Appreciation is the name of the game

It continues to be an interesting time in the World of the Tomboy Bride. I vow to myself every New Year's that I will take more time for myself and not sweat the small stuff. It seems I'm always at one end of the spectrum or the other. So here is how lately the daunting task of writing Thank You cards has rocked my world:

1.) Some of you may know that I have been applying for jobs within the Public Health arena for the past year and have not been having much luck. Apparently when you've hung out with hamsters for 7 years, you're not really qualified to do much of anything except hang out with hamsters and other small rodents. At least "not in this economy," as people have been telling me to make me feel better. That's all well and good as I do like rodents and other furry animals, but my burning desire to "make a difference" in a more direct conversation with the public and, hopefully one day, the individuals who control public policy is just not being satisfied in the lab. I know there are people who get to have the best of both worlds (lab life and influence in policy), but for me I know the types of topics I want to be researching and they involve crunching large amounts of data from human subjects and linking the results of said data to samples from air, water, soil, and food.

So what on Earth does this have to do with Thank You cards, you're wondering? Sorry, I got carried away there for a minute. Well, in order to get the training that I need in order to have access to (and to be able to crunch) the data that I want to make the world a healthier place, I decided to pursue a Masters of Public Health at the University of Georgia. That's right, I'm going to be a Bulldog!!!

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit UGA's College of Public Health a few weeks ago and to meet with the professor who will be my advisor when I begin this journey (through grad school...yes, again). Following a fantastic visit, I knew that etiquette demanded I promptly send a Thank You card to my lovely host. Through this whole Tomboy journey, I constantly have had Thank You cards on hand. Boxes of them in every room of this apartment. And so I wrote in the Thank You card...right off the page... So I tried again and my message ran onto the back of the page. Seems that being concise is NOT my forte (who knew?).

This Thank You card thing stressed me out for days. I tried writing shorter messages but they were too short. I thought writing to a professor I barely know and continuing the message onto the back of the card might not look "professional". So I cheated. I typed up a letter that said everything I wanted to say in the most concise form possible (even though, handwritten it wouldn't fit in the card!). Then I wrote a simple Thank You message in the card and I mailed both!

You might think this would come off neurotic - and maybe it did - but they accepted me anyways :-)

2.) Fast forward to last week following my fabulous Surprise Bridal Shower. I had a million Thank You cards to write. I battled every emotion from overwhelming gratitude (to everyone!) for the gifts, the love and the well-wishes to paranoia (Is this message too short? Am I making it sound like "It was my day and you were just lucky to be there?" How is this coming off?) to panic (Did I put the correctly addressed cards in the corresponding envelopes?).

Let me say this:
If you feel like your message is too short: my hand was cramping up at different points in time. It doesn't mean I love you any less, I might have just written 53 practice cards before I finished your's.
If you feel like your message is too long: I might've written your's first, maybe I didn't feel like I talked to you enough and I wanted to make sure you REALLY REALLY knew I appreciated you being there!
If you didn't get a card: I'm a bad person, I swear I checked and re-checked the list.

I know, at the end of the day, they're THANK YOU cards. Do people even keep these?! But it really worries me to think that anyone would think that their presences (or presents, hehehe) were anything short of greatly appreciated.

Ok, I have one more thing to comment on. It's not wedding-related in any way, shape, or form. I didn't do a running Oscar blog because I started to, but then I just updated my Facebook status throughout the night. If you were annoyed this morning by my 942 status updates, I apologize, but it was OSCAR NIGHT! A bunch of comments - feel free to agree or disagree:

a.) Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in my opinion were mildly funny at best and made me outrageously uncomfortable at worst. Their highlights were "Damn (instead of Dame) Helen Mirren" and the Paranormal Activity spoof.
b.) Ben Stiller dressed as an Avatar = funny.
c.) Sean Penn is still hot and is my reigning Old Dude Crush.
d.) Is there anyone on the planet more delicious than Jeremy Renner (besides Bryan)? If you haven't seen The Hurt Locker, I suggest you watch it not only for it's incredible artistic merit, but even if you don't like war movies, check it out for his arm muscles ALONE. The man is in a uniform for 99% of the movie and it's AWESOME.
e.) The Hurt Locker smacking down Avatar was the highlight of the YEAR for me so far. I predicted this would happen MONTHS ago, but I couldn't have dreamed it would be such an astonishing defeat. Take that, James Cameron's hair!
f.) Best Dressed (in no particular order): Maggie Gyllenhaal, Cameron Diaz, Anna Kendrick (I began to like the dress the more I looked at it!), Queen Latifah, Rachel McAdams, Sandra Bullock, Meryl...did I forget anyone? Oh, Miss Penelope Cruz.
g.) Worst Dressed (in this order): Vera Farmiga (I'm actually mad at her for that dress!), Charlize!!! Amanda Seyfried (I had a nightmare about her dress last night), and George Clooney's Hair
h.) Best Speech: Sandra Bullock and the gasping guy from Precious that won for Best Adapted Screenplay (although I was rooting for Up in the Air).
i.) Twitchiest Presenter: Kristen Stewart, I couldn't tell if it was the electrical impulses from standing next to Taylor Lautner's muscles or if she took some speed before she went out there...although she may have just been really uncomfortable in an attractive designer dress. She out-tomboys me any day of the week!
j.) Worst Posture: Miley Cyrus...why is this chick famous again? That dress could've really worked for her, but it broke my achy-breaky heart to watch her slouch all night in it.

Ok, I am off to enjoy this weather with Maggie for a bit before I head to a Monday night tutoring session. On the agenda this week as I mentioned last blog are the hotels!! So I'm excited to get the ball rolling on that. Until then, a big Thank You for reading :-)