more wedding crap

We have started ordering items for the wedding. I went through oriental trading company for a lot of stuff. They seem to have nice things for a price we can afford. So far we have the grooms gifts and bridesmaid's gifts, flower girl and ring kid gifts, garders and treat bags. I also went out and got the veil thingy, which I kind of don't understand the point of since Rob and I live together so he has already seen my face. But apparently since my dress is strapless, dad wants a veil to cover my tattoos. You can still see them through the veil, so again, I am not too sure why this was so flippin' important. We have the invites, we just haven't printed them out. I got my shoes, they are $10.00 white ballet slippers so I am not towering over Rob. He is already a bit shorter than I am.
The list of stuff we need is still really long though. We still need a cake, flowers and center pieces (I hear these are extremely important..for some reason)as well as brides maid dresses and grooms and grooms men's suits. the list is endless. I am glad we started planning now, since a picture person runs about 2 grand alone. *sigh* I am not sure why things are so expensive when it's just for a day. It seems starting out your marriage in debt up to your eyeballs is the norm, but I have a mortgage to pay and Rob needs braces. It's pretty funny to see all the wedding magazines where the couple have this huge lavish wedding that costs tons of money and they are younger than Rob and I. I wonder what they do for a living and how much debt they are in. Maybe I needed to pick a higher paying job that was less fulfilling, instead of going for a job that made me feel like I made a difference in a kid's life.
I don't like planning big events like this, I don't know how to organize stuff like this. A coordinater costs more money, but maybe worth it to get the pressure off. I have a year to stress out about everything. The worst part is I have no one to blame but myself, it all started when I fell in love with a dress, and I had to build a wedding to match it. If I stayed out of the dress store, I would still be getting married in my parents back yard or a nice normal small stress free court house. Here's the kicker, I don't even remember what the stupid dress looks like! I haven't seen it for 2 months! We ordered it and I am sure it is being made somewhere in a sweat shop in China by tiny children who only get paid $.8 a day! I can't even recall the beading or the shape of it. I just know it's strapless and has some green on it. For the love of all that is Holy!!!!!! I have dug myself in way too deep to turn back now. The parents were kind enough to pay for the wedding venue and mom got her fancy dress already and she LOVES it! She looks amazing in it!
Just think, it's going to be a whole year of posts like this. Me freaking out and second guessing ever move I make. It's like year long torture. Poor Rob. Poor poor unknowing Rob. I have hid my crazy from him for over a year already, it's getting harder and harder to pass off my mental break downs as p.m.s. At some point he will look at the wall calendar and figure out I am just slowly going bat crap crazy.
So thank you for reading my post and letting me vent. Keep up with my page to watch me spiral down into bridzilla like tantrums. That way the asylum had documentation of why I have to be in a padded room in a "hug me jacket". Maybe they have a whole room full of brides, I should suggest it when I get there.

wedding plans

Okay so the wedding plans as annoying is they are, are going well. We have a venue we have a guest list and food. We have the dress and a groom. We have my shoes (they are white slippers) and we have the invites (only 60) we even have our d.j. but we are getting there. Rob and I started a wedding fund so we can put money in it and when we need to buy stuff we use the money outta that account so we can still pay bills. We still need a cake, a person to take awesome pictures and a few other things. But we have a year to save and a year to spend. I am trying not to panic. I have only cried 4 times while doing our budget.......I honestly thought this would be fun, it's not. we should have eloped.

He's my Elvis

So one of my favorite authors in the whole wide world came to Capitola California yesterday. He was doing a book signing and a talk. Thanks to authortracker.com I was lucky enough to get a heads up on his book tour. So since Mom and Natalia read his books too we asked my Dad to drive us an hour away to Capitola so I could get my books signed. I finally did something with my summer that was such an amazing experiance that I still am freaking out about it. I can't belive I met Christopher Moore! His talk was hilarious and fasinating. Dad even strted reading his books now because he was so inpressed with Mr. Moore. I borught 5 books for him to sign since the rest of my collection of his books were lent out and never returned. He signed them all and posed for a photo. I was so happy! I am still happy. I think it may be one of my happiest days ever. I just wish the picture looked better. I could swear Natalia and I looked like normal cute chicks but when we looked at the picture after, Natalia looked like she gained 50 pounds and had a gap tooth and I have 9 chins insted of my usual 3. uuughhhh we so photo blew it. Anyway, if you guys would want to read any of his books they are all awesome. But my personal fave is: LAMB. Mom's favorite is: PRACTICAL DEAMON KEEPING and dad is currently reading: A DIRTY JOB. If you get the chance to read any of his work, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
On a wedding note, Rob and I have set a tentative date of October 22, 2011. We still have to look at our budget and a place to have it. The dress has a deposit already, so that has been figured out. Good news is we have a year to slowly pay for things and make changes, Bad news is Rob needs braces and thats crazy expensive. The other cruddy news is, well honestly Rob is a sacurity guard and I am a teacher's aide, so we make about as much as the paper boy combined. Gurrrrr. I found a book about weddings on a budget and read it cover to cover, there is a ton of great hints to help out, but the more I read, the more I despreatly want to take the deposit on the dress back and go to a drive through wedding in vegas. I forgot how much I hated planning the 1st wedding. It's amazing how the prices for wedding crap has gone up in the past 10 years. It seems to me that it's not the wisest thing to start out a marraige in serious debt. I was looking at veils on like and the lowest priced one I found was $37.00! For the love of everything holy and pure, it's a flippin' veil! So apparntly I will be making my own or skipping it all together. I next looked at flowers.....yeah I said flowers. Apparently normal flowers are decently priced, but if you type in the word wedding first, all of a sudden they are tripple the price! uughhhh! Honestly, they just die anyway! So I will ither go fake or someone's garden will be harvested in the middle of the night. After the flowers, I looked at cake. A normal round cake is about $20.00 at the highest. But low and behold you type the word wedding in and BOOM! now it's $450.00 at the lowest. I called and asked why such a high mark up and they said the frosting is more expensive.....really.....thats what they said. I even asked if they mixed crack in it or black market babies but she said no, just a good butter, then hung up on me. So maybe buying a few round cakes and stacking them up maybe the way to go. How hard could it be to decorate a cake? After the cake phone call, I was too scared to look for food people or a hall or anything at all. Eloping isn't an option now that the dress is 1/2 paid for and mom has seen it. What have I gotten us into? Why did Rob have to insist on a non-court room wedding? Why did I agree to putting a deposit on a dress? (the dress is amazing and perfect and it makes me look like I am thin and have a butt) I may have bought the dress just to vacumme in it. Why? why? why am I an idiot?
But I met Christopher Moore! and thats all that matters right now. I have to keep thinking of that so I don't crank call wedding venders in my area.

Summer Vacation

Summer vacation has started. I made so many plans. I wanted to hang out with all my other pals. Natalia and her brother Rodrigo are un-employed so they have lots of time on their hands. However, everytime we make plans somthing comes up and we end up trying another day. Rob and I made plans as well, but he ended up having training on all the days he had off. I have been pretty desprate for somthing to do, besides clean the house and stalk Edward Cullen on the internet. I have managed to read 7 books in about 2 weeks. I hang out with the parents playing scrabble at the coffee shop. We sit out side and play so mom can work on her tan. Apparently the natural light makes it far too easy for my mom to pin point all my grey hairs and my new wrinkles. Sending me into a spiral of self doubt and fear. I end up making an apointment to dye my hair and research the prices of botox. gurrrrr.....
At least I have Jelly-Bean. He doesn't seem to care what I look like. bonus points for him! He has managed to worm his way deeper into our hearts. Honestly I always liked the stupid bird, but now it borders on obsesive. We buy him toys off the internet, the bird gets more mail and packages than we do. He has a place on the couch between us. He has the run of the house, he climbs off his cage and hops to us when he wants to cuddle. He even took over the blanket Auntie Elaine gave me for x-mas! If we try to use it, he hightails it over to the couch and climbs up the blanket and burrows under it! He drinks my orange juice and my coffee when I'm not looking. We even rent him bird movies from discovery channel. When Rob comes home from work, the bird gets kissed first, when I come home from work the bird gets kissed first. It's finally dawned on us, we are parents. I don't know how it happened, he was suposed to be a pet, he was suposed to be something that we just feed and ignore. Now we have a bird car seat, seed on the floor, special blankets for him and extra money spent on ways to entertain him. So even though I will never have to save for a college fund or bail money and I don't need to buy clothing, I will never need to bring cup cakes to his class for his birthday....I have a kid, he just has feathers. I can't even blame my stretch marks on him. On that note, I gotta go, someone needs sunflower seeds and fresh bathwater....

*yawn*

sadly, I have nothing cool to report.....The most exciting thing that Rob and I have done in the past month is ordering fushigi balls off the interwebs due to our massive boredom. We have not recived them yet, but are eagerly awaiting their arrival like a kid waiting for the decoder ring at the bottom of the cereal box.
Summer school will be over next week and I will have 3 weeks off, and I have been told by the parentals that I have to unpack the last 6 boxes from my move into the condo. All the boxes contain "childish" things like sailor moon dolls and kid's toys. Mom forbade me to display such items in my new condo because I am an "adult". so if I am suposed to unpack them, yet can't desplay them.....what do I do with them? How do I make this woman happy? I am at a loss.
So the parents will be heading out your way to Utah on sunday, day after tomorrow. Natalia will watch their house and take care of the cat, since my parrot is a 2 year old with flock behavior and can't be left alone, and Rob can't be left alone cuz all he can cook is rice. I can't bring the bird to my parent's house cuz the cats will just tourture him. So Natalia is way more cat savy than I am. I tend to forget that they are around unless they are meowing and junk. So I would expect my parents to show up around Monday late or Tuesday early.
Anyway, we still haven't bothered even planning a wedding or even a date, we just say Octoberish 20011ish. I am pretty much inclide to just hit up a courthouse and get it done with, no fru fru dress, no going in debt planning anything,no having to scout out some location, no dancing....no drama or headache.....sounds perfect to me. Although I would love a huge halloween costume party shindig.....dangit! what do I do? lol

yeahhhhhhh

sorry, I haven't posted in forever. the blogger stopped letting me post pictures so I kinda gave up. I'm always on facebook though and I have tons of pictures up there. Today was the last day of school, then I have a week offf before I have to start summer school. I hate teaching summer school, no one wants to be there, most of all me. But apparently the morgage needs to be paid so yeah.... Both mom and dad's birthdays past and they had a great time. dad got old dorky movies with giant ants in black and white and fake monsters and didn't force us to watch them so it was a win win. Mom ended up getting a new cat because punkin up and walked out on her one day and didn't come home. After 4 weeks she wrote him off. oddly enough when we went to the shelter on her birthday to get a new cat, we found one named punkin pie. So we got it for her, it's a girl cat this time, she always wanted a girl, and now she has one. So she is pretty happy about it. It just seemed like a good sign since her name was the same as the last one.
Rob and I got engaged in April, but are waiting to get married for a few years since we both have been divorced. I will let you know the details when the ball gets rolling. I did get one heck of a ring though. lol But since it's so far away we haven't even started planning or have a date, so don't get too excited. All we know is we would like October as close to halloween as we can. Just because it would be fun to have a dorky halloween wedding and not get all formal, just costumes and good times. :)

How to tame your dragon

So today we took my class to see how to tame your dragon. Since where the wild things are was such a let down, I was kind of worried. I was super happy when the movie started and the kids all seemed to enjoy it. There was enough action scenes to hold their interest and it was full of adorable dragons that start out kinda scary, but quickly turn into cuddly dragons. I also enjoyed it a lot. I happen to own bearded dragons so maybe I am a bit biased, but it turned out to be a great movie. So unlike where the wild things are, I actually recommend this movie to you guys. It's not too scary for the little ones and the big kids will like it too.
Spring break starts Friday and I can't wait. Honestly it seems like forever since we had vacation time. Rob has Wed and Thurs off so I can finally take him to Pier 39 and fisherman's wharf. He has been waiting a while to go there, our schedules never seem to work out to have days off together. He really wants to have clam chowder in a sough dough bread bowel.
As for me, I kinda just wanna sleep in and play with Jelly-Bean. This bird and I apparently have Bonded to the point that I can't even feed Nauhal's 5 month old son a bottle with out Jelly-Bean getting jealous. Rob has bonded well to the bird as well. The bird "love vomits" on him. lol! When a parrot loves you a lot, it tends to share it's food with you by regurgitating it between your fingers...like it's feeding it's young. So I get the kisses and cuddles and all the good stuff and Rob gets puked on...seems like a fair deal to me. LOL We have managed to teach him 3 words. He says Hi! Night night and really. Of course he only says things when he wants too, leading my parents to believe we are crazy. But finally he said hi in front of my mom. I also trained him to poop when I tell him too, so less laundry for a change. I adore this dumb bird. He cracks me up and I find myself rushing home so we can play together and cuddle. Rob pointed out that I kiss the bird before him when I get home....oops. I would post pictures, but for some reason the blogger wont let me do it. Oh well. love you guys!

Spirit week at work

So this week was spirit week at the school I work at. Usually I don't participate because it requires us to wear various goofy things and I usually have some other place to go after work but I managed to do a few things. Monday was wear your school t-shirt day...I missed that mainly because I got a really cute dress over the weekend and wanted to wear that instead. Tuesday was crazy hat day....I missed that regardless of the fact that I happen to have an over abundance of dorky hats that would have worked just fine. Wednesday was Dr. Suess day so we were supposed to wear something striped....yeah big girls don't usually have striped clothing, it adds pounds. Thursday was crazy hair day...that I did, I own several nut ball wigs, if you open my closet you would think that I rob banks and have a ton of drag queen friends. I wore a wig and scared one of my students to the point he wouldn't even sit next to me....i should wear it more often. Friday was pajama day....I wore what I slept in, it's light blue jammie pants with polka-dots and a solid navy blue t-shirt. I had to gas up before work so I stopped by the gas station to fill up, as I was filling up, a lady came to me and asked me about a mole on her lower back...apparently my pajamas look like nurse's scrubs. I saw her butt crack. Never again will I do pajama day at school. Any way, I am on facebook and if you guys wanna find me, I tend to be on that more so than the e blogger I am under the user name Alison pandora or go by my e-mail squawpandora@yahoo.com.

Valentines day FAIL

I have been sick since Feb 6Th. By sick I mean the always fun, cold and cramps combo. I took the 9Th and the 10Th off. The 11Th was a half day so I pushed though it and we had the 12Th off. We also had Monday (yesterday) off, so you would think I would be well by now, two days off and then a four day weekend. But no I woke up this past Saturday with all kinds of bad things coming out of me. Poor Rob trying to figure out what to do when I am behind a closed bathroom door crying in pain. Does he enter and help? Or run and save himself? He called my mom...smart guy. I managed to be sick for Valentines day, but scored TWO boxes of chocolates from Rob. He said one box was for me and one box was for the demon inside me that yells at him once a month for clipping his toenails too loud. I got him a card that sang happy together by the turtles. I received some great fever blisters from my scorching fever a few days ago, so now I look like a leper Needless to say romance was tossed aside for a high five and a jug of purel. I was cheered up by a the card auntie Elaine sent me though, always makes me laugh. So i always complain when I am stuck at home about day time t.v. It's worse when you have a four day weekend and have to spend it in bed. Or the bathroom. I have learned tons of things: you can hide a body in tar because no one can smell it decay (thank you C.S.I re-runs) The naughty step is the best punishment (thank you super nanny) Verizon wireless and metro pcs both have maps and hate each other (thank you guy who throws the post cards) And the whole world and everyone who lives in a house is haunted by ghosts who are bad (thank you ghost hunters, paranormal state, ghost cops, haunted homes and ghost adventurers) oh and my arse falls asleep within 2 hours of laying in the fetal position crying because I can't reach the remote and Rob doesn't get home from work for 8 hours. So Since I held down a half a pancake yesterday, I figured I could go to work. I went to work and almost made it to the second period when My tummy started flip flopping. I was sent home from work and told not to come back until i am "symptom free for 24 hours." yeahhhhh more time at home....I think I have already seen EVERY made for t.v.movie starring Tori Spelling, I have paid my dues. I want to get the heck outta this house and not be sick anymore! I wanna be able to breathe outta my nose, keep for in me for longer than an hour, i want my body to not be sore anymore, I want my eye to stop leaking that gross stuff, I want to be able to kiss rob on the lips instead of high five him.....uuggghhh all this complaining has made me sleepy.

ahhhh parents

School started up again on Monday, I didn't want to go back. Honestly, I do love the fact that in these uncertain times that I am employed, but 2 weeks never seems enough time off. My students get off the bus surprisingly happy when vacation is over. A fact that doesn't escape me is they are all special needs and don"t quite grasp the concept of time, vacation, the joy of sleeping in and that you HAVE to wear clothing at school. As cranky as I can be on a Monday returning from a vacation, they jump, limp, waddle or wheel themselves off the bus and i get drooly hugs and kisses and huge smiles. Then I like my job for about an hour, till some one barfs or poops on me. Regardless, my job is quite entertaining if not full of surprises, mostly because of the kids. Sometimes it's shocking and sad because of the parents, it's an emotional job. You have the extreme parents: These parents expect miracles, they hire or get the district to hire specialists on top of the regular teachers to help their disabled child to learn things. This is great, but if your child has a hearing specialist, a vision specialist, a speech specialist an occupational specialist and a tech specialist, they are out of the classroom 90% of the time with these people working on goals. This leaves 10% of the day for diapering, feeding and the basic goal that we are working on like recognizing their written name. Then the parents complain and say we aren't doing our job cuz the kid can't find his name on the board. Then you have the stalker parent: This parent doesn't just drop their kid off, he/she stays to talk to the staff and inquire about our personal lives and follows us into the classroom. Most of the time stalker parents have no jobs, they have all day to drop by unannounced and disrupt the class. They usually have younger siblings in tow who aren't in school yet making it even more disruptive to pop into class for no reason. Then there are the stealth parents: these parents are sneaky, usually they don't speak English and don't answer phone calls when their child needs a change of clothing. They manage to drop their kid off with our classroom while waiting outside for the buses to come without ever saying a word or us seeing them. then we turn around and find the kid quietly nestled among the kids who have already arrived leaving us wondering when the kid was dropped off or has he/she been here all along and we are loosing our minds. these parents are the ones who never open the kids back pack to retrieve notes, home work, art projects or the x-mas gift we had made in class and it's now broken. There are the phantom parents: not to be confused with the before mentioned stealth parent. These parents have their kid bussed to school. It can be years before we actually see this parent. Sometimes they are just voices on the phone. This parent never seems to show up when their is a meting or a birthday often leaving the staff scrambling to come up with enough money to run to the store to get birthday cup cakes. These parents never send a classroom snack even when it's their turn and fail to sign field trip papers so their child has to be left behind when we go on a fun outing making us feel rotten for having to follow the rules. There is the day care parent: this parent has zero goals for their child. They think we are a day care instead of an educational institution. They have pretty much giving up and let the child run their lives. They don't take the child anywhere because of their behavior and just stay at home. They think nothing of their child grabbing others or exposing themselves to others. Often times if the child doesn't like to bathe the parent lets them go with out for weeks. They usually explain away inappropriate behaviors with a swat of their hand and say "he is special." usually a parent like this derails all the teaching we have done over a weekend simply for not enforcing and rules. We have to start again every Monday. Then we have the rare balanced parents: these parents will always check backpacks help their child with homework and not just do it for them, they sign all papers, show up for meetings, read what we have sent home and prepare the child for the next day with all their needs, they can always answer the phone and get to school with a change of clothing if needed, always have cash for a field trip, know when to step back and when to be involved, they ask what we are doing and follow it up at home. Oddly enough these rare balanced parents all seem to be teachers in another school. Go figure. After 10 years of teaching special needs, I have decided that if I ever ended up squirting out a kid, I would end up a stealth parent. I just have that feeling. LOL

me and rob at the aquarium

At Monterrey bay aquarium.

rob goofing around

sea dragon

jelly fish

rob

mom and dad at the Egyptian museum

rob and I at the Egyptian museum

Rob's birthday cake. I made it. LOL

Rob and I waiting for the count down

Elisa Natalia and me on new years eve waiting for the count down.

So Rob had a birthday right after x-mas but he had to work so I made him a cake and called it a party. LOL then we went to the Egyptian museum for his birthday in san jose. The next day we took him to the Monterrey bay aquarium for some sight seeing. Then we spent new years eve with Natalia's family. super fun and super busy. Vacation is almost over and I don't wanna go back to work, but I guess I have to. Hope everyone had a a great new years. love you!