So it’s been like… 6 months since I’ve had a real entry and it’s partially because too much has happened to do any of it a great justice in a single entry. I’ll do my best to summarize and see what happens.

I spent the remainder of my summer busy as ever at work only to have it die down once the weather started getting colder. I’ve had my assignment move from Fabric Care, to Home Care & Fabric Care, to Home Care exclusively, then to Oral Care. As that progressed, the assignments got more and more mundane. I worked on some neat projects with Home Care, but a lot of them were short “by the book” sort of things. Now that I’m on Oral Care, it’s really boring. It seems like they had craploads of work to do, assigned me to it, and it immediately died down. Most of the pieces I get to work on aren’t exactly challenging, in fact the only real challenge is dealing with the way files must be saved and proofs must be printed.

The past 6 months has seen drastic changes outside of work, too. The wedding came and went and the newlyweds are doing well. They closed on a house in the middle of September and spent much of the time between the day they closed and the wedding moving in. The morning of the wedding was actually spent moving a few more items before we had to start getting ready. Joe spent the weekends before the wedding tearing up the garden of weeds, bramble and random concrete that someone called a backyard, conditioning it and laying fresh seed. By the time Summer comes he should have a decent lawn back there! His (and by “his” I mean “our”) project for the summer is to add a fence and bring the grass up to the property line. Now they’ve mostly settled in and are really just down to a lot of small projects here and there to help make their home complete.

The wedding itself was fantastic. It goes without saying that it’s the highlight of 2007, and probably one of the greatest days of MY life. It was somewhat stressful planning the bachelor party because I didn’t have much experience trying to coordinate the efforts of 30 people and keep it a secret to Joe, but he loved the whole day, which makes me happy. We started off with flag football at Oakley Playground. We had about 12 people show up, if I remember correctly. We had a lot of fun but I think we wore ourselves out too early in the day. I know that I was already sore by afternoon and we were barely halfway through the day. After the game and some quick showers, we headed off to the Claddaugh Irish Pub at Newport on the Levee. We added some people to the party here and we all enjoyed some beers and excellent food. I had never been to the Claddaugh before so I didn’t know what to expect, but they definitely did not disappoint me. After this, we walked from Newport to Great American Ballpark for the Cincinnati Reds’ last game of the season against the Chicago Cubs where we sat in style on the Riverboat Deck. The game was pretty much a bummer as the Reds had a terrible season and the stadium was filled with Cubs fans, who were just downright assholes. After the game, we took the Ferry across the river back to Newport on the Levee and went to Gameworks for a couple of hours where Joe was bought plenty of drinks and was driven to the point of zig-zagging out of crowds of people playing darts and other games with a coconut tucked in his arms like a football, striking the Heisman Pose at every opportunity. After we determined that Joe was in no shape to keep drinking, we took him back home and then promptly out to a bar where we made him keep drinking. Long story short, after drinking more than he’s ever consumed before, he winded up getting us kicked out of the bar and while we went home, everyone else continued the night for a little while.

By the time we hit October 20th I think we were all ready for the night to come, but once it came we didn’t want it to end. The wedding went as smoothly as it could. Nobody fainted or tripped but there were plenty of tears. The reception was a blast and despite being really nervous, I didn’t botch my speech. Aside from the Bachelor Party, it was the first time the E-Men had been together in a few months. Being surrounded by so many friends and so much love being shared overwhelmed me with joy, but as the night neared an end it sort of hit me that from that point forward, everything was going to change. The bachelor pad on Drake Avenue was splitting up and the life we had grown accustomed to in the past two years was changing all at once.

Mike moved to Kansas the weekend after the wedding to be with his family and pursue career opportunities out that way. He moved in with his parents and is hoping to be out ASAP, but so far he hasn’t had much luck finding a job in tune with his career. He’s mentioned a couple of times to me that he feels he needs to change career paths because he’s not all that sure of what he wants out of the marketing field. I miss that guy. He actually surprised us and showed up in Ohio for Joe and Kristen’s Christmas party, which made me realize exactly how much I miss having him around.

Doug, as expected, moved in with Kate following the wedding. He seems to be doing well and he seems happier than he had been in a while. We had made a routine of getting together to watch some of our favorite TV shows, but once the writer’s strike started and the shows stopped, that stopped. We should really find a night to go out and hit the bars. Doug, Joe and myself are going to take a trip at the end of February to St. Louis, where Mike is going to meet up with us, so I’m definitely looking forward to that.

As for me… well… I managed to find a one bedroom apartment on the opposite side of Oakley Square from our house on Drake Avenue. My time away from work was more or less devoted to do my research for a place to live and I found the place on only the second try. The first place was disgusting, and my dear mother would have had a heart attack if she came to visit me in a place like that. I actually lucked out because the apartment I moved in to was owned by the same landlords that owned the house on Drake Avenue, so I didn’t need to waste time with credit checks and such and they gave me the keys right away, they gave me the month of October free so I’d have plenty of time to move in before vacating Drake, and have pretty much left me alone since. hah. I’ve had plenty to occupy me since I’ve been living alone but I still seem to feel bored most nights. I’d be great to be sitting on the couch vegging with Mike, Doug, and Joe at nights again.

So I’m making progress slowly but surely on the site. motivation is the key factor here because it’s not easy to just dive right in, make a couple of changes and stop there. So we’ll see how things go and hopefully I don’t wait another six months to make a post.