Crazy-busy.

This past weekend I didn't get much apartment makeover type things accomplished because I was doing 10 million other things and driving all over the greater Miami Valley. Between Saturday and Sunday I did the following:

-gave a test for my work at our branch campus
-helped a friend move
-got a hair cut
-helped the same friend get settled since I have mad organizational skills and get some weird joy out of turning chaos into order.
- showered 2x on Sunday (really, I don't know how this fit in w/the time change and all)
-drove to hometown and:
-finished planning my best friend's Bridal Shower (which is THIS Saturday) and the Bachelorette in May
-Went to Target
-Visited my preggers sister at my mom's house, twice (once before Target trip, once after wedding-stuff planning)

This weekend has convinced me while I love driving a compact car the next time its car purchasing time, I would like something a bit more roomy. Claustrophobia can set in when you spend 50% of your weekend driving around in crappy weather. I would looooooooove the newly redesigned Honda Insight, but lets not get our hopes up.

I'm hoping to maybe at least get our bills organized into the expandable file I bought almost two weeks ago sometime this week. Other than that, I'm on Bridal/Baby Shower stand by, with both happening on Saturday and Sunday.

When did I get a life?

Over?

What happened in February 2010? Did all the snow we received somehow speed up the space-time continuum or something? It seems like things went by really fast. March is so busy for me. Every weekend is a social commitment or a work one, or like the 13th, both when I am working in the morning, getting my hair (an extremely much needed)cut then helping a friend move.

The following weekend is my bridal shower/baby shower extravaganza in my hometown. I'm co-hostessing the bridal on Saturday and the baby on Sunday. Only I would have my best friend and my best (ie: only) sister getting married and birthing the first grandchild of our family in a one week time span in May. Hopefully little Miss Audrey (the favorite name thus far) takes after her mommy, uncle an aunt and comes two weeks early. My sister keeps telling me since she's high-risk (diabetic and 35, which is the starting point of "advanced maternal age" there's a term to make older mommies feel awesome!) it will be a c-section and scheduled, yay for modern medicine. Whenever she arrives, I will be there. I have a niece and nephews from marrying into them, but I was never around a lot for the itty bitty baby parts of them, plus my sister has wanted a baby for a long time, so I'm very excited for them as well.

It's going to be crazy, but I am looking forward to having so much going on again. Being busy doesn't leave time for me to dwell upon how unsatisfied I am with work/career related things. I'm stuck since I want to go back to school, to do something fulfilling and way different than what I do now, but I can't figure out how to pay for it. More student loans are not an option. So I'm trying not to dwell upon things while slowly jumping through the admission hoops in vain hope that once I'm interviewed/accepted I can get them to grant me a tuition scholarship. In a perfect world, right?

***
It stays light out a little bit later every night, and soon it will be consistently warm enough for me to walk in the evenings, something I think about doing every day, but the snow and cold temperatures keep me from. I don't think I've pined for Spring so hard in my entire life. The amount of time the snow has hung around this year compared to the last few seems never-ending so I think that may have something to do with things.

In total random news: I've been married 6 months. Craziness!

Crunch Time.

Here's a list about my current state of small accomplishments:

Wedding invites are stuffed, stamped, labeled and ready to go. I haven't mailed them yet, I'm waiting until Friday for some unknown reason.

I wrote out shower #1 thank-you cards last night and I'm going to mail them today.

I ordered three swim suits off the old interweb last week for the honeymoon and I'm patiently awaiting their arrival.

81 days to go. Should I be excited yet? I'm still notsomuch.

I FINALLY began revising my Master's Thesis last night and it wasn't scary or awful; it was actually refreshing to use my brain for something besides wedding nonsense or family worries.

After all the excitement with my supervisor telling me I could take time off to finish, and then mentioning funding my PhD, he went on vacation beginning the day I was supposed to report back to him about my meeting with my advisor. He hasn't even asked about it since he's been back, but this doesn't surprise me, and I'm still finishing by August anyways.

I'm still trying to grow a pair and call in for a mental health day from work....but it still hasn't happened, we'll see how I feel Friday morning.

Oh the joy of planning a wedding.

W-Day: 88 days to go

The invites have been printed, along with address labels and the man-rentals (I'm not saying tuxes, because all they are renting are vests, shirts and ties, per Fiancé's request, claiming they all have black dress pants) have been organized. I mailed the balance that we owed for the Condo rental and I want to mail the photographer at least $100 this month. I still owe $88 or so to the table rental place.

I have 30 some-odd thank you notes to send out for Shower gifts. The highlights:
-Dirt Devil Kone rechargeable hand held vacuum
-three bag laundry sorter with ironing board on top
-George Foreman grill
-super cute pjs from my momma (those weren't on my registry)
-Stemless wine glasses along with two other sets of glasses we wanted.
Overall, I think it went well....but I didn't sit still for more than 5 minutes until they had me open presents. I DO NOT want the wedding to be like that. I will try my hardest to make sure I am fully aware and enjoying myself, not worrying about talking to every single person there. I almost want to do a revised receiving line because of this....but only have Fiancé and I talk to people, since I think they are awkward for the wedding party who won't know everyone.

Upcoming to do's:

1. stuff a prototype invite and take it to the post office to make sure it doesn't weigh too much...then its invite assembly time.
2. figure out what I'm wearing under my dress.
3. decide on a rehearsal dinner menu (per the restaurant)
4. make man-flowers and mom/g-ma corsages.

Secrets, Secrets

post secret really spoke to me today with these two. Especially the second.

My own little secrets: I'm terrified of our money situation right now, I haven't done shit for my Master's Thesis since telling my advisor I want to finish up before August and the BIGGEST one: If one more person asks me "what my colors are" or talks about "MY big day" coming up, I think I might lose it. I HATE being the soon to be bride. I cannot wait for this wedding to be over and to be Mrs. H and be on the beach for a week with Mr. H.

Ahhhhh I feel better. Anyone need to leave a secret? Feel free ...anonymous or not.

Happy freakin' Monday. I'll try to post a blurb about the Wedding Shower and how things went later, but we'll see.

Thrice.

I see I have more than the lone follower these days....I think that deserves a huge WOO-WOO! Thanks for making me feel loved followers!

I've written before about how I don't care if no one reads this...because its nice to have a quiet place to spew randomness. Alas, I'm discovering it is also nice to get feedback on the randomness from perfect strangers as well, so keep it coming...and tell a friend if you so choose.

So 100 days from today is our wedding. I'll be the blushing bride, trying to eating breakfast (with a mimosa fo' sho') at this point 100 days from today. I'm excited, but still a bit worried about money and how things are going to be executed.
We are going to Kinko's next week to drop off the invite paper for printing....and Fiancé is (supposedly) going next weekend to choose clothing for the men folk. My shower is next Saturday...and I'm mildy excited about this as well. Plus, Fiancé's mom and sister will probably throw me another one sometime in June for his side of things, since they are all based around Columbus. Woo wedding crap. Overall, I'm still way more excited for the trip to Florida at this point and for everything to be done with.... is that messed up? Oh well if it is.

Wedding Busy-ness.

I headed to my hometown Friday after work for a planning meeting/dinner about my wedding shower coming up at the end of the month. It was fun and my Maid of Honor/bff, sister and mom along with my sister's awesomely helpful best friend figured out who would bring what food-wise. There will be mimosas involved, I'm uber excited about that tidbit.

We also talked decorations. I suggested two options since I'm not too thrilled with having a shower at all:

1. Balls to the wall-overdone-wedding shower decorations. I wasn't ever the girl who *knew* she would get married someday, so I thought we could really own it and just go all out getting any and every wedding decoration we could find.

OR

2. Make it a literal shower theme. Rubber duckies, soap-on-a-rope, shower caps (?) and things of that nature. This will probably take a bit more creativity.

I think more people will "get" the shower theme, although the guest list is mostly good friends of mine, and the few family members I've invited have a good sense of humor, so I'm really only in danger of confusing/offending the two elderly women who will be there: my grandma and my great aunt. I don't want them to think I don't take marriage seriously, because I do, I just don't buy into all the traditional crap that is expected of me/us since we are planning our wedding.

The overdone wedding decor option would probably be easier and cheaper.

Anyone have any opinions on either?

*EDIT* I just thought of another option:

3. get some candles and three or four bunches of wildflowers they sell at grocery stores and just decorate with those. I don't know if I want any cheesy decorations at all...its just that the place the shower is at is an apartment club house type place, not someone's home, so I felt like it needs something. This option is a bit more classy...plus will end up being more eco-friendly because all those cheap decorations won't be purchased then thrown away. Plus we could gather cloth picnic style tablecloths (think colorful plaids, not gingham) to use...I know my mom and sister have some. I've been asked (nicely) to butt out though...lol. I'm overly involved with the planning of the shower because I feel bad for my best friend/maid of honor. She works 40 hours a week as a paralegal, goes to school full time at night AND is in the beginning stages of planning her own wedding. I trust her, I just don't want her to stress too much.
This option will most likely happen.

I went dress shopping Saturday with her, she's getting married a year from this Saturday and is having a hell of a time finding her dress. She wears the size of most sample dresses, so everything fits and she's 5'9 with curves in all the right places so everything looks fabulous to boot. I told her to not think about it for a day, and then look at the pictures we took and go from there.

It's funny we both ended up engaged and planning weddings at the same time...but we're going for two completely different types of weddings, hers a bit more streamlined and mine a bit more quirky. This pretty much sums us up as people too but that is why we are such good friends...we are different people but love each other for it.