The biggest thing that's happened was buying, or starting the payment plan for, the perfect wedding dress.

Then we set our date and reserved our venue. It's a barn, in case you couldn't tell. We're going to have the ceremony and the reception in the same place, set the tables up on either side of the aisle and use rotating teal and orange tablecloths.

We've looked at flowers.

I want calla lilies for myself, thinking about orange Gerber daisies for my bridesmaids (to match the groomsmen's vests).

This is kinda what we're thinking about for the boutineers.

Chris is going to have a camouflage vest.

One weekend, Chris and I, along with one of my bridesmaids, went on a dress finding trip. That's the style I've decided I want, not in that color of course. The color we're using is called 'Peacock'. I wouldn't mind having this dress in black...

My mom and I went to a bridal expo today and got a lot of cool ideas that would fit in with our general theme. Don't worry - I took pictures.

We may have to integrate hay bales and twine in somehow.

 Like the burlap...

 and the lanterns.

Really liked the idea of tying twine around the napkins.

Obviously we still have a bunch of stuff to do, but not so much as before.

Next on the list? Catering, confirming our photographer and paying off everything.

Oh, and don't forget all the fun stuff that's coming up in the way of showers.

7 1/2 months to go!

Last night at 6:00, we ended the show with a story about a dozen 6-month-old giant pandas getting to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with a party of their own.

The purpose of their party was for the pandas to show off the skills they've learned at a giant panda breeding facility in China.

As soon as the female anchor said, "Some played with balls...", our meteorologist burst out laughing, even though the video was of a panda playing with a beach ball.

So they finished the script and the meteorologist says, "I was a little worried when you said they were going to show off skills they'd learned at a breeding facility."

And that's when our male anchor says, "We don't have video of that."

At which point the meteorologist replies, "You can order it!"

And with that my friends, we ended the show.

Happy Friday.

The SOPA & PIPA bills have been shelved in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but that doesn't mean we should fall back into complacency concerning our use of the internet.

In fact, SOPA and PIPA were not the only internet-based bills before our federal lawmakers.

The 'Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, H.R. 1981, is making its way through the House, and lo and behold if it isn't sponsored by the same senator behind SOPA, Sen. Lamar Smith.

On the surface, this bill seems like a great thing. I mean, who doesn't want to protect children from sexual predators?

However, there are several provisions in this bill that are a complete invasion of privacy, not to mention an increase in a person's risk of having their identity stolen.

Basically what this bill does is requires all internet service providers to keep 18 months of your activity on file in a secure location. That means all your billing information, including your credit card and personal information, will be stored with those providers - ripe for the picking.

What's worse is that you don't have to be suspected of child pornography for those files to be searched by the federal government or any other law enforcement agency, although they do have to request access to the information.

So what Sen. Smith wants is for every single person in the United States' internet browsing history to be kept on file, regardless of if they're guilty of or even thinking about child pornography.

I don't know about you guys, but sifting through the browsing history of hundreds-of-millions of people doesn't seem like an efficient way to catch child predators. No, it seems more like an invasion of our privacy and a violation of our first amendment rights.

Apparently my degree is the #1 most useless degree to achieve, according to Newsweek's The Beast.

Click HERE to see what other degrees made their top 20 list. Most of them are degrees in agriculture or the arts.

Yahoo published a list of their own, albeit much shorter. Only 5 degrees made their list, the top spot going to agriculture. Journalism didn't make this list. I guess the writer had the presence of mind to realize that including it would completely invalidate his work.

I think what makes me the angriest about these lists is the fact that they seem to be based on salary, not their actual usefulness to the world.

Well, my job may be useless, but I enjoy doing it.

And here's a thought to end on.

If journalism were so useless, there would be no one to report on pressing issues such as these.

Earlier this week I wrote about how people are always moving in this business.

It's still just as true today as it was on that day, especially in the market I work in. The way the market system is set up for television newscasts makes this market ideal for a first job. The idea is to come here, work for a few years, grow as a reporter/producer/anchor and move on to the next big thing.

For the most part, that's how it works, but why does it have to be that way?

The way television markets work is so unfair. The number of eyes you have to watch you dictates your market size, i.e. the more eyeballs who have the ability to tune into your show = higher market number (and more money).

So what if more people decided to stay in markets like mine? It's not like those markets are going anywhere, and this whole idea that the only way to be a reputable or credible journalist is to work in a ginormous city is detrimental. What if people decided to settle down at a hometown market and make it better?

Last week my general manager challenged me to figure out where I want to be professionally in the next five years. Well, I think I've figured that out.

One day I would like to be in a position to help those people who come here but are only passing through to develop their skills and become better at what they do. That's what we're supposed to be about, but as it stands no one has taken on that role. The reporters I work with are good at what they do already, but they should be evolving instead of staying the same.

I want to be that person who doesn't move on. I want to be that person who has pride in her hometown station and wants to do everything in her power to make it better.

If you're reading this, then SOPA/PIPA should be of major concern to you.

But you shouldn't just jump on my bandwagon in protest of these two bills. You should understand what they are and what they could mean for you as a fellow blogger or someone who contributes to my comment section.

In short, what these bills do is make it a felony for the owner of any site to allow copyright infringement. That doesn't sound so bad. As a journalist, I know that taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own is bad, and I'm all for putting a stop to it ... but these two bills are not the way to do it.

The wording is vague, and the language is too broad. The bills basically give the U.S. Attorney General unlimited power when it comes to shutting down websites suspected of allowing comments, content, etc. that violate copyright infringement. He can also shut down a website if he deems it doesn't have enough safeguards to prevent copyright infringement.

I've been back on overnights this week with work, training another producer for the morning show.

Since I moved to the 6:00 and 10:00, we've gone through two morning show producers, but I'm pretty confident this one will at least work through her contract. She seems to want to be here and is catching on so quickly.

She's the first person I've trained who hasn't been terrified of the control room, which to me is the easiest part of the day. And she wanted to jump right into things after watching and talking to me for only one day.

Of course she's got to get a pattern established and work on her timing as far as getting things done on time, but that's an issue with all new producers.

Tomorrow I'm going to have her do pretty much everything on her own. I'll be reading behind her of course to make sure she's on the right track. My goal is to have her independent on Friday and me back on my normal schedule next week.

Wish us both luck.

I read an article today that really spoke to me: singers who are often in the media (entertainment media anyway) being criticized for the size of their bodies speaking out and defending their curves. Bravo.

For generations women have been told that to be attractive is to be a size zero.

If that's true, my size 6-7 butt must be hideous. Shhh, don't tell my fiance. He thinks I'm beautiful.

Marilyn Monroe was the envy of women everywhere, sought by men and she definitely did not fit the standards of beauty as dictated by society.

She had curves and wasn't afraid to show them off.

So maybe I'm not a model. At 5'2 1/2" I'm certainly not tall enough for it, and tipping the scale between 125 and 130 pounds certainly would deem me a 'plus size' model.

But if Marilyn Monroe wasn't a conventional beauty, then I don't want to be either.

I'll take my size 6-7 jeans any day.

Stop-motion films are amazing.

The statement above was said in regards to the departure of one of my coworkers. Today was her last day with us before she moves back home where she's accepted an anchor job.

In this business, people are constantly moving, whether it's to break into a higher market size and make more money or to get back home. It seems like no one stays in one place for more than a few years before they're packing up all their stuff and moving again.

But not me. I'm not like that at all, and it didn't take getting engaged to the love of my life to reach that point. I've always been this way.

 I've never wanted to stray far from home. Family is too important to me to be so far away that the only possible contact would be a telephone call.

I'm coming up on my two-year contract anniversary with my station, which meant a meeting to renegotiate the terms of my employment.

That meeting wasn't exactly satisfactory, and it led to several other meetings with different people. Long story short, I found myself questioning why I would even want to stay where I'm at now, and that led to a weekend full of contemplation about what I should do and what I want to do.

I love my job. I have no desire to move up a market size, and I have no delusions of making it rich in this business, but making the decision to stay where I am and accept a mediocre, almost non-existent raise was a tough one.

Money isn't everything. I know that. But it sure does help make things a little easier to get through when you're not sure if you can buy groceries to feed yourself.

I know that in the end it's the people in your life that make it fulfilling and that when it comes down to it, it's up to me to make myself happy.

In the course of all those meetings I mentioned, my boss issued a challenge. More like a request, but it will be challenging. He asked me to figure out where I want to be professionally in the next three to five years and let him know so that he can help me to work towards that goal.

So where do I want to be at in my professional life in the next five years?

I have no idea where I want to be at in that time span. I don't know if the things I've always wanted to do professionally are even possible here.

And therein lies the challenge.

Have you ever noticed that people tend to focus on all the small things that annoy or bother us that don't really matter in the long run rather than devote some time to the big issues that genuinely need to be fixed or improved?

Why do we make mountains out of molehills?

We turn something that could easily have been taken care of with a word or an email or maybe even the flip of a switch into this huge deal. Before you know it we've created some outlandish, unnecessary plan that involves an army of people to implement.

I've seen this at work, with family members and in everday life, and I'm sure I'm just as guilty of blowing things out of proportion as the next person.

So here's my New Year's resolution:

I resolve to only focus on the little things that make life worth living, like holding my fiance's hand, seeing a shooting star, texting someone just to say 'hello'.

I resolve not to make mountains out of molehills, to be understanding of small mistakes and to leave work at the office.

I resolve to love more, stress less and have fun.

We only have one life to live. Why do so focusing on the things that don't matter?