I’m going to be giving the scrapbook to my grandfather this Saturday, providing I can get my new job to let me work earlier… We’ll see. Well, for those that won’t be there Saturday, I’m posting pictures of each page. If you want to know what all of the different things say, just e-mail me, and I’ll send you a copy of the script that I wrote when I was putting the scrapbook together. Enjoy!

You know, I DO miss her. Not that I didn’t get to say what I wanted to say, but I miss the woman she was. We may not have seen eye to eye on things, but she was my grandmother. I ran to her with anything I was having trouble with. When Empty got sick, I saw her QUITE a bit. I’ll never forget that she was the bigger woman that day and came to see Empty in the hospital. We had been fighting, per the usual, but she still came in. I’ll never forget that, no matter HOW much we fought since. I mean, with two VERY opinionated and stubborn women, could you blame us?

Aside from our fights, my grandmother and I just seemed to GET each other. When it mattered most, we were able to put aside our differences and jsut be there. That’s why I’m currently working on putting together a scrapbook about her life with pictures. The only thing is, is that I dont’ ahve any of the pictures with her siblings. Plenty with all of her grandkids around, but not much of them all. If you know anybody with any pictures, please send them my way before the 9th, so I can put this book together and give them to my grandfather as a Christmas present.

Thanks. <3 Silver

A month back, I realized that maybe I should write an essay like we all used to back when we were in school. To be honest, it’s taken me this long to have time to sit down and write this blog entry. Seeing as the Soccer season has been keeping me kinda busy so far. I’ll talk about that later…

My main reason for wanting to write one of those school “What I did on my Summer Break” Essays, is because it was definatly the summer of a lifetime! I don’t think I’ve had this much fun during a Summer since I was in Middle School. Or at least, since I was 16. Back before I started working during every hour that I wasn’t in school or classes (like, in College). Back when we actually took time to go outside and play while it was light outside. Back when the Summer meant playing in the pool until we were raisins. Back when we thought that Summers were meant to kick back and relax, not to grab more hours at work.

Yes, I was working this entire Summer, but it didn’t really seem like I was. I had fun while I worked. I spent the entire Summer watching (and helping) tons of kids and adults have fun. For once, I have to admit, I spent my Summer having fun at work. I managed to enjoy the sunshine, and I got to be my usual social self without worrying about keeping my voice at it’s “inside voice” level. I didn’t have to pretend to be a professional-secretary-like employee drone. I finally had fun! Trust me, when I have fun at work, I remember it for a LONG time afterwards.

I spent my summer working for Lake Compounce in Bristol, CT. I’m going to miss the place, actually. I always liked going when I was younger. I still managed to come back to Compounce as much as I was able to, when I started working every Summer. When I saw that they were hiring back in the middle of Spring, I couldn’t resist at least trying to get a job there. Since I wasn’t working, I thought “Hey, this could be fun” and decided to try.

I met my Manager while he was conducting interviews for the department I work for now, and liked him instantly. We clicked *snaps* like that. That pretty much set the tone for the entire Summer for me, actually. He’s one of those people that inspires you to be who you are, and to not be afraid to reach your potential. Mistakes can be fixed without drama, etc. My coaches and fellow Team Members have become like my family. You know, we tease one another, have shared many private jokes, and the like.

The Park managers are all nice about things, even when things got crazy. Even when they were beyond stressed out during the 4th of July weekend. The GM is especially awesome!!! I’ve never seen him without a smile on his face, even when he’s tired at the end of the night. He’s fair with every one of us. He likes to hear our input, and sharing in our stories of how our Guests have been treated. He goes out of his way to make sure that we’re as happy with the Park as our Guests are.

He actually was the inspiration for one of my stories… I’ll let you guys read it when I’m done with it, I promise! I think, though, he should have a chance to read it first.

When I finish writing this blog, I should be just about done with the story because I’m doing both at the same time. At least, I HOPE so. I haven’t been writing much in the past year because I haven’t been inspired as much as I used to. But then I got some inspiration a few months ago to write a story. No matter the subject matter, it actually feels good to be writing again. But then, that’s a horse of another color, I suppose… Another blog for another time, I’m thinking… And so on and so forth…

Well, now that it’s October, it’s time to be thinking about Halloween plans, and the rest of the Soccer season in Naugatuck. I’ve been selected to be the Recreational Referee Assignor for the town, so I’ve been keeping busy with that so far this season. It’s an interesting job. I get to schedule our younger, and sometimes the Veteran, Referees for our younger soccer players’ games on Saturday mornings. It’s fun to watch each of our new players react to the older kids teaching them the game.

I mean, it’s not in my job description as the Assignor to be on the fields ever Saturday to watch them, but I enjoy it. The Assigning part of my job is kinda stressful at times, but I need a reminder that all the stress is worth seeing kids having fun while playing the game I love so much.

Which is why I go down to the fields where I’ve put my Refs. I’m watching how everyone reacts to one another. I say I’m watching how the Refs are doing, but I think I’m watching the joy on every kids face as they play the game. It’s priceless. Just like those card commercials say, you can’t put a price on this.

It’s also good to sit back after my 9 and 10 year-old boys team has played and watch other kids playing the game we all love. Oh? I didn’t tell you? I’m coaching the game too. The guys I have on my team are amazing. They all have such raw talent. I can see that they love the game. I mean, yeah I have doubts that I’ll be able to help them reach their full potential this season, but I’m going to enjoy teaching them what I know of the game that we all love!
Silver, signing off for now…

Till next time, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

And yes, I AM alive…

3rd Place Match:
(31) Sweden VS France (7/16 @11:30 AM EST)
- Results: Sweden = 2, France = 1.

Finals:
(32) Japan VS USA (7/17 @2:45 PM EST)
- Results: Japan = 3, USA = 1. Tie (2:2) at Full Time. Game ended in Shoot-Outs.

So far, so good!!! Glad that the USA women whooped Brazil. Even if it DID go into a shoot-out!!! (this dated 7/13)

So, let’s re-cap the top 4 places in the 2011 Women’s World Cup…
1st Place: Japan
2nd Place: USA
3rd Place: Sweden
4th Place: France

(26) England VS France (7/9 @12 PM EST)
- Results: England = 3, France = 4. Tie (1:1) by Full Time. Game ended in Shoot-Outs.

(27) Sweden VS Australia (7/10 @7 AM EST)
- Results: Sweden = 3, Australia = 1

(28) Brazil VS USA (7/10 @11:30 AM EST)
- Results: Brazil = 3, USA = 5. Tie (2:2) by Full Time. Game ended in Shoot-Outs.

If you want to see the full statistics, feel free to go HERE or HERE.

For the Women’s World Cup, I’m going to try something relatively different. I’m going to tell you who’s in each bracket, and when they’re playing their games. I’ll come back every day when I find out the end scores and update it here, so stay tuned!!!

Most of the games will be playing on ESPN, if you were wondering…. All Cup standings are updated after each game played here… Check it out, even if you can’t watch each game…

Group A
Germany
- Game 1 VS Canada (6/26 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
- Game 2 VS Nigeria (6/30 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 3 VS France (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 4:2
Canada
- Game 1 VS Germany (6/26 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
- Game 2 VS France (6/30 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:4
- Game 3 VS Nigeria (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
Nigeria
- Game 1 VS France (6/26 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS Germany (6/30 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 3 VS Canada (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
France
- Game 1 VS Nigeria (6/26 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Canada (6/30 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 4:0
- Game 3 VS Germany (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Loss – 2:4

Group B
New Zealand
- Game 1 VS Japan (6/27 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
- Game 2 VS England (7/1 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
- Game 3 VS Mexico (7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Tie – 2:2
Japan
- Game 1 VS New Zealand (6/27 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
- Game 2 VS Mexico (7/1 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 4:0
- Game 3 VS England (7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:2
England
- Game 1 VS Mexico (6/27 @12 PM EST) Results: Tie – 1:1
- Game 2 VS New Zealand (7/1 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
- Game 3 VS Japan (7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:0
Mexico
- Game 1 VS England (6/27 @12 PM EST) Results: Tie – 1:1
- Game 2 VS Japan (7/1 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:4
- Game 3 VS New Zealand(7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Tie – 2:2

Group C
USA
- Game 1 VS Korea DPR (6/28 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:0
- Game 2 VS Columbia (7/2 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 3:0
- Game 3 VS Sweden (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Loss – 1:2
Korea DPR
- Game 1 VS USA (6/28 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 2:0
- Game 2 VS Sweden (7/2 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 3 VS Columbia (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Tie – 0:0
Columbia
- Game 1 VS Sweden (6/28 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS USA (7/2 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 3:0
- Game 3 VS Korea DPR (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Tie – 0:0
Sweden
- Game 1 VS Columbia (6/28 @ 9 AM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Korea DPR (7/2 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 3 VS USA (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:1

Group D
Brazil
- Game 1 VS Australia (6/29 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Norway (7/3 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 3:0
- Game 3 VS Equatorial Guinea (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 3:0
Australia
- Game 1 VS Brazil (6/29 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS Equatorial Guinea (7/3 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Win – 3:2
- Game 3 VS Norway (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
Norway
- Game 1 VS Equatorial Guinea (6/29 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Brazil (7/3 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:3
- Game 3 VS Australia (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
Equatorial Guinea
- Game 1 VS Norway (6/29 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS Australia (7/3 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Loss – 2:3
- Game 3 VS Brazil (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:3

Hope you guys enjoyed the Group Games!!! Now on to the Quarter Finals!!!

If you don’t know me personally, I tried out college for several years, and decided that it wasn’t for me. But leaving school and entering the real world has been probably one of my worst decisions of my life, as most of companies that would be willing to hire somebody who’s as hard-working as I am are turned off by my lack of degree. So, stay in school people!!!

Having a sister that acts worse than I did at her age is another of my life experiences that have made me feel older. She’s only 9 years younger (and just about to graduate high school, I might add), but she keeps thinking she’s older than she is. She has been the cause of ALOT of drama over the past few months. I’m not sure she realizes that not EVERYTHING is about her and what she wants. It’s gotten so bad, that I don’t even want to talk to her anymore. Mostly because when we DO get the chance to talk/ get together, she either asks me for favors or she starts talking to me about how much our mom doesn’t get her. Or how she’s stunting her growth into college… That’s bad, right? My not wanting to talk to her sometimes, I mean… I’m sure everything’ll settle down as soon as my sister realizes that nobody is out to get her. Once she enters the real world, she’ll realize that the world doesn’t revolve around her. At least, I hope so…

I guess the last of the things that have recently started to make me feel old, is seeing all of my younger cousins (and siblings, as well) go off to college and leave with offers for AWESOME jobs while I’ve been fighting to get ANY job at all… Yes, I’ve had time to read and write as much as I want, but sometimes I wish I HAD gotten my degree. Today’s economy has made me think along these lines again. The eve of my 27th birthday has also been one of these things. I have an AWESOME job that makes me never want to leave at the end of the day. This fact alone, is VERY rare… Especially given the fact that I don’t have a degree… I’m such a kid at heart, that working for the Entertainment company I got hired for is perfect for my personality… But the only wrench in this whole line of thinking, is that I was one of the oldest people in my orientation group. I guess I still look like I’m in high school, because one of the ladies asked the group at large what date we all graduated. It’s funny, but it makes me feel old sometimes to be put in that category. Oh well!

On better tides, my birthday plans. I’m going over my parents’ house and we’ll be having pizza and cake. Seeing my family and Empty’s is going to be fun! We’ll be eating and talking about some details about Empty and my wedding Party. That’s ALWAYS good, in my book… I ALWAYS have fun hanging around with both my moms and my dads! YAY CAKE!!!

With any wedding, all brides have lots of questions to answer… Who to invite… Who to have as Best Man, Maid of Honor, etc… Flowers? How big of a wedding do we want? How much will all this cost us? What’s our budget? Where will the ceremony be? How much do I want to plan what goes on during the ceremony? Any fees to the Officiant? How much will renting a hall for a reception cost us? . . .

Then once all of the above has been planned out, the bride will start to wonder about AFTER her wedding day. Wondering what happens afterward. She starts worrying about where they will love together. What it will take to change over all of her documents to reflect her new martial status. Do we combine our accounts? Which company do we go with for our Health and Car insurances? Etc…

However, probably the most important of all these questions for a bride-to-be, is the question of weither or not to keep her last name. Do you change it to take his last name? Or do you hyphenate? Or do you not change your name at all? How would I go about this process, if I DID choose to change my last name?

My decision in this regards was pretty easy. I’ll tell you the story of how I came to that decision in just a moment. Before I do, I would like to relate how I got started thinking about this as a possible blog entry topic. I came across an article on somebody else’s blog back just shortly after Emptyeye and I got back from Virginia (Don’t ask me who’s blog, because I never wrote down the name of the person, nor the site where I got it).

In this article, the woman admitted that her husband-to-be had an issue with her hyphenating her name. That he felt like she was SUPPOSED to change her last name to reflect his last name. Here is the exact quote she had in her blog.

“Seems he takes offense to the idea of me tacking his last name on to the one I already have. The move – according to him – says I’m wishy-washy about my commitment and (gasp) that I’m not ready to leave my family and be a wife.”

Personally, I think she got offended because he decided to be a dick that particular day and speak without thinking things through. Society sometimes dictates things that are wrong… This particular situation that the author talks about must have stemmed up from what the guy’s perception of what society is all about. Sometimes, what you’re taught when you’re younger dictates EVERYTHING that you think when you grow up. Say, for example, you were taught not any manners, you would grow up to pick your nose at dinner, or you would eat with your fingers . . .

Changing your name USED to be mandatory in past generations. Society demanded that this was the only way of doing things. However, this was before women went out into the workforce in full force… Now, keeping the name you were born with (and subsequently, opened their practices and businesses with) is a cause for major concern. Nowadays, Women might build up a buisness with their maiden names attached. Their customers trust them under that name. But when the woman gets married and changes her last name to reflect that status, many feel that their customers will no longer trust them to do buisness just because of the name change.

She quotes the editor of The Knot
“‘As years go by and couples wait longer to get married, more women are choosing to hyphenate because of their careers, especially when people are looking for them on Google.’”

The author of the post says
“Indeed, those of us who have worked hellishly to build up some steam in our respective careers also have professional grounds to hold on to our original surnames.”

The writer of the post made her point perfectly so that many people would see why her husband-to-be’s comment bothered her the way it did. Her original blog post was VERY personal to her. What made me pause to think and be concerned, was the comments she got in response… A lot of people were complaining that she was snarky and mean while still being two-faced about her opinion. I don’t agree with that assessment one bit. People are entitled to their opinions. Nowhere in her article does she say that she doesn’t buy into the feminist concept of keeping her own maiden name even after getting married… Each comment, while saying they knew that everyone was entitled to their own thoughts, slowly got meaner and meaner. People taking sides, etc. It was a pretty bad strain of comments until I managed to print everything off and I haven’t been back to the page since (especially since I didn’t even write down the site). Up until that point, I hadn’t realized that many women have been fighting each other and their husbands-to-be about this very topic for many years . . .

Empty has always been pretty understanding about any decision I have ever made. According to him, it’s just what makes me . . . me. I often thought of keeping my maiden name, if only to not have to confuse my relatives and his. To keep the persona I’ve had since I was younger. My standing in my hometown was pretty much set because my mom’s some “big shot, fancy-smancy, big time politician.” People knew me as her daughter, my brother and sister’s older sister. It was pretty cool, because I’m a social person by nature, and I LOVE meeting new people. However, this has been both a blessing and a curse.

This is one of the reasons I decided that a change was in order. The other, revolves around the fact that there was somebody else with my name (right down to the middle initial) living in the same state. In fact, this woman had been involved in something that needed a lawyer for. The only reason I know this, is that the lawyer had contacted me for payment. I never found out the EXACT details, and this issue has always been at the back of my mind since then… I started to feel like if I took Empty’s last name, I would have less issue with somebody else having a duplicate name. As big as Empty’s family is, I KNOW there wasn’t already somebody with my new (and at that time, proposed) name in his family…

I thought (VERY briefly), of hyphenating my name to represent both families, but it would have been too long. If you know Empty and I personally, you know that he has a nice long Polish last name. Hyphenating it with ANYTHING would have been entirely too long… So hyphenating was out…

But really, the thing that was actually the deciding factor for me on this subject, was one of pure chance. When we moved in together about 3 years ago, one of our first pieces of mail into our mailbox, was the weekly free town newspaper. On this piece of mail, was my first name and his last name. I actually got giddy at the thought that this would eventually be my new married name. I remember telling Empty that I was immediately IN LOVE with that name! Mostly, I think he could feel the excitement rolling off me.

So, there’s the story of what finally set me to liking a change. My opinion on this subject has always been that a name doesn’t make the individual. Your name means jack shit! It’s who you are as an individual that counts the most. Your name (and more specifically, your last name) is just what shows the rest of the world that you belong (maybe not BELONG, so much as choose to tie yourself) to your loved ones. It just tells the world (and more importantly, the US) that this person (or group of people) will morn your death, and should be treated with respect when it comes to insurance/ medical issues.

When talking to your prospective husband, let him know that if you want to keep your maiden name, it should be your choice in the end, not his. If you choose to keep your maiden name, that’s fine. It’ll probably just save you some time in the end getting it legally changed. That’s the only thing I regret about having to change my last name. The damn PAPERWORK that was involved. Other than that, it was the right decision on my part…

As Anja Winikka (from theknot.com) delicately puts it “We definatly see the conversation because everyone has an opinion on it. No one is really right because it’s such a personal decision.“