I'm at work now, but my boss left early and I'm all done with everything I needed to do today.

The job at BBW is going well. It's a fun place to work when it's busy, when it's slow it is sooooo booorrinnnng. Luckily it's been busy almost every shift so far. They started doing on-call shifts, I assume just for the holiday, and I was kind of bummed about that. I also got my first paycheck from them today so it's hard to complain when I have a little extra money in my pocket.

We're still waiting on the professional photos from our wedding. This Sunday will be 11 weeks. It's especially frustrating because she handed out cards to ALL the guests (without asking us first) saying that the photos would be up in 30 days, so we're being contacted daily by various guests asking where the photos are. We've contacted the photographer twice and each time she's said "by the end of the week" which is CLEARLY not the case. I think it reflects very poorly on her as a professional. She is based in NH which is lucky, because I would probably not recommend her. I think her work is fabulous (from what I've seen of other wedding photos) and she was very affordable, but this waiting is ruining the experience for me.

21 days until Christmas!

25 days until my birthday!

Don't forget to add my new journal lorienellen if you haven't yet. I won't be updating this one anymore after the new year.

They offered me the holiday position at Bath and Body Works, and I took it.

It is 11 weeks until the end of January, but I'm not sure exactly how long they keep seasonal employees on. I figure they will start phasing us out as January sale calms down. If I make $50-100 a week that is quite a bit of extra money. I don't know what to expect as far as hours go, but I figure it can't possibly be as bad as when I was in MA last year... that was stressful. Sometimes I would be interning and/or working for 14 days in a row or more without a day off. At least I will be getting paid for ALL my time unlike my internship which was free labor.

So I guess the interview went well. It was a group interview, which I expected. They don't tell you that in advance but it was also a group interview 5 years ago when I was a fresh-faced recent high school grad looking for my first "real" job haha. (Not babysitting or other under the table type jobs, I mean.)

I really have no idea one way or the other! The good thing about the group dynamic is that it helps if you're nervous, but on the other hand you don't get any one on one time with the person interviewing you. I actually knew the interviewer from when I worked there before, and she remembered me. I barely remember her though, so I'm sure she just recognized my face. I bet as a supervisor she has seen a LOT of part time workers come and go over the last 3 years - especially since she used to cover three different stores. I'm not sure if having worked there before will help or not... it's been so long that I would have to be retrained just like the other girls would get trained, so it probably won't make a difference.

If I am offered the position I will accept it, because I feel like I should see this through since I applied. It would also be great to make some extra money and get the discount again. If I am not offered the position I won't be heartbroken.

I have an interview tomorrow for a seasonal job at Bath and Body Works that I'm not sure I want. I applied sort of on a whim a few weeks ago, thinking it's only temporary and it would be nice to have a little extra money over the holidays - and a friend gave me the idea when she applied for a holiday job. I didn't think they were going to call me after the first week and was OK with that.

It WOULD be nice to have some extra money, but there are a lot of cons, too. I don't remember loving the job when I worked there 3 years ago. I don't know why I am having such a hard time making up my mind to accept the position or not if it's offered. I was practicing some lines to use at the interview, like:

"I love to drink before coming to work!"

"I am late all the time. I don't like to keep a clock."

"I HATE to shower and wear bras."

"I absolutely must eat garlic every day."

Then they would make the decision for me and not offer me the position. :-)

The very first question I was asked while setting up the interview was "Can you work on Black Friday?" which is CLEARLY a no, since I said in my application that I am not available MWF because I work another job. So maybe that alone will be enough.

I shouldn't have applied. It was fate, I missed the exit for the store and had to go within 2 minutes of my house before I could turn around and go back. I should have just gone home haha.

If I get the job it REALLY won't be as bad as I'm making it out to be in my mind, I'm sure of it.

First snowstorm of the year! It's been raining, sleeting and snowing off and on all day. Now the snow is starting to collect! I'm always excited for the first few weeks of winter, but that wears off pretty quickly. It's a little early in the year for the first snow... usually we don't get it until late November or even mid-December or later. Hopefully that's not going to be a bad omen.

Interesting quote of the day:

"Faith makes a virtue out of not thinking." - Bill Maher

I've decided to switch to my new user name on January 1st, 2010.

Friends, if you add my new journal I will add you back, if you don't add me then we will go our separate ways.

lorienellen

I eat a hardboiled egg as part of my breakfast almost daily. My mom gave me some eggs from her farm, and today is the first from that batch I've had... oh my goodness. The yolk is almost orange and it is SO rich and delicious. The flavor is a million times better than store eggs. I never realized how spoiled I was eating fresh eggs regularly until I moved to my own house.

Here is a picture I took comparing a fresh Fairfield egg with a store egg, but the one I'm eating now is even more beautiful and orange because this picture was taken in the winter when the chickens weren't getting fresh grass or bugs.

I'm looking for some active communities or RSS feeds to subscribe to. My LJ has been pretty quiet since I left weddingplans.

What are your favorites?

I wanted to share this website with you that I really like:

Interface Lift

It's a wallpaper site with photographs from various non-professional (and professional?) photographers. I use Webshots software to rotate my desktops, but I use mostly images from this website. There are some really great ones, and new ones posted all the time.

Caleb and I went to Québec City over the weekend for our mini-moon. We're saving up over the next year and we're taking a real honeymoon for our first anniversary. We also need lots of time to decide where to go... that is the hardest part of planning a wedding! It was rainy, windy and gloomy all weekend but that's ok, will still had a great time!

I have been to Québec too many times to count now, so the city has a comfortable friendly feeling. I didn't take a lot of pictures and just enjoyed walking around the city with my new hubby. We stayed at a nice hotel outside the walls but within walking distance of the old city (I have always stayed inside the old city except for once, so that was fun!). It didn't feel weird to have French all around me, probably because I've been there a trillion times. It's been almost 3 years since my last visit, though, which seems crazy. Kayleigh and I and various friends used to make day trips up in high school and over college summers! It was a 4-hour drive one way! We didn't see any moose which is disappointing on one hand and great on the other, because that means we're less likely to be dead.

We drove up Friday and the foliage along the drive was amazing. Breathtaking. Unbelievable! The pictures I got don't do it justice at all. Plus it was cloudy... Friday night we had dinner at a restaurant I really like, then walked around the old city for a little while. We stopped for hot beverages and pastries at a café because it is SO MUCH colder there even though they're only a few hours north. On Saturday morning we had a room service breakfast, then walked down to one of the museums, then shopped and I got my French CD as per tradition (Marie Mai this time), then got dressed up and had dinner at the rotating restaurant on top of our hotel. Sunday we skipped breakfast, lounged in bed, drove the 4.5 hours home and went out to dinner home in Augusta to top off the weekend of breaking our diets. We stopped and bought some Ketchup because it's sweetened there with real sugar instead of corn syrup and it is SO GOOD. Seriously, go to Canada only for the ketchup if you need a reason to go there.

( Les photos! )

We were married a week ago Sunday, at the Lucerne Inn in Dedham, Maine. I could not have asked for a more beautiful, perfect day!! The summer here has been very rainy and miserable, but we had sun. Unfortunately the leaves had not really started to change yet, which is strange because other places in Maine have incredible foliage now and Dedham is fairly northern (outside Bangor). And we came in under budget! Woohoo!!!

I know a few things went wrong but they were so minor I can't remember what most of them were at this point. A bug flew up between the two layers of my dress and died at some point between walking down the aisle and the end of the ceremony, so there was a nice big blood spot on my dress!! It came off with a little water and elbow grease, though. And we invited 80 guests, had 55 RSVP and only 40 at the wedding!!! It was kind of crazy, but even so I felt like I didn't have enough quality time with each guest. And our baker used a different ribbon than the one I sent to be used with my cake - not sure what happened there. It was several shades darker and the ribbon I intended was the same shade as the bridesmaid dresses, but that was a detail only I noticed. It was simultaneously the fastest day ever - just a blur - and a loooooong tiring day.

The Lucerne Inn is in a beautiful setting and because they are a prime spot for weddings there is a full-time wedding coordinator on site as well as several assistants. I found it SO helpful to have them because they really took care of a lot of the small details, which I especially appreciated in the morning when my attention was pulled in every direction. AND one of them was a good friend in college, who I was so comfortable working with and I'm really glad she happened to be there! It was pretty random when we found out she worked there. The food was delicious, and it was a very reasonably priced place.

We got the bridesmaid dresses and flowers online! The dresses were reasonably priced and very high quality. Neither of my girls had to get any kind of alteration. The customer service was also fabulous, I e-mailed asking for swatches and had them within a couple of days. I also could not have been more pleased with the quality of the flowers. The photographer didn't even realize they weren't real flowers until she touched them. And I and my bridesmaids will be able to keep our bouquets as keepsakes! I wasn't as excited with my dress, I bought it over a year out and kind of didn't like it anymore. But I also got it altered and it was still too big at the wedding, which was kind of too bad. It's loose in the photos, but at least it wasn't so tight I couldn't breathe... right?

Our photographer, Andrea Runkel, was very professional and fun to be around - which is important since I spent more time with her than Caleb during the day! My friends and family were also very impressed with her and have had only good comments. She set up a digital picture frame near our guestbook, so when people were waiting in line for the buffet they were able to sign the guestbook and see some of the images from the ceremony and pre-ceremony. I'm also really proud of our guestbook, I don't have any pictures of it here, but I had pictures developed of us together and of each of us when we were little, and used photo corners to put them into the book. I also got some stickers with love quotes and put them in, too. It came out SO well!!

Ok now pictures, which I know everyone wants! A lot of you probably saw these and more on Facebook already. These are from several different guests.

( Non-professional wedding photos! )

Now we're off to Quebec City next weekend for our mini-moon! I'm sure I'll have pictures from that, and I will certainly post some of the professional photos when I get them back in a few weeks. :-)

It's so weird to say "my husband" in conversation. Oh, I also got my hair cut, about 6" two days after the wedding. I haaaate wearing my hair long and was almost more excited for the wedding to be over so I could get it cut instead of so I could be married haha. And being married feels NO different than not being married. Caleb and I have been together 2.5 years and lived together for over a year before the wedding. I wasn't expecting anything to change, though.

Wooo!!

I passed the RD exam this morning!!!!

Now I am officially a dietitian!! I can't believe it. I was SO excited. Well, I still am but it's had a few hours to sink in so I'm not quite as antsy and not shrieking as much. I had to drive about an hour to the test site and that was the longest hour ever. I actually left a ton of extra time and ended up getting there 45 minutes early, but they let me start as soon as I got there.

It was harder than I expected but I've been studying for weeks (literally), not to mention all the time spent at my internship and during my undergrad. It all paid off!! It's crazy, I've been working towards this for so long and now I have it! I don't even know what I'm going to do with all my extra time now that I'm not studying.

Time to concentrate on the wedding now! 10 days!!!

I did this in January of 2006, and I thought it would be fun to do again.

Think of 3 photos you'd like to see. Things in my home, neighborhood, or of anything I'm able to take a photo of rather easily. When I've seen all the suggestions, I'll make an entry with all the photos I've managed to take.

Is there a way to archive all my old LJ posts, and download them or something? Is there a way to save them without having to copy/paste every one? Could I even transfer them to a different name or is that asking too much?

The easiest solution I can think of is to print them all out and keep them in a nice binder with my old handwritten diaries. I've had this journal just over 5 years and that's a lot of posts to transfer. Plus the images I've posted occasionally might not come out very well.

I have a new username I got a few months ago that I'm seriously considering switching to now... I'm not 17 and haven't been for awhile haha. But I do like the "blueberry eyes" nickname and would be a little sad to stop using it. I guess I could get *another* e-mail but that doesn't really make sense. The new username is "lorienellen"

Well, it has been over a month since my last update!

In that time we moved back to Maine and got settled here. We're living in Augusta, which is never a place I imagined myself living growing up. It's actually really nice now, they have made a big effort to clean up the old factories along the river and it's actually quite pretty. Plus, after living so close to Worcester for a year I think it would feel cleaner here no matter what. There's a huge beautiful new Hannaford nearby which SO beats Stop N Shop. The city has also made a big effort with development and there are a lot of new stores near where we're living. We pretty much have access to everything we had in MA except for a Chili's... which is good news for my waist line.

Oh, speaking of that, I've lost almost 35 pounds now.

I'm working on studying like crazy for the RD exam and planning the wedding which is in SEVENTEEN days! Where did that year and a half go?! I'm making a lot of progress on the details, and that's pretty much all that's left. I have been starting to get nervous and had a major wedding-related stress dream again last night - I kept waking up from the stress and then would fall right back into it again. Blah.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all my free time after the wedding and the RD exam. Right now I'm spending 6-8 hours of my days off studying... I'll have all that time back!! Our apartment will be a lot cleaner, that's for sure. I pretty much haven't cleaned at all because studying is the most important thing right now, and Caleb works full time so he doesn't feel like doing it either.

I'm also loving my job at SVH. I work there MWF, and so have had lots of extra time to study, thankfully! My boss is so nice and all the other employees have made me feel welcome. I feel all professional wearing my lab coat, having the knowledge to answer patient and doctor questions, and collaborating with other health care professionals. I really am so happy there! My boss has also talked about expanding my hours to 32 hours a week, but that won't happen until at least after the new year. That's ok, I'm still trying to get into a routine and would like to wait a little while before adding any more responsibility - but it is good to know that my earning potential will keep growing.

Ok, I have been procrastinating and I need to go back to the garage this afternoon to get my car fixed AGAIN. I had it inspected and it turns out it needed almost $1000 worth of work to be road safe. That was my entire first paycheck plus some savings. Then they broke a sensor while they were repairing it, so I have to go back for that to be fixed. That is free, though, they're not charging me to replace what they broke. The owner is the one who told me about it and I think he was pretty mad at his employee who did it. Oh well. But I have to sit and wait for the work to be done, so it is a great time to stuuuuudy.

These random posts always get so long. I should do them more than once every 6 weeks eh?

I GOT THE DIETITIAN JOB IN MAINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got off the phone with HR, and then my new boss called me and we had a little chat. I am SO EXCITED!! I don't even know what to do with myself. I jumped and flailed and yelled and that got out some of my energy but I am still SO EXCITED!!! This means I can start paying down my credit cards and my student loans and um build a career!!!! YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so disgusted with my eye doctor in Massachusetts. I am SO GLAD that after I pick up my new contacts from them I am done with them forever. First of all, the receptionist is SO rude and just makes every phone call painful.

I have been paying out of pocket for my eyes care for a few years now because it was the first part of my parent's insurance that I lost. When all their insurance expired on my last birthday I applied for Commonwealth Care in MA (since every resident is required to have health insurance and I only make about $500 a month). I figured while I have insurance it would be a good idea to get my eyes cared for since I have terrible vision.

I've spent almost $300 out of pocket during all of this. Apparently all my insurance covered was $75 towards a pair of frames. It ended up being a $200 bill for my lenses and frames. Ok, fine, glasses last awhile and I haven't had new ones since high school. And then a $40 to have my eyes fitted for new contacts, which it turns out I didn't even NEED because they are a completely different kind of contact and are not compatible with my current kind - WHICH WAS NEVER MENTIONED TO ME. My right eye got worse while my left eye stayed the same, so I have enough left eye contacts for a year and a half. I need to order JUST right eye contacts until my left eye ones are used up, so I had to read my old BC and DIA off the box to them. I didn't need to be fitted for the new, more expensive kind since I will never be purchasing them. Flipping ridiculous. And it's another $55 for two boxes of contacts.

We'll be living close enough to my old eye doctor when we come back to Maine that I will probably just continue to go to him. Waterville is only about 20 mins from Augusta and 15 mins from Fairfield so it's pretty much the same distance. I'm so frustrated. $300 is a really significant amount of money for me right now.

I graduated my 10-month dietetic internship this afternoon. Now my title is "registration eligible" until I pass the RD exam, then I'll finally be RD, LDN. Woo!

The job I applied to in Bangor has been filled as of yesterday. So we will be moving to Augusta. I'm moderately excited. It makes sense to move there, and it's nice to know what city we can look for apartments in, but I never really envisioned myself living in Augusta. I guess I never really thought about it growing up, though. I wasn't one of those kids that was like LET ME OUT OF MAAAAIIINNNEEEE! I always wanted to live in Maine, but I never thought about where. Mid-coast would be really nice, but I have pretty much NO chance of finding a job there. Maybe when the current dietitian at PenBay Medical Center retires or changes careers I can swoop in there. She's fairly young though, so that will probably not happen any time soon.

I also have lost 21 pound as of today. It feels really good. Only 14 more to go until I reach my goal - back where I was before Caleb and I started dating.

This video is amazing, it's of a baby born into the water in its caul. It almost looks like the mother is laying an egg.

Yesterday was 100 days until the wedding, but I missed it. Sooooo... 99 days!!!!! Today we're ordering the invitations. :-) Even though I got overwhelmed and had a little breakdown a couple of weeks ago, things are moving along pretty smoothly. I'm really glad that I did so much planning last summer before my internship started.

I've lost almost 20 pounds since I started on April 26. My goal is for 20 pounds by June 26 which is my internship graduation date, and also randomly happens to be exactly two months. I didn't do that on purpose but it works out well.

I have applied for a handful of jobs in Maine, all over the state, and am really hoping I'll get a couple of interviews. We want to live in the Bangor area but two IDEAL jobs have opened in Portland. Another awesome job has opened in Bangor that I applied for, but it is not in clinical dietetics which is my goal. I would be an assistant manager for the Meals for ME program (like Meals on Wheels), which I actually volunteered for my whole senior year in college. So that would be a great position, too. Oh man, this whole process is pretty nerve-wracking.

I have a lot going on in the next few months:
- Graduate internship
- Find a job
- Move back to Maine
- Take (AND PASS!!) the RD exam
- Get married

Not necessarily in that order, but that is the order I'm hoping for. That's a lot for 99 days.