Life happened!

Hey, so I noticed the blog train had a long layover in procrastinationville, but we're currently now boarding for a quick trip ahead in life.

Since I last wrote I've done a few things, which I will elaborate on:

Decided to go back to school
Told my boss I didn't want a potential promotion
Went to one of my best friends weddings and caught the bouquet
Turned 22 (doesn't really need an explanation)
Got engaged
Went to South Carolina
Went back to my parents
Started wedding planning
Won the tax return lottery
Started looking at houses
...And much much more


Alright, so lets start with the small stuff, In my first post I talked alot about my career paths, well I finally decided on one, after alot of research into it, I've decided that in Fall 2010 I will be going back to school for Multimedia design. This isn't going to be an easy task however, because I'm broke, and up to my ears in debt from my previous romp through college, however my wonderful amazing Fiance, has offered to help me save up money to pay back my debts, as well as put extra aside for my school. Now it's not that I'm bad with money, I do make all my minimum payments on everything, even a little bit more sometimes if I can, but I work generally less than 20 hours a week. So when I got my T4 slip explaining what I've paid back to OSAP this year, I was absolutely crushed to find that of that $1745 I paid to OSAP this year, $730 of that was all interest... So almost half of what I paid, was interest, talk about a losing battle! No wonder they give you that ensurance saying that if you die, you're family doesn't have to pay it back, because chances are, you will be paying it back UNTIL YOU DIE! I made a bigger dent in my bank loan that I'm paying a Third of what I pay to Osap, just because there's next to no interest on it!

So I'm sure you're thinking, if I'm so hard up for money and hours at work, why on earth did I turn down a promotion that I could have had? It's really simple, I just can't commit any more energy to that place. I love where I work, I love the people I work with, and I care for all of them so much, but I find that I put so much of myself into what I do there, that even though I sometimes only work a 3 hour shift, I'm typically exhausted after that shift! I am however looking for a simpler part time job that will give me decent pay, like retail, or waitressing. Also turning down the manager position, and sticking with assistant manager gives me a bit more freedom in work, but also in getting things sorted out at my apartment - I'm doing an overhaul here. I'm also planning on not working once I get back to school, so I can focus entirely on school. It all worked out for the best though, because the current manager, who was supposed to be leaving, found out his wife will be doing her internship here in London, and although I'm sad for him that he was to stay another year (he was really excited to move on) I'm happy that if I have any manager until I leave, that it will be him.

On February 7th, one of my longest standing, and best friends Elana got married to her wonderful new husband Mitch, a big congratulations to them! They got married in Espanola Ontario, which is about an hour outside of Sudbury. Luckily the Maid of Honour also lives in London so we were all able to split gas on the way up with Ryan driving us. It was about a 7 hour drive there, and we stayed at Espanola's only reputable hotel, the Pinewood, where the reception would also be getting held conveniently. It was a beautiful wedding, Elana is my first close friend to get married to, and I was honoured to get to stand in her wedding party. But when the time came, I was quite shocked to be the one to actually catch the bouquet... and it looked like one of those cliche bouquet catching moments where the girls all trip over themselves trying to get it. When I took a step out to grab it (she didn't quite throw it hard enough to make it to the crowd) I underestimated the width of my skirt and fell down... so embarrassing! But all the same, I was very excited because there were jokes all weekend about my catching it, and also found it amusing because Ryan refused to go up and catch the garter after being slightly mortifyed at my sisters wedding. He got it from my brother in law, and wasn't quite sure what it meant, so he turned and tried to hand it off to someone else in front of everyone, we all had a good laugh about it!

This brings us to the next subject, I'm engaged! I don't think I've really mentioned Ryan in my past few entries, so I'll give a quick background on us. We started going out when I was 15 and he was 18, we both went to highschool together, so I guess that would make us highschool sweethearts.We started going out November 29th of my grade 10 year, and his OAC year. After he graduated, he came to London to go to school for Computer Programmer Analyst, and after two long years of long distance, I came to London as well. I moved in with him for the summer, but only for that because I wanted to also experience living on my own, so I spent my first year in Residence, with him living only a 15 minute walk away. That first summer living together tought us alot about eachother though, and boy did we ever fight, it was mostly my fault though, I wasn't very accomadating to his living habits that he had already established while living there for a year previous to my moving in. But after each having our own shock of actually meeting new people in a city full of potential, breaking up with that need to meet new people, and then getting back together practially the next day after realizing how much we needed the other (we each did this once) we made it through my first year of college. Once Ryans lease was up on the townhouse, and I had to leave res, we decided to get our own place together, so we moved to a cute little 2 bedroom apartment not terribly far from the college. Now I think every apartment needs a 1 week living grace where they let you stay in the apartment to decide if you want to live there or not... because shortly after moving in, we came to discover that our neighbor was a child abusing asshole with paperthin walls that liked to scream at, and probably beat, his 5 year old, 7 year old autistic, and 9 year old sons at all hours of the day and night, and especially at 7 am... We tried everything... nothing worked, I even remember the landlord telling us upon our move in that he sometimes yells at them, but that he loved them very much... as if she was standing up for him treating his kids like garbage... So after a year of what would have been a wonderful apartment, we moved to the heaven that is our current home. And boy do I mean home, we've lived here for two years now, and I've never been so comfortable, and secure feeling as I am here since moving to London. I'll talk more about that later though. So through highschool romance, two years of long distance and 3 years of living together, Ryan and I have now been together 6 and a half years, and I guess one of my best friends getting married, and me catching the bouquet finally triggered something in the guy who used to fall dead asleep the second I'd mention anything marriage. We were shopping at the mall one day, and I was shocked when he actually agreed to my joke about going into the jewellery stores and looking at rings, so after looking at a couple of them, I let him know which one was my favourite. This was on Feb 13th. On February 15th we went out for breakfast and I noticed a couple things in the back seat of the car so when I asked if he had gone to the mall the day before, he got really upset with me, but later told me he had just gone shopping with our friend Justin, and only wanted to show him the ring, and that he didn't buy it. A few days later, he got a call on his cell phone that went "ok, uhuh, yup, alright, thanks!" and then ended, when I asked him who it was, he told me it was a wrong number... so I knew after his horrible attempt to hide the fact that he went to the mall, and even worse attempt at masking a phone call, that he had gotten the ring. After how upset he got by my finding out he went to the mall I didn't tell him I knew what the phonecall was. On February 27th I was in the bathroom getting ready for work, and Ryan came in with his hands behind his back, but when I turned around to give him a hug, but when I noticed he had nothing in his hands (thinking that this was it) I was a little disappointed. Well I guess he noticed the disappointment in my eyes because he started to taunt me about what I thought he had, I quickly replied with may favourite candy... Reeses Peanut Butter cups, so I told him to see if he could go find me some kicking around the apartment while I was finishing getting ready. After awhile of waiting in the room I came out and just hung out on the couch with him for a bit, where he played with my hands and looked me in the eyes, I could see he was nervous. He took me into our room and got down on one knee and popped the question, I of course said yes, and let him put the ring on my finger, not really looking at it, because I assumed it was the one I'd shown him in the store, I got down on my knees and gave him hugs and kisses, and cried a bit, then looked at my finger to get a better look at the ring. He had put one of my old rings on my finger that had long been broken and just left sitting on the nightstand. Knowing this was a joke I gave him a nudge and called him an ass, he then put the real ring on my finger. And that's about it, we're engaged.

We wanted to tell all of our family in person, and this luckily worked out for us. His mom was coming to visit us that afternoon, and showed up about 15 minutes after he proposed. We left for South Carolina a couple days later, so we were able to tell his dad and rest of his sisters at that point. And on our way home, we made a detour up to my parents to confirm their suspicions that I was coming home to visit because I was either pregnant or engaged. Now I love my family very much, I'm very close to them, and it killed me not to tell them the whole week we were away, they were literally the last ones to know! But not really... because they were a bunch of snoops, both my oldest sister, and dad took a magnifying glass to the pictures I posted of us on our trip to see if they could see the ring... and guess what, they did. Oh well though, it doesn't make it any less special, and atleast I wasn't pregnant!

This entry has gotten rediculously long though, so I'll post more later about my trip to South Carolina and the rest of my life that's happened in the past month and a half layover in procrastinationville. But for now it's full speed ahead, so All Aboard!