Thursday, December 30, 2010

December 21

Today is not December 21. Today is December 30, which is an unspectacular and unimportant nine days after December 21, 2010, and 357 days before December 21, 2011. And December 21, 2011, is the day I'm getting married.

It's a Wednesday.

The date isn't even firmly set yet (we have booked neither a church for the wedding nor a hall for the celebrating), but already, I've gotten many, many questions about why we picked Wednesday, December 21, 2011. Several people have tried to convince me to choose other days: December 22, for example, or any time in June 2012. But we are sticking the 21st of December, for these two simple reasons:

1. It's 12/21, which is a number palindrome.
2. The full date is 122111, and if you've ever seen the movie Clue with Tim Curry, there's a scene where they discuss how many shots have fired out of a gun, and they go "1 plus 2 plus 2 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1."

And as if those two reasons weren't enough, there are several more REAL reasons!

We want to get married in December. I don't want a summer wedding, so that left out April-August. Robert will still be in school, which left out September, October, November, January, February, and most of March. And we didn't want to wait until March.

We originally planned for Saturday, December 17, but many of the members of our wedding party (Robert included) have finals until December 16, so that wasn't going to be fun. Robert nixed a Sunday wedding, which I supported, and then the next two weekends are Christmas and New Year's.

So the week of December 19 it was! We chose December 21 because we wanted it to be close enough to Christmas that people who are coming to Kansas City for the holiday anyway might be able to extend their stay a bit, but far enough away from Christmas that people who don't come to KC for the holiday don't miss their Christmases back home.

We realize some people may not be able to come because it's a Wednesday. We'll miss you very much, and hope we can celebrate with you another time!

There you have it. You are informally invited to a Wednesday wedding in December. I hope you can make it, but if not, send your love and we'll send ours right back.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Renaissance of a Blog

When I left England, I intended to keep writing on this blog periodically, whenever I had something to share or thoughts that I felt needed to be Google-able. Clearly, in the past two years, my share- and Google-worthy thoughts have not been flowing, so this blog has gone largely unused.

But I'm entering a new phase of my life right now, a BRAND NEW ADVENTURE, and so this blog is being re-born! You may or may not notice a new layout; it's accompanied by a new topic.

Instead of embarking on an overseas adventure, I am embarking on a far, far more daunting adventure: planning my wedding to one Robert Dale Jackson.

That's right: I'm getting married.

No one is more surprised than I am, but that'll be a post for another day. Today's post is introductory. World, I would like to introduce you to my Renewed Blog. Renewed Blog, meet The World.

I'll keep you updated on wedding plans and wedding panics, the jitters and joys, the romance, the Say-Yes-to-the-Dress thoughts, the expectations and the excitement and the exhiliration and every other ex- word except ex-fiancee, through this blog.

You can also check out our wedding website: www.theknot.com/ourwedding/JoyMason&RobertJackson.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Redefining the word "success"

As I've been thinking about and praying about and looking for a job, I recently realized that I'm only considering jobs that will be "successful" and "interesting" and "resume-building" by someone else's standards. I've realized that I've been looking for "fast-paced", "important", probably stressful jobs where I meet CEOs or Senators and have to wear heels every day. I want my gap years between undergrad and grad school to be "meaningful" and contribute "significantly" to my "life experiences". So I'm playing job search buzzword bingo: get five multisyllabic words to describe a job and I win.

Someone once told me that boring people talk about people, and interesting people talk about ideas. I don't think that's actually true, but that's not the point. The point is that I've been focusing on ideas for the past four years (and, yeah, great experiences and great people), and I'm ready to focus on--invest in--people for a while.

I want a job that will allow me to attend all of Abbie's sports games and recognition ceremonies. I want a job that will allow me to have my weekends off and that won't force me to work long hours. I don't want to be stressed out or too busy. I want to have time to be a YouthFriend and contribute to my church. I want to go out with my friends and spend time with my family. I want to enjoy my job and not dread it, and to feel like I'm contributing to something other than my resume.

And you know, that job might not be a "successful" job by someone else's standards. People from my college may look at that job and dismiss it as not "challenging" or not "reaching my potential". But I want a job that makes me happy, not a job that Jewell approves of. I want a job that allows me to invest in people, not impress people.

With that kind of job, I'll still win buzzword bingo.