no, we didn't get it.

...that being in response to, "did you get our mail?" if you've sent anything recently to the address on the back of the wedding invitations. i have had no mail for almost two weeks now due to my mailbox being regularly opened. the timing of this suspiciously coincides with a noise complaint made to a particularly aggressive neighbour. i'm not outright accusing him of stealing my mail.....no, i am. so anyways, if you've sent it, we're not going to get it. things should be better now that i've gotten the lock on the mailbox changed....i hope.

in better news, we found a really great appartment close to the school, please pray that we get it! we should hear back on wednesday or thursday. our landlord agreed to break our lease for may 1st without having to go before the tribunal, he basically insulted us for half an hour and then said okay...we got what we needed, anyway.

my old roommates, the ladies of faith baptist church and my college and career buddies threw me a bridal shower on saturday. besides great food and lots of kitchenware, it was really neat to be in the company of a lot of older ladies who've been married a long time. it was like i was being inducted into that community. plus, it was great to be surrounded by people who were excited and had lots of encouragement to offer, so different from everyone else around here who scoffs at getting married young and tells me i should "live my life" first. live my life? this is it! what better way to live it than together?

some of my glass work is featured (with my name) in the sheridan college gallery calendar of events...i'm really proud of that, and hope it means i'm getting one of the crafts and design scholarships since the brochure photo is one of the slides i sent in with my application. the grad and awards ceremony is april 28th at the gallery, here's hoping!

things are looking up...they are....and we will be married in a month. A MONTH!!! that is, if there's anyone there to witness it! as i write this april on 10th, i have had no RSVPs from anyone who is not a member of the immediate family or bridal party. the caterers need your RSVPs by april 16. RSVP, you loveable slackers you! we want to see your faces there!

in other news, my night at the smail's was very restful. i was in toronto today and when i dropped stuff off at the apartment around 5:30 joe was already at it - cor said he was at it when he stopped by at 2 to drop off our donated dining room set with help from my former roommate. so cor is calling our landlord tomorrow to tell him what the problem is, inform him that on tuesday i'll be depositing written 60-day notice in his office mailbox, and telling him that in the meantime we expect a rent reduction to reflect the thursday evening, friday evening, and all-day saturday in which our appartment is unliveable. and if he doesn't want to do that, i will take it to the rental board, because a) quiet in my appartment is actually a right protected by by-law, and b) every bit of money is necessary right now - and this is some that should be ours.

in GREAT news: God gave me an amazing shopping trip in toronto today. i went in with anna z., aka my seamstress, and we took the streetcar up spadina to queen, where all the fabric shops are. on spadina is also where all the bridal shops are, and as we passed by one i felt the overwhelming urge to go into THAT PARTICULAR ONE. so i said, let's go in there and see if there's some inspiration, and we got off the streetcar and went. and what do we find inside but the exact dress i fell in love with in a magazine and clipped out to give to anna to copy. i tried it on and the one they had there was even my size and it looked and felt fabulous. and, anna got to have a good look at how it's made. unfortunately they didn't let us take photos or i'd post them, but it was so sweet to be able to experience trying on a wedding dress, so sweet that it was just the right one, so sweet that it looked great, and then on top of it.....the fabric!!!! we found a beautiful lace to overlay the skirt and upper part of the bodice for $10/yard when laces are usually $25-100+/yard (the guy at the store said they'd just put this one on sale last week), found a lining to go under that for $6.99/yard, and found a more substantial same-colour satin for the bodice, also at $10/yard...so after buying all the fabric i wanted, plus lace which i hadn't thought i'd be able to afford, plus auxiliary stuff like zippers etc., i'd only spent $130!! swell! so then i felt compelled to go into another bridal shop to scout out crinolines, and found the absolutely perfect shoes - perfect look, perfect fit, and it looks like i won't even have to dye them for this fabric...but the lady said that for $25, i could get them dyed after the wedding to whatever i want and have great re-usable formal shoes! of course, they cost almost as much as my fabric, but i was expecting that...
and veils. i decided i wanted a veil, but i knew they were ridiculously expensive, and i was warring with paying minimum $80 for what's essentially two half-circles of tulle gathered onto a comb (tulle is $1.50/yard). and as we were trying them on, anna said, you know i used to work at a bridal shop and my job was making veils...so there's something else i'm getting for really cheap.

a long day, a tiring day, but an incredibly good day, and now i am at cor's. :)

also, i didn't think i was going to be able to afford my beloved gerber daisies and freesias for the wedding, but then glenn and kathy said they would help with that cost, and the amount they offered makes it possible to have those flowers...which i am really excited about.

so, things are finally in gear, and they are in full gear! also, the teacher's strike is over after three weeks.
please continue praying for us, for our finances, and for our living situation.

God is great

this weekend was consumed by a very stressful move into what would have been our new appartment. i say 'would have been', because we don't plan on staying.

it's a nice place at a very good price, but there's one little problem: the noise. having peace and quiet in my appartment is very, very important to me - other people's music bothers me, distracts me, agitates me, and makes it impossible for me to rest. we repeatedly asked the landlord about the noise level of the building, and he sang the praises of the quiet building and its inhabitants.

all lies.
we even went originally to check out the building at night to see how quiet it was, and it was quiet then...which makes me wonder if he didn't ask people to be quiet because he was showing it or something like that. our next-door neighbour is beyond loud - on saturday night, we couldn't even hear ourselves talking in our own appartment - and the floors are so bad for sound that we can here the downstairs neighbour's music clear as day even when it's played at a normal level. everyone turns off the tunes at 11pm in accordance with the bylaw, but then all evening i have to listen to it...and i can't handle that. it drives me crazy. i can always go bang on joe (next door)'s door when it gets too bad, but when it gets really bad its because he's really drunk, and how do i know he's always going to be cheery drunk instead of violent drunk? i'm here by myself right now; i just don't feel safe.

we are incredibly disappointed with our landlord's deception, and are giving him a two-month notice immediately. hopefully, we can secure credit at the beginning of april after cor's been working 6 months, and then we'll be able to put money down on a new place. this is a serious let-down, i really didn't want to have to go through the stress of moving again, and on top of that, i'm stuck in a noisy building for the last month of school and the month before my wedding - could it be any more important to be able to rest well?

i don't know whether God did this to prove his greatness to me, or whether he heard my end-of-the-rope sobs last night and had compassion on me, but this morning at work i was a mess...and the very kind oakville nursing supervisor offered to let me stay over at her place whenever i like for free. because of the cat, it'll only be weekends, but that should take care of the worst of the drunken music. this offer just floored me, as soon as she asked me how my weekend was and i told her, she called her husband and asked if he'd mind, and he didn't. they are an older couple with grown children and have three empty bedrooms....i didn't know what to say, when thank you seems so inadequate.

i think God put me in this not-so-great position. i KNOW that he heard my cry and turned to me with compassion. please pray for us as we find a new place, pray for finances that will permit us to do this, pray for my stress level and energy level as i deal with this and school and wedding, and please pray for my safety the next time i have to go tell joe to turn it down.

aside from God giving me these weekends at Caroline's, today the manager of health services offered me my summer job back, but even better than it was before: instead of doing the HRDC hire-a-student grant, which only begins on the first of july, they will simply hire me internally as soon as i am available to start full-time, which is probably the last week of may/1st of june. so not only am i returning to my nice, familiar office job that pays almost $12/hour, i am having a full month more than i did last year.

the Lord has compassion on even one as small and insolent as me.

OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooohhhhhhhh dear

it's come to my attention that i rather misspelled kathy's name on the invitations. fortunately, i've been in the hot shop sandcasting since 9am (it's not 7:45pm), and after my original embarassment, i'm far too tired to be mortified.

which is not to say i don't feel kind of badly....

so everybody, grab a pen, go get your invitation, cross out "Katherine" and replace it with "Kathryn".

oops! heh heh heh....

they still accept me as a person.

how to have a nice day

quick off-topic blog, because i can: on my way out to work today, i somehow missed packing my delicious homemade oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies in my lunch bag. this threw me for a loop when 10:30 hit and i couldn't find my snack (i was pretty hungry, i'd been up since 6:30 at that point). i made a couple of really obvious oversights on some work i was doing and when the admin assistant pointed this out to me i said, only half-joking, 'you know what it is, i forgot my cookies at home.' she asked me if they were homemade and what kind they were.

anyways, i'm sitting at the reception desk, and admin assistant julie comes back from lunch bearing a paper bag of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, laughing and saying i'll be able to concentrate now. ten minutes later, the receptionist comes back from lunch 20 minutes early and gives me cookies and coffee from tim's.

isn't it ridiculously simple how a mere coffee and cookies given in kindness can make you grin like an idiot all afternoon?

phew

the crisis is over, the storm has passed...that's an incredibly melodramatic way of saying, "the invitations are in the mail."

yes, that's right. THE INVITATIONS ARE IN THE MAIL!!!!!!!!!!!

in other news, an ontario college teacher's strike has left me with little to do except putter in the glass shop to my heart's delight. the studios are not affected by the strike, meaning i can come in and work any time i please, and it's actually really quite nice being able to work on glass anytime and not have to go to classes i abhor (art history, anyone?). i hope it doesn't drag on, but it's nice to have this break. as some of you may have noticed, i really needed it.

so, with the invitation monkey off my back and half a normal course load, i have time to do things, like enjoy my life, and, most notably, PACK. corey and i take posession of our appartment this wednesday, and i'm moving in on the weeked or whichever day it is bill can help with his truck, and i haven't packed a single thing. yeah, yeah, it'll get done. :D i'm really looking forward to this.

in other happy news, i finally re-acquired the missing address information for my second cousin Linda. linda lived in oakville for many years, i first met her when i started at sheridan in 2004, and then last summer her and husband john decided to accept his job transfer to perth (australia), and off they went. it was absolutely fabulous being able to meet linda and hang out with linda (and be fed by linda, chef extraordinaire), she's just so special, and i've missed her greatly, but i just got to email her and tell her about the wedding. she'll actually be in oakville on march 25, so even if she can't come i'll get to see her. :) i'm really looking forward to that.

i've now seen two oscar-nominated films...the Constant Gardener and Walk the Line. The Constant Gardner is the best film i've seen since the machinist, i highly reccommend it to all. walk the line....meh.

i'm heading off now....take care! i'm going to go REST.:)

ha! ha! argh!

the invitations are killing me.

i am starting to realize two things:
1) it's bloody hard in every way to organize a wedding without any family or close friends in town, and
2) i need to start imposing more.

it came about like this: i was sick three weeks ago and never quite recovered - i stayed feeling drained and such. then came reading week, when i would have really liked to grab a sorely needed rest, but realized my week was actually all planned out: work on monday as usual, apply for OHIP on tuesday, sandcasting on wednesday, invitations on thursday, dentist and homework on friday, more sandcasting on saturday. it was freakishly miserable, and somewhere in the middle of printing and cutting and folding invitations by myself in my bedroom, i simply couldn't take it anymore. i'd just conceded to the guest list (long story) and was feeling overwhelmed by that, and then the hommemade invitations (scores of them!) sat there and screamed, "you're all alone making your wedding invitations!". i think it was friday when corey called and i started getting at him about the guest list, and then started crying about how i was so overwhelmed by doing all this by myself and i had no one close in town to help me, and he immediately left to come over and help fold invitations, and he's about 30 minutes away. while i was waiting for him i was so upset that i couldn't touch the things so i thought, i'll take this half hour to carve a little stamp for my sandcasting tomorrow. BAD IDEA! i was so agitated and upset that of course i wound up accidentally cutting myself very badly with one of my carving knives. it was on my middle finger, very deep, hurting and bleeding like no cut i'd ever had, and a little ropy severed strand of something even came out (i have no idea what, but don't worry about it, because i have full feeling and motion in my finger so obviously it wasn't too vital). it was absolutely terrifying, and i was in the bathroom trying to get it to stop bleeding when corey knocked on the door, and i went and opened the door with this terrible look on my face and started sobbing. total meltdown. needless to say, no folding got done that night. and cor asked me, why hadn't i asked him to come help earlier, to which i replied, 'you're working, i know you go to bed early'. and he told me, you need to be more imposing. you need to be selfish right now. you're a bride, this only happens once, this is a big time, and you need a lot. there's a lot of wisdom in that advice, and i really do need to take it. i am a bride. i am a bride for a too-short time, but with the necessity of working over the summer and studying in the fall, there was really no other time to take. which is hard, very hard, but in the end it forces me to depend on Christ, for no one else can get me through so unsettling and life-changing transition in such a short time. it's hard, i am simultaneously grieving my old life of not-a-bride and the short life of my bridehood. dysphoria, anyone?
ah yes, the other thing i learned was that i need to TELL COREY when i am that stressed and upset instead of letting it get to total meltdown. and he learned that he needs to tell me what planning this he is sneakily taking care of behind my back, so that i don't stress over all manners of things not done, and also so that i can see and feel that we're planning *together*.

all that to say, the invitations will be mailed a week later than expected, and you'll all just have to wait in prolonged anticipation of my smashing graphic design job.

seriously, though, this is a crazy time. the change going on is so shattering and profound, and the worst part is, i am the first of my friends to go down this road - which means it's especially lonely.

the only thing to do in a situation like this is go home, not touch any invitations, and, since i missed jeopardy! due to coming to school to work, put on an episode of the A-Team, because chuck norris may be awesome, but he's nowhere near as cool as george peppard. it's nothing short of inspiring to see his plans come together.

i must close this on a happier note. when cor came over to help with the invitations (we actually did fold them on sunday, and he was with me saturday night as well), it was true wonder and awe and overjoy to talk about folding OUR WEDDING invitations.
OUR WEDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!