So I started this blog as a way to document my knitting projects.  Then it morphed into a photoblog, then a documentation of super-secret wedding plans.  And now I feel like my handle “tinkchick” is no longer appropriate (although it does incorporate my love of reading backwards and my gender…hmmm)

Since I haven’t knit a stitch in who knows how long, I hardly photograph anything anymore, and I am currently a married lady, I think this blog needs a new name.  or at least some more consistent subject matter (although I can see how frustrating it must be to watch my interests change like a bored five year old’s.)

 So, in an effort to be even MORE all over the place, I bring you my adventures in househunting.  And by adventures, I mean our frustrations which waver between ennui and hair-tearing.

 I cannot adequately express my dissatisfaction with the current home-buying process.  Since when have the people with the money held less cards?  Has it always been this way?  Is it just because we are “in this economy?”  Either way, I am over it.  I am taking a househunting breather, which means I will still obsessively check the real estate sites and torture myself with houses I cant afford or houses in which i missed the window of opportunity.

 In other news, Jeff’s got  a new band, which means that I get two nights a week to myself back.  Hooray!  Tonight I think I will make roasted tomato soup and grilled cheese (even though I made this exact meal last week).  It is delicious and good for me and it keeps my ass in the kitchen.

I cannot get over how great they turned out.  If I wasnt so scared of the internet, I might post them here, but I am chicken, so…

Anyway.  I am making lemon risotto tonight.  Yum.  It is so nice to be able to come home and make dinner and plop in front of the TV if I am so inclined.  It is just nice to be back to regular ol’ cam and jeff instead of “bride and groom,” since in the weeks leading up to the wedding, “bride” was apparently my name, even though I cant stand that word and everything it implies in this day and age and despite my insistence that no one use the “b word” around me.  If I learned one thing from getting married it is that tradition rules everything.  No matter that you dont want to be referred to as bride, everyone will do it regardless of your requests.  It is supposed to be your special daaaaayyy with everything your way, but if you stray off the traditional beaten path , you will be taken with a grain of salt and tradition will win out in the end, at least when it comes to how everyone treats you.

Anyhoo, the wedding is over, so enough with the nuptial ranting.  Onward, to whatever lies ahead…

 I am now married.  Wow, right?  It feels exactly the same as before I was engaged (seeing as wedding stuff completely dominated my life for the past six months, minimum, and my life during that time could not be considered anything remotely near normal).  It is nice to know that the sense of calm returns and you can reclaim your “me” time.  Which, subsequently, means that knitting will be back in my life.  I tried, in vain, to complete a bag for myself for the wedding, using my long-coveted Tilli Tomas salt and pepper yarn, but I guess now, I will just have to use that for a scarf.  Darn.

 The weeks leading up to the wedding were quite stressful for me.  Having been in the midst of some crazy wedding drama I developed anxiety attacks, complete with heart palpitations and that weird “oh shit!” feeling you get right after you see the cop in the rearview as he is pulling you over.  Now that the wedding is over, the palpitations and anxiety have subsided and I am back to my normal self.  Although I do get a strange nag each time I think about my wedding photos (which should be posted sometime this week, fingers cossed).  I can’t wait to see them!

Um, what else…my job is going along smashingly! 

Ack, as I am writing this, my wedding pics are posted!!!  More later…

I have been busy with work and wedding crap and let’s see, what else?  I guess some yoga and knitting and taking pictures.  So to tackle each one of these, one by one:

Work is awesome.  I love it here.  It is like no one has ever even heard the word “micromanage.”  My boss is currently out on maternity leave and I saw her today for the first time in a while, after she ditched me in a meeting with the director of ops all by myself, but maybe that means she trusts me to handle my own, which i did, so I am doing well here.

The wedding is coming up quickly.  I have everything I need, I think.  Just waiting for it to get here already.  I am really proud and excited about the fact that almost everything in the wedding is handmade, either by me or someone else, but handmade is handmade, right?  I dont want to divulge too many of the details over the internet just yet, but you’ll see soon enough. 

Yoga is still hot as ever.  I have been trying to go twice to three times a week, but I am lucky if i make it once, which means I have resigned to the fact that I will be a chubby chick in a white dress, which is totally fine by me.  I am happy where I am at, obviously, or else I would be scrambling to lose the weight. 

I am currently in process of knitting my bag for the wedding, which kind of went off track from what I originally posted months and months ago.  I decided against a felted bag and am sticking with traditional knitting in the round.  I chose the Noni bag called Starry Starry Night and got this funky silk yarn from Tilli Tomas to bring it all together.  So far so good, but I am only halfway done and I havent knit a stitch in over two weeks.  Oh well, I’ll get it finished eventually right?  Maybe.

And in photography news, I havent been out and about much these days.  I am currently in process of making my dad and jen’s wedding gift though and it is entirely photographic, so I cant wait to see how that comes together.  But that is my only project as of now.  I should go out this weekend and get some more shots, but we’ll see what happens with all this rain we’ve been getting.  I prefer to meander around taking pictures, and if it is raining, I dont particularly feel like meandering, so…

Man I sound so lazy and unmotivated.  And really, I am.  I am so lackadaisical lately since all I want is for the wedding to get here and for me to be on that plane to Cozumel.  Ahhh, better go check the countdown…

…Yep, 38 days ’til paradise…

 …But…since I am here now…

 I am starting yoga back up tonight after a few month hiatus.  I got a jillion gift certificates for yoga over the holidays and birthday season, so I sshould have no reason to not be down twenty pounds by June, right?  We’ll see how that goes…

 In wedding news, the girls’ and guys’ clothing has been ordered and even deliveread already.  A few of them have even tried them on!  What progress.  I also completely redesigned my invites to a more “cool, cam/jeff” theme, which I am extremely proud of.  Gotta get a pic of that up here one of these days.

 In knitting news, I have yarn at home and a pattern on the way for my wedding bag that I will be felting.  New for me and I thought I would never venture to such trendiness, but I gotta admit, trendy or not, I like the look, so pfffttthhhbb!

 What else?  Oh yeah, I am working.  ‘Nuff said.

 Maybe, if i feel up to it, I’ll add my crazy, abstract pics that I am totally obsessed with these days.  Maybe…

 After getting laid off on 12/17, I started submitting resumes, ten at a time, all over the internet.  After four weeks of nothing but spam responses and temp agencies, I got a real-live interview.  It was refreshing to say the least.  

 I went in for the interview and they had me fill out an application and take a reading comprehension test.  For those of you not familiar with reading comprehension tests (as I was not familiar either)  it is a sheet of paper with a few numbered sentences with instructions on each line.  “Draw a circle around the word bag,”  Underline the word medicine,”  Draw a square in the top right corner of this paper,”  “Write the word syringe at the bottom of this paper,” and on and on…until the last sentence “What did you think of this test?”  I jotted down “easy?”

 After filling out the paperwork, I met, for about fifteen minutes (tops), with the HR lady.  She asked simple, non-threatening questions and then we parted ways.  I assumed I was a goner since the interview contained no hard-hitting questions that delved into my experience and background at all.  Although, somehow my psyche still imagined me in the role at that company.  It was very weird.

 A couple days later, I got a call back asking me to come and meet with my would-be manager.  I was so excited!  The interview went extremely well.  She tried to sell me on the job rather than ask the hard-hitting questions, which, in my eyes, seemed like a good sign.  In her spiel, she answered all of my questions that I had prepared (as you do on interviews…) and I told her so, excitedly.  She told me that she “really, really liked [my] resume and [my] personality.”  She also mentioned that she had waited to interview me last, so that she could better make her decision, which baffled me to no end.  I was stumped for all of two hours, when they called and offered me the job.  ON THE SAME DAY THAT I INTERVIEWED!!  I was floored.  I just couldn’t imagine, me, of all the unlucky people in the world, getting off the hook in such dire times.  Never again can I call myself unlucky.  I mean what are the odds of finding a job, in this economy, with Domestic Partner benefits with a starting date that coincides with my severance which means I will be able to receive two concurrent paychecks?  Friggin miracle!

 So now, tomorrow is my last day at my current job.  They are letting us out a couple weeks early, and lucky me, I don’t have to scurry to find a job among the masses looking right now.  I’ve got it made!  So I will be taking the three weeks between this weekend and Feb 23rd (my start date) and taking a vacation.  Well, I wont be going anywhere, but I will be relaxing, doing yoga, reading, doing yoga, knitting, doing yoga…Maybe now I can finally get Dawn her fingerless gloves!

 On the way back, after my phone shit the bed on the trip, we stopped to get our new phones.  I got the new Blackberry Storm and I fucking love it.  Amazing, really.  I HAVE to get a new bag since my current one is falling apart after two brutal years of my abuse and I dont trust it to be sturdy digs for my new gadget.

 In parting, I’ll leave you with some of my images from Nantucket…

 In wedding related news, we have another tasting tonight with the caterers.  Yum, there’s only one thing I like more than cheddar ale soup: free food! 

 So free dinner and a nice mini vaca.  I love it!

 Have a great New Year everyone!

 (And for those of you who don’t know the rest of the limmerick:

 There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it
He walked down the street
Just a-swingin’ his meat
While he carried his balls in a bucket.)

 I am officially in the Christmas spirit!  Yay!  I finished off all of my baking this morning, ready to assemble and pack up my little goodie bags for everyone.

 Too bad I can’t say the same for my knitting projects.  I have been knitting away like a mad woman (knit!  knit like the wind!) to no avail.  I could not get my dad’s scarf finished in time.  Luckily I never told him of my plans to give him a scarf this christmas (technically the scarf I owe him from three christmases ago when i gave him an IOU) so he wont be too disappointed.  Especially since he will be getting a basket full of baked goodies (well, not a basket, because to buy ten baskets would have put me over budget, but they will all get nice gift bags filled with home baked goodness).

 Anyway, just wanted to come on here to wish everyone a happy holiday.

 Ho ho ho!

 …Until yesterday.  When I wrapped all of our gifts, made sugar cookies from scratch, rolled them out, cut them out, iced them, sprinkled them with those crunchy little colorful candy dots.  Yum!  I can’t wait to give everyone their goodies.

 So, that bomb I dropped further up-post?  Yeah, I got laid off.  Wah.  My company, thankfully, is being really cool about it and giving us two month’s notice before we are actually laid off.  So that means I get to come to work for two more months (to, you know, polish up my resume, job search on the company dime, that sort of thing) then I get a nice little severance, that should keep me in the money until I can find another job in this gosh forsaken economy.  So wish me luck.  I’m gonna need it.  I’m off to check Monster…and get paid for it!