Two Steps Forward... and One Step Back

It was an interesting weekend around these parts. Good in a lot of ways, and disappointing in a lot of ways.

Since this blog is a sort of open diary, I’m going to write about issues that some people might prefer I keep to myself. Writing is becoming cathartic for me, and the words I’m going to put down here today are of tough to elucidate, but necessary. So feel free to skip this one if necessary. Like I said, there are high points and low points.

Saturday morning I attended initiation of 16 new members into the MSU chapter of AOII. I initiated nearly eight years ago as a freshman in college, and the MSU chapter means so much to me; maybe more in the last two years than the first six.

I’m so proud of the current members. Participation in sororities has been declining in Montana, despite a strong national trend elsewhere. We always struggled to keep numbers decent during my time as a collegiate, and it often felt like a giant uphill battle. Of the twelve girls I pledged with, only seven remained as seniors; although we picked up some awesome new people along the way to fill our class back out to twelve. At points in the last eight years, they’ve had initiations of only six people.

So an initiate class of 16 is a big, big deal for them/ us. More than anything, it was gratifying to stand in a room and count the number of active members- nearly 46 people!!! That’s close to campus total, and they’ll keep recruiting in the spring. I’m proud, and appreciative of the girls' hard work.

The entire AOII chapter, spring 2004.

The chapter at MSU, has kept me tenuously tied to MSU these last two and a half years. They’ve allowed me to stay involved with a college-affiliated organization, and give back in a (hopefully) meaningful way, despite the deep anger I feel towards the administration at MSU. I want to make it clear, my, and my family, still love the people of MSU. The alumni and the staff are all wonderful people who want nothing best for the university and its associated clubs and organizations. Being at the AOII house around women whom I look up to despite the fact that they’re younger than me reminds me of how important it is to keep the organization going.

But I shouldn’t say much more about the administration since there’s a lawsuit going on.

You get my point; AOII is a big deal for me. And getting to look around that room Saturday morning and see it thriving, well, it really made me a better person on Saturday. And I needed all of the positive vibes I could get when I walked out of the chapter house with to go to the MSU vs. Sacramento State football game.

I loved going to games at MSU while dad was there. I knew most of the players, their parents, the staff and many of the fans. As a college student myself, it was a great atmosphere; raucous tailgating, exciting games and down to the wire conference championships.

Gretchen, cousins Blake and Zack, and I. Fall 2004?

Tailgating with the AOII's, 'Cat-Griz 2003.

Post 'Cat-Griz win picture, 2003.

Tailgates, 'Cat-Griz 2005.

Post 'Cat-Griz win picture, 2005.

I have to admit, I expected some deflation of the party atmosphere with a new coach and changes to the tailgating policy which basically eliminated student tailgating. But what I saw on Saturday was… wow, it felt like a funeral in there. One entire section of stands wasn’t shoveled out after Thursday’s snowstorm, so no one sat in it. An entire section. What. The. Fuck.

Kickoff, 2009.

People will say “oh, well it’s hunting season” or “oh, well, it snowed and the weather was going to be shitty” or “it’s not a very important game” or “it’s the game before ‘Cat-Griz”. People. Those are lame excuses. This is a team that’s won seven games, and could still win an eighth in the regular season. That’s better than dad’s teams ever did. I’m pretty certain the stands were full for the playoff game against Furhman in November of 2006 when it was five degrees out. And that the games against EWU the weekend before ‘Cat-Griz were ALWAYS full when dad was there.

AOII's at the game... sometime in the fall of 2004. It's a non- 'Cat-Griz game and it looks pretty packed...

Of all of the emotions I expected to have after the game, I didn’t expect to feel the extreme sense of sadness as I left the stadium. After they WON the game!!! I felt sad after they won the damn game!!!! Sad that it’d gotten so boring! So staid and square! And sad that it took dad so long to build a program that people were interested in, and it only took three years to totally erode that. Man- what a god damn shame.

Goalposts going down, 2005.

Man, what fun that was.

That said, I did experience a flare of outright anger. Like capital A, bolded, underlined anger. One of the guys who got dad fired was there on the sidelines, with the visiting team. Again What. The. Fuck. What gall. What outright absolute goading. He’s lucky I played golf and can’t throw worth a damn. I had an ice-packed snowball with his name on it. (but I’m not bitter)

That particular person raised an interesting set of emotions in me. He gave me some of the best advice I ever received; to never, ever, settle for less than everything I want. And I sat there stunned, watching him, in a swirl in emotion. I wanted to ask him why. Why do what you did to yourself, your family, and my family? We took you in. We made you our own. Your advice rings through to me still, but it’s so tainted by your actions that I can’t take the very good guidance you offered.

And why, six years later, have you never made an effort to apologize?

Walking out of the stadium DJ asked me how I thought it went. I told him I was disappointed and upset, but for different reasons than I expected. I want the games to be fun. I want them to have good attendance and to attract new fans. And that’s progress for me. Two years ago I would have told you I wanted them to never sell out a game again.

But seeing that particular person… man, it was a blow to my fragile return to Bobcat fandom.

I guess that’s life though, two steps forward, one step back.

We have ‘Cat-Griz tickets for next weekend. :::gulp:::

Delegations

Hey friends, those of you married or planning your own Blessed Event...how the heck do you have time to plan this shindig?

We both work 40-50 hours a week. I spend a bour a day at the gym. There's this never ending list of things we should do at the house (like snowblow). By the evening we're both way too exhausted to really do more than mouthbreathe and do laundry.

I'm wondering when in there I'm supposed to work out details like the supper menu or even big issues like asking the mayor of Harrison to marry us. Those are two of the bigger issues. I mean, it’s not like those are issues we can write off as details that no one will notice are missing...

I read about a couple who had "Wedding Wednesdays", which hey, good for them for scheduling it in. But I don't think that will work for us. Our schedules are too prone to change. Classes, work meetings, Bunco groups all clutter our schedule, making it hard to have dinner together regularly, much less try to co-coordinate a major event.

I really feel like I need to take a week off from work to make all of those business-hour only calls. I work in local government, where the microscope focused on what you're doing with your time can be very pointed. I can't afford to get caught doing wedding stuff between 8am and 5pm. I have made a few calls at lunch, but make a point to have my lunch spread out on my desk to make the point that I'M DOING THIS AT LUNCH!

I do have a great group of people willing to take on tasks for me. My Mom, DJ's Mom, my sister, friends have all offered to step forward and take on something. But I feel like I can't hand out to dos to people until I get the broad picture scoped out, you know? I need to do a visioning project first, then let my generous peeps take it from there.

And I've learned through running a volunteer board that people want to give their time to something that they feel some sense of ownership over. Asking someone to do something for you, and then nitpicking it to death is a quick way to lose volunteers.

I've been doing it do DJ a lot lately with wedding-related things. Not good.

Frankly, I've never been a good delegator. I guess that's something I will have to learn right now, right?

In work or in your personal life, how do YOU delegate things gracefully, while still ensuring that they "fit" within your overall vision?

Hardware (Part Two)

By April I felt confident that DJ knew my opinion about potential engagement rings. We’d looked at it twice in the store and the jeweler wrote it down.


In late April I visited my sister and parents in eastern Washington (state) for a weekend, leaving DJ home in Bozeman by himself. The next Friday night we were getting ready to go out, and he’d had a couple of whiskey’s (he’s a total non-drinker during the week, but will have a few on a Friday night), which sometimes makes him a jabbermouth (jabber jabber jabber).

So we chatted along as I got ready, and DJ stumbles around to a question about the engagement ring I want. I can’t even remember which particular element of it he was uncertain about, but I do remember being a little bummed that A) if he wants to know my preference on said element, he must not have bought a ring last weekend; and B) dude, we we wrote this stuff down. Read your notes!

So I gently said, well, if we need to go look at the ring again this weekend, we can. And like an excited schoolboy with a secret (really, he’s about ten years old at heart) he stood straight up and shook his head no, no we couldn’t go look at the ring again. Confused (and laughing at this endearing trait he has), I asked him why, and he said “well, let’s just say I might have some store credit…”

I commenced the excited dance inside, while hopefully remaining calm on the outside.

But he still had questions about a certain element, so, like any good woman, I sketched out the ring I wanted for him, with details. What!? That was too much? Hey, I knew what I wanted; DJ knew the size and quality of the stone were up to him. (I wonder what has happened to that sketch?)

May came and went, and only an overwhelming workload cancelled out my anticipation for getting engaged. Sometime during this month I told DJ that I wanted at least a year to plan a wedding, so you know, no pressure or anything. DJ, I think about this time, responded that he wouldn’t be able to afford any hardware until the end of the summer. I can’t lie, at the time I hoped he was lying to me to throw me off.

In early June I looked at our summer schedule and flipped out a little (and wrote this post). Friend’s and a cousin’s wedding, work obligations, and people visiting had essentially filled our entire summer schedule. We had only two weekends open between June 1 and mid-September. When was DJ going to have time to pop the question???

By July first I vacillated between anxiety over the wedding planning we’d have to do after he actually proposed, and a sadness that he hadn’t actually proposed yet. Again, the girl in me, who usually stays buried behind the four letter words and a masculine lack of patience, came out. Waiting actually was really hard for me. And to this day I can’t say why, only that the longer I waited the less enthralled I got. I kept reminding myself that I didn’t want DJ to spend money he didn’t have, we were very busy and I wouldn’t have time to plan anyway, and I wanted him to propose in his own time.

Frankly, I wasn’t exactly a picture of patience.

Over the 4th of July we took a roadtrip and I was hopeful. Nope. The next weekend we drove out to the lake for two days there before going to my cousin’s wedding in Colton. During that 5.5 hour drive we discussed how different my upcoming cousin’s wedding would be from ours. I secretly hoped he’d proposed at the lake in the next two nights… until he flat out told me he wasn’t going to. Again, I can’t lie; I teared up. We talked through it, but I was disappointed. Especially on Saturday night when mutual friends of ours and my cousin kept saying “you two should just get married”… Thanks Jon, because I wasn’t already aware that we’re not engaged.

Somewhere on the drive back to Bozeman after that wedding I let it go. I had a lot of other things to focus on, and I decided that if we weren’t engaged by October 1 we’d have a serious come to Jesus. But until then, I’d try to keep my mouth shut about it.

In late July I went back out to the lake to help my mom paint the house. She and I talked about wedding stuff, pros and cons of different locations, vibes, dresses, etc. But I couldn’t really jump too far into it without a ring. I’d started a spreadsheet… but wasn’t going too much farther.

In early August DJ’s mom came to visit. And the next week I hosted Katie's bachelorette partybefore going to her wedding. I think right before her wedding (no, really, like in the parking lot five minutes before the ceremony started) DJ sold the condo. The whole weekend I kept getting questions about when we were getting engaged. I grit my teeth, reminded myself of the October 1 vow, and reminded myself that I could busy myself with the house we were going to build.

By Sunday night though, with the combination of exhaustion, hangover, and work stress, I was kind of a mess. A case of the sniffles took over, and I cried to DJ that I felt a little ridiculous picking out floorplans and talking to the builder of our house without any hardware. He comforted me, said all the right things, and apparently wasn’t scared off by the crazy girl crying on his shoulder.

I went to work on Monday feeling a little ridiculous about my outburst, but actually a lot better about the whole situation. That week was taken up my housebuilding discussions, planning and condo-selling. And in my mind I’d figured that DJ would probably propose while on our upcoming Oregon trip.

Dun Dun Dun...

Weather Wonders

We went to bed last night as it was drizzling outside. A nice late fall drizzle that makes you think, hmm, I should make some soup.

At some point, I woke up and told DJ that “it must be really foggy out” since the light from the school was refracting around our room and making it so bright.

I, in my slumber-induced daze, apparently forgot that in nine years of living in Montana I’ve seen fog twice. And that it’s Montana. The reason the light was refracting was because IT WAS SNOWING, heavily you dipshit.

We awoke to a winter wonderland this morning, and as DJ got into the shower I thought, oh, shoot, he should have broken out the snow blower this morning before showering. It belches so much that you smell like gas fumes after using it, so now we’ll have to shovel instead. Good thing it was only about four inches!

Oh wait… no, no it was more like 16 inches. And still snowing. DJ shoveled himself and the main part of the driveway out, and left the front walk and steps and back deck to me. It was the wet, heavy snow that I think would have been easier to clear by rolling it into balls to make snowmen.

That’s the joy of homeownership; parking in the garage and not having to scrape your car… but having to scrape a driveway, front walk, steps and back deck instead. Tradeoffs?

It hasn’t stopped snowing all day. Here’s the view out of our office:

This much snow in Montana isn’t unusual… but dude, it was 50 degrees out yesterday!

And I couldn’t help but think about the fact that our wedding weekend is pretty dependant on nice weather. I mean, nice weather in July on Lake Coeur d’Alene is the norm, but still, if it rains, not only will the ceremony site not work, but activities for our guests will be pretty limited. No swimming, biking, reading, boating etc. And since some people will camp… oh man, disaster. I’d say it’s only a 10% chance that it would be actually crappy weather for an extended period of time (go ahead and bookmark this post now in case that 10% comes true), but I wanted to think about indoors activities to offer our guests in case of rain…
- Cards?
-  Movies?
- Uhmmm

… why is this a mother’s rainy-day list of fun gone bad. What else could we offer our guests in case of rain? Ponchos and a whiskey?

Citing sources in a blog

Dear my college history professors faithful readers,

As a history major I know the importance of citing my sources when I use someone else's work. And I'm definately that girl who clicks around the internet "saving as" and "copy" and "paste" ing a lot. What's the right protocoll for citing sources on the internet? Does anyone have a good way that they save a photo and cite it's source at the same time, so that when they go to use the  photo it's easy to give proper credit?

Help me out here!

Sincerely,
Courtney

Hardware

When DJ and I started talking about biting the bullet one night on a vacation in the fall of 2008, I woke up the next morning and googled wedding rings. You’re laughing, right? Because I was laughing at myself. What a girl. Yeesh.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a girly girl. I’m not delicate, I swear, I sweat, and occasionally pass gas (shut it DJ). So I was surprised an indication of intention lead me straight to an internet search for pretty shiny things.

Long before I met DJ I knew I wanted to be involved with choosing my engagement ring. I’m an opinionated person. I wanted to have a say in the symbol that would tie me to my betrothed. Sidenote: my dad loves the word betrothed. What a weirdo. At the end of every phone conversation he always reminds me to tell my BETROTHED hello for him. ::eye roll:::

I also knew a few things about what I wanted for this symbol. Something sturdy, with a band that protected the stone. A ring that can withstand me talking with my hands and slapping the palm of my hand onto the table to make a point. Something unique; no patent ring for me, thank you. Nothing too delicate, bedazzled or ornate. Simple, plain and quality over quantity.

I told you I am opinionated.

Being a girl who likes old stuff, I also googled antique rings. And Oh. My. Gosh. I stumbled across antiqueengagementrings.com/ . Here’s the caveat; most of their stuff is reproductions of antique pieces. I know this, but I still couldn’t stop drooling over their rings. Things like this and this and this caught my eye and were bookmarked.

ohh symmetry...

Look at the detail work on the band!

Baguettes! Not just for dipping artichoke dip in!

You’ll note that I was drawn to square shapes, primarily the Asscher cut. Now I have to admit, I’d seen the Asscher before. My friend Shawna’s ring is an Asscher and I remember admiring it when they got engaged. She's got a fabulous sense of style that I really admire.

Then in mid-March, after our vacation to Hawaii and after our tax returns were in, I oh so casually mentioned to DJ that I know he gets busy during the upcoming little league baseball season, and did he know that a ring can sometimes take months to come in, and you know, no pressure, but I just thought maybe he should know. And that I wanted a year to plan a wedding, but you know no pressure.

In addition to opinionated, I’m subtle too.

We went ring shopping on St. Patrick’s day with the deal that we’d pick out the diamond shape and ring setting together, but that the diamond quality and band material would be up to him; with a reminder of the quality over quantity. We’d also agreed that if we were going to drop serious moolah hardware, we wanted it to be to a downtown, Main Street merchant. Talk about Local Yokels, but seriously, I didn’t want it to come from a chain store in the mall.

So we started on west Main Street at, I kid you not, The Jewelry Studio. Impressive name, right?

And although they had some very ornate Tacori rings, in addition to a bunch of other designer’s stuff, we both were drawn to the rather plain rings in the case around the corner. The salesman came over, and I asked if I could try on the Asscher cut in the case.

Now here’s the part where I tell you I have little smokey sausages for fingers. No, really. My fingers are short, squat, and generally farm-wife-ish. I could never be a piano player. Check that, I have no musical ability whatsoever, so not just my lack of finger length eliminates me from piano stardom, but you get my drift.

My fingers! In a bag!!! Short, stubby, plump and delicious when in a crock pot!

And would you believe it; the Asscher cut ring with the small round diamonds set into the platinum band in the case at The Jewelry Studio fit my little smokies! Shock! And we both loved it. And the ring shape was so comfortable! We were so excited, and the salesman finally mentioned that he was glad we liked it, as he was the designer of this particular case. Score!

After marveling at our luck, we thanked the designer salesman and moved on to the three remaining stores on Main Street. After about two hours, it was apparent that nothing was going to top the ring back at the first store, and I told DJ that was it. We went back by to see it again, and I told the designer-salesman it was up to him and DJ from this point out. I wanted that ring, without the little round diamonds on it.

You might note that we picked out an engagement ring on March 17. And didn’t get engaged until August 21. More on how I lost my mind during those five months later, but suffice to say, I was such a girl.

How long did it take anyone out there to pick out a ring? If you’re not engaged or married yet, and maybe still haven’t met Mr. Right, do you have a dream ring bookmarked somewhere? Don’t you think it’s ridiculous that we found my perfect ring at a place so boringly named? (but seriously, they do GREAT work!)

Save the Date PAMPHLETS

That’s right, pamphlets. We’re doing a pamphlet for our Save the Date; which in wedding-world is abbreviated to STDs. *ahem* Lets all try to keep a straight face here as I work on designing a STD that I’m sending to 286 of our closest family and friends :::snicker:::. (Yes, 268… the guest list “bloomed”)

Focus Courtney, Focus….Since we’re getting married in a semi-destination location, especially in the summer, we thought it would be important to give our guests as much of a heads-up as possible. Lake Coeur d’Alene (Core-Duh-Lane) is a regional magnet for summer vacations and we hope our guest view The Blessed Event as an opportunity to incorporate a fun day or two on the lake and enjoying the area. The Pamphlet will serve as combo Save the Date and Chamber of Commerce brochure which will inform our guests as to where to stay, what to eat, and what to do.

Early last spring in the pre-planning stage (read: no left hand hardware) and when a wedding at the Livingston, Montana train depot was still in consideration, I stumbled across this pamphlet, which advertises visiting Yellowstone National Park via the Northern Pacific Rail Road’s “Yellowstone Park Line”. A lightbulb went off. Regardless of where we tied the knot, what a fun way to encourage our guests to attend our wedding and give them information about the area they’ll be visiting! And hello, history nerd alert- old photos and old timey stuff are awesome!

I kept surfing away, and found the interior of the NPRR brochure, which gave snapshots of the buildings and explained what business was in the building. I’m a visual person, and so knowing what the building I’m searching for actually looks helps me feel more confident that I can arrive where I’m supposed to go. Brilliant!

Sometime this spring I mentioned this to DJ, and he thought it was a good idea. Then this summer we were working on packing stuff up for The Big Move, and I asked DJ if he wanted to still hold on to the 50 or so National Park Service brochures he’d collected after years of visiting places like Moab, Arches National Park, etc. Um, yes! He guards them like the baseball cards he has stuffed down in the crawlspace. And as I teased him about it another lightbulb went off (it has gotten bright around here), what if we merged the Railroad brochure and the National Park Service brochures? What if we essentially made Lake Coeur d’Alene our own personal landmark for the wedding (with a whole cast of locals in it)?

We both love National Parks. LOVE. Love the history, the scenery, the hiking and the cool architecture. The first big test in our relationship was driving from Bozeman to southern Utah to spend a week hiking in some pretty remote areas, and visiting Bryce Canyon National Park. Once we returned from spending a week together, and a few days straight without showers, I was pretty sure this guy would be in my life for a while.

Super dorky photo. DJ's haircut is very high and tight, and I lost those earrings somewhere...

I mentioned our goal to get the Pamphlets out to our guests by January 1. Some might wonder why we’d like to add to the pre-Holiday craziness by setting this self-imposed deadline. Well, the only hotel in Harrison doesn’t take ANY reservations until January 1. Like I can’t even block out rooms until then, a reminder for which I have set on four different reminder tools. Nope (although they’ve agreed to call me if anyone calls mentioning a big event in town that weekend). Did I also mention that the only hotel in town only has 15 rooms? Maybe now you understand why I’m hoping the BOLD and underlined MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS NOW point really gets across to our guests right after January 1.

With this in mind, Pamphlet making is in the forefront the next few weeks. I’m on the “Where to Stay” and “Where to Eat” sections; DJ’s on the “What to do” sections, and we’re both working on the “How to Get Here” sections. My awesome friend Alli finished her degree in Geographical Information Systems this summer, and is in the process of making us maps. One of the women on the board I run at work does pen and ink drawings, and she’s working on them for the highlighted buildings in town (all ten of them).

You'll need to find this building if you want a fishing license!

Hopefully sometime around Thanksgiving we’ll pull all of this together into a National Park Service-like brochure that can be printed be mid-December. My sister agreed to lend me her excellent penmanship in order to address all of the mailing envelopes over Christmas Break.

Actually pulling it together into a NPS-worthy brochure required more work. I stumbled across thisblog entry, which essentially breaks down how the brochures are laid out to be informative, efficient and user friendly. Sounds like something our guests would appreciate in a STD :::snicker:::

Now the big question is what size sheet of paper to use; 11” x 17” inches is big, and roomy, but maybe too blank? What about 8.5” x 14”? Ehh… it folds up kind of small…. I think the end result here is that we’ll have to wait and see exactly how much information we want to include on the Pamphlet, how big the text should be, how many photos, and how detailed the map. And I think I want to print it on glossy paper…

Right now the major items included in the pamphlet are:
- The Save the Date information
- Map of the Cd’A region with important or interesting locations pinpointed
- Close up map of Harrison with locations of the hotel, campground, restaurants, bike trail, my parents house, etc.
- Area history
- Things to Do
- Where to Stay
- Where to Eat
- Contact information
- Disclaimer

The Disclaimer is that we both know summer is a super busy time of year. So we’re planning on having a second reception and housewarming party next fall before a football game as a way to give friends and the people we work with a chance to celebrate with us, without having to come to Harrison.

What do you think of the idea in general? Have I missed anything on my list of items to include in the Pamphlet? Do you struggle to keep a straight face when typing the letters STD together?