Gooseberried

Just a small blurb because that is all that needs to be said

So, I'm thinking...

Isn't it sort of odd that my ex, 6-6, has decided to confide lately in my friends about, well, me? 

He has texted two of my girlfriends to talk about how he's feeling about me getting married and spoken with another one.  Is it just me, or is that just weird?  He's never been close with any of them and knows them mostly through me.  This is why when they tell me the story of him texting them, the start of the sentence is something like, "6-6 randomly texted me the other day."  Hence the word randomly.  

I find this to be very perplexing behavior.  I mean, I understand that all of my friends are awesome.  They're understanding and reasonable people.  So, they're willing to hear both sides of any story.  As for most of 6-6's friends?  Not so much.  They're the kind of people where, 6-6 could say anything negative about any woman and their profound response would be, "What a bitch, dude."  Not to mention, 6-6 could kill someone and his mom would find some way to justify his actions. 

I just find it odd that he's trying to reach out to MY friends.  The people who have my back in any given situation and just want to see me happy.  Everyone thought the marriage was pretty surprising.  That's obvious.  And clearly it's going to hit 6-6 hard.  But it seems like he's going out of his way to get people to understand his thoughts and hopefully agree with him.  Which in the long run, is preventing him from moving on.  He just wants people to feel sorry him, and all I can think is how ridiculous it is.  He is going out of his way to seek a reaction from people.  So whatever.  He can talk to my friends if he wants.  I'm not going to blow up about it and make him feel like a million dollars for attempting to throw my life off track from a distance a little bit here and there.

I'm baffled, you guys. 

Just had to get that off my chest.

Just a tribute to the most amazing women I know

My friends are a major, more than significant part of my life.

My friends are intelligent.

My friends aren't haters. 

My friends and I put boring individuals out of their comfort zones.  On purpose.

My friends and I like to be weird.  Because we aren't into normalities.

My friends and I are open minded. 

My friends and I share experiences most will never have the opportunity to even imagine.

My friends and I care.  About you.  About others.  About the world.

Not just ourselves.

My friends and I reason with your side of the story before judging you.

My friends and I are wacky.  Never bland.

My friends and I are out of the ordinary. 

My friends are individualistic and original.

My friends are beautiful.

My friends are true, regal souls.

My time is spent with these good women.  Good people.  Not here to simply exist.  But to live virtuously.

Tell me a little about your week

Because this week has been kind-of-routine-but-also-not-because-there's-a-lot-going-on, I've decided to do a recap of some of the moments from this week I've enjoyed so far.

• The furniture we bought last weekend (includes: dining room table and chairs, bookshelf, futon, office desk and a buffet) are all assembled.  Things aren't completely organized yet, but the apartment is looking good, I must say.  I'll do a video eventually like Cristy did. 
• We've moved to using a water soluble graphite medium in drawing class.  So much better than drawing ONLY contour lines.
• I'm getting caught up on things that I usually do in my regular life.  Soon, I'll be up and running on Project 365 again.
  
• I had to teach my husband what the phrase "talk is cheap" means.
  
• I realized that I have one of those cool, athletic bodies (bragging here) that allows me to avoid working out for two months straight.  Then once I get back into it again, I work out for a week and look the same as I did prior.
• I've finally gotten some good feedback on my photography in class.  So far people's comments have been as follows, "Good pic", "Nice lighting", "Ooo, I like this!"  This week my professor sat down at my computer and critiqued the photos this time.  I received some constructive criticism I can actually use.
• I bought lots of groceries and am excited to get cooking for next week!  I have meals all planned out.  Look at how wifey-ish I am. 
• My husband's wedding band arrived in the mail finally!
• I gave up being impatient with people's weird idiosyncrasies and flaws for Lent.  I've found that the best place to test my ability to stifle my negative thoughts and actions toward human beings is at the grocery store.  I did pretty well.  Still needs improving though. 
• I went to yoga for the first time since surgery this week.  The knee did really well and I'm going back soon.  I would go back tonight but the yoga studio is doing this special live music during class thing.  You know, gong/tribal stuff.  While that kind of music can be cool on its own, it weirds me out that it'll be playing live during actual class.  

So, that's my week so far.  How's yours?

A post to introduce a new member of my (our) family

Since I haven't taken the time to do it yet, I want to introduce Matteo's dog as a new addition to my family.  And I say 'my' because the four of us is our family.  But Gizmo is new to Bowie and I.  When Matteo and I were first dating, Gizmo and Bowie were good friends.  Once we got married, they became sisters.  It's like when you were in junior high and you always wished your best friend would marry your brother because then you and your best friend would be sisters.  Well, that wish came true for Gizmo and Bowie.

So without further ado, I give you...Gizmo:

And this is how Bowie has decided to welcome Gizmo in to the family:

By displaying her utter dominance.

Gizmo, you look worried, darling. 

And by the way...

Sorry, but I have no idea why the formatting in the last post is being weird on me. 

Hmph.

Gets a little excited at the fact that he was actually listening to me.

Me: I've decided to open up my twitter to the public again, so I'm going through all my old tweets to make sure I haven't said anything badly about anyone who should only be talked about behind their backs.

Husband:  Why?

Me:  I don't know.  Just don't care anymore, I guess.  Do you think I shouldn't?

Husband:  No, I was just wondering.

Me:  Well, listen to some of these really weird and not-worth-tweeting tweets from October.

[Reads off tweets and looks over at Husband only to discover he's busy facebooking.]

Me:  Aaaaaannnnd you're not listening...

Husband:  Yes, I am!  First you said, "I'm not going to use some random girl's chapstick."  Then you said, "Bowie's snout is in my armpit & it tickles like crazy. But the fact that she's even cuddling w/ me makes me hold the urge to flail my body." And then you said that I wasn't listening to you.  Ha!  Pssshhhaw!  Boop de bow, doop doop de dow, bam de bow!"

Well, we're getting there. I'm beating Matteo at unpacking.

Well, we're pretty much all moved in.  On Saturday night, we worked until about 3 AM moving all the stuff out of Matteo's studio and into our first apartment we will share together as a married couple.  With all the moving and hard work that was done on Saturday and add the fact that we're both sick, I woke up on Sunday morning with an achy back, hurty feet and feeling completely drained.  I feel like I haven't been able to catch up since.  I have felt physically ill from exhaustion since Saturday.  I can't wait to feel normal again. 

Tomorrow we're waking up early to go down to Cottonwood in search of furniture we might like.  There's a store there that is going out of business and apparently has many sales.  Sales is a word that brings music to our ears right now.  I really want a buffet but much to my dismay, a buffet is usually $500 and up.  Craigslist is my new best friend.

Despite all the new events that have been happening, I can't help but think about career paths.  I know that's completely underrated, but I was doing some photo homework tonight and was thinking about all the different fields I know I'd love to work in.  Human resources, graphic design, editing, publishing, writing, photography, yoga...  I just want to do them all. 

I guess I'll get settled into our new apartment and focus on finding a proper couch first.  One thing at a time, right?

Or so.

Have you ever been involved in so many things that you feel like you're never going to have enough time to do them all...ever?!  That's how I feel right now.  Matteo and I are finally out of my old studio apartment fully.  We painted it for some rent credit and did all the last minute things tonight.  The only thing I have left to do is turn in the keys associated with it. 

We're trying to get out of Matteo's studio as soon as possible and as such, our totally awesome apartment manager is letting us move in on Saturday as long as we paint what's needed and have the carpet cleaned ourselves.  So our plan is to move in a few boxes, Rug Doctor it up, bug bomb the place, sleep, wake up and move everything else in. 

Luckily, I don't have school on Monday so I'll have some more time to get moved in.  On top of everything, I've been sending out thank-you cards to those who got us gifts, trying to get my name changed officially, trying to keep up with my classes, changing my address, looking for Matteo's rest-of-his-life ring, canceling my electric account and still attempting to keep in touch with all my friends.  

Matteo and I took a very small break today, sat side-by-side and talked briefly about how nice it'll be when we can get moved in and back to our regular routine of doing not much of anything.  Sigh.

I'm busy, guys so sorry if I'm a flaky blogger. 

Oh and by the way, no I am not pregnant.  Can't I just want to be with someone forever?

Goooooooooooooooodnight!  :)

So, like, I'm married

We did it!  We got married last Friday and all went really well.  It was actually a really fun day.  We had our first meeting with Father Jude in the morning, who is going to be our marriage preparation counselor.  Even though we're already married, I still want to go through the prep classes especially because we want to have our Catholic wedding next year with all our family and friends.  Matteo isn't Catholic, but I try to be a good one and have always aspired to have a Catholic wedding to complete the sacrament of marriage.  I know; I'm cheesy.  But do note that I am better than most Catholics and do go to church more than just on Christmas and Easter mass.  I'm not sure if that's going to make guys like me more or less...

Then we met our parents for lunch.  It was the first time his parents met mine and his brother, Steven joined us also.  It went really well and I was pleased with how well our parents got along.  You never know, right?  Then it was time for the ceremony which, all in all, was only about twenty minutes, but there were two couples ahead of us so we had to do some waiting.  The waiting gave us a chance to take some pre-marriage photos though, much to Matteo's dismay.  He hates having dozens of photos taken of him wherein he has to stand with a smile plastered on his face which became very apparent when, after the ceremony was over, his brother, who had been given the job of photographer, was taking photos of us leaving.  Matteo looked over at him and said, "Stop taking pictures of me!!" all angry like.  If there hadn't been parents present, there definitely would have been an f-word in that sentence.  Steven didn't respond verbally to him, but had a baffled look on his face like, "Um...isn't that what I was supposed to do?  Take?  Photos?  No?"

After the ceremony, my parents went back to Heber while we met all of our friends for dinner.  There were about twenty people there including us and Matteo's parents.  It was really nice- not too big, not too small and the ambiance of the restaurant was perfect.  Unfortunately, I started getting sick the day before which started with a very sore throat and me losing my voice.  So, while I said my vows, I sounded a little bit like Satan.  Good thing the ceremony was in a courthouse and not at a church.  I don't think my Satanic voice would have been appropriate.  By the end of the dinner, after talking to everyone there, my voice was shot.  I just regained it fully today.  It's nice to be able to sing again.  Not that I do it professionally or anything.  It just makes me content to sing along to a song I hear every once in a while.

So, I gots some images for y'alls.  Steven did a good job and handled my precious camera a lot better than most of my friends do (ahem...Hannah).

Yeah, we're not looking at the camera because about seven people are taking photos of us at once and we really couldn't decipher where to look at any given point. 

Here's us and our lovely witnesses.  Mine was Sarah and Matteo's was his friend, Dominick (Dom).  It was really cute because Dom was more nervous than we were. 

Our judge was a really cool dude.  He opened with an Apache love poem and he was humorous and overall, did a really good job.  He made it feel a lot more personal than we all had expected which is really great that he was able to manage that.  

Saying our vows...

Putting the rings on!

Here's a little romantic one I'll post for Matteo's sake.  He's more romantic than I am. 

If you have any interest in seeing the rest of the photos, they're all posted to my flickr account.  I'd recommend giving them a look over, if you care, because there are a lot of good ones over there.  I didn't post any of the photos of us with our parents because I'm not really sure if they'd be comfortable with having photos of themselves published in plain sight on the internet.

All done!

My story

Although he had been my neighbor for about five months, I had never really hung out with Matt before.  Of course we saw each other.  We'd run into each other every so often which makes sense since he was my neighbor after all.  He was always polite and always offered assistance for most things, if I ever needed.  Do you need help carrying that?  Do you need a ride?  I found out later that he always sort of had a little crush on me and that pretty much explains all the offers.  Unfortunately, I've always been wildly independent and so I've always answered, "Thanks, but I think I've got it."  I'm bad at accepting help from others.

I started to warm up a little more to him when Dora, my old computer, died and he offered to take all the stuff off of my old hard drive and put it on my new computer.  Even though I didn't let him help me, we began talking a little more freely after that, exchanged numbers and started to become friends.  Soon I discovered that Matt was the kind of guy I could talk to for hours yet, it felt like minutes.  We had so much in common that it seemed he was the male version of me.  Not long after we started hanging out, I developed a crush on him.  The only problem was...he had a girlfriend.  Although this obviously bothered me, I decided to try to make the most of it anyway and accept him as this great new friend in my life.

One night, after having hung out with him for hours, I finally decided I was getting sleepy and should retire to my apartment.  When I got back, I went on Facebook and pretty much stalked his profile.  Because girls are super creepy like that.  He had never mentioned anything about his girlfriend and I was wondering how long they had been together.  I didn't want to ask because I didn't want it to seem like I liked him.  So I kept going back, back, back into his wall reading the things that people had posted.  When I discovered that he and his girlfriend were flirting on each other's walls as early as 2007, I started to cry.  I realized that obviously they had been together for almost three years and that meant there was no chance for me. I was devastated because it was that night that I realized I really, really liked him and that I was falling in love with him.  I know that sounds ridiculous, but I just knew it.

I ended up crying myself to sleep that night.

The next day, I woke up and tried to pull myself together. I took a long shower and decided while the hot water was hitting my skin that I would just have to deal with the fact that someone else had found him before me.  As hurtful as it would be, I would suck it up and accept that I would probably never get over him but would have to keep on living day to day as just friends anyway.  After all, that was better than not having him in my life at all.  It was like I was mentally preparing myself for a lifetime of feeling empty inside knowing that there's this perfect guy for me but I'll never be with him. 

How lucky I was that he must have been feeling similar things because a week later he broke up with his girlfriend and made the moves on me.  I was so happy and even though other people's feelings were at stake, I knew it was right.

From the beginning, I felt that there was something more there than had ever been with any other guy. And it scared me. I told my friend, Sarah, that I was going to force myself to take things slowly (as much as I didn't want to) because I can get caught up in emotions pretty easily. Turns out, you can't force yourself to do anything. Two months later, and we're getting married. How's that for taking things slowly?

Matteo likes to say that he "tricked" me into falling in love with him.  He definitely did.  That bastard.  But I'm so grateful to have fallen into his trap.