Everyone seems to be abandoning xanga.  Which means I don't have a means of monitoring anyone's updates anymore.  Should I remain the lone holdout for xanga and just deal with the fact that I have to go out of my way to see what's going on in everyone's lives?  I'm already out of touch with people, and this just makes them that much farther away.

The audio visual group at my church here (with whom I volunteer) gave me a small gift as I'm getting ready to move.  It was a hand-made journal, and a cup of orange and white (french vanilla) jelly belly's, to remind me of the Longhorns who will be missing me.   I brought them to work today and have been munching all morning (if you can use the word munching to describe eating jelly beans), and they are absolutely delicious!  It was so sweet of them, and I will miss them, and for once I don't mind the orange and white.

I woke up Tuesday morning with some sort of nasty bug bite on the bottom of my second toe on my left foot (that one that for most people is longer than their big toe, but mine isn't).  Well, it's caused that toe and my third toe to swell up, and it's now painful to walk and the toes look terrible.  The bottoms are purple/red and it feels like the circulation to the toes has been cut off (probably by the swelling).  I'm stopping by Walgreens on my way home from work to get some hydrocortisone cream or something.  And if that doesn't help, or it hasn't improved by tomorrow, I'm going to the doctor.

I can't imagine what bit me... I even washed sheets Monday night, so there shouldn't have been anything in my bed.  I suspect it's a spider, because I find lots of them in my apartment, although I'd rather not think about one being in my bed... :-\  I've never lived anywhere with more bugs than this apartment.  I'm glad to be moving to a house that's... 50... years... old... nevermind.  I don't think that will solve my bug problems, but at least I'll have someone to kill them for me.    Not that I mind, I kill bugs all the time, I'm just looking forward to not having to do it.

It's getting really difficult to plan a wedding when I work 40 hrs a week, spend at least one weekend a month (if not 2) with my fiancé (either here or there, and either way is hard to get anything done, although we try), and plan a wedding where I'm the only one that can do anything, since my mom and my future mother-in-law are both out of state, my maid of honor and one bridesmaid live out of town, and my other bridesmaid can't drive.  On top of all that, I'm trying to find a job, get ready to move, and spend what time I have left with the people I'll be leaving behind.  It's a good thing I'm having a small, simple wedding...

Yep, I'm doing the footwork for the rehearsal dinner now too.

I spent last weekend in Cali with K, and even took an extra day off work to make it out to Palm Desert for his sister's wedding.  We had lots of things planned for the weekend, largely planning stuff and a few errands, and we definitely didn't get to all of it.

We spent a little while Thursday wandering around his house, evaluating space and noting what he has and what I have and what will go where.  Then we made a trip to Home Depot and wandered around, talking about plans for the house and ideas we have for projects and decorations and fix-ups/improvements (his house was built in the 50's, so a bit older).  We drove out to Palm Desert and tried to get checked in to the hotel where his parents had reservations, but the girl at the counter couldn't figure out why we weren't in the system or find a reservation under any of the names we gave... until K called his mom and she reminded the girl about the keys that the hotel had left for us on the counter behind the desk.  We drove to the rehearsal dinner with K's sister and her daughter, and his nephew.  It was a very nice desert day... warm but dry, and it felt so good after the humid heat of Texas.  I got to meet the rest of his family that I hadn't met yet, including the bride's kids and her fiancé's (now husband's) family, including his sister who lives in my town.  The kids got to ride around on a little golf cart sized fire truck and loved it.  They range in age from 12 to 7 (and of course, the 5 month old... who didn't go on the fire truck).

Friday was a nice relaxing morning of... waking up early, since I was on central time.  So I took Grace (K's niece) down to the lobby for the not-free continental breakfast (which I didn't figure out till we were done eating).  Then she and I went out to look at the pool and she ended up falling in to the hot tub while she was walking around the hot tub steps...oops.  Then we met up with the rest of the family and left the kids with them, and K and I went pants shopping... the necessary nice black pants for the wedding.  And I got him to get a couple short-sleeved work shirts, which he needed.  We brought the kids back McDonalds, then spent the afternoon swimming with them.  We all got a bit of sun, but fortunately no burns.  K and I had to be at the wedding an hour early, to man the guest book and take pictures of people (it was a picture album guest book... the picture would go with the blurb they wrote).  Turns out neither one of us are very good at that sort of thing... and the camera we were supposed to use didn't make it to us until 15 minutes or so before the wedding.  So we borrowed Aunt Shelly's camera.

The wedding was really neat.  It was outside at a golf course, and had a gorgeous view of the desert mountains.  The bride's son walked her down the aisle and he and his sister "gave her away".  It was so sweet.  The groom said vows to the kids as well, to promise to be a good father and be there for them, and it made everyone cry (me included).  Afterwards I even got to be included in the family wedding photos... they've been very welcoming and treat me like one of the family.  At the reception, instead of the bride tossing the bouquet and groom tossing the garter, they called me and K up and passed the bouquet and garter on to us, since we're next.   It was so sweet of her to do that.  Might be my first and last bouquet as a single woman... although I have 3 more weddings between now and mine.  Through the whole wedding and reception I was taking mental notes of ideas for mine.  Nothing that I'm going to outright copy, but gathered a few ideas.  We stayed a while after to help pack up decorations and centerpieces and such (yay for being family of the bride...).

The reception went pretty late, so Saturday morning I didn't wake up early at all.  We got up, got packed, and got back on the road... skipped out on the family brunch, because it wasn't till 11, which means we wouldn't have gotten out of there till 2 or so, and we still had things to do.  We went couch shopping when we got back and got a few ideas.  After a much needed nap, we went to BB&B and started a wedding registry.  We had no idea it would take so long.  We're both practical and logical, and were having a hard time justifying items that we wouldn't buy for ourselves but ended up putting on the registry.  Especially nice china... he doesn't see the logic in having a set of dishes that doesn't get used often, but I'm helping him to come to terms with the fact that it's not always logical.

For once I was there on a Sunday, so we got to go to church together and visited a new one.  It was good, and we will most likely go back to see how the usual worship goes (they had a guest worship leader).  Then we went to Target and did some more registering.  My flight back that night had a stop in Phx, and the first leg I got stuck in a windowless window seat (due to being the row in front of the exit row).  The second (longer) leg was better, although I didn't get home till almost midnight, which made for some fun getting up at 6 for work Monday morning.

It was a very good trip, and we had a lot of fun.  Still working on wedding plans and other longer term plans, but it will all come together.