my own little piece of the internet...

Chapters: 1 to 5
Words: 200
Right: 150
Wrong: 50

Still having issues with double and single letters. Lots of typos too...

Things that are better about my new apartment:
- More space
- Carpet in the living room and bedrooms
- TWO SINKS!
- We have our own hot water heater (no more skitsofrenic water temp showers)
- Huge walk-in closet
- 25min walk to work
- 6min bus to the mall
- 10min walk to the gym

Things that I miss about my old apartment:
- Keyless entry
- Smart cards for laundry
- Ceramic tiles instead of linoleum flooring
- Huge balcony
- The large bathtub
- More space in the bathroom


Things are better about my new job:
- No, THE manager
- I have actual work to do
- My work actually matters and will inpact thousands of people every day
- Though I’m new, my input matters
- I’m left alone to do my work
- I have a huge office, and business cards
- The company isn’t run by the mob

Things I miss about my old job:
- The feeling of being on a team, as opposed to being in a group working on different tasks
- How everyone used msn at work


So those are my lists. All and all, I like where I’m at better, but I had to give some stuff up for it. The pros totally outweigh the cons though.

So it’s already October 12th. Where as September seemed to drag on, October is already almost half over!

I know you’ve all been waiting, so here is it; the post on my new job.

First, I hate the commute. It can take anywhere between 50min and 3 hours to do the commute. As you can tell, that makes it more than a little difficult to plan my time. But that’s ok, b/c I’ll be moved in 3 weeks anyway.

The job itself seems good. It’s got a small business fell but it’s a big established company. I have my own cubical with my name on it. I have a white board and two desks and a book shelf in my cube. That should give you some idea on the size of it. I’ve never had a space this big before! The people seem nice and everyone seems to know everyone else. It’s more than a little daunting entering into a situation like that, but it’s all good.

As for the work I’ll be doing? Well, the company does automation software. For example, parcel sorting for the post office, or airport baggage handling. Those are the two major ones right now, and I’ve been put on the baggage handling team. It’s exciting to see the software they’ve designed and are developing. It’s also refreshing to know that soon some airlines/airports will be using it.

I’m going to be working on web services and backend user control websites. So…..pretty much what I was doing at my last job. Only not for sketchy legal applications.

I’m still nervous though. I understand that over time is a part of development, but I really hate working a lot of it and I don’t want to get back into an Avanade situation. But I’m not going to worry about that right now, for I have far too many other things to worry about!

The London office has started processing Ari’s application. They sent us a letter asking for another copy of a form we sent them (grr). We didn’t receive this letter though b/c they sent it to Ari’s old address 3 days before they updated his file with his address here (grr x2). So we’ve mailed off the other copy of the form, only to find out that the Birtish postal workers are on strike and no one knows when post will start going again (grr^2). So ya, we are in a bit of a limbo there.

They may or may not have rented my apartment. I’ve spoken with some people though and they say that if they have rented my apartment, they have no right to charge me $220 for moving out (10 days) early. I gave the fuckers 50 days notice, and they want me to pay a $220 for not giving enough notice b/c it means they wouldn’t have enough time to do everything needed to rent the apartment. But they have rented the apartment, so doesn’t that mean they did have enough time? I’m going to call the tenant association tomorrow I think.

I’ve also put back on all the weight I lost in the first half of the year. I’m really REALLY not happy with that. I need to get my fat lazy ass to the gym at least 3 times a week now. Once I move and I’ll be walking about 2.5km each day, I think it’ll help a lot. I want to be where I was before I went to Finland before Christmas. I know that with a bit of work I can do it. I just need to do the work!

And last but not least, the course I’m taking on team building. I’ve learned a lot so far. There are a lot of things that I knew, but and a lot of things I did b/c I thought it was nice that turned out to be right on the mark. I’ve also learned how not to become like THE manager, and that’s worth its weight in gold imho.

So all in all, life is moving pretty fast right now. It’s now after 11pm, and I have to be up in 7 hours. BED TIME NOW! :)

I went to bed at 1am, and my eyes popped open somewhere shortly after 3am. It is now almost 5am, and I'm awake. Tired as hell, but when I lie down I don't fall asleep. I'm unhappy with this series of events.

I had thought around 4am to take a sleeping pill but that would have me sleeping until noon, and that's not a good thing either.

Oddly enough, when I was tossing and turning in bed, Sophy was trying her hardest to get my attention. Now that I've just given up and am on the computer, she's no where to be found. Crazy cat.

Unsurprisingly, there is no one to talk to this early in the morning. Normally when I had insomnia in the past, I had a pretty good chance of finding Ari online to chat with until I eventually passed out. But now he's sleeping in the bed I should be in now, and I'm writing this post.

While being awake I've found online finnish classes that are done via skype. I might invest some more time into looking at that in the near future. I also discovered that Bell is taking it's douchbaggery up a notch by trying to claim it owns the network it runs on, though it was built mostly with public funding. As such it's trying to get the CRTC to give it full rights over the network it feels it owns. Worst of all, the CRTC is probably going to agree to this.

Now, is it me, or does the CRTC make decisions based more on who's asking rather than on the general good? It seems like whenever I read the news they have made a completely stupid decision that will fuck over the general public to help line the pockets of the big name companies that are raping us each month.

Another example is the new cellphone provider Wind. This provider was to kick off its new service to coincide with the start of school, one of the biggest times for cell phone providers. This would have happened if Bell, Telus, and Rogers didn't go to the CRTC and ask them to stop it b/c....and get this....it isn't a Canadian company and could hinder competition in the market. AND THE CRTC ACTUALLY FELL FOR IT!!!! There is currently an investigation on and Wind is fighting for its right to even start up!

As far as I'm concerned, the CRTC can go fuck it self and perhaps die in a fire, if that isn't too much to ask.

Anyway, there is a lovely site if you want to tell the CRTC and Bell where to shove it. It will kindly send an email to Harper, Iggy, and other politicians that matter. Please take the 30secs and do this. The site is called Make A Difference.

So last Monday I gave my three weeks notice. Why three weeks you ask? Because it said in my contract that I had to give three weeks before quitting. Fine. Three weeks given.

Last Wednesday, I felt like I was being stabbed with a rusted jagged knife, but for some reason I went to work. Upon getting to work I realized I was a retard and needed massive amounts of pain killers and a warm bed to sleep in. So I asked if I could use my last sick day to go home. I was told I could, no issues, but I had to have a meeting first. Urg.

Meeting went along the lines of “thanks for the three weeks notice, but we’ve decided that this coming Friday is your last day. The other two weeks you’ll get paid for, but you are not to come in.” In short, I was fired after I quit.

On the one hand I was rather annoyed that they did this to me. But on the other, I don’t give a flying fuck b/c I got two weeks paid vacation out of the deal. Go me. Now I have time to do the million little things on my todo list.

And by God that fucking todo list is long. I have a memo app on my desktop, and the todo list stretches down the whole right side of my screen. I’m slowly whittling it down, but there are a few big ticket items on there that I just don’t have the energy for.

In other news, we went apartment hunting this weekend. Six apartments later and we came out with a winner. 20min walk to work, two bedrooms, with central air. Not too shabby. It’s also $25 less than what I’m paying here. We also managed to pick out a venue for the wedding, and a date no less. I should be getting the quote for the full price of everything by the end of the week.

Today, Ari and I are about to go out to a print shop to print off the Save the Date cards for said wedding. Good times. We also need some super glue for the toilet. Figures, just over a month before we move and the toilet starts to break. *grr*

I’d like to apologize for the silence on my journal for the last few weeks. It’s been a pretty stressful time, and honestly, only more stress is to come.

As I said a few weeks back I had two interviews. Well let me go into that further. I applied to 6 companies, and I heard back from 3 of them. Of those three, two had a 4 level interview process. Four interviews takes along fricken time to do! Only company with one interview liked me, and I was second on their list, but they only had budget to hire one person. They said they’d get back to me in the new year.

The second company, I went through the whole song and dance with, only to be told they hired internally. I am not impressed by this, especially as they have REPOSTED THE FUCKING JOB. I was going to email them and ask about that, but I decided that a company that lies like that isn’t a company I want to work for.

The third company, I finished their interview process on Wednesday. I got an offer letter on Friday. I have found a new job!

I’ll be starting off with the same salary I make now, with the option of bonuses. I’ll also be having a salary review at 6 months and a year after hire. Benefits are better than my current company, and all in all it seems like a good company. They have said that they want their people happy, but unhappy employees don’t stay with the company, and burnt out employees aren’t happy. They have set up a very good work life balance policy, and I really hope it’s actually real. The only thing I’m worried about with this job is the travel element. They said up to 25% travel. That’s a lot.

One thing I do know is that it’s better than were I’m at. Since the last time I posted here, things have come to a head with THE manager. I really don’t enjoy being yelled at. Especially getting yelled at for something I wasn’t aware I had to do. She has set up rules in her mind, but has never bothered to write them down and just assumes that everyone knows them. And if you don’t you’re yelled at. She yelled at me three times in one day. The final time, she started using the ‘you’re an idiot voice’ on me, for something that she was mistaken about. When I tried to explain to her that didn’t make any sense, and that I wasn’t aware that it was done that way I was yelled at again for not knowing my job and how she’s the manager and makes the rules.

So I walked out on her. When she followed pointing out yet again that she was the manager and I’m not allowed to just walk way when she’s talking to her I told that’s exactly what I was doing and GOOD BYE! And walked out of the office, quite pissed. I’m not sure if everyone in the office heard it, but I’m sure everyone knows about it.

The next day I put a formal complaint on her. I think she asked to have me fired. I don’t have any proof on that, but I can make an educated guess by what her boss said to me the next day. “As I told ***, you two will have to put your differences aside and work together professionally.” Interesting.

The day after being told that, I was told by her that I’m not allowed to collaborate with my co-workers any more, and was told that I should know how to code something in SQL b/c I’ve been working for the company for 18 months. I was again accused of being lazy and not knowing how to do my job. Two days before, she met the line, on that day she crossed it. I felt so hopeless, alone, and defeated that I started to cry. I couldn’t take it anymore. Why has she turned our department into one where we can’t even talk to each other?!?

I went to the office manager, and she in turn called THE manager’s boss, and I told him I couldn’t work under her any more. I’d rather be unemployed, collecting EI than work under her. I then asked him to let me go. I think that got his attention b/c I’ve noticed some changes taking place. I now work with the Montreal team, and she has no control over what I’m assigned and has no say over my work.

But the damage has been done. No one talks any more, not when she’s in the room anyway. No one jokes or laughs with each other. We don’t go out for lunch together any more. We don’t go for coffee breaks any more. We don’t even go for icecream across the street any more. Why? B/c when we do, she brings it up the next time she yells at us. “If you have time to go out for lunch or coffee, you have time to finish what I’ve given you in the timeline I give!” She has said this more than once.

She is THE manager, and she’s destroyed that team. And I’m getting out. I’m better than this, and I’m better than her at what I do.

So next steps for me? First, I need to decide if I’m going to pay the fine for moving out early, or if I’ll hold this apartment for November to give me more time to find a place to live. Then there is the whole finding a new place to live!

I start my new job on Oct. 5th, so I’m going to have 3 weeks of commuting. It’s going to be expensive to say the least as I’m going to have to rent a car *sigh*.

I’ve also signed up to a class called Building Teams that Work through the UW continuing education program. I figured that when the time came, I wanted to be a good manager, not like THE manager. After this I think I’ll take a SQL course to help me advance my skills.

So ya, that’s my life right now. I’m about to get rid of this one I don’t totally like and start a new one with my hubby and kitty in K/W. We shall see how this goes!

So yesterday was my birthday. *whoo* I have to say, having a long weekend built into my bday is very nice. I had wanted to take Friday off, but I was told no by THE manager.

On Saturday, Ari and I went to Toronto Island. Lots of people. Seriously. Once we got past the kiddy park though, the crowds cleared out a bit. I guess the last weekend of the summer, and a nice weekend at that, meant higher than normal traffic. I love the look of that island. I honestly wonder how much it would be to get married there. It has willow trees, beautiful gardens, and lovely scenery. But as Ari said, getting people to the island would probably be a bitch. *sigh*

We went swimming in the lake. Well, swimming is a bit of an overstatement. We walked in the waist deep water. It would have been nicer if it was deeper, or if we were 10. After that we got some overpriced ice cream and went for a walk. I don’t know what it is about Ari and I going for a walk and getting lost…but we do it quite frequently. We walked around for about 2 hours. We wandered off the tourist paths and into the residential area. There are some really nice houses on the island. We almost walked into someone’s wedding, as the path lead right into a clearing without any real warning.

Once we found our way back to the ferry, we went to Boston Pizza for dinner. It was yummy. :)

On Sunday, my actual birthday, we did nothing. I decided for my bday I didn’t want to do anything that required pants. And so, I played online games with Ari, did some math coding problems, read some forums, took a nap, and made a kick ass pot of chili! Ari also baked me a really cute cake. I took pictures and will probably post them later. We even put candles on the cake and for the first time in ages, I was able to eat the first piece of my own cake. Ari didn’t sing through, he said it would be painful. :P

Today, there really isn’t anything much on the agenda. I cut off my nails. I think I might look at some housing in the K/W area. The dishes are piling. But pretty much just puttering around and getting some things done like you’d normally do on a Sunday.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes.

This is amazing. Such emotion. I hope she won.

I'm in love with this song and this amv. So well done.

Can’t say too much has gone on in my life the last few weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary anyway. I’m enjoying married life. It’s still hard to wrap it around my brain that I’m married. Sometimes I look over at Ari and just think it’s amazing he’s here and not leaving. It’s good times.

It’s also nice coming home to someone and having someone to think about when I’m planning meals and such for the next week. I didn’t really have to do that before. If I forgot to take something out for dinner, I just would have a pb&j, or a bowl of salad. Now, I need to actually plan so that Ari will have something to eat too. :P

Last weekend we baked pulla bread. It turned out OK. I think we are going to make another attempt this weekend. Last weekend we had the trouble of messing up some measurements. Finns use the metric system, and I think we messed up some conversions. I’m hoping to prefect it so that we can serve at special events.

Speaking of special events…the wedding. Oi. So I’ve been looking at wedding things of late. I’ve decided the two biggest things I need (and can’t really get help with) are the venue and the guest list. I sat down with Ari last weekend and came up with a tentative list. It totaled 37 people. Fancy. I’m going to book for 50 just in case. As for the venue, I’ve found a site called Eventective where you can enter in a city and say what type of venue you’re looking for and it’ll show you many listings. It also gives many venders as well. I like this.

While viewing the site I found a place that I think I like. The Caledon Country Club. I think I love it (elvish_kitty what do you think?). The only issue is it’s north of Brampton. I’m not sure if I want to go out that far, but at the same time…it looks beautiful! We might have to go and look at it next weekend.

Yes, next weekend I’m going to go out and look at venues, and hopefully pick one and put down the deposit and book it. Then it’ll be time to get this wedding train rolling! I’m still leaning towards June 22nd, 2010 for the wedding date. I know we got married on June 26th, but I really wanted to get married on the 22nd! :P Also, I’m not planning on having a reception that goes well into the evening. It means the on Monday I can do the last min running around that I know will need to be done. It just makes more logical sense for me to do it on a Tuesday. I hope all you lovely ppl who will be attending agree (and are willing to take a day off of work for me :P)

Immigration wise, I got a letter in the mail yesterday saying I was approved to be Ari’s sponsor. So I guess we did sign everything :P Ari’s application has been shipped off to London, England where it will be processed there. I’m hoping that it will be fast, that they accept our relationship, and that he doesn’t have to go there for an interview :S Looking at the London site, it says 30% of applications are processed within 2 months, and 80% of applications are processed in 9 months. I hope we are in the 30%! I’m not going to get my hopes up though.

On the work front, I’ve got two interviews next week. For this I’m excited. I’ve decided if I get a job I’m going to take it right away and rent a car and commute until I can move to Waterloo. Seems like a good plan to me. My current place is detraining fast. It’s getting harder and harder to come into work in the morning. I’m just not happy any more. Not in the least.

I have decided that I’m going to take of the UW continuing education classes. I’m going to start off with the ‘Building teams that work’ course then take the ‘Building websites with PHP and CSS’ class. Both I think will help me.

And I think that’s it. :)

+1 interview.

And now the impostor syndrome is kicking in....

I finally got all the pictures sorted out. I've posted an album on Facebook, figured I'd post some here too. Again, you can view all the pics on my Picasa account. Just click on an image and it'll take you to the album on Picasa.

I hope you like. :)

( Helsinki Picture Dump! )

So, I’m unhappy in my current job. Everyone knows that. I was unhappy at Avanade too. Every knew that as well. I found myself pondering why on the subway this morning.

At both jobs, I didn’t start off unhappy. It slowly changed to be that way. Why? I still like programming. I know I do. So why is it I come to hate my job.

Well, in both cases the job changed. In the case of Avanade, I was getting small shitty projects where I wasn’t doing anything meaningful. Once that happened, I saw that I was losing the opportunity to advance quickly, and the work I was doing seemed less important and more like any general code monkey could do it. Here, well, my job went from writing interesting projects and delving them live to being a standard maintenance monkey with QA support. What I do doesn’t matter any more…any code monkey could do it.

I realized that at Avanade, it was my own fault. Yes, I can see now I’m the one to blame for losing my job. I’ve got a degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. I can make a career out of that, but as of yet I haven’t. I’ve had two jobs. As I’ve been searching for new jobs, I realize that a career isn’t a 9 to 5 thing. I need to do more.

The reason I chose Computer Science over, say, Accounting or Teaching or even straight up Visual Design was b/c it was fun. I liked it the most out of all the other things I was good at. I could have went into any number of professions, but I chose Computer Science b/c I loved to code and I loved to make things from next to nothing. Thus, I turned it into what I’d do for a good 8 hours a day, so I could spend time doing other things I like.

I realize now, that this way of thinking was a mistake. I have to put more time into my career than just going to work. I can’t advance if I do that.

This lead me to the choice. Either start looking at switching paths and go and find just another job, or invest some time into the career I’ve already got. I’ve decided on the latter, of course. :)

What does this mean? Well, it means I need to put some extra effort into this outside of work. I’ve decided to take some courses on the soft skills through the UW continuing education site, as well as some new language courses. I’m thinking I’m going to start a blog and start posting some findings from me. I’m also going to try and pick up a side project to work on.

The major thing that I’m lacking right now is time. I should have been doing this already, but the 2.5 to 3 hours eaten by a commute each day leaves me with little time in the evening. I’ve decided that a job in the K/W area, where I could shorten my commute would be best. I’m also going to come up with some goals. I have the passion now, but as insaint has shown me, this isn’t enough. I need some goals so I have something to strive towards.

So ya. Over the coming months, I’m going to be taking a turn to try and make sure I can continue in my chosen career. We shall see how this goes!

So, just before I went on my trip, I checked the sponsorship processing times with Immigration Canada. It was about 28 days. Not too shabby. When I called while in Finland with a question, I was told that the sponsorship processing time would be 42 days. What? It hadn't even been two weeks since I last called and checked! Why the jump in time?!?

Well...I think I found out why. A group of 24 co-workers from Immigration Canada won a 24mil jackpot.

You asked for them, so here they are! :)

( Pictures under the cut... )

First off, no, I still don’t have pictures from the wedding. And yes, I’m getting more than a bit pissed about it. I know everyone wants to see them…and guess what? So do I. I’m a bit grrr about that right now.

On Monday, Ari and I were invited to Ari’s grandparent’s cottage. Very nice and I’m sure I would have loved it if it wasn’t prime mosquito weather. It was cool, damp, we had some rain the night before, and it was still cloudy out. The fucking things were out in swarms. It was impossible to walk 3 steps without getting bitten many times. Ari and I stayed inside most of the day. We did roast some sausages on an open fire. I was unable to find actual marshmallows though, so no roasting of balls of sugar that day. Ari and I will have to do that when we get back to Canada.

Tuesday, Ari and I took the giant immigration package of DOOOOOOOM and finished it. I learned that standard paper size in Finland is not 8.5 x 11 as it is back home. In Finland (and apparently the ENTIRE WORLD except the US and Canada) it is 8.3 × 11.7. I’m sure you can see how this would make the immigration package look. All of my pages are one size and all of Ari’s pages are another size.

Incase you were wondering what I did for the pictures required for the immigration package. Ari’s sister did send over 5 pictures of the wedding, and I managed to pull some very VERY crappy photos of the reception from some videos Ari’s grandparents gave us (to burn onto a DVD for them). Luckily we saw them Monday, or we wouldn’t have been able to send the package. Oi.

So yes, the package is sent. I’m still nervous and think we’ve forgotten something! Ack. I guess all we can do now is wait. I decided to pay the extra money to send it by courier. It should get there by noon tomorrow. Then it’ll take about 45 days to process it (b/c they are slackers…it was only 22 days like 2 months ago!).

Yesterday and today, Ari has been going through his CD collection. My man likes music. He has a great deal of CDs. I would say around 200 or so…I think. I’m sure he has more hidden some place. To say he can’t bring them along is an understatement. So he’s in the process of copying them to his computer. Not all of them (thank God), only the ones he really likes. Mind you, he has about 50 CDs in the TODO pile right now. This is going to take a while.

As for me, I have been looking at updating my resume. It is time. I think it’s looking good now. On a side note, looking at the user submitted resume templates to the Word community makes me realize that many people are pants on head retarded. Colour, images, watermarks, word art and paragraph format do not get you jobs. There was this one template called ‘Resume of Awesome’, and as a watermark written on an angle across the whole page was the word AWESOME with a word art 3D effect to it. In colour too. As well as some firework images. WTF?

Ari and I went for a walk into town today. I took another crap-load of pictures. Joensuu is a really pretty city. I’ll be putting those up at some point. Probably tomorrow while Ari is copying CDs :P

And last but not least; of the bouquet of roses that were put in a vodka bottle, only two remain. All the rest drooped and browned. I shall have to take an after picture of them to post as well.

That is all for now. :)

Well then. Friday morning I woke up as a single woman, fiancéd yes…but single none the less. Friday evening I went to bed a married woman. I’m someone’s wife. And not just any someone…oh no. :) To my loving man, Ari.

Thursday night, I ran around ironing clothing and getting things ready for the morning. I brought two shirts and a pair of pants for Ari. The pants fit nicely, but my dear man has lost weight since last I bought clothing for him, so the shirts didn’t fit at all. I had a mini panic attack about that. We did find a top in his closet that worked (something I bought him for Christmas and he has never worn), but I was a bit upset that it wasn’t formal enough. I ironed it and one of the other tops just in case.

I then had a complete nervous breakdown b/c I couldn’t find the necklace that elvish_kitty bought me. Ari found it in a bag in my luggage but the tears were flowing by then and didn’t stop for a good hour or so. He was really kind and let me cry as he hugged me, and he kept saying that it was going to be a fun day…not to worry.

The next day we awoke to beautiful weather. My mom called us in the morning to give us her well wishes. The zipper on my dress was more than a little annoying. It took Ari and I about 20min to get it up b/c it kept getting caught on the ribbon. Ari did end up wearing the alternative one, and once I saw it on ironed, it looked a lot better than the previous night and I felt a lot better.

Ari’s brother, sister and mother picked us up at 9:30am, and we set off to the ministry where the wedding would be held. Ari’s mom and sister had picked some wild flowers for me and had made me a nice bouquet. It smelled so nice, and was very colourful. I loved it.

The official doing the wedding was kind enough to realize that with a name like Chantelle Izzard, I probably didn’t speak Finnish and we did the ceremony in English. The ceremony itself was all of 3min long. We didn’t have rings. I didn’t change my name. He spoke about how marriage is about the family and being a family. Then there was the traditional ‘do you take this man/woman to be your husband/wife’ bit. Two ‘I do’s and a kiss later, and we were married.

We did some more pictures, then went off to Ari’s older sister’s house. Ari’s grandmother had baked a lovely vanilla-strawberry-banana cake with whipped cream as our wedding cake. There were also many other lovely food items. They have this sandwich cake thing here. It looks like a cake, but it’s actually a big tuna sandwich with cucumbers and tomatoes as decoration. It was rather good :)

We then did a few Finnish traditions. Ari got kidnapped and I had to “rescue” him by answering questions about him. I got 4 out of 5 right. I was also shown some of his childhood photos and his family (my in-laws!) are going to make a scrapbook of Ari’s childhood and the wedding and send it to us when it’s done. I really can’t wait to see it :P

After I saved my husband from the evil villains that kidnapped him (two neighbourhood boys dressed up as cowboys :P), Ari and I were given some t-shirts and were told to write down good things about the day that we want the other to remember when we are having a fight. Practical people those Finns. It took us a while to do that…hehe.

Then it was off to the first dance. That was horrible. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t dance. I normally take pictures so that I can avoid this torturous activity. Well, my husband is actually worse at dancing than I am! I’m sure you can see how bad this was.

The day was pretty laid back. I eventually got out of my dress, and we all went for a walk down to the lake. Beautiful lake too. Big and the water is really clear. I wouldn’t have minded swimming, but I didn’t have a swimsuit.

After a long day, we came home and Ari and I took a nap, as we were both exhausted at that point. When we finally got out of bed, we ate some of the leftover food and Ari watched me play God of War for the rest of the evening.

So that was my wedding day. I thank everyone for your kind letters. Ari and I did read them all, and some of you felt the urge to try and make me cry…but I fought it! Hehe.

Before I got married, I honestly didn’t think it would change anything. Ari and I had already decided we were going to be together, what did it matter if we got a little piece of paper saying we are married? I was wrong. I don’t know how to put it really. Friday morning, I was single. Yes, I had decided I was going to be with Ari forever, and at the time that was binding for me. Now, I don’t know what it is, but it seems more permanent. It isn’t a decision any more. It’s a vow, an oath. A decision, you can change your mind, but an oath you need to break. If that makes any sense. I also can no longer understand a common law marriage, and I don’t think you realize how unbinding it is until you actually get married.

So ya, those are my feelings and recollection of the events of my big day…in my typical babbling style. I know you all want pictures, and I do too! The problem with being the bride is that you can’t be the photographer too. I’m waiting for Ari’s sister to send us the pictures. I’ll post them as soon as I have them!!! :)

Until then, peace out.

It was sudden and totally unexpected, but the world has lost the King of Pop. Whatever you may say about MJ, he did some amazing things in his life and every single one of us, no matter age, gender, race or nationality, has be affected by him and his music.

I hope he finds solance where ever he is now.