For Old Times Sake

Enjoy the song and laugh. J bought the song for us.. I usually hate Unk but Andre makes the song. It's Thanksgiving!

Chilling Out and Ready for Thanksgiving

Thinking about a lot of things. Right now, thinking that I love Kanye's new album. I heard a couple of bad reviews that this style doesn't work for him. But I beg to differ. It def works and those beats are enthralling. The critics mentioned that the album sounded like a bad high school break up. Break ups are emotional whether they be in high school or as adults. The feelings are the same. It's how those feelings are dealt with that are different. So I like the album. Good job Kanye.

I'm wondering what to do with my hair for the wedding. I'm working on getting a style that will keep my natural curls but will be elegant. Whether I have an updo or leave my hair down will depend on my dress. I can't wait to go dress shopping! I'll be planning for that in January probably.

I am so excited for Thanksgiving. J will be joining the Crocker Family on the trek across the east to South Carolina for the annual Crocker/Huntley Thanksgiving. I'm so excited that he gets to meet the rest of my family. We have so much fun when we get together and I can't wait to share that with him.

I am so thankful for so much in my life. I'm grateful for my life partner J, my simply amazing family (I have never met another family like ours), my health and rightness of mind. I'm most thankful for those experiences that have made me who I am. The mature person that can make my future husband proud. I'm looking forward to the holidays and moving into 2009. There will be so many good things in 2009 to look forward to. I'm glad I will have the people I love to share them with.

Stand By My Woman

Just really feeling this song today.

Nothing Soup and Love Can't Cure

I've been feeling bad for a day or so and J has been incredible. It's just a little bit of sickness, no fever or anything, just basic normal winter sickness. But J has been taking care of me around every turn and I must say I'm impressed and surprised. No, I'm not surprised because he is doing something like it, I think I'm just not used to it.

He cares about me and my well being and wants nothing more than to fix what's wrong with me. I get a surprise while I'm at work. He calls me and tells me to come downstairs and I see him with a sandwich and chicken noodle soup from Panera. That absolutely floored me. I was almost speechless and it meant so much to me that he would do that for me. I have to say, that sandwich and soup was the best I have ever had. I think the fact that it was delivered by J has something to do with it.

So at his request, I will get some orange juice and pills and get better. No need to worry J. I'm fine as long as you are here to take care of me.

Favorite Website of 2008

Thanks for the hookup J. You are a genius.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

You should like it. I know I do. Made me realize I'm not as black as once thought :(

365 Days

365 days from now, I will become Mrs. Renee N. Valentine. Just saying that gives me goose bumps. This ride is going to be amazing and I'm glad you are going to be there with me. Every night, before we fall asleep, I find myself thinking, I can't wait to be married to J. It's something that we both have been wanting so bad and it's finally coming to a head. 365 days to go.

After looking at the place where we will become husband and wife yesterday, it made it even more real in my mind than before. It's going to be beautiful. Now that the wedding/reception location is out of the way, we now have to find the caterer. That's the next big obstacle but it shouldn't be that bad. I'm not going to go high budget for the food because I'm not going to remember the food 50 years from now. Oh but the food will be good, I'm just not serving up steak and lobster.

So the search for caterers begins. What helps is that I'm limited to a certain number of caterers so it doesn't seem overwhelming. The best part will be tasting. Bring it on!

Found a Wedding/Reception Site!

I found a wedding/reception site! I can't believe I found one so early and I'm glad it's within my budget. I haven't put the deposit down but I do have the place on hold. It's the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts and it's perfect for me. We plan to have the wedding on the balcony lobby overlooking the Ohio River and move into Todd Hall for the reception.

J and I are going to take a look at it today. We are both giddy with excitement. I guess looking at stuff for the wedding makes the whole process seem that much more real. I'm glad I'm taking this journey with him. I'll let you know how much I love it when I get back. I'm super excited!

Husband and Wife Gamers

This story was taken from the website GameSetWatch. It doesn't really remind me of J and I but I think it's funny all the same.

The Game Anthropologist: The Gaming Family Habit

['The Game Anthropologist' is Michael Walbridge's regular GameSetWatch column looking at gaming communities and subcultures. This week he explores the impact gaming decisions have on marriage.]

My wife, Amanda, will spend two weekdays and a weekend playing a new release that's coming out; she even wanted to preorder it and get it at midnight. I am not as excited about this as she is. In fact, for a while I was dreading it. This is because she wants the new World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, and I had become converted to Warhammer Online.

My friend Bill (real name), a friend of mine since I was 10, had leveled up in World of Warcraft while I was in college. I got a review copy of Warhammer Online. "Tell me how it is," he says. "It looks pretty cool." My first verdict was "I don't know", and my second was "I'm not sure but I'm guessing Amanda won't be into it since it's more PVP-oriented".

He comes over to my house to play it for a while. He is not so sure either. I spend a lot more time with it, analyzing it with intent to not only write about it but to give an accurate report to my childhood friend and my wife. Are we going to go over to it?

Amanda has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, so I have an insurmountable wave of comfort to topple. Not only does she only want to play one game and wants to stick with what is familiar, she likes repetition. She likes to purchase cloth and then have her character make bandages for ten minutes, knit (IRL), then sell all the bandages to an NPC for a profit.

She likes to repeatedly warm her hands over animals and hit rocks with a pick. She likes to kill the same things and do the exact same scripted moves, even if not the most healthy, over and over again. And she really, really likes leveling characters. She has leveled four paladins extensively, though only one to the highest level.

Meanwhile, Bill just purchased a computer to start playing World of Warcraft again, and he's just got married in the summer. He exudes that "I'm on a budget aura" that one must learn to use when a newlywed; it's clear to me that it had better be worth fifty bucks. But Amanda's not going to move, and he isn't either.

I had quit Warcraft anyway; Warhammer or no, I wasn't interested in going back. The embarrassing truth is that I ragequit from a guild I never wanted to be in over a dispute with a leader. I did it in public; it was the guild Amanda was in. She later found out my accusations against said leader are true. "But raiding is so much fun," she tells me. She stays. It's somewhat awkward. I enjoy my freedom; she goes raiding, I can play whatever I want!

A few weeks later she tells me she didn't think I really meant I was quitting. In a wistful, "I wish you'd buy me flowers" or "you never ______ anymore" kind of tone. Oh God. "It's so awkward playing with Bill without you," she says. Bill had tried to convert his wife; I had told him "I think she's just trying it to make you happy;" if we're all going to start over as alliance instead, she'd better really mean it. I don't want to do all this for her when she doesn't mean it."

"Oh yeah, she means it," he says with newlywed zest. I can tell he is deceived. I sigh. To insist, to really press the truth on him would be cruel.

Recap: I leveled a character to level 70 for the sake of Bill's wife who never wanted to play in the first place, and joined a guild I didn't want to join. Then he slows down his playing time, my guild leader is a jerk and my wife keeps playing with them, and I find out I like Warhammer better, quit Warcraft, and neither of them want to join me. They also want me to come back.

I am bitter.

I persist in playing Warhammer; I like the guild. They are intelligent, affable, down-to-earth. It's very easy to introduce yourself to others in the ventrilo server there; most guilds I've been in have Ventrilo servers that are as awkward as a blind date set up by an oblivious friend's girlfriend.

I have other games I'm interested in playing, other sights to see. I certainly couldn't have gone back to Amanda and Bill's guild, and if I had gone to a new one that would have meant I'd be on a different raiding schedule.

But for the launch of the new Warcraft expansion, my wife and friend want me to come back. I ignore this for a while.

"I really didn't think you meant it," she says a few more times. At least one of these times, she is making the effort to not cry.

Later, not during one of these episodes, I tell her I'll play WoW at launch with her; I also tell her she can get it at midnight and she gets excited. "Okay, make sure to reserve it for us!" she squeals.

She gets so excited her hands start to spasm and her laugh cascades out of her with such strength her eyes narrow and she keeps alternating her weight from leg to leg. She calls the game by her own name for it. "I'm so excited for Hate Town! Hate Town Hate Town Hate Town Hate Town!"

As the weight of this commitment settles on me, I am given one of those brief moments where I learn why I never consider it a big deal that I have baby pink sheets, baby pink blankets, and pillow cases on my bed. Or a New Kids on the Block concert to go to. It is ironic that in what is usually a solitary and meaningless activity, I was given a choice where I could make it anything but.

I Have Three STDs

Well I do in a way.  In order from right to left is Chlamydia, Herpes, and Syphilis.  Aren't they just the cutest things!  My sister works for the CDC in Atlanta and bought them for me there.  Hmmm maybe I shouldn't show my future daughter these when I teach her about safe sex.  She might think that STDs are good to get lol.

Official Fan Girl

I just got done telling my fiance that I have become the unthinkable. I am now a Fan Girl. And a Blizzard Fan Girl no less.

Fanboy (n.)

1. A person who is completely loyal to a game or company regardless of if they suck or not. 2. A pathetic insult often used by fanboys themselves to try and put down people who don't like whatever it is they like. 3. See fool or SEGA. "If you don't worship SEGA and send them all your money and pay $500 for the copy of Panzer Dragon I'm selling on ebay then your obviously a Sony fanboy even though I've never heard you mention a single thing about Sony the entire five minutes I've known you." Said the SEGA Fanboy. "Yeah but the SNES didn't have Blast Processing" Said the Sega fanboy. "FF7 sucks" Said the SEGA Saturn fanboy.

Hmmmm I would classify myself as definition number one. Luckily for me Blizzard doesn't suck. But I will defend them to my grave because they have brought so much to me. Not only fun, but a fiance. But I digress.

I spent much of my vacation spending time with J and playing the video game. Every time I turned around in WoW, there was something that made me giggle like I was four years old and bounce up and down in my chair like I was five years old. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. More than I really thought I would. All that I wanted, was for J and I to have fun together, doing something we both enjoyed. That's what I wanted and that's what I got.

So if you talk smack about blizzard, I will come and get you. Don't test me!

I am no looking forward to Thanksgiving. I am so excited because J gets to meet the rest of my family. They will love him and everything will be great. I am so excited because life is falling right into place.

Awesome Vacation!

My vacation is going as well as I could have ever hoped.  Mama Mia was AMAZING!   I never thought I would like ABBA songs....well I found out that I like the broadway versions anyway.  If you ever have an opportunity to go see it, I suggest you go.  I only knew the songs somewhat but I found myself wanting to sing along.  So I had a blast!  If it ever comes again, I'm going.

Standing in line waiting for Lich King made me realize how unaddicted to this game I am.  People all around me were talking about the game and the way they talked about it made me realize that their whole lives were WoW.  I just like to get on and play with my friends.  But everybody else was talking about PvP, loot, statistics.  It was way too much for me and I had to go out in the car and take a break.  I am SO glad that my guild isn't like that. :)

So after playing my game a bit I made chili and grilled cheese for J.  If you have never had chili and grilled cheese together, OMG.  It's awesome :)  Try it, you'll love it!

Also some disappointing news but I'm trying not to let it affect me.  Anthony Hamilton and Angie Stone are coming in concert.  Normally I would be thrilled since these are two of my favorite artists, but they are coming Thanksgiving night, and I'll be in South Carolina.  I'm sooooooo disappointed but I would rather be with my family.  Plus they will get to meet J!  So what you will have to do for me is find a way to make it to the show and enjoy it for me.  I don't care if you don't like them...do it anyway so I can feel that somebody I know is enjoying them lol.  So I'll have to catch Anthony and Angie on the flip side.  Signing off for now, I'm all clean and scrubbed and ready for a trip to Northrend :)

Lindsay Lohan Has Lost Her Mind

Lindsay Lohan referred to Barack Obama as "colored". What is her problem? You would think she lived in some po dunk back country town. I hope SOMEBODY schools her on this. Article is below.

NEW YORK – Lindsay Lohan referred to President-elect Barack Obama as the country's "first colored president" in an interview on "Access Hollywood." Describing her experience on Election Day, Lohan said: "It was really exciting. It's an amazing feeling. It's our first colored president." A spokeswoman for Lohan didn't immediately return messages left Wednesday.

Interviewer Maria Menounos didn't question the 22-year-old actress on her use of the term. "Access Hollywood" also didn't cite her remark in its online story, but did post an "extended interview" video on its Web site that included the remark.

Lohan blogged about her support of Obama during the presidential campaign.

The Perfect Night

Well I'm assuming it will be a perfect night. I can think of a gazillion things that could go wrong.

We are going to see Mama Mia tonight and I am super excited. I love going to Broadway shows and it's even more exciting because I've never seen this one before. I want my work day to be over so I can hurry up and see it! I'm very very very excited.

And then, Wrath of the Lich King comes out tonight at midnight! I'm very excited about that and my four days that I'm going to play. I can't wait! Maybe I'll post a pic of my rogue so you can see how BA she is now.

I hope all is well with you. Wish me luck and I'll post some time this weekend to let you know how it goes :)

Wedding Planning 101

So I don't want this to become a blog all about my engagement but it will be heavily about that as that is on my mind.

J has nipped the situation in the bud so to speak to keep me from going overboard with things as he know that I can. He said it might be a good idea to think about it, but not every day as it's so early in the project. I'm glad that he did that because I was really starting to stress.

If I had more money this wouldn't be an issue and then I could have whatever kind of wedding I want. I have to find a balance between what I want and going into debt for just one day. I know what will cost the most, the reception site and the pictures. I can see that being easily close to $4,000 in itself. But J has suggested some ideas that might cut costs that wouldn't sacrifice quality. I just want the day to be special. I know things will go wrong on that day because it's bound to happen. But I'll document my journey here, for all of you all to see.

I'm just happy to be marrying J. He loves me for me. And no matter how annoying I am, he still loves me. Thanks J. This is going to be a wild and fun ride and I can't wait to share it with you.

For Some Reason I'm Really Missing You

My Engagement Ring

I know I'm late getting it up here. But it's here!

From Engagement

New Pics! Go Look!

Yea I haven't put the captions on them yet, but go look anyway. You can make up your own captions, it's fun that way!

http://picasaweb.google.com/reneecrocker

There Is Hope

It's been an exciting and tumultuous week for me. I became engaged, J got to meet two of my close friends, and Barack Obama became president of the United States. One of the best weeks I have ever had.

Although this victory means so much to a lot of African-Americans, it is not only our victory. It's an American victory. That's something I really do believe in my heart. Everyone who voted this election voted from their heart, and with passion. I know there are hard times in the country, I can see that every day, but I have hope that it will get better. Bad times don't last forever. As I watched the television I could hardly breathe. I almost thought it was a dream and I would wake up any moment.

A part of me worries that America will claim that there is no racism anymore because we have a black president. Any sane person knows that's not true and we still need to fight for what's right.

Right now, I am full of joy and I can't wait to see the joy on my parents' faces. I hope our country can now get behind our President and not be like those Republicans that booed Obama at McCain's concession speech (shameful!). So I will leave you with one of J and I's favorite songs off of the Girl Talk album. It's called Like This.

Get out there and Vote!

The polls are only open a couple more hours in my time zone. If you haven't, please get out there and vote. It makes a difference and some people don't even have the opportunity to vote.

J and I were watching the show 30 days the other day. It was the one where he and his girlfriend has to live on minimum wage for 30 days. They knew it was going to be hard but they thought that they would be ok. They found jobs and realized that it wasn't as easy as they originally thought. The hard work caused them to be hurt and they had to go to the emergency room. They had no insurance and thus had huge bills. They didn't have any kids and acknowledged they didn't understand how people made it who had kids. This episode made me so mad because this is what I see. I see people who can't afford basic things like food and healthcare for their families and politicians think that if they give tax breaks to the wealthy that it will trickle down. i want to ask them if it's working. It hasn't worked yet. People talk about the socialization of the health care system. I don't think of it as socialization and these people would rather have people with no health care hurt and sick because they can't afford the doctor's office. I was so mad I wanted to scream. I want every elitist to watch that show and tell me what they think.

And with that. I'm going to leave you all on a high note. This is the last song on Girl Talk's album, Feed The Animals. Listen to it all the way through, you'll like it. Listen to his other stuff. His mash up albums are amazing. Just go to You Tube and search for Girl Talk.

The Story of My Engagement

From Engagement

A lot of people have been asking how I became engaged. So I decided to post it on here. I'll post a picture of the ring when I get home. So I guess I have to do this for people who have no idea so I'll have to give some background.

J and I met on a video game. And not just any video game. We met on World of Warcraft (or World of Warcrack, as other people call it). We started off as friends and then eventually grew to more and we started talking off of the game and eventually he moved to where I lived.

So fast forward to Halloween Night, 2008. (This is going to be fun explaining for people who don't play WoW.)

On World of Warcraft, you play with other people around the world, so you meet people and you become friends with them. You can talk to these people while you play the game on a voice server called vent. It's just like everybody is in a big room talking. I was out doing quests (jobs for non playable characters) and that night we were supposed to go to a raid (where you and your friends go out killing monsters to get items). I was trying to finish up my quest before the raid and all of a sudden, I get a summon (where somebody can send a message to you and if you accept, you get teleported to wherever they are). I was too busy trying to finish up my quest and I was going to accept the summon when I got done but J kept telling me to accept. Finally i was like, Ok Ok, I'll finish this quest later.

I accepted the summon and I was suddenly teleported not where the raid was supposed to be taking place, but to an air island in Nagrand. Nagrand is an area in the game where J and I spent a lot of time. The sky's are blue, the grass is green, and there are islands in the sky where you can get to if you have a flying mount (an animal you can buy that will let you go faster and it flies). When I was summoned out there, I was suprised because I didn't expect it. As soon as I got out there, J traded with me on game (When a character trades with yours, you can exchange items). He traded with me and it was a ring called Big Rock which is worth 25 gold (not anything to laugh at in WoW). So I was like, wtf? Why is he giving me this, then all of a sudden, I turn around, J is on one knee with the ring, asking me to marry him. Of course I said yes, then I told him I hated him and cussed him out for surprising me. I didn't think he was going to be able to surprise me. All of our friends were cheering and crying. It was perfect

And the funny thing is, J was playing a song in the background called Spooky which has the line in it that says "I'm going to propose.....on Halloween". But of course I don't pay attention so I didn't even realize it.

That proposal was perfect. World of Warcraft is where we met, fell in love, good times, and bad times. We both share friends on there and I'm a huge geek and nerd, so it played perfectly into it. He put so much thought into the proposal i couldn't have asked for anything better. I probably missed something that will confuse some people and if I did, just mention it and I'll clarify. I just love that he knows me, and he knows what I love. It was the most unique perfect proposal ever. Yea, that's my fiance. He's awesome.

Adrienne and Cole are The Best!

So I had an awesome follow up to my engagement on Halloween. We went out to dinner and a movie with my good friends Cole and Adrienne. They are the sweetest and most considerate people that I know. They took to J right away and it felt like we had all known each other for years. Adrienne and I gushed over being engaged and our wedding plans while Cole and J just smiled at us and put in their two cents every once in a while.

Famous Dave's was excellent as always and the movie left something to be desired. It was Quarantine by the way. Don't go see it. The cheesiest of horror films. I think it was even worse than Saw. But at least we all got to see it together. And the fun part was the boys shooting their way through Time Crisis 4 while I fed the machine. We were a great team!

I love them so much and I'm glad to have them as friends. I'll definitely be bouncing ideas off of her for my upcoming wedding. And I can't wait for hers! I think I'll bawl like a baby when I see her coming down the aisle. I'm a total girl right now.