Wow, I posted this everywhere but my own blog – that’s a pretty good effort, isn’t it?!

So, on Thursday night Michael and I decided we will get married later this year, on November 7th. We have been dwelling too much on the When, Where, How, Who and What for so long that we forgot all about the Why, so we decided to just do it and get it done with!

So as for the details we have so far (and none are confirmed just yet):

• Ceremony – @ the Tasmanian Arboretum
• Reception – @ our local RSL Club (which we are members of and go to often, know the people there, etc.). We won’t be having a sit-down dinner; just finger-food and drinks, which we think allows people to mingle a little more and not have them restricted to talking to people at the one table.
• Celebrant – we’ve decided on Emma for our celebrant, she’s very flexible with the ceremonies and we don’t want anything denominational (but I’d like an element of a Pagan handfasting in there somewhere).
• Dress – I love this dress as it’s so unique, but I need to try some on locally to make sure it’s the right style for me first. Also, I would change the red lace to hot pink (because of course I need to have hot pink as one of my colours!)
• Wedding Party – Michael has asked his brother-in-law to be his Best Man, and his cousin to be his groomsman; I’ve asked my sister to be my Maid-of-Honour, and my best friend to be my bridesmaid. We decided to choose only two people each, as we thought there might be jealousy amongst both friends and family if there were more and someone didn’t get chosen (!).
• Bridesmaid’s Dresses – I have asked my bridal party to wear whatever they feel is suitable, as long as it’s hot pink or close enough. I don’t want them going out and buying a specially-made dress and only being able to wear it the once.

There you go – that’s the plans so far. We haven’t got a photographer or anything yet, and we don’t want one for the whole ceremony or anything – I have a large family so everyone will no doubt be taking lots of photos, so we just want a photographer for after the ceremony to take a couple of professional shots. We’re awaiting a few quotes from photographers before making a decision.

It’s all very exciting and nerve-wracking – I can’t wait!

Sara of Sarasavestheworld.org is holding a contest where everyone wins! She is donating $20 to a charity of the contest winner’s choice. If I win, the money will go to Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia! Visit the contest page here if you want to enter too!

Even if I don’t win, Sara will make a link for my charity anyway!

From the Tourette.org.au website:

The Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia Inc. is a charitable association set up 1989 for the purpose of serving the needs of people with Tourette Syndrome in our community. Tourette Syndrome is a mainly hereditary, chronic neurological disorder characterised by involuntary vocalisations and body movements called ‘tics’. The TS Association provides education, information and support for its members and interested people throughout NSW. We run support groups and have resources available to explain this condition, which occurs as frequently as 1 in 200 people and is often misdiagnosed or misunderstood. The TS Association of Australia Inc. provides its services without funding and is run by volunteers with experience in the condition.

So it’s been about two and a half weeks since we got back from our break in Melbourne over Easter, which is madness because it seems to have gone sooo quickly. It was great to catch up with friends there, especially Manda since I hadn’t seen her since we moved back to Tassie (that’s about 9 months, people!). It was like we’d never been apart at all, it was excellent.

Anyway, I’ve been busy. I’ve finally got somewhat of a job – I’m doing a website for a local jewellers. Essentially I’ll be running their online side of things – they’ll have an online store and such, and I’m in charge of all that, so it’ll be an ongoing task. I’ll be paid monthly, and the owner of the business said there’s also the possibility of my earning a commission off sales from the website, which is AWESOME. It looks like things are finally starting to look up
Also, we’re looking at getting our own place – we looked at an apartment for rent yesterday, but it was far too small and there weren’t enough powerpoints for us geeky types. Hell, there wasn’t even space for a washing machine, and nowhere to put bathroom products, so we said no. We’re going to look at another place, which is a lot more money (an extra $55 a week) than the one we looked at, but it will hopefully be a lot better. We’ve worked it out and we could survive on Michael’s income alone, but with mine it should be a breeze.

We also got Guitar Hero World Tour! It’s so much fun – I love the drums, finally something I’m good at! We bought it with money that Michael made selling football cards on eBay. Which brings me to my next point – I’m thinking of starting up my jewellery making again – just little beaded things – and selling them on eBay, to bring in a little extra cash. Goodness knows we need as much as we can get right now. So I’m just looking into that now.

School has been highly unmotivating, and I’ve barely touched my work lately. If anyone knows anything about development methodologies, please get in touch with me because I can’t get my freakin’ head around it! (It’s website development, by the way).

Anyway, that’s enough for a quick update. I’ve been flat out otherwise – with this jeweller’s website, mostly, and since my mum’s been working afternoon shifts it’s meant I’ve had to cook for the family, which has been less than inspiring!

Have totally forgotten about Inspirata for a while – I have been focusing more on school, since I started that on the 24th March, and also on the spirituality side of things, so sorry about that.

I have applied for Youth Allowance (government assistance) whilst I’m studying, but it turns out I’m only eligible for $50 every 2 weeks because Michael earns too much – go figure. But I did put down a budget and worked out that if we were paying $130 a week rent (and there’s a place available for that right now), and adding in groceries, electricity, etc., we would be able to do it on his wage. If I were to get a part-time job, all the better.

Anyway, since talking about that kind of gets me a little antsy and irritable, I have also made my very first plans for celebrating Samhain this year. Samhain, for those of you who don’t know, is pronounced ‘Sow-ween’ and it is the Witches’ New Year, as well as a commemorative day of the departed, particularly those we have lost in the last 12 months. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is held on the 31st October (Halloween), but here in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s at the start of May. I will be going ‘camping’ (aka simply sleeping in a tent; there’ll be actual toilets and showers available) at a Pagan Alliance member’s house. It’s a fancy dress thing – gothic or emo dress – so I’m looking forward to that. What I’m not looking forward to is the drive down – it’s an almost 4 hour drive, which is a really long time to be sitting in a car, but I suppose it could be worse. But I’m really excited about that, since I’ve never been to an actual event for a Sabbat; I’ve only ever done my own thing.

We’re going to Melbourne for the Easter break (Friday 10th – Sun 12th) so I won’t be here then. Looking forward to catching up with my sister, my friends and Michael’s family.

Anyway, I think that pretty much catches you all up. Sorry if I don’t update here as often, since I’m doing school work too, I have to dedicate a lot of time to that.

Take care

Feels like ages since I last posted, but it’s only been 5 days. I guess my days have been dragging or something.

I did stocktake on Saturday. It was okay, but I don’t think I’d do it again. It was pretty simple work, very monotonous (just scanning items on racks). The worst thing is that my body was absolutely buggered by the end of it – standing up and walking around for 6 hours without a break to sit down took its toll. Yesterday (Sunday) I could barely walk, and couldn’t even get up out of my seat without assistance – thank god it was a Sunday and Michael was home to help me out. I’ve tried to keep moving but it is very painful. I’m still sore today, and had to get my dad to take me around to the post office to post my bestie’s birthday present. The post office is less than a 10 minute walk from our house, so that’s saying something about the pain I’m in. This is just showing me that I need to get moving more often.

I did go for three 30+ minute walks last week – on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with my mum and our family friend. We’re trying to make it a habit, although it’s difficult for my mum, with shift work, but I at least go with our friend and the dog, and get a half hour in.

As for weight loss, nothing’s happening yet. I hit a low when I put on weight over the last few days, but I haven’t been eating well (despite exercising quite a bit). It’s slowly coming back off, but yeah it was kind of disappointing. Just have to regain my enthusiasm that I had in January.

I put in an expression of interest for school last Wednesday, but am still awaiting someone to contact me to confirm. I hate waiting for people, especially since I’m doing or have done everything I can and then it’s just up to someone else. Freakin’ hell it’s frustrating.

Anyway, totally babbling now. I shall post again in a day or two.