The expectation trap.

You know those articles or book you read that totally change your perspective on things? I found one of those today. I chose this article to review & analyze for an assignment for my Individual & Family Life Development class and I fell in love with it. It just really spoke to me.

Here is the link to the article if you wish to read it: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201003/the-expectations-trap

Obviously, Sterling and I have a good relationship. A really good one. But sometimes when we fight, I over-analyze everything and freak out and think that we've got major issues. He reminds me all the time that we're going to disagree and we're going to fight, and yeah, we're going to do those things for the rest of our life. It's what couples do and it's okay. It doesn't mean we're going to get divorced in a few years.

This article talks about how our society conditions us to believe that our relationships should be perfect, and if they're not, we've got to change them. We are conditioned to think that we have to strive for perfection in every aspect of our life and if something isn't meeting our very specific ideal, then we have to change it. This ends up leading us to think we've got to change the flaws in our relationships, and guess what? We're a very entitled society (always thinking that we 'deserve' better), so this ends up usually leaving us thinking that our partner is the flawed one, rarely ourselves.

Our society gives us too many choices on everything, so we get used to the idea of always making choices to improve our happiness. The constant appraisal of our personal life to improve happiness creates a heightened sensitivity to problems that arise in our relationships. We think we need to be happy 24/7, and that it's our partners job to fulfill our happiness. So when we're unhappy, we want to immediately make a new choice that's going to 'fix' our problem, rather than just recognizing that sometimes things aren't perfect and we just have to find the good in everything. With relationships, we have to remember our commitment to our partner and what that means and entails. Commitment is the ability to sustain an investment, to honor values over momentary feelings. This means sticking through the hard times and not expecting your partner to change and find a way to fix your every concern, or not wanting to leave the relationship when things are hard, thinking that there must be something better out there.

I've been guilty of all these mistakes at one time or another. I need to accept 'flaws' in our relationship. I need to stop thinking that Sterling needs to make things better when we do have problems. I need to stop appraising our relationship so much. I need to just let things be, and enjoy the fact that we're happy and we love each other, and that we're committed. And those things can overcome anything. 

Cookies & cadavers.

I'm a very hopeful, anxious little bundle of nerves right now.

So we're getting married in exactly a month from today. And I didn't think it was possible to be anymore excited than I was, or to love him anymore than I already did, but both of those things are rapidly increasing all the time.

Also, this guy from Lamb Weston (where Sterling had a summer internship) called him yesterday and wants him to apply for a job there that just opened up. Do you know how amazing that would be if Sterling could just take that job and we could move to Pocatello in a couple of months? It would be beyond great--I can't even describe how happy I'd be. But Sterling needs to finish his degree somehow still; he has one semester left. So on Friday, he's going to meet with his advisor to see if there's a way he can work it out, like maybe taking his last few classes online or something so that he could take the job now. I hopehopehope it works out, SO bad! You have no idea how badly I want to move to Southeast Idaho and get settled there.

Anyway, I've been on a crafting spree lately, getting things ready for the wedding. How about a sneak peak?

Corina has a Cricut, and oh dear heavens, that thing is amazing. We've been having fun with it. These are tags for people to write "Words of Wisdom" (aka marriage advice) on. They're dark purple and we'll have gold pens to use.

This was a little project of mine. Just a pretty gold S to put on the guestbook table or something!

Signs for the cookies & hot chocolate bar at the reception!

This is my next project. It's vinyl that I'm going to make a cute little sign with! Ahhh, I'm so excited for it :)

So that's all the wedding stuff I have to show for now. Do you know how hard it is to focus on school when there's all this fun stuff to do and think about? Real hard. My midterm grades show that. And now I should go study for my anatomy test that is Friday. Just when I start getting all the bones and muscles down, they start throwing all of these nerves at me! Ridiculous.

Oh, P.S.: have you ever seen a real human cadaver head (like, with the face and skin and eyes and hair all still on, and brain inside) sawed in half? Yeah, that's something I could have been fine with never seeing. Too late.

Oh, Placerville.

Every once in awhile, I spend my free time browsing the list of current inmates of El Dorado County Jail back in my hometown. I always know a lot of them, whether they're from high school or they're parents of kids from my old work or whatever. Back when I was a junior in high school, there was this big, messy incident where I had to go to court and testify against some punkass kids over the course of a year or so, and I always get really happy seeing when those people are back in jail again. I know, it's a weird little sick pleasure of mine. But it also just makes me really happy that I don't live around there anymore. I know that there are crappy people all over, but El Dorado County just seems to have a lot more than anywhere else. And Idaho has a lot less than most places, I think. I love Idaho.

This is going to be the longest stretch of time I've ever been away from home. From mid-July until Christmastime. I feel like a lot is going to change when I see Placerville next. The last time I visited, there was suddenly a new Panda Express that had just popped up, and they closed a Starbucks. Oh, and my favorite teacher from high school moved to a classroom on the other side of campus. Crazy stuff, I know.

I feel weird calling Placerville home now. I mean, I know that it will always be 'home' in a sense, because I grew up there and that's where my family is. But it's not my home anymore. I don't consider it home. I'll probably never live there again. And that's weird for me to realize that it's not home. Idaho is. I actually kind of consider myself homeless at the moment, because Moscow is a temporary home. Wherever we move to and settle next summer will (hopefully) be our permanent home. I'm excited for that.

I just said the word 'home' eight times in that last paragraph. I think it was kind of overkill. But you get the point.

I love you, but....

As far back as I can remember, my sister has been the loudest, most annoying chewer ever. Especially when it comes to things like baby carrots or chips. I don't even have a clue as to how she chews so loudly. It's insane.

Lately, Sterling and I have been arguing about my 'loud' eating. Ever since he told me this story about how he used to get so irritated with his best friend Dustin back when they lived together because Dustin always ate cereal so dang loud, Sterling has started to pay attention to my chewing noises. I swear, he never said a thing about it until he told me about the Dustin thing. Last night, I was eating noodles and apparently slurping too loudly. Doesn't everyone make some sort of slurping sound when eating noodles?!

I know relationships are about compromise, but wouldn't it make more sense for him to just be less anal about how loud I chew, than for me to try to alter my eating style and chew 'more quietly'? Sterling disagrees with this.

I think I'm going to start feeding him baby carrots and noodles for dinner every night, then show him that he, too, makes noises when eating.

It's inevitable, love.

Though I do think I'm going to have my sister eat carrots constantly around Sterling when we see her next month, so maybe, just maybe, Sterling will realize that I'm not all that bad and maybe let my noises slide a bit more.

blood tests and pumpkins.

So I went to the doctor this morning over in Pullman to find out why I'm losing so much hair. I've never been to a doctor up here before, but I really like my new one! Anyway, he thinks some sort of hormonal imbalance is what's causing my hair loss, so I had some blood tests done and I should find out by the middle of next week what the results are. If they find something there, I'll be put on meds and that will be that. If they find nothing, I'll have to do more tests. I'd really rather not be on medication, but I just want them to find a solution ASAP before I lose much more hair. I'm kind of really freaking out about it.

Other than that, it's the weekend! Which basically means doing more wedding stuff. I've got some crafts planned. Five weeks from tomorrow! Eeekkk!

Here are some of the pumpkins Corina and I painted thus far. Aren't they cute?! Now we have like 25 more to paint!

rollin'.

I've had mini pumpkins and glitter and paint spread out on newspaper in the middle of the living room floor for a week now. There are also bags from Michael's all over the apartment filled with cupcake liners and scrapbooking paper and stamps and ribbon and more glitter and paint and everything imaginable. A corner of my bedroom is devoted to the wedding and is filled with favors and more pumpkins and ribbon and our guestbook and my bridesmaid presents.

This wedding has officially taken over my apartment. And, you know, my life too. But that's okay. I'm to the point now where it's all coming together and most things are done and I can just focus on being excited. Not that I'm not going to stress out about it for the next 5 1/2 weeks, but just not as much as before.

I think I'm going to be really sad once the wedding is over. Well, actually once we're back in Moscow after the wedding and honeymoon and Thanksgiving in Grace. Then I'll be really sad. Then again, I guess I'll have Christmas to focus on next. But it's sad to think that all of this big hoopla and excitement and planning and everything will be over soon. I mean, I'll be married then, which is wonderful, but it'll still be sad to have it all be over.

Actually, I think next semester will be the sad part, really. 4 months in cold, snowy, gloomy Moscow being engulfed in school. Did I mention that I have to take Stats, Carbon Compounds Chemistry, and Physiology all next semester? Yeeeup. Since my major will be changing once I transfer, those are pretty much the only classes I can take here that will go toward my new degree elsewhere. That.....really sucks. But once those dreaded 4 months are over, we can move! I've already started sending in Sterling's resume to a bunch of places in Eastern Idaho and Northern Utah. I'm really excited to be down in that area. So cross your fingers that he'll get a good job down there ASAP!

For now though, I'm going to revel in all of this wedding planning fun. 38 more days!!!

One of those mornings.

I had a really hard time waking up this morning. It took me over an hour to actually get completely up and start getting ready for church. I tried on about five different outfits but none of them felt right, so I just settled on one and then asked Sterling about seven times if I looked alright. We're running late for church (as usual) and once we get there, the parking lot is completely empty. We forgot it was stake conference, which was across town and started an hour earlier. Oops. I was actually pretty disappointed about this, because I really wanted to go.

So we decide to head to WinCo instead (I know, I know, breaking the Sabbath!) and pick up a few much-needed groceries. We go to check out and realize that the debit card (we only have one right now, the bank is taking forever to send Sterling's new one) is in Sterling's wallet, which was not on him since he was wearing his suit. Oops again. And WinCo apparently doesn't take credit cards. So we were those poor people who had to send our groceries back because we couldn't pay for them.

I feel like when I do my laundry today, I'm going to end up bleaching everything or something, and I'm going to catch dinner on fire, I'm pretty sure. It just seems like one of those days.

The hardest thing.

As I was sitting here, browsing random FB profiles waiting for Sterling to get off work, I came across the blog of the mom of this kid from my town who was killed in a car accident last March. She wrote about how she walked for him at his high school graduation shortly after he died, and how she knew he was watching over her then, because they frequently talked about how her biggest regret was not finishing school. And how Travis, one of her son's best friends, made it a point to come hug her when they saw each other this August....and then Travis died a couple of weeks later. And how she kept receiving letters in the mail from UNR about campus events and such, and she finally had to call the university and tell them he wasn't going to be attending because he had died. I cried while reading it. It's amazing what some people have to go through, and how much they can/have to handle. I can't even imagine.

Meaningless updates.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that an abnormal amount of hair has been gathering in my hairbrush. Like, not even kidding. I think I'm going bald. I'm convinced I'm going to be bald by the time my wedding gets here. Sterling thinks it's funny to tease me about this. It doesn't go over well. But he's convinced he'll be bald in the next few years too, so I guess we're in this together.

Facebook creeps me out sometimes. And pisses me off. No, I do not want to be friends with my fiance's crazy, skanky ex-girlfriend, thankyouverymuch. Please keep her overly-made-up little face off of my page.

I'm missing my hometown a teensy bit right about now. There's this area called Apple Hill which is just a ton of cute orchards with delicious apple-y and fall-ish treats all over the place. It's quite the tourist attraction during this time of the year, and it's the best place to take a little day trip to on the weekends. Apple doughnuts, caramel apple milkshakes, apple cider....oh goodness. I'm hoping that Sterling and I will have a chance to make it there while we're visiting my parents for Christmas, although things kind of die down around there by then.

Tomorrow Corina and I will start decorating all the pumpkins for the wedding. I'm probably way more excited than what is merited. But that's okay, because ohmygoshthey'regonnabeSOcute!!!

And I've been depriving myself of sleep lately, so we're going to end it here and hopefully I'll actually go to bed. One of these days I'll write a blog that actually has a little thought put into it, I promise.

Hello October.

It's October already. When did this happen? We're getting married next month. Holy crap, really?!

Our friends Kyle and Karina got engaged last night. They've been together for like 5 years or something crazy like that. When I found out he was going to propose yesterday, I was super excited and let out one of those ginormous girly squeals. Then after he did it we went over to their house and celebrated and squealed again over the ring and such. Ah gosh, marriage and engagements and weddings and everything are my favorite thing. Ever.

We've got our invites all designed finally, and I'm working with a lady on Etsy designing our inserts for the ceremony. And another lady who's designing our wedding favors. I made & ordered the guestbook and earrings for my bridesmaids the other night, and found out where we're getting the flowers from. Eeeek, it's all starting to come together!!! 7 weeks from today. Wow!

And on the un-wedding-related side of things, well, not too much is going on there. I'm still having a horrible semester at school. Like, the worst ever. Anatomy is killing me. Chemistry isn't much better. How is it I can do well and enjoy an upper-level microbiology course last semester but struggle to pass (actually, I don't think I'm even passing it at the moment) an entry-level Chem class? I hate all these science courses I have to take. Why does Nutrition have to be a Bachelor's of Science? I'm ready to be done with this semester.

I'm having a huge craving for eggs right now. Which is better than craving ice cream for breakfast or something, which indeed happens. Often. I'm not going to disclose how often I give into that craving.

Happy October!