And the crazy begins...

Every once in a while I talk in my sleep. So far as I can tell, this is a very rare occurence. To be fair, I don't know how often I do it, because I'm asleep. So I asked Adam, and he told me that he doesn't notice it, because he's asleep. Fair enough. I'll take that to assume I don't do it very often. I'm wondering if I started up again because of this post by Vancil.

I seem to be in a sleep-talking cycle currently. The other night I guess I muttered some unintelligble things at Adam (waking him up), and then shut up and that was that. Though in hindsight, I might have been actually awake, and thought he was, and that unitelligible muttering was me telling Adam "I love you." Hmm...oh well, doesn't much matter.

Until last night. I actually have vague memories of this event, but I don't know what I was dreaming about at the time. What woke Adam up last night was not my talking, but my pounding on the bed with a rolled-up kitchen towel.* I vaguely remember this because I had to remove it from under my neck and prop myself up to hit the bed. Apparently I also said "It won't copy!" and when Adam--presumably trying to be helpful--asked me what wouldn't copy, I just glared at him. I did, however shut up, lay back down, and went back to sleep.

What really frustrates me is all the weird dreams I had last night. I'm sure I remember this one, but I don't know which dream it would have been part of. The one where I was worried Faith was going to kill another animal (that's a later post, if I remember; if not she killed a possum the other day and brought the corpse into the house). The one where I was trying to fix the grandfather clock (which I broke more, but...)? Where I was supposed to drive my grandparents back up to Scappoose from Eugene? The one where I was at a graduation and the ensuing formal meal? I don't know.

Hopefully all of this will stop soon. Adam already found an article that claims that it's bad for couples to sleep together. Both sleep less because one waking up tends to wake up the other (they had to do a study to find that out?!). My talking--or hammering on the bed--is just more likely to end up with me on the couch and Adam in the bed. Why does he get the bed? Because he paid for it (and damn near everything else we own). Also because he works (which is how he pays for stuff). I suppose I can't fault the logic, but crap as that bed is (he doesn't make much money, mind you) it's better for my back than the couch or the floor.

Maybe I'll buy a gag...

*I really screwed my neck up somehow, and sleeping with a rolled towel under my neck instead of using a pillow (contoured or otherwise) is the only thing that's been making a difference. God knows the massages, ice, and copious application of various drugs hasn't done much.

Good News, Bad News: Home Remedies Edition

Good News: I found the plastic syringe type thing that Adam got for me.
Bad News: I had to spend 5 minutes digging for it before I finally remembered where I put it.

Good News: We had white (well, distilled malt) vinegar.
Bad News: Apparently we need to buy white wine vinegar (so I can make salad dressing).

Good News: I know how to treat yeast infections without spending buckets of money on creepy cremes.
Bad News: It's been a long time since I've done it, and I forgot to dilute the vinegar. BURNING! AHHH!

Good News: I probably will only need the one treatment to kill off the bad yeasties (see Bad News above).
Bad News: Did I mention the burning? AHHHH!

That concludes this edition of Good News, Bad News. Although I apologize for the excessive amounts of personal information contained herein, if you or someone you know gets yeast infections, they can be treated without dropping $18 on a 3 day box of nasty chemicals. You know, the box that also contains a coupon for $3 off your next box--but the coupon expired 3 months prior to your purchasing the thing. So you're doubly pissed: you have a yeast infection, and it cost you loads of money and there's no discount in case you get another one (which if you do, will be more resistant to those chemical treatments the next time).

Eat lots of yogurt with the natural bacterias still alive (not pre/probiotics, these are something else)--in a pinch you can supposedly take plain (non flavoured/sweetened) yogurt and use it "up there" but I haven't tried. Or, you can dilute some white vinegar (don't try this with balsamic) with water and douche with that. Please though, don't forget to dilute it--I'll hear your screams from half a world away. It'll take a few treatments of this--maybe 2-3 times a day--but much cheaper, far more natural, and if you get a really bad infection, THEN go spend the money.

That's not how it's supposed to be...

I went up to the Post Office today (which, just as a note, is privatized here in the UK...and is why Royal Post refuses to deliver packages to apartment buildings, so I have to go into Slaithwaite tomorrow) and bought stamps for the invites that need to be mailed to UK addresses.

Is it wrong that I've now spent on postage 2/3 of the amount that the actual invites and RSVP cards cost? Or maybe that's a very very good thing. I dunno. I do know that I can very easily grasp why many women become "bridezillas." Very few steps of putting together a wedding are actually difficult. Yet somehow, they are made difficult. I'm not even sure how. Perhaps a desire for it to just be DONE. Done without other people telling you what (they think) is best, what they want, how they did theirs...

What I do know is that I'm very lucky to have a father who doesn't give a damn what we do, just as long as we're happy, a mother who wanted us to elope so we wouldn't have any nonsense, and two in-laws who have so far been really great about everything, particularly as they've been left out of the loop (this was not intentional, I swear). Oh, and Adam, who says he is willing to help. He's unhappy when I set him to work cutting inserts up or addressing envelopes, but he does do it. Even if he looks like he's going to stab me with the scissors.

Go pack some fudge, you damn Benedictine!*

There are people out there who seem to like how I write. Ok. That makes me happy, if, from time to time, confused. If you are one of those people, or if you have a bizarre sense of humor--or better yet, both--go read this blog post. It's written by a guy who goes by the name Riff, and he writes for Kingdom of Loathing, which is a wickedly funny and smart online game (which you should play--it's free!).

In general, Riff's blog is pretty neat, but this particular post is about changing how we insult people. I think he's on to something, and so once again, I encourage you to read his post, which can be found here.

*This insult would perhaps be funnier to more people if they knew there was an order of Benedictine monks in Oregon who make fudge.

Wedding Woes

No, not "woe is me, I shall never marry" but more "woe is me, I wanted to elope, and instead I have to plan all this and I'm cheap." I looked at the budget today. First off, budget implies that we a) have a set amount of money we're willing to spend and b) have a plan. Technically speaking, we do have a set amount of money we can spend--when we run out of money in our combined savings accounts. That's a whole lot more than we will spend (no, don't ask how much money we have or how much we've spend, because it's not your business). As for a plan...well...

I think what really frustrates/terrifies me is that I look at what has been spent so far, and I don't see much on that list. Admittedly, the hotel and airfare for the honeymoon are included in that (yes, we're even taking a proper honeymoon, leaving the day we get actually for real married!). What terrifies me, though--besides the fact that food and wine/beer and rings and my visas and table/chair/linen/whatever else rentals aren't on that list--is that everything we've gotten so far has been insanely cheap. Terrifyingly cheap, really.

My dress was at the upper end of what I was willing to spend, but then I was hoping to out-cheap Luther's $20 wedding dress (note: it was gorgeous and perfect for her and didn't look cheap). I was also hoping to not buy mine at David's Bridal, but I couldn't find anything I liked anywhere else. Sadly the cost may rise more, for I think I'll have to get it altered down a bit (yay, but more money). As long as that doesn't affect the pockets--yes, it has pockets!--I don't mind too much. For those who wish to see the dress, it's here, and it's red. I will be peeved if guests wear red themselves (white and black, the traditional no-nos, totally awesome in my book).

The venue is shockingly cheap. Being wine club members knocked a bit off the price, but still, it's insane how little Alan charges to rent out his winery, especially when it's a Saturday and he has to close it down to the public (hmm, I think he's doing that). Plus, Lisa is totally awesome and will do a great job tending bar and helping us out when she can. BIIIIG tip (and even with that, still dirt cheap).

The invites were cheap enough, though we got shafted on postage. VistaPrint's stuff isn't the highest quality, the nicest looking, or traditional (big whoop), but given how much traditional invites cost (as low as $1 per invite--if you assemble it all yourself!), I was gonna be damned before I spent that much. And these are plenty nice, and fairly appropriate for the "come to our reception, we're getting married two days after that, and you're not invited" invite. Hey, at least I'm nice enough to put postage on everyone's RSVP cards. True, if you live in the US, they're postcards, but at least we're paying the postage. Initially, RSVP was going to be email only.

The single best part of money that we've spent so far is on our honeymoon. The afternoon we get married (I don't have a judge yet...still working on that one), Adam and I will board a plane in our finery with carry-on luggage only (again, I'm cheap--it's also faster when you arrive), and jet down to San Francisco. We'll have a rental car waiting for us (not a convertible, sadly, since December in the Bay Area is, uh...yeah), and we'll wend our way north, leaving S.F. behind us and putting all of Napa (and Sonoma) at our feet for 4 days. We've got a great room in what looks to be a wonderful B&B in downtown Napa, with 25 restaurants and 19 tasting rooms within walking distance. We'll hire a driver for our rental car one day to take us around a bunch of vineyards, and really, I don't know what we'll do with the rest of our time. Well, I do know, but I don't like to think about that many hangovers this far in advance. We might go back into S.F. one day and go to the zoo, or show Adam around, but I've managed to never drive in Cali, and I don't like driving in any major cities, since I have no patience and no GPS. Well, I guess I did drive in Death Valley, but if I saw 100 cars on the road in DEVA in 5 weeks, I'd be shocked.

There is one other rather bright spot in all this wedding planning. Well, besides actually getting married, of course. After vast amounts of research, struggle, frustration, and nearly spending a crap-ton of money on a lawyer, we finally discovered that if Adam only wants to come to the states to get married, but will be leaving shortly thereafter, he does not need a special visa. At least that's what the US Embassy in London says on their website (they, like the British embassies and consulates, don't answer email or phone queries, but instead direct you to non-govermental businesses who charge money to be not very helpful). I found enough info on that to make me confident that I'm correct. This saves us a lot of money for the moment, as visa are not even remotely cheap for those who wish to immigrate. However, I still need to go through the visa process. I'm hoping I only need 2 different visas over the next couple of years, not 3 (since we're getting married here in the States, not in the UK), but I'm not holding my breath.

Right, hopefully that at least partially satisfies those who have been frustrated by my long silence. That is, after all, what I've been spending most of my time on. But I can promise, when I write my next review, it will be of the (really awful, very truly horrid) book Twilight. So quite frankly, if you think Stephanie Myer knows how to write, I wouldn't read that post. Because she sucks.