am I to turn out just like my parent?

So last night as we drove home together from Orlando... She was singing along with me a few times =)

played warcraft tonight together for the first time in ... probably a month. Played warcraft with my wife's sister on Sunday for a lot of the day. That was fun. For the last week or two I've been really really into my work and have been playing with code-related stuff at home. The baby has been way more cranky and needy for the last 1.5 weeks. It's been rough. She's put to bed around 8:30ish each night. so we get some relaxation time. Sleeps through most the night.

We talk in bed almost every night. It's terrific. Many times it's me listening, and only occasionally responding but I love to hear it all. She's way more verbal about her affection and I'm way more physical with hand holding and hugs. We constantly remind each other how much we mean to each other. I don't imagine it would work any other way.

I ask her to help me do more things for her, or do more chores. She asks me to help her define the line between reminding and nagging so that she doesn't feel like a nag.

I have not felt the desire to talk to any of my friends. It seems that most are only interested in talking if it is on warcraft and only interested in 'hanging out' if it involves warcraft. So I've kept to myself. The rent is incredibly difficult to manage in person without offending me or overstepping boundaries. I miss her, and hope to work through it eventually.

We watch tv together a good deal, she downloads the shows instead of us having to watch commercials. She's done an absolutely amazing job at organizing, unpacking, and as far as I can tell getting as much help from me as she wants. She makes an incredible mother and wife.

We have difficulty with the normal issue between men and women with gaming. Going slow versus racing as fast as I can. I'm working on slowing down all the time to balance out the hauling ass she was doing the first months of our relationship. It's been going well lately.

We went to a reptile store and watched a venomous snake eat a rat. The snake looked so cool and so did the inside of his mouth. His venom however seemed to be 2nd or 3rd rate. The rat took a LONG time to die after being bitten. But his rows of fangs on the inside of his mouth moved in such a cool pattern when he finally took the rat in. The monitor we fed on the other hand... GOBBLE. 2 seconds and the mouse was in its belly chomped up.

It's time for bed. Lots of catching up accomplished!

yesterday was the first day we had what we would consider full on giggles! how exciting!

Wife is sick, mom is needy, baby is cranky. 2 out of 3 are sleeping for now. I finished the game I rented and can't seem to focus well enough to work on some programming.

I got an email saying I'm getting my security deposit back after a stressful fight with the landlady after she signed off on the house we rented. After a walk through she says she will email us a copy of the walk through. Then called 30 min later to say that she thought we might need to have the carpets professionally cleaned per the rental agreement. We had a professional clean the carpet but did not obtain a receipt. Around 3 days later she calls and says she did another walk through with the home owner. Now she wants a carpet tear fixed. So after signing off that everything was ok and not sending us our copy of the document, she missed or forgot about a carpet cleaning and then found more stuff to add on to it. Anyhow after a long argument back and forth in emails (yay I didn't have to try to do this face to face or over the phone). Her boss or perhaps the realty owner sends an email with attitude, but says he's sending us our deposit back. So yay for that!

I've been thinking lately of going to a doctor for some ADD meds, or perhaps ADHD meds. My wifey would like me to go have my back looked at. Sounds like a good idea, just need to find some time now.

So my newborn daughter is home today for the first time. It's been an exhausting week at the hospital waitng for she and her mom to get better. The house is spectacularly clean compared to the way we left it. It pays to have amazing friends.

only 5 weeks remaining till I'm a father. weeeeee

Last night after having a friend over for nearly a week, we had the house to ourselves and curled up in bed together watching downloaded tv shows all night (house, heroes, burn notice).

Sorry, busy in my happily ever after, no time for posting.

So.... I've been quite busy living life and not posting.

I've gotten tons of wedding pictures and video to reminisce with. That certainly is part of the reason. Also there's been the wedding, mini-honeymoon, the ultrasounds, the wow release,wow lan party, the switch to 4-10 hour workdays to keep me very busy.

Other interference:
Friend's fiance violence, another friend's wife came back (then he decided to break it off), wife's grandmother turning up missing, police search, pregnancy sicknesses, rogue balance issues, my renter still being very behind, but delivering large checks now instead of tiny bits almost every day, my other 2 loans, normal Lan party arguments.

So many things keeping me so very busy.

Things still to do:

Wedding video copied, converted, edited.
Wedding pictures selected, retrieved on cd, posted to various places, help friend find a counselor for the woman that has decided violence is a good way to try to control him, help The Rent re-enter the dating world, help wife get her oil changed, put my car in to find out about the annoying noise.
Spend time on sidejob to make more money, submit invoice to sidejob for hours spent.
Make receipt/invoice for renter.

Wants:

Look into getting wedding ring etched/inscribed.
Level a hunter (if you can't beat em, join em?)
Help wife level her hunter (since they are the easiest and best dps for every situation (solo, group questing, instancing, raiding, bg pvp, arena pvp even?)
Wow Laptop (can run multiple copies at once?)
Prepare for baby in 3 months
Sort and unpack the boxes in the garage
Move balance from high-interest credit card to lower interest Line of Credit
Discuss new pc options for wife with wife.
Spend time with Kevin.

So starting October 20th I will be working tue-fri 7:30-6pm. On weeks where there is a holiday, I would work a normal 7:30-4pm with the holiday day off.

weekends will be super long. oh man so much awesomeness.

And as an added bonus, tonight my fiance gets home! fun for all!

So the night before last I spent 3 hours making a nice mp3 cd for my wonderful fiance. I made 2 copies, one for each of us. It was from 9:30pm till midnight-thirty. So when I got off from work yesterday I went to get my Social Security card and checkbook from storage. The card was for our application for a marriage license and the checkbook is for being able to give the photographer a deposit. Then I went to the ATM to get money out for a haircut, and went to look at men's rings for the wedding. I picked a ring and ordered it.

I've missed being able to tap a ring against glass or other things. I used to wear 6-8 rings back when I was a teenager.

My haircut place moved, so I spent some time visiting with one of my old neighbors. Then I went to circuit city, walked around there, and waited for the photographer meeting. Once it was close enough to time that I figured she'd already be at the place, I left. We met with the pretty, professional, and curvy photographer. She got along very well with the fiance which is very important. We'll probably be hiring her for the wedding.

We sat in the car for awhile listening to the new cd I had made her.

So we went home and I did some programming. Then.. the main reason for the entry, we listened to the cd while wrapped tightly around each other and fell asleep. It was lovely. The cd played from about 10pm or so, until 3am. That's a lot of music!

ok so I'm waiting for money from my house renter ($1800+), loanee 1($7000+), loanee 2($4000+), bike purchaser ($2800+), tuition reimbursement ($800).

Trying to motivate myself to work my side job which could make up to $950/month if I would get off my ass.

All these sources of income just waiting to come back into my life.

It's decently stressful, the only one that worries me is the house renter since it saves me from 'having' to work my side job to keep money flow in the positive direction.

Either way it seems things are 'ok' on my end and will continue to do so, just trying to get my A.D.D ass to buffer things on the frontside and do some side work so things will be under control more easily ahead of time.

Oh and I need to get my marriage license, turn in my driving school certificate, pack up for the move next month (15th) (which will be into a 7 month lease with probable move out 7 months later), talk to my mom about moving out, try and find a way to help the independent fiance with the invitations' mailing, help choose a wedding dinner rehearsal location, work on my vows, finish paying for wedding cake, Move money off my 0% APR card before it goes up to 22%APR, get login information for my sidejob, Choose a wedding ring for me, choose a tux style and get one rented, let the other men in the wedding party know about them, help my fiance pack up for the move, attend the next Sonogram (most likely get to find out the gender!), figure out if I can code html web page automation for my primary job, start a new world of warcraft account and level more classes to 60+, Level my mage to 70, solicit input on making a game (from a good friend, my fiance, and/or my cousins), worry about how my mom's finances are doing, figure out what to do with the extra washer/dryer I have in storage, figure out what to do with the extra bed(s) I have, decide what to do if anything with my house, find out about my ~$2500 student loan(no idea what company is currently holding the note), put in a change of address for the new house, and I'm giving up on figuring out what else is on my plate.

Look at that list! no wonder I'm fairly stressed out. I'm still mostly excited about getting the new house we're renting together. I can't wait to have more than 1.25 rooms to live in. My space I'm in is so very cramped it makes my disorganization even worse I feel.

Previous assisted memories thoughts:
all makes sense
so hard to see and remember things.
because it's all being repressed all the time
until someone else points them out

my memory problems are consistent with symptoms of abuse, I've had therapists tell me this, and I do feel incredibly inadequate at remembering things.

It was amazingly eye opening for my mother to admit she might not know what she's talking about and to have just said it with incredible conviction. Then to justify the words because they were out of 'concern'. Concern that something bad 'MIGHT' happen? Are you serious? A plane MIGHT decide to crash into the house today.

Unless you have a fact or something like a 55% likelihood scientific study to back up a severe generalization that 'cutting meat with a knife will ruin it and you are doing it consistently enough that I felt I should say something about it' then I don't need your parental admonishment and unwanted guilt laden 'advice' about how I'm not taking care of my knife that I can easily afford to replace. It was my money and I have more of it.

My initial response was to feel guilty, pretend, say, or act like I don't care so that the subject could be dropped. My feelings are not what matters. Expressing 'concern' is somehow love it seems to her. My feelings were not thought of before her desire to mother me brought her straight to correcting me, instead of asking if I would like a regular knife, or if I believed it might harm that type of knife.

Wow I never considered that, I'm so glad I write these things out. Her entire stance discounts the possibility that either I knew it could hurt the knife, or that I knew what kind of metal was in my knife and what the ramifications of my actions are. I can't find anything in that statement that doesn't infantalize me or put her self-admittedly 'knowledge-lacking' 'concern'/parenting as more important than my feelings or things I've argued and asked her not to do many times before.

This type of communication is unwelcomed. I've said it again and again.

mom has decided to argue full on. as per usual when someone gets close to me, and is around her. Has happened since I was probably 12 or 13 or so. I remember rage fits and people not wanting to be around my house at times.

argue with my Stephi, in poor form, and offensively

"The only consistent feature of your dissatisfying relationships is you." - Anti-motivational poster. I feel this reflects all attempts for me to let my mom make friends with my friends.

My mom tried to correct me about using my 'good knife' to cut meat saying it would ruin the knife. Stephi said, "No it won't." and said she didn't like my mother feeding me misinformation and treating me like a child.

(all of which she does consistently, I've gotten so used to it, I struggle not to take anything she says in, but I never know if it's right, assume it's wrong, and have to pretend I don't care so that we don't HAVE to argue about it.)

my mother actually admitted she didn't know what she was talking about (amazing) but tried to justify her words because they were 'out of concern' (not a good reason to me)

If you feel like talking about it, email, instant message, comment... if phone is preferred, comment that you'd like me to call and I'll get my internet phone back up again.

August 8th

So it's time for the nearly hour long ride to her place out on Amelia Island. I play the cd I had made for her and played for her before with many romance songs mixed in with other songs I thought she might like. I have her in happy tears before we get to the house. In particular the song I have been listening to since about the 2nd week we started dating this time, talks about coming home again, and going to an island where we'll meet.

So when we arrive, at around 10pm-ish I pull her into her room where the flowers are all over the bed and floor. I ask her if she overheard me talking to her brother and she says no she specifically covered her ears. Since this is the first time she's ever seen me seek privacy on the phone, she had decided to give it to me. I then ask was there something she was searching my pockets for. she says nope just for her phone. I go down on my knee, say "Is this what you were looking for?" as I pull out the ring. Then without giving her a chance to respond, " Will you marry me?". She said yes! We talk and I let her in on the events leading up to this day. Tears came to my eyes when I told her how I had asked for pre-marital counseling the day before she told me she was pregnant. I told her how I had been waiting weeks for this day, waiting for the ring to come. I tell her how my hesitation to admit that things would have been going the direction of us moving in together would have happened without the pregnancy(in a previous conversation about a week ago), was only because I thought it might hint at the upcoming proposal or my commitment level. We spend hours up talking and romancing, before finally puttering out at around midnight-thirty. We talked about housing plans, wedding plans,sharing finances, and wedding dates among other things.

We have some time so we go to dinner at Sakura on San Jose blvd. It decides to pour while we are in the restaurant eating, but the power didn't go out until after our food was completely done. The rain dies down entirely as we drive out to Stockton park for the wedding, and as we pull up it's starting to rain lightly. We have a serious talk about birth defects and miscarriage, then finally get out of the car to approach the wedding. She has brought a nice umbrella luckily. Once we are at the location and a few people have arrived, the rain decides to return to pouring like a monsoon. We return to the car to find out if the wedding is still going to be here, or what. The location has moved to the bride's house.

While at the wedding we spend most of the time glued to each other and not being very social. She informs me this is her M.O. I let her know that it's mine also. We had gotten one of the few chairs there, and plopped her down on my lap. Finally the wedding commences, comes to a finish, and it's reception time. Apparently the bride was a lady that has been a casual acquaintance/stranger in my life for years. Starting with 1996 as one of my first trainers for my first job, and recently at my latest job she was there training at the place they sent us.

I get up to go get us both a sprite and when I return she's seated on the couch with Eva. They are discussing rose petals on a bed! I panic just a little and ask who they are talking about. she says the groom planned to have rose petals spread out on the bride's bed for their honeymoon. I remark how that sounds nice. No one here knows that I have the purple silk rose petals spread out on her bed and on her floor waiting at home.

I'm not one to keep anything in my pants pockets if possible. My wallet and any other items often come out if I have somewhere else nice to place them. She had handed me additional things to carry when we got out of the car at the wedding: her personal phone, work phone, car key-fob. So I had moved them and my cell phone into the nice leather jacket I'm wearing to the wedding. The proposal ring and box still a large lump in my pants pocket.

Just a bit later, she searches my jacket for her phone while I've stepped away. She mentions that she went through my pockets and that I don't have anything interesting in my pocket. If she only knew. She's seated on the right side of me, where the ring box is actually poking her in the leg somewhat. I contemplate trying to get it from the one side of my pants to the other.

Eventually after a near asthma attack from the pet dander on the couch, she asks if I'd like to get home. While she gathers her sweater-thingy and whatever else it was she left under the other chair, I stop off to talk to Eva.

Since it had been burning a hole in my pocket, I just had to show her the ring and tell her about the rose petals since she was the one talking about it that same night. We finally take off after our goodbyes.

August 7th: I talk to her brother on my cell about the proposal while she's in my bedroom. I hope she hasn't overheard anything about it.

August 8th: I ask my boss for a half day for the proposal preparations. We work out some things I need to get done before leaving. I work my butt off and take off. I drive out towards her house to plant the rose petals. and get there by around 12:30. Luckily she already responded she wouldn't be back out to the house before the wedding we are attending later tonight. Everything is going just as planned. I get back in town by 2pm and relax on the computer. She gets back to the house after lunches with her friend by 3pm and finds me home early. We go out to shop for wedding presents. when we get back she goes to wrap presents and I jump in the shower. Her plan was to jump in the shower, but I didn't realize how fast she would have them wrapped up. I foiled her plan to jump in the shower already. I take a long time to pack for the weekend, get dressed for the wedding, and just organize a bit. She organizes my room incredibly fast and well in like 5 minutes flat. We take off for the wedding.

July 8th: ~ 6:50pm I ask my therapist about pre-marital counseling, I've decided I want to marry Stephanie.

July 9th: ~10:30pm I find out she's pregnant, woohoo!

July 15th: I'm mostly moved out of my house and the renter is moving in.

July 21st:
10:50pm: I ask my friends about ring/gemstone possibility for proposal saying I see a very nice large blue stone set on a thin band for her. I follow it and find out it's tanzanite.
1pm: I ask sara about her ring/gemstone preference
11am: Buddy replies that easiest and best bet would be a diamond solitare that can be accented with color stones afterwards with the wedding band.
3pm Cab offers the possibility of proposing sans ring and saying I want to do the ring shopping together.
4pm Samara responds back that I'm correct in her preference away from diamonds.
10:38pm Tavis suggests a proposal ring.

I ask my friends, her friends (Samara first,Sara, Jayson) about her ring/gemstone preferences.

July 22nd:
8:30am I post to my friends the idea of a Claddagh.
12:30 Chris says Erika loves the Claddagh stuffs.
4:45pm I get a message from Samara with lots more ring details. Garnet is not on the list, but the 2 times I asked her specifically about gems she has said my birthstone is Garnet if I heard and remembered right.
9:54pm Stephanie writes me a poem.

July 23rd: I write a poem in return.

July 24th: I order the garnet and diamond Claddagh that I will using to propose to my darling Stephanie.

August 7th: I get out of work and ride out to her brother's house and leave the purple silk rose petals on the door of his mother-in-law suite.

We went to see Mummy at the theater in Amelia Island. There was a big black guy near the front row. He laughed hard at many of the jokes and I found his excessive laughing funny also. The theater is the old style of being flat with chairs you can easily see past. She bought the tickets because there was a 4pm instead of the 4:30 we were expecting, and we were there at exactly 4pm. She brought lots of fruit snacks, which helped me resist the urge to buy popcorn. We played quite a good bit of City of Heroes over the weekend, which lead me to being very nervous when I woke up from my gaming trance. I checked with her to see if I had been neglecting her. She said, every time I came around you stopped and paid attention to me, I am quite happy. We also picked up a mouse for the snake, and missed him bamming the mouse this time. I helped franny with the front door a few times. It's got a doorknob issue where it can be hard to open.

MyHoney: i told frances

me: well according to bankrate.com I should still have a 655-705 credit score
even with the fresh accont
*account
how did she take it?

1:25 PM MyHoney: she started talking about where she was going to go.. something she has not considered before
she was ADAMANT that she stay in this house

me: previously, or just now?

1:26 PM MyHoney: previously, she was adamant...now she is talking about who she will live with

me: interesting
doesn't sound like her mind is as gone as I thought

MyHoney: she hasn't lived alone in years... and i think that she doesn't want to again. she gets lonely.

1:27 PM me: well I mean, other than smoking in the house, I don't see that she would 'have to' if we got that house rented out?

1:28 PM MyHoney: are you suggesting her living with us?

me: I'm certainly open to it

MyHoney: are you sure that you are human?

me: lol
I'm sure that I love you
and that I don't mind franny at all

MyHoney: of that i have no doubt
1:29 PM you find new and exciting ways to express it daily

me: was this something you wanted but didn't want to ask me?

MyHoney: I had not considered that as an option. It wasn't something that I would have consdiered bringing up to you. She isn't your parent, and you have just met her. I would not ask you to take on that burden with me.

1:30 PM This should be a family thing...not a Stephanie thing. I am not the only person who loves her, and they need to help as well.

me: I'm not sure I agree with that reasoning. if it is something you wanted, I'd like the opportunity to weight it and give my feelings
indeed
they should be chipping in

1:31 PM MyHoney: it wasn't a want, love. It wasn't an option in my mind, so i didn't even consider it

me: but there's nothing wrong with chipping in towards us wherever it is vs only if it's in that house
*chipping in for franny to us

MyHoney: I agree.