one week in!

i said i was going to blog more often, then i totally slouched.

got a cold. my sinuses are packed with lord-knows-what and i'm pretty miserable.

back to working full time, no more holiday vacations any time soon. today was my one year anniversary working with mri's, and forgoing my glamorous chicken-frying life. it feels like the time went by so quickly!

the most exciting thing to happen this week, and thus far this year, is that my mother gave me my great-grandmother's engagement ring. i'd always liked it, but didn't want to take it from her, and wasn't sure if i'd look good in it, etc, but i have to say, i'm thrilled to have it now. secretly, i have always loved this ring and hoped someday i would get hitched and get to use it. true, i don't always wear yellow gold (meaning, i never do), and i'm ambivalent about diamonds, but the setting is so unique, and the diamond is an heirloom, and hopefully not the cause of some major bloodshed. knowing it was my great-grandmother's, then my grandmother's, and my mom's before it came to me feels amazing. it may sound hokey, but knowing i'm the fourth woman in my family (and, weirdly enough, the only without the name mary, or a variation thereof) makes me feel connected, and part of some tradition that until now i couldn't fully comprehend. all those women before me met a man that they decided to marry; all of them looked at a guy and thought, "yeah, i could wake up with him every day." all of them created new families, their own families, all of them lived and loved and worked alongside the men they had chosen. i know we've all had different experiences, and i know that marriage isn't going to make my life all unicorns and rainbows, but there's something to be said for going through the same thing they did.

D's mom found out about the ring and offered us her parent's wedding bands. that she thought of us, and was excited to discover that i was (am) into family heirlooms, feels absolutely fantastic. it's touching. she likes me enough to offer me her mother's ring. i just want to hug and squeeze her until she pops! we're going to go look at them later this week, but i can already tell you the chances are good that i'll take the ring. having a set from both sides of the family would be pretty cool. how could i resist that?

about eight months until i am actually, legally, seriously, married. when we started talking about this, october 2010 seemed a million years away. moving it up to september of this year seemed like nothing. now it's january and um, i have a lot to do. D and i are having a lot of discussions about what we want, how we want to do it, and i think part of the reason people get married is so they can figure out how to orchestrate a massive party with a whole lot of family members, and not go crazy or kill each other. this is a like a test, right? we learn how to compromise, i try not to pout too hard when D insists that i might not really need a $400 pair of fire-engine red fluevog boots, and he tries not to throttle me when i tell him that i think we should have someone other than ourselves cater the reception meal. yes, those boots would look fucking amazing on me, and yes, it does feel great to make a meal for your family that shows them how much you love them, but $400 is a lot of money, and i would actually like to hang out with my new husband at the reception, and not sling barbeque.

the cold medicine is kicking back in. there goes what little lucidity i had left, i think it's time to crawl back into bed. happy first week of the new year, and i hope so far your 2010 is going swimmingly!