Houston, We Have a Guest List

I am a huge planner when it comes to something I'm excited about. We are still ten or eleven months until the wedding (we haven't even set a date yet - we'd have to meet with the parish associate/ deacon and he's out of town this week), but I am planning everything I can. I think my fear is that, once I get into the semester, school work will have me bogged down and unable to plan.

We have our guest list.

We've already contacted (through my aunt) a sweet DJ who offered us a sweet deal.

We've been working out a budget.

We've been researching locations, cried at how expensive they are, etc. etc. Now we're trying to decide whether to use the parish hall or go with an outdoors, more expensive by at least $900, but probably way more once you factor in the cost of a tent, venue. The parish hall has two really beautiful patios, but I'm not sure how you'd incorporate them. The smaller one is off of the reception hall, but the larger one is at the back of the parish life center, on the bottom floor, and overlooking the blacktop.

I've also taken my ring to be resized! I am anxiously awaiting its return - we dropped it off on Monday and the jeweler said it could be a whole week until we get it back. In the meantime, I've been wearing an imitation sapphire costume ring of my Mom's, just because wearing a ring makes me feel like an engaged woman. My brothers think I'm being ridiculous. "Shouldn't being engaged to Jordan make you feel like an engaged woman?" I can't explain it, either to them or myself, but seeing a ring on that special finger gives me the warm-and-fuzzies. :)

We're also thinking about doing paper flowers for the bouquet - Jordan made me a gorgeous bouquet of paper roses for Valentine's Day last year and I've kept them, so paper bouquets and boutonnieres would mean something to us and they'd help lend that cutesy, folksy feel I'm hoping for. I'm brimming over with ideas! Now that I've gotten over my oh-god-this-is-going-to-be-so-hard-oh-god phase, I'm really excited. :)

I know the wedding is still nearly a year away, but it's never too early to plan, right? Right?

We've also been playing Cass's Wii yesterday and today. I love this thing.

A Christmas Engagement Story

The engagement would have caught me completely off-guard, if it hadn't been for the tell-tale signs leading up all week! I knew the kind of rings that Jordan was looking at and, since he had just started his job a few months ago, I didn't think a ring would be heading my way soon.

Jordan and his Mom had been talking about going to Covington to get her heirloom trunk refinished as a Christmas present from his Granny. Since the truck really only holds two people comfortably, they had informed me that I needed to stay home. I wasn't too pleased with the prospect of staying at home all day by myself while they went to Covington without me, but Jordan assured me that it was "really necessary" and that the reason for the trip was actually a present for me. Still frustrated and somewhat mystified, I talked to my friend Katie, who told me that she thought Jordan was going to propose! This had been a subject between me and Katie for quite a while, so it's nothing new for us to speculate.

Jordan seemed excited all week. When I went to a sorority Christmas party with my sister Ashley, he told me that he had some last-minute shopping to do to finish my Christmas present. He even told me the stores that he needed to go to: Hobby Lobby and Walgreens. I could tell that he was especially excited and couldn't wait to give me my Christmas present. Usually we are really good at keeping secrets, but he could hardly contain himself, so I knew this was something big. Katie's suggestion was looking more and more plausible! As we left Thursday afternoon, Jordan's mother was crying and hugging us, so I was definitely suspicious then, but I still couldn't understand how an engagement would be financially possible for us yet.

We had already decided to give each other our presents on Christmas morning. When I woke up, I had a casserole to cook, a Christmas snack tree to make, and cookies to decorate. I had decided we would at least cook the casserole before opening gifts. While I cooked the casserole, I sent Jordan to Walgreens to pick up some pictures we had developed to fill an album we bought for my parents as a Christmas present.

Jordan had four or five presents under the tree and I just had a single package, about 8 x 8 and an inch or so thick. I wanted him to open his presents first.

After he opened his presents (dvds - Taken and The Hangover, sleep pants, and body wash - bar glasses came later), it was time for me to open mine. I don't actually have any pictures of the present itself, because I was too busy opening it! I was nervous and excited. When I opened the present, I found that it was a scrapbook that matched the one he had given me for our first anniversary in 2009.

I'll let you read as I read:

 "Mandi: My Girlfriend

This is Mandi. We've been dating for 27 months, and I want to show you our relationship.

Let's take a look!

This is one of the first pictures I have of Mandi. She and I were going to the zoo! We weren't dating... yet :)

I always thought Mandi was one cool chick. She's smart, funny, thoughtful, caring - so many things...

She's so cool :)

I knew for a long time that I loved Mandi.
I could feel it in my heart.
She means everything to me.

'I love you.'

<-- 80s Ballin'

We had (and still have) lots of fun!

Cowboy hats or Halloween, we have fun. But, it's not just about fun. I love Mandi. Everything about us fits together. I can't imagine us apart.

We've traveled everywhere together...

... I've even been around the world twice to see her!

 We've been sick...

... We've pick-a-nicked

I love to see Mandi smile. It reminds me of how much she loves me...

... and I love her

 We make each other joyous, happy, and loving.

We should always be this way.

(and we will!)

Our hearts tell us that we share...

... a special sort of connection

 ... a love so much refin'd

which makes me end where I began...

... a love not envious, boastful, or proud, but a patient, kind, protective love

Our love always protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. Without it, we are nothing.

 I love you more than mere words are able to express.

I want to always be with you.

I want to always show my love for you.

Mandi,

Will you Marry Me?"











This whole time, I had been sitting on the floor and he had been sitting on the couch. When I looked up at him, his knee was eye-level to me. Perched on it was this ring:

I've been wearing it on my pinkie finger since we need to get it resized. He had picked it up from his mom's safe-deposit box that Monday, as it's a family heirloom. He knew my ring size was a 9 and knew that his mom had told him the ring was a 6 or 7, but he had tried it on his pinkie finger (which he had determined was the same thickness as my ring finger) and found that it almost fit, so he hoped it would fit on my ring finger. It almost did, but not well enough! We're going tomorrow to get it resized at a jeweler here in West Nashville that my family has used for years. I did manage to get some pictures of it crammed on my ring finger though. This was taken immediately after he proposed:

After the proposal, we called all our family and close friends and finished making the casserole, snack tree, and cookies. We were an hour late to my family Christmas party after all was said and done. We were really happy to share our happiness, ring, scrapbook and story with the whole family. About ten or fifteen minutes after we arrived, my cousin got engaged as well! 

We're so happy and are glad to share our happiness with our family and our friends! 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everybody! Jordan and I got engaged yesterday! I'll give a more-in depth post soon. For now: 

On Academic Dishonesty and Other Fun Things

While I've been away, the semester ended. I got all of my grading done, turned in all of my assignments, saw my students' final grades, saw my own final grades, and have been relaxing since in Memphis with Jordan  and his family. 

I also had my very first experience with catching academic dishonesty as a teaching assistant, prompting me to look back on my own academic history and experiences with plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty.

Cheating (at school) is not uncommon. I once had a student come to me in the writing center with a "research paper" composed entirely of un-cited quotes strung together one after the other, with minimal discussion or original thought. When I asked the student (an adult student in the business masters program at my undergraduate institution) what she was thinking in crafting such an obviously plagiarized document, she simply responded by giving me a confused look. "Isn't this how you do a research paper?"

Extreme example that this is, the nature of academic dishonesty still seems to be misunderstood. Students think that they can get away with passing off another's thoughts for his or her own on a minor assignment. Parents think it's okay to write their teenager's papers for him or her. Friends in study groups have little to no qualms about copying each other's answers. I know. In my academic career, I've been confronted with all of these situations. 

Academic dishonesty is still dishonest. While I understand that many don't consider school to be "the real world," no one can argue that school isn't, at the least, a foundation for students who will one day, as adults, enter the real world. Dishonesty is dishonesty, whether you're stealing supplies from work, fudging the numbers so that you can line your own pockets, or googling "thomas jefferson" to save time on an assignment.

That student in the master's program was a businessperson, taking someone else's ideas, not giving credit and offering them as her own! In the corporate world, stealing a coworker's project and pretending that it's yours may have more concrete and disastrous results, but it's no less ethical than stealing someone else's paper. Besides, it's bad practice - if you can't do your own research paper in school, how can you trust yourself with your own work and projects in your career? 

This may come off as preachy, but it's born from years as a student, as a writing center tutor, as a teaching assistant, and, perhaps most importantly, good strong Catholic guilt. 

Happy Christmas break to students everywhere! 

Holidays!

Today marked the official beginning of my holiday season!

Jordan and I met Mom, my aunt (dad's sister), and my grandmother at Woodlawn Cemetery to put out Christmas flowers for Dad's side of the family. After that, we drove to Calvary Cemetery (official cemetery of the Diocese of Nashville) to put out flowers for Nana's family.

Then Jordan and I set out to go shopping to finish buying gifts for a family we adopted from St. Luke's Community House. I believe they still have some families and seniors available for adoption, if anyone is interested. I definitely recommend it - St. Luke's does great things in West Nashville, and some of the families they sponsor lost their homes and possessions in the May flood.

We ended up at the Cool Stuff, Weird Things shop on Charlotte Avenue and I got a pair of vintage Christmas serving trays for $1.50 each. From there, it was to Target where we finished our shopping.

Tonight we went to Harpeth Hills where my Pawpaw is buried to see the graves all lit up. It's so peaceful, beautiful and quiet that it was hard for me to be afraid of the great unknown:

We finished up the night by wrapping the presents we bought today at Nana's and helping her wrap her presents for the family. It was a really great day. :)

"Although it may not look exactly like the cover of a magazine, it's still beautiful to me"

One of my new favorite shows this year is Mike & Molly on CBS. Since I'm usually writing papers or grading when this show comes on, my Mom has taken to recording it for me on DVR so I can watch it when I come home. Some of you may remember when I posted this article last week:

http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/dating-blog/overweight-couples-on-television

Long story short, this blogger blasted the show for depicting two overweight couples in love, stating, among other things, that she doesn't want to see two overweight (she draws a distinction between overweight and plump) people kissing, just like she doesn't want to see overweight people doing anything as mundane as walking across the room. She also criticized the show for normalizing obesity.

I watched the Mike & Molly Thanksgiving show tonight. In the thanksgiving speech, Billy Gardell, the actor who plays Mike, gives a barely perceptible response to the article (0:19 in the video below). This scene is so beautiful to me, with the imperfect family, tactless friends, and uninvited guests enjoying a moment of pure happiness around the Thanksgiving table. The look Gardell gives Melissa McCarthy (Molly) when he utters the line leaves no mistaking its intention.



On this Thanksgiving, I am so thankful for the love I've found with the most amazing man, and the past two years that we've spent as a couple.

Tomorrow is about appreciating our family and friends, and being thankful for the good things in our lives. Although none of us, nor the events we plan, are perfect, as this episode points out, I hope that we're all happy with the celebration we've been given, and with the people we celebrate it with.

No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine

I'm starting this blog hoping that it will be a cathartic exercise for me, what with the various pressures associated with graduate school (MA, Public History, Archival Management). I've had a livejournal for several years (peachykeenjane.livejournal.com) that I actually kept updated while I was an undergrad, but I haven't written in it seriously for about a year and a half or so.

So, some things about me:

I love living in Middle Tennessee. My family is here and I love the climate and scenery. I love being able to come to every one of our monthly family dinners (hosted at my nana's home in West Nashville). We had one of those this afternoon, and the November weather was so mild that we were able to sit outside comfortably for a couple of hours. Love it.

I'm getting ready to start writing my thesis, and I'll be finished with coursework in the Spring. I imagine this will be a source of discussion on the blog.

I've been dating a sweet boy for a little over two years. He's my sweetheart and I hope to keep him around forever :)

I work as a teaching assistant and as an archival digital projects assistant at my university. I enjoy grading and holding office hours more than most people probably should.

Anyway, thanks for following me on this daily journey of self-discovery!