Working On, And This Post Will Be Disorganized

I'm a chronic complainer. It's a problem, and I know a lot of the time I can be extremely negative. Work has been totally kicking my ass lately, and that coupled with the wedding and general home life's demands on my time, I've been very stressed and very complainy. I keep filing away mental notes to be more conscious of when I'm complaining, but in the moment I mainly think I just don't have the energy to care enough to stop myself. Someday maybe I will actually make progress here.

Anyway, just wanted to put it out there for the public void. Any advice from fellow chronic complainers, recovering complainers, or general ideas on the topic?

Next week is fall break here at the U, and most of the students go home, so at least the work portion should lighten up a bit. I plan to spend most of next week getting things in order for when I'm on vacation. I'm currently at work, and a bit sad cuz I'd clearly rather be home, but I'm also grateful cuz it's given me a chance to catch up on all the small stuff that's been backburnered like filing, tidying, and general tidiness tasks. This is my mental mini-break.

Tomorrow night John and I will make one of our last pilgrimages to the reception venue to take care of some last minute business. Then I'll spend most of the weekend getting centerpieces, palce cards, favors, courtesy baskets, and whatever else needs to be there for the reception ready for delivery mid-week next week. Yesterday we went to the county clerk's office to sign and submit out application for the marriage license--boy, did that make it feel real!

Official countown is 9 DAYS. Hot dang!

More to come as we get even closer. Apologies for the higgledy piggledy-ness of this post. I need to upgrade my mental RAM...everything seems to jumble together these days.

Namaste,

Guess What?

I'm getting married in 3 weeks. Guess what else? This is how I spent my afternoon:

Happy 40th birthday, Stockton! So glad for the 4 great years, the wonderful friendships I formed, and the inspiration from so many fabulous faculty members who are truly what makes the college so special. I am Stockton.

In case you're wondering

what my office looks like these days, it's almost complete. Some photos. Let's look again at the before, in progress, and present:

Looking in from hallway

BEFORE
IN PROGRESS

PRESENT

Looking at the copier station from my desk

BEFORE

IN PROGRESS

PRESENT
My desk, view from copier station

BEFORE


IN PROGRESS


PRESENT
The only thing I'm waiting on now is a bulletin board, which will go underneath the cabinets, and will bide the ugly power cords for my task lighting. I'm still settling in and trying to figure out the best use of the space. You can also see I now have a pretty, matching shelf that runs the length behind my desk (versus the green monstrosity that had been camped out there since the 80s. You can see it in the very first picture up at the top.

And that's that.

In other news...26 days til I'm Mrs. John J. Riggi. Aw, snapdragons!

Til next time. I owe you pics of the Princeton-Bucknell football game (they kicked our butts), and some pics from a friend's engagement party over the weekend. Also in the hopper: this weekend is Homecoming/40th Anniversary at Stockton. I'm going with some girlfriends to a tea house on Sunday. Pinkies, out! Final dress fitting next weekend. Then Longwood Gardens, and then the true descent into pre-wedding madness. Stay tuned. : )

I owe you updates!

So there's been a lot of improvement going on here on the homefront. We've gotten a nice hunt board for the dining room and replaced the giant UFO dome on the ceiling fan, and have finally completed our journey to a new couch with its delivery today. It's very hard to find a sectional couch for a small apartment's living room, and I had gotten a scratch-off sale offer from Mealey's furniture, scored a sweet deal, and so off we went to see if they had anything that would work for us. Lo and behold, they did, and a week later, here we are. The only T left to cross is that we're missing one of the back pillows for the corner piece.

Firstly, here are some pics of our beautiful hunt board credenza:


The tall corner hutch is now on the opposite wall (it was ludacris how much furniture was on that one wall. You'll see an updated pic below). Not relative to the hunt board, but while we're talking about the dining room, here is our table, set for autumn:


I picked up the gourd basket at the Cranberry Festival in town this afternoon.

And before the big reveal of the living room, let's take a last look at how it has looked since we've been here (almost two years), and wave goodbye to the two couches we've had for the last 3 years, which had long lives with their previous owners as well. Get out the Kleenex, everyone...



And finally, here is the new couch in all its glory. I'm not sure how it photographs and shows up for you, but it's a very pretty blue-grey, which perfectly compliments the blues in our carpet, and also has me second-guessing putting blue on the walls...more musing on that in a later post.


And here I am, looking glam in a pic John snapped right after I plunked down for the first time:
More pics to come as the space evolves (and after we've gotten the actual missing cushion...for now we've made due with two of the throw pillows that came with the couch).