Reading Challenge

I've read on my own
I read for school
I'm in the process of reading or plan on reading


#
*1984 by George Orwell
A
*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
*Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
*The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
*An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
*Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
*Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
*Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
*Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
*The Art of Fiction by Henry James
*The Art of War by Sun Tzu
*As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
*Atonement by Ian McEwan
*Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
*The Awakening by Kate Chopin
B
*Babe by Dick King-Smith
*Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
*Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
*Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
*The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
*Beloved by Toni Morrison
*Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
*The Bhagava Gita
*The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
*Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
*A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
*Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
*Brick Lane by Monica Ali
*Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
C*Candide by Voltaire
*The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
*Carrie by Stephen King
*Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
*The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
*Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
*The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
*Christine by Stephen King
*A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
*A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
*The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
*The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
*A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
*Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
*The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
*Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
*A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
*The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
*Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
*Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
*The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber 
*The Crucible by Arthur Miller
*Cujo by Stephen King
*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
D
*Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
*David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
*David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
*The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
*Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
*Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
*Deenie by Judy Blume
*The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
*The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
*The Divine Comedy by Dante
*The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
*Don Quijote by Cervantes
*Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
*Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
E
*Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
*Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
*The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
*Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
*Eloise by Kay Thompson
*Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
*Emma by Jane Austen
*Empire Falls by Richard Russo
*Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
*Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
*Ethics by Spinoza
*Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
*Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
*Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
*Extravagance by Gary Krist
F
*Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
*Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
*The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
*Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
*The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
*Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
*The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
*Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
*Fletch by Gregory McDonald
*Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
*The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
*The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
*Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
*Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
*Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
G
*Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
*Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
*George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
*Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
*Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
*The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
*The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
*The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
*Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
*Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
*The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
*The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
*The Graduate by Charles Webb
*The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
*The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
*The Group by Mary McCarthy
H
*Hamlet by William Shakespeare
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
*Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
*A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
*Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
*Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
*Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
*Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
*Henry V by William Shakespeare
*High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
*The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
*Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
*The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
*House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
*The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
*How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
*How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
*How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
*Howl by Allen Gingsburg
*The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
I
*The Iliad by Homer
*I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
*In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
*Inferno by Dante
*Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
*Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
*It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
J
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
*The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
*Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
*The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
*The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
*Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
K
*The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
*Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
*The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
L
*Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
*The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
*Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
*The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
*Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
*Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
*Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
*Life of Pi by Yann Martel
*Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
*The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
*The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
*Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
*Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
*Lord of the Flies by William Golding
*The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
*The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
*The Love Story by Erich Segal
M
*Macbeth by William Shakespeare
*Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
*The Manticore by Robertson Davies
*Marathon Man by William Goldman
*The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
*Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
*Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
*Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
*The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
*Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
*The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
*The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
*Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
*The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
*Moby Dick by Herman Melville
*The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
*Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
*A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
*Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
*A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
*A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
*Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
*Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
*My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
*My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
*My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
*Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
*My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
N
*The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
*The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
*The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
*The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
*Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
*New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
*The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
*Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
*Night by Elie Wiesel
*Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
*The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
*Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
*Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
O
*Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
*Old School by Tobias Wolff
*On the Road by Jack Kerouac
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
*One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
*Oracle Night by Paul Auster
*Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
*Othello by Shakespeare
*Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
*The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
*Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
*The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
P
*A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
*The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
*The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
*Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
*The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
*Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
*Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
*Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
*The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
*The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
*The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
*The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
*Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
*Property by Valerie Martin
*Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
*Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Q
*Quattrocento by James Mckean
*A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
R
*Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
*The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
*The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
*Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
*Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
*Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
*The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
*Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
*The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
*R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
*Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
*Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
*Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
*Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
*A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
*A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
*Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
*The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
S
*Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
*Sanctuary by William Faulkner
*Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
*Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
*The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
*The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
*Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
*The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
*The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
*Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
*Selected Hotels of Europe
*Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
*Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
*A Separate Peace by John Knowles
*Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
*Sexus by Henry Miller
*The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*Shane by Jack Shaefer
*The Shining by Stephen King
*Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
*S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
*Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
*Small Island by Andrea Levy
*Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
*Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
*Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
*The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
*Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
*The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
*Songbook by Nick Hornby
*The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
*Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
*Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
*The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
*Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
*Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
*The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
*A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
*Stuart Little by E. B. White
*Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
*Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
*Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
*Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
T
*A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
*Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
*Time and Again by Jack Finney
*The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
*To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
*The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
*The Trial by Franz Kafka
*The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
*Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
*Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
U
*Ulysses by James Joyce
*The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
*Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
*Unless by Carol Shields
V
*Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
*The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
*Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
*Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
*The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
w
*Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
*Walden by Henry David Thoreau
*Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
*War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
*We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
*What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
*What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
*When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
*Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
*Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
*Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
*The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
*Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Y
*The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
*The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Why?

Even though I have no school spirit or allegance, I do still have friends at Cranford High School. My last "little one". My freind Zack is a senior this year, and I've been back to visit once already to see the fall show, and tonight is the choir concert. This is a little more intimidating for me because when I went to see the fall show, I went to the senior performance, sat in my seat, and said hi to him after the show. Tonight when I go I'll actually be going up onstage to join the other alumni and sing. Tonight there will be other people that I know there. People who aren't my friends, and who I know are judging me.

I've put on a lot of weight since graduating for high school. To the point where I'm getting disgusted with myself. I actually went out and bought a girdle yesterday because I can't stand the thought of going back to my high school and people seeing that I've gotten fat. I bought a new shirt that would hide my hips and my arms. I paid to get my eyebrows done and my hair cut. I'm planning out my day so that I'll have time to go home and do my makeup and hair before the concert. Even though I don't really have extra money to spend, I'm going to DSW to buy a new pair of heels.

And all of this is because I feel like I need to impress people who don't factor into my daily life whatsoever. Because I feel like maybe people will think that even though I haven't gotten any good acting jobs since graduation, at least I look good.

I really hope that one day I can be the kind of person who can say "Who gives a fuck what they think?"
Because right now, the answer is "me".

School Spirit?

I was driving through downtown Cranford the other day, and I passed the store that sells Cranford merchandise. It had a sign outside that said, "Order your State Champion Cougar Apparel Today!", because for the first time in, I think the history of the school, the Cranford Cougars won the football state championship. And as I was driving, I realized that I couldn't care less. I had seen facebook statuses that whole week from alumni wishing the team luck in the big game, and I just had no opinion on the event whatsoever. It was then that I realized, I have no school spirit.

When I was in high school, I went to the football games to hang out with my freinds in the band, not to watch the game. I went to maybe one other sporting event if my friend was playing on the team, but other than choir and the plays, I had nothing to do with my school's extra curricular activities. Pep rallies (or "spirt days" as we called them, because "pep rally" brings to mind cliques and popularity contests) were just excuses to get out of class goof off. The only t-shirts I saved from high scool were my powder puff football shirts, and only because they had my nicknames on them. I couldn't wait to get out of high school and go to college, and feel what I'd been lead to believe you were supposed to feel about your school.

Nothing changed in college. Asside from the friends I made while I was there (who I wouldn't trade for anything in the world), I feel like going to college was the biggest mistake I've ever made. I gave up my carreer that I had worked for seven years to establish, as well as all of my contacts in the industry, to go to school and be told that I was doing everything wrong. I was made to doubt my god-given abilities, and feel inferior for not knowing as much as they thought I should. I found it mind-boggling that I had professional credits on my resume, probably more than any other student there, but I was not good enough to be cast in their shows. Because of their "training", I took several steps backwards, not only in my carreer, but also in my level of confidence and abilities. I haven't taken a dance class in almost 4 years because there just wasn't the time or the money, and the lack of money has made it hard to afford voice lessons as well. I'm now going on open call auditions, which have given me no hope of ever getting cast in anything. My mother told me that I had to go to college and get a degree in something. I should have gone to Union County College for two years, gotten my associates degree in something, and continued going on auditions and working. But no, my mother wanted me to go away and get the "college experience".

My so called "college experience" consisted of me trying to live with roommates for three years, and coming home or going to AJ's every weekend because I couldn't live with them, and spending the days sitting in my room wishing I had better things to do. It consisted of me working part time jobs that I hated,  feeling like an outcast because asside from the 14 people in my acting group, I didn't really know anyone, and commuting my final year so that maybe it would feel like I wasn't actually spending every day being miserable. I didn't go to a single sporting event, or "red hawk day", or any kind of extra curricular activity (once again excluding theater). I hated my college experience. In the acting world, having a degree in theater doesn't mean anything. All it means is that you payed a shit ton of money to be able to put the letters "BFA" on your resume. I could have gone to cosmotology school and gotten trained to do hair and makeup, something that I would actually enjoy doing (and plan on doing if acting doesn't pan out). Graduation day was one of the happiest days of my life. I had no desire to join the alumni association or get any more emails from Montclair. I haven't been up there since the day of graduation, and I probably won't ever go back again.

Claire loved going to Rutgers so much that fourty-something years later, her car is still covered in Rutgers bumper stickers. Half of her wardrobe is Rutgers t-shirts, and she carries her Rutgers alumni card on her keychain. Kodi loved Montclair so much that she went back to work for them full time.

There are times when I wish I knew what that feels like.

There are other times when I wish I woudn't have listened when everyone told me how much I would regret not going to college.

Getting back into the swing of things

So yesterday I had a huge audition. I was going in for an open call for the role of Cosette in the upcoming Les Mis movie. I was pretty excited about it, because it was a HUGE oppurtunity. So I got in, signed up, was number 121 out of almost 400 girls, and sat and waited.
The casting director came in and made an announcement, that they had such specific casting directions from London that rather than wasting everyone's time, they were going to call us in in groups of about 25 and "type us", and if we didn't fit what they were looking for, they wouldn't keep us around to sing. I unfortunately got "typed out", but I didn't mind. I'd rather that happened than I spent the entire day waiting around and then found out I wasn't what they were looking for. Or that I sang and then sat around wondering what I could have done better when I didn't get cast. I'd rather know I didn't get it because of something that's beyond my control.

And even though I didn't even get to sing, I'm glad I went. It lit a fire under me to get back out and into auditions. I know this is what I want to do and was meant to do, and I know that my big break is out there somewhere. Everyone has one, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. I don't want to miss mine.
It also lit a fire under me to stop making excuses and realize that I've put on weight, and the only one who can do anything about that fact is me. I need to start exercising regularly, and stop sitting around on my ass eating junk food all day. I need to start taking better care of my skin, my teeth, and my apperance all together. I need to look like the person that I want to look like.

So here we go. I know I make this resolution all the time and then don't follow through with it for more than a week, but now I know that I have to get serious. I've got a lot of things working against me in this business, and I need to take control of the ones that I can control.

My left hand feels naked...

I've been wearing my claddagh ring and the other ring that AJ gave me our first year on my left hand for almost five years now. I know that you're not supposed to wear anything on your left ring finger other than your engagement and wedding rings, but I've always considered my claddagh to be an engagement ring, or if you want to call it a 'promise ring', because AJ and I have known that we want to get married for years.

But, when the man you plan on marrying starts a conversation with "You know that I'm going to be proposing to you sometime within the next six months, right?", as weird as it feels, it's time to move the rings off of the left hand, and avoid that awkward moment of him having to pull the other ring off of your finger to get the engagement ring onto it. Or the awkward moment where the engagement ring doesn't fit because of the impression the other ring has left in your finger.

He not so subtally let me know when and where he was going to be proposing to me.

He asked me if I was open to something public, or if I would rather a private proposal. I said it didn't matter to me, I just wanted the moment to feel right to him. He said, "Ok, so you wouldn't mind if it was outside, like *mumbles 'Cinderella Castle' under his breath*. I told him "Ok, stop telling me! I don't want to know! I don't want to be expecting it!" Although now I will be planning my wardrobe for Disney World ever so carefully.
I told him I only had three rules for the proposal. Don't propose to me on the jumbotron at a sporting event, don't put the ring inside food, and "God help you if you propose to me with a flash mob!"

6 months until we go to Disney World!

Moving In and Growing Up

So I've been officially living with AJ for a week now (I'm still not officially moved out yet, because half of my things are still at my mom's house). It's seriously the most amazing thing in the world. Everything we do now is "us". There's no more "Ok, so I'll pay for dinner tonight and you pay for the movies tomorrow", or "can you cover me tonight?" or "can you drive, I'm low on gas". We're paying for stuff together. My bank account is actually flipping out and sending me notifications because it's never had that much money in it. Last night we went out to dinner, ordered wine, and just had a nice night out. (Also, random thing - I don't ever get carded anymore. I find that really weird. I would card me.)
Suddenly our relationship has just jumped to this whole other level. It's not that we weren't serious before, but now we're really an adult couple. I don't feel like a kid anymore. I feel like an adult.
I've been decorating the apartment and cleaning and moving furnature around and everything since I moved in. No more batchelor pad for AJ. And he keeps telling me how much he loves it and how much he loves coming home to me.
But on the downside, the place is still so freaking small! I have a feeling a lot more of my stuff is going to have to be put in storage, because it just won't fit. But, the chances are looking pretty good that we'll be able to move into a bigger place soon. Drew and Jenna, who we met doing Superstar, are quickly becoming our best friends :) and we're thinking that moving in together would be a fantastic idea. We've found a place that's just about double what AJ and I are paying in rent now, but with utilities included. That would not only save us money, but give us a lot more space. The pool is also a plus!