution (i.e. if and when we ever have children, each family will want to see them).

My new proposed solution.... Not to rely on holidays for family visits because then they just become a hassle when they should be joyful celebrations.  This said, I think that for Thanksgiving we will simply alternate which celebration we go to each year (his one year, my two the next) and then travel back to his parents to play board games and then the next day decorate the Christmas Tree.


Another fun lesson the fiance and I learned over the weekend... weekend getaways are an absolute must to maintain sanity.  We went to Galena, IL Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon.  It is a picturesque town in Northwestern Illinois.  We took (well the fiance got a hold of my camera and took) a million pictures. It was, simply put, amazing.  Unfortunately, I was spoiled this past week and weekend and now I just want to be with him during the week more than ever.

I've been waiting my whole life for this day

Alright, by my whole life I mean 10 years... Yep, that's right, people, tonight is the Premiere of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've got my ticket, made my t-shirt, finished my research paper that is due tomorrow (take that Winfield Scott), and I am ready. 

For all of you out there that do not, or can not, understand my excitement, that's fine.  I realize that not everybody has gone to nearly all of the midnight showings, read the books the day they came out without a break, or bought Quidditch Through the Ages (Rowling) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Rowling).  If you're one of these people, that's cool, just don't rain on my parade.

Let me be excited about the end of a story whose characters I've grown up with.  I know I'm a nerd, but that's alright with me. 

Although nobody ever comments on this (and I think only like 2 people read it....), I want you guys to comment and tell me a book or movie that was important to your childhood.

That's all for today (sorry, no wedding updates).

Weekends

I live for the weekends. No, I mean, I really live for the weekends.  For me, the weekend is not just my respite from the daily grind of work and class.  It is so much more than that.  For me, the weekends are my time with my fiance, my other half, my best friend. 

The fiance and I, from the beginning, have been in a long-distance relationship, but I never thought (in the beginning) that the week could be so long and the weekends so short.  I would like to propose that we switch the two, so that workdays are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, while the weekends are Monday - Thursday.  Wouldn't that be nice?  (Which brings to mind my favorite Beach Boys song, and the song that so often describes how I feel... 'Wouldn't it Be Nice?') I honestly cannot recall having a bad weekend since I have been with my fiance (except the one weekend right in the beginning where we didn't see each other).

Take this weekend for example, I worked on Friday and then drove home on Saturday morning.  Once home, I met him for coffee and then went home to spend time with my stepsister while he worked out.  Then we celebrated his dad and sister's birthdays.  Sunday, we went shopping for a new camera (to replace the one I dropped while visiting Anderson Gardens) and I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5, and I love it ( I could probably write an entire post on its awesome-ness, but I'll resist at the moment).  The day was finished off with a trip to Panera and then goodbye.

Enough about weekends though because everybody loves the weekend and continuing to rave about them would be akin to beating a dead horse.

In other news, the check for the deposit for June 17, 2012 at Anderson Gardens has been sent in :-) and the date is officially ours!

These are the first couple of pictures taken with my brand new fantastic camera.