Life in the Fast Lane

Oops, So I believe I said in my last post that I would update again from Kauai, but now here I am, with 2 days and 1 night left of my trip back to the States, and I'm only just getting around to posting. Typical me!

I have a ton of stuff to write about and not much time to write it today since I still have to look for work pants and shoes to bring back with me and stock up on a few more food products MOTH and I will be desperate for as soon as we get back to Aus where they are either a) not available or b) god awful expensive and then I should clean the guest room since my parents have people coming to stay with them a few days after we leave.

Since I keep reading on people's Facebook statuses how cold and miserable it is in NSW already and since high bill season is about to start at my work, where I know I will spend multiple 8 hour shifts getting yelled at and verbally abused by customers, reminiscing on my vacation through blog posts will be a very nice distraction in the coming weeks.

Here are some of the topics I hope to have posts up about shortly:

Our amazing, wonderful, fabulous, exquisite, relaxing, and fun trip to Kauai

Our time in San Francisco, including meeting our fabulous wedding photographer

The time I got ripped off by some guy at a gas station and got in to a verbal confrontation with him

Wedding plans including our wedding planner, our menu, and our location

How MOTH Dude upgraded my engagement ring in a very BIG way

Anyway, I'm off to start my errands. Wish me safe flying thoughts and a speedy recovery from my jet lag since I am hitting the ground running and starting back to work on Monday!

Because the Positive will Always Overcome the Negative

Although my last post was fairly negative, I generally try to write about things from a positive perspective. I may talk about something negative if it has been affecting me for some time, but if MOTH Dude and I get in to a little fight or if someone at work or a friend says something that hurts my feelings, I don't come on here and lash out at them right away. I know it is a momentary bump in the road in our relationship/friendships. Don't get me wrong, there have been times I've wanted to be immature and air some dirty laundry on here, but once it's on here anyone can read it and even though I give psuedonym's to everyone, if you know me, it is easy to figure out who everyone is.

The benefit of technology is that it allows people to have a voice and to share that voice with a wider audience than was ever available before. The downside to technology is that people seem to forget that what you put out in to the internet never really goes away. So if you put something out there, you have to be willing to own it.

I'll get to the specific event I'm speaking about in just a moment here, but when called my Mom on advice on how to proceed on what I had found, she talked about how one of her friend's daughters had broken up with a boy and the boy got so mad he started a website about what a drunk and a slut this girl is. Now, whenever you Google the girl, that stuff comes up about her. How horrible, right? Even if these things were true, does the girl deserve to have that out there for future employers to see?

I, myself, Googled someone the other day who had been really, really mean to me for no reason just to see what was out there about him. With only his first and last name, I found out a ton about him and on the very first search result linked to his name found his cell number and his personal email address. If I was a vindictive person, there's lots of bad stuff I could do with that information alone.

Technology is changing so rapidly and is such a useful tool, but sometimes we get complacent about what we put out there about others and the information that we share to the world about ourselves.

So on to why I'm posting about this today: MOTH Dude and I are heading back to California in a month and a half to visit family and friends and to start looking at wedding venues and meet with potential vendors. I've made a wedding inspiration board and have a good idea based on our style and our budget on what we are after. In conjunction with the wedding planning process, part of my daily internet routine now includes checking out a couple wedding blogs to see if any of the weddings featured are using the colors or details we like in a way we haven't thought of. I also read a forum site where brides ask each other things like where to find the perfect blue shoes or what a reasonable cost in NY is for a wedding cake or what should they do to make their DIY centerpieces nicer. Part of the forum is dedicated to family topics and bridesmaids and honeymoons, as well. What I generally do is go on and look at the first 5 pages of forum topics. These are all the posts from any of the sections (honeymoons, shoes, family, etc) that have been commented on most recently.

This morning, while MOTH was at church and I was waiting on the first load of laundry, I scanned through the first 5 pages as per usual and opened in a new tab any topics that were relevant to me and a few about people venting about problems they are having in planning their weddings. One of the topics I opened was "MOH from Hell". (For those not in the throes of wedding planning, MOH = Maid of Honor.)

I'm reading through the post and the author was frustrated with her Maid of Honor because she thought she was being too controlling, too negative, and wanted to go on a $500 cruise for a bachelorette weekend (which may sound extravagant to some, but I've had a few friends in Orange County do this now, so while it does seem like an expensive party, it's not so far fetched for our area/friend group) but then was worried about how much being a bridesmaid was going to cost her. The friend asked the bride to provide her with a spreadsheet on what she should be expecting to pay to participate in the wedding, which is a contrast to being able to drop $500 for a weekend cruise, but not an unreasonable request. The bride first writes that she is unsure 12 months out from the wedding how much everything will cost, (which I can relate to because I have no idea how much I'll be asking my girls to spend, but want to keep it low for them) but then the bride writes out how much the bridesmaid dress she likes costs, how much for the shoes she wants them to get are, and how much for their hair/makeup and comes up with a figure of $256.

She then rips in to her Maid of Honor saying she thought she'd be the perfect person to pick as she works in the industry. She then starts to talk about the friend's family's financial background and talks about how it shouldn't worry the Maid of Honor as they are well off. Then things get really nasty and the bride starts to talk about really personal things that have happened to the girl, once again, on a public forum where anyone can read it.

Well, as I'm reading the post, I think to myself, "Gee, that sounds like the life of one of my friends as far as school and work goes and she does come from a comfortable family, but I have never heard a negative word from her about anything and when I showed her my wedding idea board she had nothing but nice things to say and made some cool suggestions, too." So I went on Facebook and was going to link to the forum post on my friend's wall for a laugh, but then I thought, "Nah, I'll private message her."

So I'm writing this note: Hey Hottie, How's life? You're not a Maid of Honor for anyone are you? There is a post on this website (link to website) about some girl, but I don't think anyone could ever write something like that about you. Anyway, there is someone else in your city, living your life, and they also went to your same college...Better find out who your competition is! ;)

But before I hit send, I get a funny feeling and think I should check out the bride's profile to see if there was any link between her and my friend...like same age or high school or neighborhood. I click on her Bio page and there is a description and picture of each of her bridesmaids and lo and behold, my friend is at the top under Maid of Honor. It doesn't give her full name, thank god, just her first name but there she is in picture form for everyone to see who exactly the bride has been talking about.

I didn't know what to do so I called my Mom. I gave her a general run down of what I had found and my Mom said that this was the trouble with technology and that I should just sit on it. And I said, "Really? Don't do anything? Let me just read you exactly what was written." So I did and then said again how my friend's picture was easily linked to the post. Mom thought it was pretty awful and suggested that I wait to see if the bride posts anything later because the last thing the bride wrote was how she was going out with the Maid of Honor and another bridemaid tonight, to see if maybe she and my friend get things worked out, and if not, to contact my friend tomorrow to let her know this information is out there on the internet about her.

Whether what the bride wrote about the friend is true or untrue (I really don't know), I don't think she had the right to post those things about my friend, when there is a picture that everyone can see of her on the same site.

So two questions for you:

1) How would you proceed from here? (Would you only let my friend know if they bride continued to post negative stuff about her? Or should she know what is already out there about her?)

2)Would you want to know someone had written stuff about you like that online or since it won't come up in a Google search of your name, would you rather be left in the dark?

Ok, how about a third:

Have you ever found something written online about you, bad or good, that you didn't know existed? How did it make you feel? What did you do?

I Told You I Didn't Want My Picture Taken, You Snapped It Anyway

We're back from the wildlife rehabilitation center (there are a few pictures from it at the end of this set) and Boyfriend is napping so I've had some time to watch the river go by and to look through all the pictures I've snapped on the trip so far. We'll be leaving here in the morning and it looks like we might run in to some rain and snow on our trip back down to San Francisco, fingers crossed that we don't need chains because we don't have any! Hope you enjoy the pictures.

A cold and rainy day in Fort Bragg, CA

The view from our hotel room in the morning...a gorgeous day and a gorgeous view!

One of the locally brewed beers that Boyfriend really likes.

I had no idea we had elk anywhere in California!

Where we got out for a 2nd time to look at this river (the Smith) and where when we got back in to the car, I backed over a rock that punctured my oil pan. Had we not pulled over immediately we could've seized the engine on our car, but we were smart enough to pull over. We had to wait an hour and a half for a tow truck (in the dark dark as we were up a ways in to the mountains) and then got stuck in Crescent City, CA for the night at a really sketchy motel, but at least they were able to fix my car quickly and cheaply and we're not still in Crescent City awaiting a new part!

The nicest thing we found in Crescent City: their lighthouse.

What's a girl to do when stuck in a place like Crescent City waiting for her car to get fixed??

Back on the road. Back to pulling over (put this time in paved lots) to check out the Smith River.

I'm really only about a 2 minute walk from my car, but the trees and mountains seem to dwarf it.

One of the grey wolves at the Wildlife Images Rehabilitation Center after her walk.

Eurasian lynx

Have You Ever Had Trouble With Your Automobile

Hello from Oregon! Well...almost. See, we made it to Fort Bragg yesterday afternoon and had a fun afternoon running around in the rain and then a nice dinner at a Japanese food place. We got up to a beautiful view from our room- over a little river and out to the ocean. We had fun on our drive today. We saw starfish, some squirrels, some amazing rivers, and a ton of elk. We were on the home stretch in to Oregon when we decided to pull off the road to check out this beautiful river whose water was almost an emerald color (this was 20 miles from the Oregon border). We got the pictures and got back in the car and I backed the car up and we heard some terrible scraping sounds coming from under the car. We pulled out and back on the the road and I was not happy about the sound, but Boyfriend said "Squeeze my hand, we got out of that fine" It was about then that my oil light came on and started beeping at me. We immediately pulled over and sure enough, oil was steadily gushing from under the car. We were able to a flag down a girl right away who took me in to the closest little town and after an hour and a half, the tow tuck I called finally arrived. We went back out to find the car and poor Boyfriend who had been in the pitch black for over an hour. The tow truck driver dropped us at the repair shop and Mom said there were a couple hotels around that we could stay at...a Hampton Inn which was about a mile away and $99 or a place called the Front St Inn for $55. I said book us the Hampton Inn since I had heard of that one, but not the $55 a night one? It has free Wifi and is on the beach, just like the Hampton Inn. I said "Does it look clean? Do you think it's alright?" because I was wary of anything that cost $55 for the night. She said, "Oh yeah, it says it's got clean rooms and it has gotten good reviews online." So we loaded up with all the stuff from the car we could carry and had a fairly short walk down to the Inn. It looked pretty rundown as we approach, but the front desk guy seemed nice and the office area was clean and smelled good. We got to our room and it was underwhelming. Or overwhelming, but overwhelmingly bad. At least it seems fairly clean. We were less than impressed though when we came out of our room and saw a bunch of sketchy people hanging out on the balcony upstairs and when our door lock didn't work really well. We half expected we would come back from dinner to find all of our stuff in the room gone. Anyway, I guess it'll do for the night and we've got our fingers crossed that they can fix our car tomorrow. Our guess is that it is a busted oil pan (I think that's what it's called), but we may run in to a problem as we are driving a VW Beetle and they may not have one that will work with the car. The nearest VW dealership is a 2 hour drive away so we're in trouble if they have to get the part from there! Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'll update you all tomorrow with what's going on and I'll hopefully post some pictures of what we've seen so far.

Sometimes No One Wants What We Got...

So it rained on Sunday and we didn't do the second day of the garage sale. Consequently, I now owe Boyfriend $8 for our little bake sale adventure. In other words, I have to pay Boyfriend for the 3 hours worth of baking I did Friday night and for the pleasure of getting up at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday...good times!

Saturday night I had my Godsister and a friend from the Cookie Company and their boyfriends over for dinner and a soak in the jacuzzi.

Yesterday, Nae took me and Mom to get our nails done and our eyebrows waxed (and boy did I need that mani/pedi after a year of not having them done because of the absurd prices in Australia) in the morning. We then came home and picked up Boyfriend and Dad and went to see "It's Complicated." A bit of advice on this movie- don't go with your parents, there are some awkward parts! Nae, Boyfriend, and I also felt we were about 30 years too young to appreciate this movie. We got a few little laughs here and there but all the older people around us were having trouble breathing from laughing so hard! We were also really annoyed because it seems like older people like to talk during movies ("Oh, wow! Look at that garden!" "I think this part is going to be funny!") and there was one lady in front of us who every time she laughed, she also clapped very, very loudly and so you couldn't hear the rest of the joke on screen. I'd recommend waiting to see this one until it comes out on DVD.

After the movie, we headed out to do family dinner at Ristorante Avanti. It's this tiny little Italian restaurant and all of our food was delicious, especially the Chocolate Pots de Creme we had for dessert! It was really pricey, but a nice treat to have every once in a while, plus it was really nice to have all 5 of us together for a meal without it being a holiday or birthday.

Anyway, all-in-all not a bad weekend. A bit bummed about not making any money on my bake sale, but it was fun hanging out with Nae and all her roommates for the morning.

It's storming here today and we have had really high winds and some heavy rain blasting the house. We've got a fire going so it's nice and cozy sitting upstairs with all the windows that look out at the trees and the ocean; it's a great view of what's going on out there! I love being in this house when it rains.

Our time here is growing shorter and shorter and I don't think either Boyfriend or I feel ready to leave just yet. I think the more time we spend up here, the more we realize that this area would be a great place for us to live. We'll just have to see how it all works out in the long run, but for now he'll for sure be flying back on February 5th and I'll be following him on the 7th.

It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To

I wonder how many blogs out there have that as a title to a post? I called home for my REAL birthday, according to Californian time. I was still waiting on the package from my family to arrive and hoped I would get it that night. It did come that day and S brought it over that night. I jumped to rip it open. First thing I saw was a note from Quarantine saying that they had checked the box. Ok, no worries, they normally do that. Next, I saw two bits of tissue paper with nothing in them. One said to Lil D from Mom and the other said to Lil D from Dad. The tea that they had sent at my request had been confiscated. At that point I was bummed and crying, just disappointed that the stuff hadn’t made it through and that Mom and Dad had spent all that money to buy and send the stuff and I didn’t even get it. Next, I opened the gifts from Nae. She had sent me really cute bras from Target, unfortunately they were one size too small, even though I had sent her an email giving her my size. Now I was really crying. S was so upset watching me cry. He felt bad that a happy event had gone so wrong. I emailed my Mom and she felt so bad too, I didn’t want her to, I just felt bad about her sending stuff and it not making it. I don’t care about the stuff, it’s just stuff, but I care about the time and effort it took for my family to get and send the stuff and it not work out. I emailed the tea placed cause it said online that they send that tea themselves here to Australia. They were super nice (Go Peet’s Coffee and Tea!!) and sent me two packs of Ice Tea for free. I’ve got it cooling in the fridge now. I sent back the bras to my family, along with a few little surprised for them, and hopefully Nae will send me back the right sized bras and some Girl Scout Cookies.