lovely virginia summers... and such.

so in true virginia fashion, we practically leapfrogged over spring and slammed into summer. it is hotter than crap outside and the air's so thick it reminds me of an episode of scooby doo i saw when i was a kid where shaggy had to literally cut a hole in the fog to see where they were going. only in this case it's the humidity that you have to slice through. and i'm blaming the heat on the impending death of my flowers... it certainly can't be my fault for not actually planting them, right? :)

with less than 4 months left 'til our get-hitched day, we are actually progressing rather nicely... mailed of the deposit and contract for the DJ yesterday, going to pick out invitations with the dad tomorrow, and have an inkling of hope that maybe bryan and i can make some honeymoon decisions very soon. it's all coming together and the time is zooming by...

so today i got my official contract for my first grant writing side job. i am nervous about this, but at the suggestion of my old boss & mentor, i decided to try my hand at it. by chance, a guy i ride the bus with was in search of a grant writer, so now we've got a partnership. i am hoping that i covered all the bases with the contract (have never written one before, but have seen and signed enough of them through my event and wedding planning days that i was comfortable enough writing it). i agreed to write a pre-proposal for him (max 7 pages) at a rate of $50/hr, up to 5 hours. now, i am a speedy writer. i am actually generally speedy at everything i can figure out how to be speedy at. i am pretty sure this won't take me more than 5 hours. but i have butterflies in my stomach wondering if i have grossly underestimated how long it's going to take me and am denying myself many more hours of pay at $50/hr. the good thing, however, is if the pre-proposal is selected for a full application, we'll talk again. and perhaps additional hours can be factored into the new deal... anyway, i figure if i can get this grant writing thing rolling, it will make for a very nice side income! and i'm going to learn a lot about iran, too... this grant project i have now is about increasing democratic thinking in iran... so we will all know if this doesn't get selected for full application that it ain't my damn fault, because this southern white girl is entirely uninformed about iran... besides the fact that the want to have a nuclear program of some kind and we don't want 'em to.

back to work for me...