Newbies.

Speaking of four-eyes here's my highly anticipated $30 internet special spectacles:

They are nerdy as all hell. And I love them. (blame the crapastic quality on the shitty overhead lighting I sit under all day at work.)

The last time I purchased new glasses was 2007. And they cost around $200 out of pocket. So I wasn't expecting these to be all that cute, but I think I lurve them. If you have never worn glasses, getting new ones is similar to getting a new hair do: when its good, you are really happy.

Now I just need a cut and color in the worst way (and an eyebrow wax to boot) and my head will be ready for wedding season 2011.

Year One.

I could not ask for a better person to share forever with. Happy Anniversary to us.

Life Happenings.

My life in pictures as of late.

I'm still obsessed with my niece...seen here on Mother's Day....

Bff was a GORGEOUS bride who made lots of people cry many times on the 15th (myself included)...

I rocked the dress and had the skinniest day of my life (as seen above)....

Later I rocked it (quite literally) after many-a-drink from the open full bar...

The day after the wedding Kiddo got to meet her newest cousin...

Who we may see again this Sunday (most likely arriving like pictured above)

Yay for life.

Words on Weddings.

Tomorrow is the opening day for my 2010 Wedding Season. It will be the first wedding I"ve attended since we got hitched back in August. Before I was married (and actually before I even met my husband) I discovered weddings make me cry. At least, when I know the people well, which is the case of EVERY wedding I have this year. I really hope I can keep my shit together at Bff's wedding in May, since you know, I'm the Matron (uggggghhhh I really don't like that word) of Honor and blubbering like a baby as the vows are being said would probably be mortifying. I'm thinking some respectful, joyous tears would be perfect, but we'll see how that goes.

I didn't cry nearly as much as anticipated at my own wedding. My eyes were dry as a bone when my husband and I did our pre-ceremony pictures (whereas he was quite surprisingly weeping...it was so endearing), I had one moment walking down the aisle, and a bit of a moment during my vows, but nothing major. I save those for other people's weddings I guess. Oh and once we were in Florida, the night after the wedding and I got on Facebook (we are nerds and don't leave home without our MacBook) and forgot I had changed my name on their the night of the wedding, I burst into tears, happy-yet-sad, exhausted tears.

Now, to make the husband dance with me or not tomorrow...that is the question :)

What day is it?

Life goes on. I keep going. There are a million and a half things going on for me right now. I've stopped caring when I can't remember what day it is right away in the morning time. If its still dark out and the alarm is going off, it means get out of bed and exercise. If I wake up on my own to pee, its probably about 7:30 and I forgot to turn on said alarm or its the weekend and its time to go back to sleep. If the sun is shining through my windows, its probably the weekend, which means I need to get up at some point and exercise before I do anything else.

I went to Chicago for work. It was fun times. It has also added to my confusion and made it painful to come back to work, but whatever.

Operation fit into dress is in full swing. I got real worried this morning (I'm having a I-feel-like-a-beached-whale-I'm-so-fat day, so that doesn't help) but I'm going to calm myself by calling the alteration place that did my wedding dress and see when I could bring it by, just in case there is something to be done to give me some wiggle room.

My niece should be here the day before my bff gets married. Which means I probably won't be there at the hospital, but I will get to go visit Sunday before going back home. I am still buying adorable tiny things for her. I love her already, and I haven't even met her.

I could not be happier for all these life changing events going on with people I hold so dear. Summer will be even sweeter this year though, because I'll have some serious down time starting Memorial Day weekend.

Pause.

Apartment Makeover has come to a standstill for various reasons:

1. I'm busy....like, reeeeeally busy for the next two months.

2. We are (like always) tight on money which isn't anything new, but its way easier to plan and execute when money is not a part of the equation.

3. I can't seem to decide what to do first...I keep jumping from room to room in my head and since I can't choose where to start, I choose to not start anything. (Lame I know)

4. I want to do the (awful) task of re-organizing our filing system for bills/mail before I do anything else, but I can't seem to force myself into doing so. This, in turn, effects our "land strip" area which would make me SO happy to clear out the clutter from. It is the first place I see when I get home and the last place I look when I leave..but still hasn't happened. Le sigh.

5. I've been feeling pretty.......overwhelmed by my own life choices lately*. Which is awful timing, since I'm so busy with two amazing and happy milestones of two amazing ladies in my life. This past weekend has proved I can at least push all my BS to the side when it counts the most since both showers were a hit (I had bridal on Saturday for bff and baby on Sunday for my best (only) sister. I am so ridiculously happy for both of them....I can't wait for wedding day for bff and birth day for sister.

I can't decide what is the best option to fix my job/career/go back to school dilemma, so much like choosing a starting point for redecorating the apartment, I choose to do nothing**. Which doesn't help me at all. Meanwhile, I'm stuck in this absolutely crap (besides the pay) job.

I've been channeling this mantra lately, along with plotting to buy a large print of it as soon as possible:
Cause, really, what else am I supposed to do?

*Strictly job/career related. My Husband is the one thing I know I chose correctly in life.
**Besides frantically search, on an almost daily basis, for another job I'm qualified for which pays about the same as what I'm making now. I've discovered I'm overpaid for my qualifications, or at least that's how it looks to me.

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!

Motivation.

Here I am a short 5 months ago, rockin' my wedding dress and looking quite svelte ( for me at least).

Saturday was my own personal body image D-Day. The dress ordered back in September for my bestie's (seen above as the best MOH evar) wedding in May came in and we were going to pick it up. Would it zip? Wouldn't it? I was quite anxious.

Then it zipped. Hurrah! Could I sit and breathe at the same time in it? Definitely not! But I am beginning damage control on this issue this week, and I have 4 months to drop approximately 15 to 20 pounds lest I want to stand the entire evening of her nuptials. I'm acquiring a treadmill in the next week or so and the morning usage will begin. I have a good feeling about things, and I'm going to try and stay optimistic. I know from past experience the first thing to ruin my motivation and determination when it comes to weight loss is when I get inside my head and set up proverbial pessimistic camp. That is not an option.

And for some unknown reason, I am super excited to get a treadmill and use it every morning. Weeeeee!

Dress at last.

I just remembered I promised photos of my bought-ten-days-before-the-wedding-off-the-rack wedding dress. So here we go:

Trying to not drag my train all over the place....and I just realized I didn't get one good picture of it. Oh well.

My new lil family.

Old-school hometown girls.

Happy Friday everyone.

Married.

August 29, 2009 was the perfect August day. It was sunny with no humidity and I think the temperature might have reached 75 degrees. I woke up suddenly at 7am and jumped out of bed with the perfect words to fix the beginning of my vows,
"So if you haven't heard, today's our wedding day...." it went perfectly with the rest.

Things went wrong, as they always do.... we never took our after ceremony walk like I wanted to, the pizza pans I bought for the buffet were too small, and we forgot to get cake cutters and serving things but those aren't the things I remember when I think about the day.

I think about his face when we saw each other for the first time in the courtyard before guests arrived, with our families peeking out the windows and hearing their collective "awwwwww" when Luke got choked up.

I remember my dad and I standing in the atrium waiting to walk in, as some of my oldest friends were arriving a bit late and as they pass my dad leans over and says, "so-and-so really put on some weight!" and I had to shush him.

I think about pulling my new husband into the auditorium because a song I really loved was on and even though neither of us really likes dancing (we cut our "first dance" off after about 45 seconds) we swayed as I rested my head on his shoulder. All I could think in that moment was:

This is it. We did it. It's our wedding.

It was amazing.

OMG

Yesterday I was excited.

Today I am so exhausted I just want to cry, but I'm too exhausted to cry.

I need solid, dreamless sleep and I doubt I'm going to get that before next week.

Not really stressed or worried just really, ridiculously exhausted at this point.

Maybe since I'm off work starting tomorrow I will sleep better.

Success with 9 days to go

I. Have. A. Dress. (!)

Its gorgeous and a bit too much (and definitely not the Drama Dress, but c'est la vie) but at this point, I wanted a bit too much ;)

I'm holding off on posting it here until after the wedding, so you'll just have to check back!

Now I can fully focus on other wedding related nonsense for the next 9 days.

Can't Hardly Wait.

(Remember that movie? I haven't seen it in years but now I want to...)

16 days.

I've been teetering back and forth from excited to upset a lot this week....mostly due to PMS but also because I have 16 days to work out lots of things for w-day and we have about $140 to make non-food wedding purchases with...and to live on until next Friday.
And I'm scheduled for a hair cut and color Saturday at 11:30 and thats $65. I was going to get the old eyebrows waxed too, but I think I'll have to cheat on my stylist and go to Regis at the mall so I can shamefully put it on my Visa.

But still, I can't freaking wait until the 29th.
To be married (!)
To be surrounded by all the people who are important to us.
To see people I haven't seen in a long-ass time.
To meet Fiancé's out of state friend from college and to have him meet my oldest friend who lives in Chicago now (hopefully he makes it)
To have a sense of accomplishment that we did it.
To spend an entire week relaxing.

There was a time in my life I honestly didn't think I would ever be doing this, but I've never been happier and I feel more like myself than I ever have in my 24 years and 11 months of living.

22 Days and Still No Dress

This week brought a new development in my dress drama. The owner of the shop who had been arranged by the designer to recieve my dress (Athena Bridal) called me Monday afternoon. I was busily running errands at work to get ready for an event we had yesterday and I missed the call and had a voicemail from her. It is probably a good thing she left me the news on the message, because I got really upset. Like, almost-threw-my-phone-into-a-brick-wall-while-crying upset.

House of Wu (the designer) "lost" my dress. It was made and ready to go, pending payment from Sharnett Bridal back in July. When Sharnett said they wouldn't be paying for it, Wu sent them to collections and my dress went MIA at this point. I'm guessing they sold it to a warehouse bridal place or something to get their money.

The Owner of Athena's told me they placed a rush order for them to make me another dress and the estimated date of arrival is August 20. That's nine days before the wedding. And that's the best case scenario.

I spent the rest of Monday and most of Tuesday pretty pissed off and sulking. I've come to terms with it now....there isn't anything I can do but wait so I've been distracting myself with getting other things done.

If I don't have this dress the Monday before the wedding....I'll be calling off work the entire week (instead of just the 3 days before the wedding) and finding one then.

I know the universe may be trying to tell me something here...but I freaking love my dress, and I won't give up on it until the last possible moment. Plus I'm hoping things will be smooth with everything else because I've paid my dues in the whole "weddings never go as planned" arena right?

Or I just won't care if the day of things go wrong, because nothing can really top all this BS....

Wedding prep a go-go

I apologize for the wedding heavy posts lately...I know this isn't a "wedding blog" but 4 weeks out from W-Day it is damn near impossible to not babble about wedding related things. I'll return to my randomness sometime after Labor Day, with a pinch of quarter-life crisis talk since I'll be the big 2-5 a few weeks later.


So here we are. Less than a month before the wedding. Where the H did the summer go? For reals!?

This past weekend was wedding productive. Fiancé's mom, Kiddo and I went and chose fabric for the flower girls dresses. F's mom is a bit of a seamstress and will be making the dresses sometime in the next 4 weeks. She and I also sat down and went through her music collection to fill the gaps we had for wedding music. I had everything except the dance type stuff people like at weddings.

On top of this, Fiancé got his wedding shoes (hi-top Chuck Taylor's), I got my bridesmaids their dresses we ordered from Target online and we decided to get the marriage license tomorrow and then ring/pant shop for Fiancé and for cool cake toppers tomorrow night.

Things are coming together nicely, but I'm still really, ridiculously worried about having enough money for things. C'est la vie I guess.

I talked to the dress shop Friday afternoon. We were both under the impression the designer had my dress at the distribution center in Florida. We were both wrong in assuming this. My dress is somewhere between the States and China right now. When will it end?

32 days...

...til the wedding, and, my dress is being shipped to another store as we speak. It could possibly be there anytime this afternoon and I spoke with the owner who assured me she would call if this is the case.

I contacted the dress designer again last week and they contacted this other shop, whom they do business with in order to have it shipped there. I have to pay what Sharnett Bridal owes the the designer...but that is only about half of what I paid Sharnett in the first place. So yes it sucks, but I would've probably ended up spending that much or more on a new dress and I love my original dress so why get someting different?

We have the bridesmaids squared away as well (since their dresses were also ordered from the store that closed) a la Target online. I love me some Target!!

Somewhat related but pretty random: I came across a forum posting on my bridal networking site where a bride just bought her 4th dress, and its a month from her wedding. It said something like "I'm finally satisfied" or something. I can't imagine putting myself through what I've gone through with my dress in the past month on purpose...but, to each his own, right?

I'm actually getting excited about things...and not just excited for the honeymoon, but excited for the actual wedding day, woo woo!

F*ck it.

As of today, 40 days until our wedding, I have nothing to wear.

Wait! That't not true! I have shoes and my veil.

I returned my replacement dress. It was a very beautiful dress but I felt very fat and not pretty in it, and decided w-day is the one day I should be exempt from feeling those things.

So now I wait. I wait for the call from the store owner, or perhaps a miracle....that a package containing my wedding dress will be on my doorstep one evening. I have a few other options as well...I just really want the dress I paid for and ordered in February. BUT...if I can't have it, I'm still getting married to my lovely fiancé and that is the most important thing and I know it. He has been so great through all of this; completely supportive and somehow conveyed his "it doesn't matter what you wear" man-neutrality on my clothing for our wedding without upsetting me.

So I say fuck it. Fuck this dress bullshit and the sleep I've lost over it.

I'm getting married in 40 days!!!!!! WOO-HOO!!

TAT: Totally Awkward Tuesdays

Hosted by TovaDarling

Awkward is not being obsessed over our wedding but being expected to be by society and even by people who have known me my whole life. People who knew I was firmly in the "I doubt I'll ever get married" club for a very long time and still being asked by them "what are your colors?"

It is drilled into girls so young to be consumed by weddings and colors and the perfect dress and the perfect day and its YOUR DAY (not "their day" because the plural actually includes the love of your life and its not even really about him.....besides that YOU ARE MARRYING HIM) and you're a princess and you're expected to be a complete bitch and make your bridesmaids wear the same dress and shoes and jewelry and hair and to be suddenly concerned with flowers and favors and colors and types of ribbon. So when I ventured out into the wide world of wedding planning, I've been met with a lot of strange looks and behaviors for not being so typical.

All I have wanted since we got engaged was to NOT be stressed in the planning process and to create a day that reflects us as a couple and that celebrates love. There have been a few small incidents, but nothing compares to my dress shopping experiences.

The first shop I went to was on a Monday evening. My sister was with me and we were not even approached by an employee until my we had pulled a bunch of dresses Then we were sort of yelled at for, because they usually only pull 5 at most at a time. Then we took pictures of me the first dress I put on and were told we weren't allowed to do that either. Great start. I had one I really liked, but I wanted to try more.

I should have done my research, and not gone to the SeventhCircleofHell for dress shopping round two, but I was on a budget, so it was off to D's Bridal for me. There I was tortured by being assigned an associate who was easily 75 years old and had a way less than pleasant disposition. When I arrived for my scheduled appointment, the receptionist at the store told me my associate would be with me soon. I asked if I should start pulling dresses, and was told oh no, they would do it for me. Cool I thought. Well, not really. She made me do that while she went to get me a slip and a bra, and then put my girls to work pulling stuff, which was fine, but then she complained if they brought dresses that were a size too small or a size too big for me to try. She didn't even ask me if I wanted one of them to help me in and out of things, she just did it, and stabbed me with her long red finger nails as she put me in and out of about 15 dresses. She had the worst people skills I had ever experienced. I am a pretty easy person to talk to, but she made me so uncomfortable. It was awful.

I later decided to purchase the favorite dress from the initial store. The day I was measured was another one laden with awkwardness. I was treated like I was an inconvenience and was rushed through the process. I'd never had measurements of any kind taken so I didn't know what to expect and the girl measuring me was a total bitch. When I asked what "private designer" meant (I was told my dress was made by one of the shops private designers) because I had some ethical concerns, the owner matter-of-factly told me, "honey they are all made in sweatshops, so unless you have a dress custom made that's where its coming from, but I've been to them, and they are that bad" and it wasn't so much what she said but how she said it. Then I was scooted out the door as fast as they could take my full payment in cash.

I felt like because I did not purchase an extravagant, princess ball gown I was treated like crap. On a later visit when I mentioned how I was looking for 3 different dresses with brown lace accents the girl helping me that day looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my nose.

My original dress....isn't she lovely?

Now, recent events discussed in Adventures in Wedding Planning have forced me to purchase other dress since my original one has gone MIA.

Dress number two...pretty but not perfect.

Lesson Learned: To avoid awkward moments and lots of frustration by not buying into the Wedding Industrial Complex in American Society, Elope and have an informal BBQ reception unless you can afford a full service wedding planner....or if you do buy into the WIC, more power to you...it's just not me.

Because Mondays Suck.

I'm sorry...was that blog title a bit negative? Maybe it's because my original wedding dress is being held hostage and I keep being told "how great I'm dealing w/things" well I'm about to crack, due to lack of sleep, "dealing w/things" and I general distaste for my job today.

My dear friend Tabatha tagged me for one of these, so I thought it would oblige, albeit a bit late.

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:
1. Florida. In 48 days and counting.
2. The wedding crap to be taken care of.
3. The wedding dress crap to be sorted out.
4. Getting a massage the week before w-day from my massage therapist friend.
5. Going to bed at 9pm tonight.
6. Being married.
7. Going to the gym sometime today.
8. Seeing my brother in August.

8 Things I did Yesterday:
1. Visited with my dad for a bit.
2. Shopped from 11:30 to about 5:30 with my mom and sister for something for my mom to wear to the wedding. Didn't find anything.
3. Called back dress people and left ANOTHER voicemail.
4. Bought Kiddo's Wedding Day gift and had it engraved, its a snowglobe, she collects them.
5. Bought my sister's wedding party gift.
6. Hung out with Fiancé and Kiddo for a bit.
7. Watched the first Season of Sex and the City (I'd never seen it in its entirety)
8. Drove a lot.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
1. Sing.
2. Dance.
3. Speak another language fluently.
4. Figure out what the hell I want to do as a career.
5. Finish my Master's...this one will happen, but its not going to be fun getting there at this point.
6. NOT worry incessantly about money.
7. Cook well and enjoy the process of doing so.
8. Write a book. I don't know if I have the patience.

8 Shows I Enjoy:
1. Friends
2. LOST
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Three Sheets
5. Ghost Hunters (not International though)
6. Jon and Kate Plus Eight, its been my guilty pleasure since BEFORE it was cool to be a guilty pleasure.
7. Myth Busters
8. This is where I remind you I don't have cable.

8 Friends I'm Tagging
This doesn't work for me, but I am tagging my three readers who aren't the one who tagged me for this:
1. ali
2. mylittlebecky
3. Ashley

Adventures in Wedding Planning.

On Wednesday morning, after I called the store my wedding dress had been ordered from, Sharnett Bridal and Prom, getting a busy signal on numerous attempts, I found this article telling me the store had closed/gone out of business.

The "ship date" for my dress given to me by Sharnett (on February 14 when I paid in cash, in full) was today, July 10, 2009. After leaving a voicemail on the shop owner's cell phone and sending an email with more than enough information and not getting a response to either, I contacted the designer of my dress directly. They told me my dress was ordered, made and ready to go, but never paid for. I had already given Sharnett my money, and now I was going to have to pay AGAIN to have them ship it to me.

There is an internet bridal gown business based out of a nearby town who is offering any bride who paid in full at Sharnett half off any dress they have in stock and their prices are already way lower because they cut out the middle part of buying the dress. They were absolutely wonderful people. They were my best dress buying experience that I wasn't even supposed to have.

So here is my new and improved wedding dress.....

please excuse my face in this picture...I was very tired of standing at this point

And if by some chance stroke of luck my original dress appears on my doorstep (which I'm not holding my breath, I was made to pay in cash, so all I have is my receipt for a paper trail and this woman has done this before) the place this dress is from will let me return it for a full refund. Oh and those little straps will most likely not be there...we were just trying them out but I don't think I like them at all.