Upcoming stuff part 1

The last two years have gone by really fast: Moving, getting settled, trips to Cancun, Japan, Seattle two August's in a row for weddings, and we just got back from Denver/Rock Springs and visiting Toshi's family. Things have been busy. It's nice to have time to be away from here because I like to be off Long Island and I like vacation and a change of pace. 

Toshi is big on planning. I am too but I think he more so than I. We've got a good idea about the next couple of years at least (assuming it all goes as planned and we are of course prepared for it to not and for plans to change.)

The first major thing that will happen is me getting done with school. Although I thought that I might want to see about a year and a half instead of two I have realized that might not be what's best for me. Fall semester would be very very full and on top of that I would be preparing for a recital and I want to make sure it's awesome so I think I'm going to do a full semester and then be part-time in the spring for my recital. That will help me have extra time to get ready for my recital. I haven't had a chance to talk with my advisor yet about this but the oboe player in my quintet is doing it so I'm pretty sure I can make it work. 

Also upcoming is my trip to Seattle and playing with Cascade! It seemed so far away when I agreed to it and now it's actually coming up. I have been getting great encouragement from Pascual which is always amazing and so I think that when the time comes - just about 6 weeks away! - that I will be ready. It will also be great to be home for two weeks! The first on my own and the second with Toshi. 

Starting to Post again - last two years update

So I haven't posted in over two years. Two years, nearly three I think! And I thought that it might be time to start posting again. A lot has happened since that time and I think it would be good to have some place to vent to or just tell what is going on. Earlier in life I wrote in journals and I really enjoyed doing that so this will just be the updated modern version of that.

The last couple of years have been kind of crazy when I go back and think about it. The last time I posted Toshi and I had just recently gotten engaged and I was down in Atlanta visiting the boys. Since then the boys have started to grow up, they are now nearly 5 and 7! Toshi and I have gotten married and moved to Long Island for his residency. Toshi is a planner and not knowing about residency and where he was going to go and having to scramble I'm sure was torture on him. Now that we are here and life is moving by so fast, he has started to plan again and I'm just rolling along with him.

We got married April 11, 2009. This April we will be celebrating two years! I can't believe it's gone by so fast and that we are just a few weeks away! We never really got a honeymoon because I had to go back to work. We just spent a few days in then rainy Cannon Beach. It was nice to have a few days post wedding to just relax but soon we were both back at work. Toshi had wanted to take a solo honeymoon to New Zealand and I told him he wasn't allowed to do that. It seemed crazy that he should get to spend his nearly two weeks off without me after we had just gotten married. So he didn't and since then he's always wanted to go... more on that later.

At the end of June movers came and packed up both apartments. Toshi worked while I sat in the apartments while they packed. We stayed for the last week or so at the house with mom. It made it that much harder to leave since we had been staying with her. We were headed off to somewhere unknown with no family and no one we knew on Long Island. We ended up staying in an extended stay hotel for nearly a month because there was no apartment for us. Once we finally had keys my dad came out and helped up clean up and and paint. If we were going to be stuck in the small apartment I wanted it to be our own. Bright fun colors in all rooms including the kitchen made it eventually feel like home. All our stuff came and the movers moved it all in. I was in tears. We had so much stuff and so little space. Toshi was working and wasn't going to be around and since I had nothing to do it was my responsibility to take care of it all - first married being a wife moment! So even though it felt impossible I started organizing boxes and working on figuring out how to unpack. The plan had been for Francine to come out and help but with all the issues of getting keys and then waiting for our stuff to get out of storage she wasn't able to be there yet so I was on my own.

The first night when Toshi came home from being on call his only task was to put together the bed so we could have somewhere to sleep. Our bedroom housed our bed and a piano and the room was not very big. I took as many boxes as possible and stacked them against the wall so where would be space to move. Then I had to unload and figure out what to keep and what to give away or sell. I quickly realized that our living room was going to be a multipurpose room and having a coffee table or stand for the TV was not going to work. Those were the first things to go. The dining room table became our multi-purpose table, we at there and it's where our computers lived. Above it was the flat screen TV we mounted on the wall. We had been in NY for just over a month and I was still completely overwhelmed. I was so glad we had a GPS and I used it to get everywhere - the grocery store, Target, Costco. I would have been lost without it.

Francine came and helped me with the rest of the unpacking and the organizing. We got some more shelves and that really helped with the kitchen and it's lack of space. By this time we had bought a couch as well so she had somewhere to sleep.

At this point I went to CW post to meet with the man that would be my advisor. I went in and met with him and asked about the program. I knew almost right away that this was not the program for me. There were no options of classes to take and it sounded as though I was going to be the best performance major they had ever had. I did not want to be in that situation, I wanted to be challenged. After being at Michigan where I had to work, I wanted a place where I was going to improve. So I decided not to go. I then realized that although I would be able to go school the following year I was going to need something to keep busy, a job, and lessons to get me ready for NYC school auditions. I got both.

Starbucks. I have now worked at Starbucks for over a year and a half and am now a supervisor. A little extra responsibility and a little more money - now I make $10 which to me is really sad but it's better than nothing. I'm working 2-3 days a week during school and I've just been transferred to a new store. I was annoyed at first but now I actually think that it might be a good thing - a new manager (not my crazy one that I've had) that I know and that appreciates my work.

Last October I started taking lessons from David Gould - a friend of Cassie's from Michigan. He teaches at Queens college and also runs a Vandoren Studio. He really helped get me ready for auditions. I auditioned at Manhattan, Mannes, Stony Brook and NYU. This fall I started my masters at NYU where I'll be for the next year plus.

Things are busy but going well for us here in New York. It's really nice being in school and being not only busy with something that I love but also being back in a place with people like me. The only interaction I've had with people is at Starbucks and as nice as some of them are, I don't hang out with them and they aren't like me. I didn't realize how much I missed being around music people until I was back with them. I really have missed it! I love school and being back where I feel like I belong. That may sound horrible but that's the case. I have missed being among music people and it's great being back.

So that's where I am now - Living on Long Island with Toshi, working at Starbucks and going to school for my Masters at NYU, preparing for the concerto competition in April and performing with Cascade in May. Copland take 2.

lots of things

I am currently in Atlanta helping with the boys. They are great but can be a handful, I dont know how Carrie does it! Jason works all the time - hes had a day and a half off since I've been here. Its nuts. I love the boys dearly but they are hard work. One at a time is easy, they are great. They tend to listen and everything but together they fight for attention and battle each other. Noah especially is hard, hes very very strong-willed!!

Tomorrow Tristan is coming to get me in the afternoon. So I told the boys today that I'm leaving tomorrow. Its always hard to leave even when the visit is hard and I'm tired from being with them. I dont know what we're going to do when I'm with him. It will be Saturday afternoon and then my flight leaves Tuesday night so a couple of days. He had suggested going to 6 Flags but with how hot it is I dont know if I can be outside all day long in the heat, I might burn to a crisp!

Oh yeah I think my ring is too big.... it moves when I type - the diamonds go to the bottom - and I'm worried about losing it. I think that when I take it to get cleaned in a couple of months I'll ask about that.

Also trying to schedule things with Toshi working is nuts. I'm working on scheduling food tasting, cake tasting and meeting a DJ - although the DJ has time while hes on vacation so thats great!

Toshi has started work and even though its tough it sounds like it got better after day one - today is day three and tomorrow hes on call for the first time - first official 30 hour shift! Anyway, I can tell its going to be hard with him working but even harder once I go back to work.

I can tell that I am not ready to have kids yet. I get frustrated and upset and I want to yell, sometimes I do. Time out is the greatest thing ever, works well for them most of the time. But it makes me worried how I will do when I have kids. Maybe its because they are related to me that I expect them to be great.... They are great, just really tough sometimes!

All for now, goodnight :-)

playing the waiting game

Ok so I've never liked playing the waiting game, its no fun and things seem to take forever. Right now I'm waiting because tonight I'm going to get on the plane. I love my family and seeing Jeffrey and mom is great but I hate waiting, I wish I could just get on the plane and be done with it already! Also it sucks because I wish that I could be seeing Toshi - he and I are slightly addicted to each other!

The other thing is that I'm playing another waiting game... for the last week or so my breasts have felt big and for the last couple of days my stomach has felt funny... now neither on their own all that worriesome but together.... I took my last pill last night (would be tonight but I dont think I'm going to worry about taking it because I want to know sooner!) so now I'm waiting. I told Toshi and hes like well if thats the case then we'll just deal with it.... yeah true but not the best timing. that would mean March which is not the best since we're getting married in April and also before we move is not the best either and teaching would be out the window....

anyways.... hopefully its nothing because that would make life much simpler but as I said, playing the waiting game....

End of school and Victoria

So school is finally done. I am glad that it is! I got a lot of work done in my classroom before school was over but there is still lots to do when I go back in the fall. I am planning on not going back until August. I did that last year too. It was so nice to be away and to not worry about anything! That reminds me, I need to call Meghan - she is planning a bridal shower of sorts for me with a bunch of the kids from school - all kids I like so it should be really fun. I need to get a day set with them before I go to Atlanta.

Over the weekend we went to Atlanta. That was post skydiving which was much more fun than I had anticipated. Really what were the chances that I was going to like jumping out of a plane? But it was great! The scariest part is actually getting out of the plane. Once we were falling I was ok. So Sunday morning we went to Victoria. It was a good but weird weekend. I think that I was off and he was a little off in anticipation of starting work but we had a really good time. We went to the Museum, IMAX, took a ferry boat tour of the harbour, went to Butchart Gardens and the Butterfly Gardens which were a blast. That reminds me I need to get my pictures online! I need to clear the memory card so I'll have space to put all my pics of the upcoming trip!

It was really good for us to get away. We had some moments of getting on each others nerves but we are learning how to deal with it. He does better than I do which is good because I think that I'm much harder to deal with than he is. I get frustrated with things very fast and dont always know what to do to fix being upset. But he handles me really well and always brings me back down to earth. I had one panic attack while we were gone - a major one where I was hyperventalating. He just sat and held me and got me to breathe. I havent heard back from the therapist yet, maybe I need to get in touch with her again to set something up when I get back rom Atlanta.

All in all things are good. I told Toshi I would stay out of his way while he was working but he has asked me to come over tonight and asked me to stay last night and I think thats a good thing. He's also got Saturday off so I'll stay over there on Friday night too. Then I'll be gone for 10 days which might be good because he'l really start working next week - right now just orientation stuff. He was done at Harborview this morning at 9 so was able to go back home and eat some before his UW orientation this afternoon. I hope that he finds out about the April vacation. I dont want to bug him about it. He told me he would take care of it and based on the rotation for that month he thinks that he might have weekends off anyway but still..... I would like to know sooner rather than later!

Ok, time to get back to work. I'm going to finish packing and start some cleaning I think. Then lunch and more cleaning. With the cats not here I can try and get a lot done. They are staying with mom right now. Tonight dinner with D'Amours, its been a while! And then Saturday night, late, off to Atlanta! Dont worry, the computer is coming with me :-)

Graduation is tomorrow

Now see its funny because it doesnt seem like graduation should bother me. I know a couple of seniors but really Nathan is the only kid that I really know. However today I was talking to Jordan after school and she was saying how shes going to cry at graduation when the seniors start walking in. I was saying I think I'm going to be ok until Nathan gives his salutatorian speech. Well it turns out that Nathan told Jordan (wow how HS!) that hes worried he'll start to cry when he sees me cry. How funny is that?

Anyway, yesterday was his last day but he was already back in today (to get all checked out and whatnot) I went and got him a graduation card and then on top of it a cute little book with fun sayings and things in it. I know that I'm not really supposed to get him a graduation gift, but I figured, why not?

Tomorrow is graduation. I hope kids show up, I hope the play well. I'm going to stay for the whole ceremony but I hope it doesnt last too long. Last year it was quick because we were outside in the cold but this year we'll be inside so it may take longer.

Things are going well. No breakdowns of late (since last weekend at Toshi's) Got an email back from the new therapist - Amy Clark- and I think I'm going to try and set something up with her. Although I've been feeling pretty good recently so of course that is odd.

I ordered a sample of possible wedding invitations and I think we've decided that we'll need to do save the date cards..... oh well, its just money right?

Well I guess thats about all.

I have these phone calls that I dont want to make - State Farm to see if they've heard anything about the other woman paying for my car to be fixed, CitiBank to switch over my mastercard to something thats not driver's edge and Nordstrom to see if they have the dress - although its not on the website.... can I see about emailing? Maybe

First Post

So I'm not really sure what it is this blog will be but I thought it might be good for me. A lot has happened to me in the last year and even though I have Toshi it might be good to vent to somewhere that it is likely that no one will ever read.

I started therapy but only went twice. I didnt really like the therapist and she didnt seem to be helping at all so I decided it wasnt worth it. I did email another therapist but I didnt hear anything back so I emailed again.

One of the great things is that Toshi and I found a place. Seattle World Trade Center. I am really excited about it and I think that he is too. Its small and intimate and we can have both the ceremony and reception there. We now have a place and a photographer. The hard part is Stacey keeps getting on my case about dresses. I havent talked to either Stephanie or Shannon yet. Toshi hasnt talked to anyone but Ruben - although now he has a best man! So we've got that much. I want to talk to the two of them but I want him to find two others. We'll see how it all goes, but at least one of three down. I want to find a dress but its hard with Stacey breathing down my throat about it. She wont be around that long and I know that she wants to do as much as possible while she's here but I just dont have that kind of time.

This weekend is Toshi's graduation. Its amazing that hes graduating! Then Sunday is the Barker-Clark dinner. It should be interesting but hopefully good too. Also this weekend we'll send in the contract for the World Trade Center.

I guess thats about all