Corporate Suck Ass

So I'm sort of at a crossroad right now with my "career." God, I can't believe I'm old enough to have a career. Today I was offered a promotion at my job, meaning (most importantly) more money. It's not that it's a huge deal, I'm still at the bottom of the barrel, ok maybe 2nd to the bottom. Anyways, on the side (besides performing etc) I've been working my ass off with my side jobs of hairstyling out of my home and being a stylist for a photographer. I'm making pretty good money at that too. The problem is that I'm at a strange in between stage. I'm too busy to continue at this pace of basically two jobs, but I'm not quite busy enough to cut down to just one job. My eventual goal is to work out of my home and on a freelance basis so that I can not be so crazy busy and can focus more on theater and someday a family. The problem is that it can only grow so big when I don't have the time to fit everyone in. If I were available more in the day or not so exhausted at night to take on more jobs, I could expand quicker. I debated for a while on whether to take the promotion or to quit my job at Harley and find a part-time job to substitute while I build my hair bizz. In the end I decided to wait things out and tuck aside the extra money until my day comes. I'm going to take the promotion and hope it makes life at my boring office a little more tolerable and even fun while I learn new skills and hopefully go to the Sturges bike rally, see how it goes and later down the line solely work for myself. In the meantime, it means staying in corporate suck ass world when I'd much rather be my own boss and not have to be up in the mornings at 6:30am. I really am a pretty fair boss. Oh well, worst case scenario is that I hate the new job and I quit. Wish me luck!

Just thinking out loud here and out long because I'm a little high off my antibiotics and cough medicine. Oh yeah, that's another side effect of working too much...getting sick (and on my birthday no less). Whoo Hoo.

-Mo (happy Craig?)

Wedding Pictures

Finally got the wedding pictures back. You can check it out here. Click on the wedding link and follow it to "Corey and Monique." I haven't been able to get rid of the not so good ones yet and there are a TON, but enjoy! I especially love the Hava Nagila, which are in the "reception" link.

Hairmaster

As I mentioned before, I cut my own hair Sunday night. So the hair looks good.... now. I realized yesterday that the length in the back was really pretty uneven. You try to cut your own hair. It just wasn't laying quite right and was driving me crazy. Well, welcome to the world... the expertise stylist, Corey Rittmaster! or Corey Hairmaster as I like to call him. After I got home from rehearsal last night, I begged and whined and pleaded with him to fix the back for me. Of course he'd never done this before and was reluctant, but I showed him exactly what to do. He was sooo nervous and each time I'd put a new layer of hair down for him to even out he'd scrunch his face up and whine himself. He looked like an old Chinese man. In the end, he did a great job and now the hair is much better. Thank God, I wouldn't have been able to sleep.... no really it's so stupid, but it would've kept me up.
Next up, highlights!

-Mo

So life is getting back to normal. I finally got some rest this weekend. Last week was full of appointments, rehearsals and back aches, so it was a little tough. Saturday Corey went to Kansas City to do a show. I had many plans to clean the apartment, work on my scrapbook, generally be organized while he was gone. Well, that didn't happen. I did nothing and it was AWESOME. I laid around and just rested. I didn't apologize and didn't worry about it. At the rate I've been going lately I'll either get sick or go crazy(er). I finally did a little house work and went out with some girlfriends late Saturday night. Hopefully Corey wasn't doing the same on his trip. I also had Thai food for dinner both Saturday and Sunday night before he got back. I figured when Corey's around, he won't "let" me eat Thai that often, so I took full advantage of his absence. Oh yeah, and I cut my hair. Call it the typical post wedding chop or just Mo changing it up again, but I now I have just barely shoulder length hair. I've never done such a drastic cut on my own hair. It took forever, I recut parts of it twice, but in the end it looks great. It was a lot of fun surprising Corey at the airport with the new me. He likes it a lot. Next up, color change... any suggestions?
I'm back to work for my second week post wedding. I feel much more refreshed this then last week... maybe it's the new look. Maybe I'll even start working out again. Those buffets in Vegas didn't help my figure much. I'm also working on a promotion. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I have one more interview today and hopefully will find out in the next couple of days if I'm the new Admin. for the Sales and Marketing Department. If not, then I'm looking for a new company. I'm done being a receptionist. Oh and good news, Jenny McBoringass quit. She came in an hour late on Friday, quit and left an hour later. It was weird. Apparently some sort of family issue came up. The good news is that now I work with Katie (the temp that sat in for me) and she's great. My job is much more tolerable now.

Sorry this isn't the most exciting post. I'll get back later with some real gut wrenching excitement.

-Mo

Corey can break his leg!

No, literally.

In less than 3 weeks, he'll be on my insurance! Knock on wood that he doesn't actually hurt himself, but at least now he can. Just one more reason why marrying me was good.

From the Mr. and Mrs.

I'm sure you know what this post will be about. We got married! All the hard work and planning paid off. Everything was great. Sunday, September 4th was the big day, but really the whole thing started the Wednesday before. We flew into KC and Wednesday morning and headed off to our separate families. I had dress fittings and other wedding related tasks to accomplish, Corey had similar errands to run, minus the dress of course. That evening my mom and her best friend Mary, threw a "Spa night." Basically it was a bunch of girls getting pedicures and manicures and drunk. The night was a blast! I don't know what Corey did that evening, but I don't know if I care either... I was drunk. Thursday night Corey and I met up with one of Corey's (and now my) best friends, Brian Schwartz. We ate dinner at Han Shin...mmm Japanese steak house. Afterwards we met up with Brian Thalblum at Johnny's Tavern. It was fun, but a little pointless for me to be there since I just watched the guys play Golden Tee, not to mention I had to get up early the next day.

On Friday I woke my ass up early and headed back to Independence for yet another dress fitting. My sister was already in town and my cousin JoRae arrived that afternoon. This night was the bachelor and bachlorette parties. Corey and the guys played golf in the morning, BBQed in the evening and prayed with orphan children that night. Us girls ate (and drank plenty of wine) dinner at Bucca de Beppos where we enticed the cute waiters to dance for me. Thanks mom! Afterwards we went to Mi Cocina's for more drinking and dancing, where Nikki Dupont and her "tassles" were the life of the party. Pretty much the night continued with more drinking and hanging out at various parts of the Plaza. A few of us went back to our hotel at the Fairmont to hang out more. The night was great. Some of those girls I hadn't seen in years.

Saturday was the rehearsal dinner. BBQ at Zarda's, hey we were in KC, what do you expect? Corey's brother Aaron put together a trivia game for us to see who knew each other better and my sister Briette gave a wonderful speech. I, of course, wasn't ready to go to bed any time soon so I went out with Corey and a few people for a while and met up with Briette, Anna and Ali late that night at the Embassy Suites where we were staying. They were all asleep when I got in. Luckily I fell asleep fairly quickly, but not without getting some good giggling in once I woke them up. I can't imagine how Corey fell asleep. He was by himself at his parents and already suffers insomnia on a somewhat regular basis.

Sunday morning the girls had to start getting ready at 10am. That's right, a whole 8 hours before the wedding. We had a great time though, getting our hair done, laughing and eating lunch together. I haven't hung out with my girlfriends like that in such a long time. It was such a good memory.

The wedding started at 6pm. I honestly wasn't nervous. Well, maybe a little about my vows (we wrote our own). While I was waiting to start, the girls kept asking how I was so calm, but you know, when it's the right thing to do, there's nothing to worry about. When the doors opened and I saw Corey for the first time, I was blown away. He looked soooo handsome and the reaction I got from him was priceless. I pretty much remained intact until the vows and at that point I finally started crying. The ceremony was beautiful. We had asked our friend Dan Walsh get ordained so that he could officiate the ceremony. It was really special having someone close to us bring our new lives together. I could go on and on about the wedding, but the best way to sum it up would be to say it was the best day of my life. These memories are priceless and it is so dear to my heart that so many of our loved ones could share this day with us. The wedding went off flawlessly and the reception was pretty close, but none of that matters because there was so much love in the room that that's the part I will always remember.

I'll post pictures later as I get them.

-Mrs. Rittmaster (hee hee)