Schooling

So just because I have nothing better to do, I have taken on more adventures in my life by taking classes at Bergen Community College for Wedding Planning and Coordination. Now the original game plan was to add skill sets to my current career of corporate meeting planning and networking within a more specialized field. Well since I made that decision, I also started helping 2 friends plan their weddings this year (both in October 2009). So I am actually putting this knowledge to good use and using them as "homework".

It is actually very similar to what I already do and quite redundant in many ways. But there are a lot of details that we have on our corporate scope of services (floral arrangements, invitations, etc) that, in theory, we can all do but have never been challenged by a client to do. Now, with this lovely 4 month crash course under way and having the owners of both an invitation shop and floral shop in the class as well as a dozen budding planners and field trips out to bridal shows and a very skilled and seasoned instructor, not only will I have an understanding of budgeting these things, but I will have local connections. I am totally not regretting this decision at all!

And heaven forbid should something happen with the economy and there be a reason for me to need something more specific to fall back on, I will have a certificate and a path for more personal planning in my pocket. Keep your fingers crossed that the economy stays strong, because with my dual weddings right now, they are definitely a complicated challenge. And they take away from precious knitting time. But for dear friends, I would sacrifice even that whole-heartedly. Maybe not for strangers.

What's up with me now

So I have been telling you what has been going on in the past year, so I thought I would let you know what has been going on with me lately. Well this is going to be a short post. I can sum that up in a couple of lines.

Work - I have been putting in a lot of time at work lately now that the economy has taken a hit everywhere. Meeting planning and travel are areas that don't generally stand up well when companies are trying to cut back their funds. But on the bright side, because we are an outsourcing company, we can pick up some slack in very diminished departments that are still expected to make contributions to the company. Also we have some leverage with national chains and with large accounts to be able to wield some good discounts and reductions on the bottom line. So it's a good and bad thing all at the same time.

Knitting - When I'm not working, I'm usually knitting. It's really the only thing I can do to keep my fingers busy and the stress down. Just like after 9/11, I seem to have a bit of pent up energy that I need to focus. Either I do that through knitting or I will find some other outlet, like eating or throwing things or something else less productive. At least with knitting, I can keep it all on the up and up.

Health - Unfortunately, that has not been all that great lately. My headaches have been mostly under control but I'm still fighting with them at times. And now I'm dealing with other problems. I found out that my 8 years of vegetarianism/pescetarianism was not in any way helpful in the cholesterol realm as mine is VERY high. And also I will have to have my gall bladder removed next month. I'm finally coming to terms with this. It has been a bit of an ordeal for me, but I'm dealing with it. Mostly I'm tired of the doctors telling me I have to change my diet and laughing like it's a big joke and their know something I don't know. If I've been playing by the rules for as lng as I can remember, and I'm still losing the battle, how can I ever try to win?

That's pretty much everything right now. Almost everything else for me is being put on hold until the health thing is taken care of. So I'm hoping that in about a month and a half I will be in a much better place and feeling much better. Until then, I'm just getting through each day as best I can.

More updates with pictures

I know that i owe a lot of stuff over the last year. Here goes. Let's start with the wedding dress. This is the one I knit. I designed it from pieces of other patterns that got Frankensteined together. I think they came out well.

Keep in mind that I got married in a park in March in Vancouver. I needed to be covered in Alpaca. It was the only thing that made the whole thing less than freezing. I did have my little shawl but really, this sweater dress was what made me survive the weather of my wedding. It was gorgeous but very cold. And seriously, did you think I would do something traditional?

What else do I have to share with you? Well, there is Jersey. What do I have to say about Rutherford? It's not Manhattan, but it's good. Peter and I love our condo. We're in a cute little town just on the west side of the Lincoln Tunnel. If you know where Giants Stadium is, you can find our place. We are across the street from the train station so getting into NYC or anywhere else is very simple. eriepcrutherfordnj.JPG
The train station doesn't look quite like that now, but they are doing construction on it.

We are still getting used to being in a small town. But one thing we haven't lost is great restaurants. Within walking distance, there are at least a half dozen amazing restaurants from our place and a dozen more that are worth eating at regularly. And since it's a dry town, you bring your own wine or beer and for no corking fee dinner is a whole lot cheaper than NYC. For steaks, there's Mignon. Across the street, you can get just about anything at Village Gourmet. You can get about 2 dozen different kinds of risottos at Risotto House. There is also sushi, Greek, Italian, Bakeries, pizza, Thai, Cuban and much more. And everything is all just a few blocks away from us.

On the other side of the railroad tracks is East Rutherford. That is not a dry town so that is where the bars and pubs live. So we can go over there to have a beverage if we would like. Ah, the best of both worlds.

I have also become more of a host now that I live in a place that has more room. In my last few homes, space has been non-existent. So Peter and I have started making up for this but inviting people over. Particularly since trains and buses are easy from NYC and parking is plentiful for drivers. We have a decent kitchen and an open floor plan. That means we can cook, have plenty of room for tables and seating and entertain like real people. It's almost like a dream come true. And for anyone that is a smoker, even though we are on the 5th floor, we have a terrace with a lovely view of downtown Rutherford. And as we learned on the 4th of July lovely views of fireworks in NJ.

I think I am going to end this post with a picture of my helper monkey, Chairman. He loves to help clean and do chores. As you can see, he's always doing everything he can to make chores go faster. All about efficiency.