Got away from me...

It's been a while, so I'm sorry! The on and off of being at work through the holidays kind of threw off my game, and now I have all this catching up to do! Woops...

Christmas was great. The travel was a little exhausting, to say the least, but the time spent at home with the family was well worth it in the end. Jesse relaxed, I had fights with my older sister, Laura gave us the flu, we all ate and drank to our liking...it was perfect. (Except for the flu part, of course. At least my 24 hours with it didn't happen until I was home on Friday, so I was able to work from the couch. Jesse never caught it, thank goodness!)

On Monday, we went down to Carlsbad to visit with our friend Lyn and to have some breakfast and possibly do a little shopping at the outlet mall that the restaurant was at. It was great to be able to show Jesse where I had lived for a short while back in 1998, and we also found him two great sweaters on sale at Calvin Klein for only $25 each! That was nice.

After we were finished there, we headed back up the coast to Laguna so I could show him dad's condo on the beach there. Here's Laura and Jesse right after I tried to catch her pushing him over the railing! He turned around, though, and she wasn't able to go through with it after all...

On Christmas day, my older sister Wendy, brother-in-law Sean, Jesse and myself went for a hike on the horse trail near dad's house. There are several trails around him, actually, but this one led up to a water tower on the hill across from his place, where we'd heard we could see some pretty amazing views. The initial climb up almost killed me...I thought I was in pretty good shape, but apparently I was wrong! My sister and brother-in-law went on from the top of the hill over around the golf course below and then back to the street that leads to dad's after we were done catching our breath (or trying to catch our breath, as was the case for me at least!) and looking at the pretty view from the top. Here's a picture of dad's house from the top of the hill. It's hard to see...but it's right in the center of the photo, behind all the trees. That big house that's prominent in the photo is the newest neighbor who built right across the street from dad.
And here I am on the way back down the hill. Off in the distance is the main part of San Juan Capistrano which lies across the 5 Freeway and the railroad tracks from dad's house. I think I was pointing at Capo Beach, but I can't remember.
I'd been taunting Jesse with a "surprise" I wouldn't tell him about until it arrived on Monday night. Every year for the past 6 or 7 years or so, I think, we've gotten a bouncy house for the kids to play on for the day at some point around Christmas. This year I was able to convince my sister to order it for Christmas day so Jesse could benefit from it as well. I saw a pirate ship one on the website and I was all, "Ooh! Get that one!" It was a success! Somehow, it manages to keep the nieces and nephews busy from just about sun-up to sunset when we have it. Even though there isn't much to it, they play and play and play. (Where do they get the energy? Bleh!) Here we are on the starboard side of the ship. Or is that the other side? Oh, I don't know...
Once I'd gotten myself up and into the bouncy part of the ship, I realized what a huge mistake it was for me to be in there. Jesse bounced around, and I think he even slid down the slide once, and I tried to avoid being careened into by my nephew who had taken to jumping from the top of the slide directly onto the bouncy portion of the contraption, and I seriously thought that if he didn't break himself in half, he would quickly work his way to snapping one of my appendages with his reckless abandon. So while the look on my face in this photo isn't exactly a flattering one for me, it gives a good idea to you of my feelings about being any part of the bouncy ship at that point in time...
It was a great time. I wish we could have stayed longer, and relaxed some more, and spent more time with dad and Yvette and everyone. With the Twin being sick a good portion of the time we were there, we didn't have a chance to play half the games we'd wanted to, so that made me sad. But we did get to spend time together, since she drove us around while we were there, and everything. That was great.

More to come later this week! I've got bunches more pictures to share...hope everyone had a great and safe New Year!

Just a quick note...

I don't have much going on right now, outside of trying to get through this last day of work before a little holiday we're going to get to have (Jesse and I will be going to my dad's house for Christmas, thank goodness! I can't wait to spend a bit more time with dad and everyone for a couple of days...), and that sort of thing.

I did want to point out that I have added a "blogroll" that links to other sites that I love, love, LOVE, and will be adding to over time. They are wedding related and/or party related, and have GREAT tips and ideas for how to decorate for a party, or what to give a hostess/host at a party you attend, or just sharing pretty dresses that they've found in online searching. A couple of them run contests now and again that are fun to compete for, but for the most part, I visit them just to look at pretty things and get ideas for decorating and entertaining.

Hope everyone has a happy holiday, and I'll be back next week to share some stories of our trip home. Yay!

Okeydokey smokey...

Alright, all ye (hopefully) happy people. Not much to update on today, except to let you know that the photos of the wedding are up at the photog's website.

I'm in a terrible mood today, so I won't go into the way I feel about the photos much. I will say that I was expecting more of a professional photojournalistic style out of them, and I don't think that's what we got. I also asked specifically that they avoid taking pictures with the angle thing going on in them, and that didn't happen.

Oh, and don't even ask what the deal is with the pictures of the food at the cocktail reception is about. It was very hard to stifle my laughter when those popped up in the slide show when we saw it at the photographer's studio on Wednesday night, and when I looked at Jesse's face, he had a serious "WTF?" look that I hope Lori didn't see! They're weird...I think we can all agree on that point.

Otherwise, there are some fabulous shots in there, and I'm mostly happy with the way they turned out. If we can all just ignore the way my eyelashes looked throughout the "Bride" section of the photos, I'd appreciate it. The one on my right eye wasn't put on correctly when my makeup was done, I think. It came off of the corner of my eyelid during the photo session, and Miranda had to put it back on when we got back to my room to eat some lunch after we were done with those photos. Thank goodness my stepmom had some false eyelash glue with her! (Although I really wish I could have just taken them off. I feel like such an idiot looking at the photos now...)

Anyway, go to Van Deusen's website, and enter to the main page of the site. From there, you go to "Viewing Online", and then choose "View Wedding Images." Click on the drop down list and choose our wedding (not posting the names here because they work through last names on the site, and I don't generally release that info via the internet), and then the password is our wedding date: 10/27/07.

Have fun! Talk to you all next week...

Y'all are peachy, you really are...

Ok, I know there are still some of you out there reading this thing now and then, and I have to thank you for bearing with me when I have the downtime between posts. I know how sucky that can be, being an avid blog reader myself, so I plan on updating the blog soon to include some regular wedding/decor/party-throwing blogs in what we call a "blogroll" that I also love to read, and which will give you some material to look at between my posting here. Hopefully. Look for that update sometime next week.

But now, what you've been waiting for! (Ok, maybe not...but still what I promised to post earlier this week!) Here are the photos that document the big change to the little room in the house that we did on Sunday and Monday/Tuesday.

Here's Jesse as he does his fabulous cutting job around the doorway. See what I mean about reaching high places without the stepladder? The only thing he used it for was when he was cutting along the tops of the doors and the window in the room, so he was sure he wasn't totally missing spots or painting all over the top of the molding.

And here's the one wall when I was done painting it. You can't see in this picture really, but I did a terrible, terrible job. I'm just not meant to paint. I'm pretty good at scrubbing dishes, though! So I'll stick to that...(Jesse also wound up painting that door white. It needs another coat, but even in it's uneven whiteness, it looks worlds better than it did when it was cream!)
Here is the room after we finished painting and were able to move furniture into it on Tuesday night. Yay! (I've ordered curtains for the window that should match better than the older ones that have been in that room for the past 4 years. They should arrive today at the house, I hope I hope I hope...)
Love the new carpet, though! We ordered it before the wedding, so we could use it in the kids' section at the reception. It worked out perfectly with our color scheme for the evening, and it also worked out perfectly for the paint Jesse picked for the small room! Yay!

Here's Jesse over by the desk after we put everything together. He wanted to be in all the pictures, for some reason. He's so funny!
And here is what the old office used to look like. It's not usually THAT messy, but it's close. We had piled everything in there from the little room, so it was more messy than usual. I can't wait to finish the project by painting this room and getting it set up as (a) our additional "media" room for now, and then (b) our additional bedroom in a couple of months when it's time to put the house on the market. Woohoo!
I'll take more pictures of the bigger room once we've completed that transition as well. And now, as it's closing in on 5 p.m. my time on a lovely somewhat snow-covered Friday afternoon, I'll bid you all goodnight and good weekend. Later!

Taking breaks!

Sorry for the delay on posting around here. I've been thinking that I don't have much to post, but I've also been working. And then trying to fill out thank you notes here and there. And that takes up a surprising amount of my time, I've found! Tomorrow or Thursday, I'm hoping to have some photos to show the home improvement project that we're (hopefully!) finishing up tonight. We finally cleaned out the little bedroom and got it painted (I helped a little, but Jesse did most of it. It's so much handier being able to paint a whole wall without having to use the step ladder half the time!), and tonight I'm hoping we can finish it off by moving the furniture in there that we intend to put in. We're trying to envision different layouts with the desk and the little couch, or the desk and just a chair and a lamp. Or the desk and me lying on the floor in a puddle of frustration because I wish that room just had an extra foot and a half added onto it! (Seriously, the yard is huge...why didn't they just make the house a teensy bit wider when they built it? Makes no sense...) Anyway, I've taken before and during-the-painting pictures, so I just want to get some after photos, and then I'll be ready to post some stuff about it. It'll be fun.

In the meantime, how 'bout some more honeymoon photos? Here is a (very, very dark) photo of the "activities room" we tended to hang out in at the resort at night. It's also where we took the Yahtzee game from for the week, since that was our main source of entertainment in our room, and all. Hopefully no one else wanted to play it! Not that I care, because if we didn't have that? I would've been a wreck by the end of the week! Anyway, that's me on the big couch in front of the t.v. If you can squint a bit, you can see that I was busy watching the end of the game that was on before the KU game came on that night. I can't remember what it was...Ohio State, maybe?


And here's a picture from the path that we were on when we were at The Baths on Friday. Very pretty! But there were very few places where it wasn't single-file. We were alone on the path at that particular moment, but there was a lot of waiting in certain spots when we ran into groups that were coming from the opposite direction...
Oh, this picture is out of place, but it was the picture I took of myself as we left the resort FOREVAH!!! I was very excited to be headed home.
And this is me in one of the grottos at The Baths on Friday. Yes, that's me in a bathing suit, and I don't care what anyone thinks about it. My sister-in-law said I was brave to send out photos of me in a suit. She's skinny, and she doesn't seem like she'd do such a thing. I don't give a flying fig. That's mah belly. Love it or leave it! (My personal trainer does NOT love it. He's currently working on eradicating the belly, and I don't like him much for it.) You can't really tell all that well due to the shadows, but my ass looks fabulous...:D
And here's Jesse at the foot of one of the little path-helper thingies that are sprinkled throughout the path at The Baths. We had to climb the stairs, crawl through that hole in the rocks, and then climb down the stairs on the other side to continue on the path. There was a way around this path-helper that was a bit more treacherous, but we did it one of the times in order to avoid the massive amount of people waiting in line to get through the hole. Believe it or not, this was one of the easier path-helpers! My favorite was the slab of rock we had to climb up with the help of a rope...it was fun.
And that's it for now! More pictures this week, I promise. Hope everyone is having a good one!

Virgin Gorda, and other things...

Ok, so the home project isn't going too well. Nothing has changed, which is sort of disappointing to me, but I'll deal. I need to call the cable company to come out and switch the lines under the house for us, as Jesse isn't able to switch them himself. (He didn't want to crawl over to where the line is for the cable modem, and we're not sure if the other cable line for the t.v. will be able to reach as far as we need it to, anyway. He didn't want to crawl under there and try it all without being able to complete the process, seeing as that would leave us without a computer for several days...)

So! In the meantime, I will post pictures from the honeymoon in order to make things right in the world again. This is the beach that belonged to the resort we stayed at:

The beach was a 15 foot walk from our room's back door. Weird fact about Little Dix Bay Resort and Spa: We didn't get a key to our room...no one does, apparently. When you leave during the day, or whenever, you leave the room unlocked. Strange, no? (There was a safe in our room that we kept all our "valuables" in, so that helped a bit with the oddness of it all.) Here's a picture of our "king sized" bed:
It was really 2 full beds pushed together, which we thought was very klassay. Also, it rained super-hard on Wednesday night while we were there. As we played Yahtzee in our room and drank rum and Coke/Diet Coke, we noticed that there was a sizeable puddle on Jesse's side of the bed. By the time we went to bed, it was all the way over on my side as well. We called the front desk twice about the issue, and they seemed not too worried about it. The next day, and the following two days after that, they worked on finding the problem. Fortunately, we didn't get another rain like we had on Wednesday while we were there, because I really didn't want to find out if they'd managed to actually fix the problem.

Wednesday night before the rain moved in, we went out on the sunset cruise the resort offered to guests for a "small" (read: not small, but sorta worth it) fee. It was hot, but the views were lovely. And once the breeze was able to get to us inside the boat (the back end that was open to the ocean was full of guests, so Jesse and I stayed inside the boat and enjoyed the breeze coming through the windows, as well as the easily-accessible appetizers that were part of the cruises offering to us), it felt really nice in there...

On Friday, we went out to The Baths for a visit, taking advantage of one of the free things that the resort offered us in their boat-taxi to the area. We also took along a picnic lunch to eat while we were there. Oddly enough, chickens and roosters roam free about the island, and one in particular has made his home there on the beach we were dropped off at and on which we ate our lunch. Jesse was really bothered by this rooster. I decided to snap a picture of them together, since I wanted to remember my husband behaving in the way I usually do when people annoy me on the road or in the supermarket. It was awesome!
Sorry for the finger in the picture. We'd bought a disposable camera for that trip so we didn't have a chance to ruin our digital one, and it was hard to tell when you had your finger in the shot!

Here's a picture I managed to take that didn't get my finger in it...

Those rocks are the end of a trail through The Baths called The Devil's Bay trail. I have pictures from inside of it, but they'll have to be put up in another post! (Bandwidth, etc...) It was a gorgeous day for a visit there, as you can see, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I think Jesse would have enjoyed it more if he hadn't gotten a sunburn a couple days before from snorkeling without putting on sunscreen first. His back was really red, poor thing!

Anyway, more to come in the future. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for bearing with us when it comes to our lack of ability to fill out thank you notes! (I don't think we're the worst offenders when it comes to this tradition, but man, we aren't the best on the list either! Sorry for the delay on them!)

I know it's been a while...

Well, here we are, 3 weeks past the wedding, and me being all loser-ish about updating the blog. So here we go!

Jesse and I are doing well. Settling into our jobs around the holidays, since it's new for the both of us in our respective positions, as well as settling into the house now that we don't have any entertaining or anything going on in the near future.

It's kind of weird!

We have all kinds of new things we'd like to use for entertaining, but here we are on the verge of winter without the use of the space on the deck, and so we can only have small parties if any at all. So those new glasses and dishes will all have to wait to be used! (As does the leftover alcohol from the wedding, bless its heart.) I keep saying to people that I'm looking forward to having them over in the spring, but then I remember that we want to put the house on the market in the spring...and hopefully be in a new one in the spring. So, yeah. Housewarming party, anyone? :D

The honeymoon went well. It was relaxing as a honeymoon can be, the peoplewatching was fantastico, and the travel was long and arduous making the eventual destination that much more appreciated and happy to arrive at both in the case of the lovely hotel and our lovely home. I'll post pictures from the vacation over the course of the next couple of days. Warning: they are often jealousy-inducing! (But I can assure everyone that as beautiful as it was at our honeymoon location, it was also very, very expensive. VERY. That didn't help much. At all.)

Right now, I'm gearing up to head home and see what kind of progress has been made on the "switching rooms" project we currently are undertaking. Jesse had the "fun" task of climbing under the house to switch out the cable lines that run into the small bedroom and the front bedroom today. See, we're converting the small bedroom into the official "office" of the house in our attempt to properly stage things for when we put the house on the market in March. As far off as that may seem, I might just need the next 3 months in order to make sure everything is as keen as it can be for future possible buyers, and having the rooms the way they are now? Well, they don't show the house at its full potential, I don't think. The larger front bedroom will become an official "bedroom" instead of the extra room/extra closet/office space that it is right now. And the cable lines need to be switched because the t.v. cable and the computer cable don't work on anything but their assigned output. So Jesse offered (i.e. I begged) to get under the house and make the switch today if he could. I told him that if he honestly wasn't able to get it done, then that was fine and I'll call the cable company to come out. But we had to give it a try ourselves first, right? That's what I thought, too. :)

Anyway, we'll be sure to post lots of fun pics from the finished process. We want to paint the front room as well, and possibly even the small room, but I'm not sure what we'll paint them yet. Maybe the small room should be the same color as the bathroom (called "Country Club") and the front room will be the same as the living room. We'll see. In the meantime, we're switching things up! I can't wait!

NOT my choice, actually...

Some of you might recall Father Terry mentioning the readings we chose for mass and noting specifically that he could tell that I had chosen the first one, due to certain substance the message conveyed.

Well, I wish I could have corrected him at the time, but that might've ruined the moment I'm afraid. The first reading we chose was NOT the one from the Book of Sirach, as he had chosen to do instead. We chose the following reading from the Book of Proverbs:

When one finds a worthy wife,
her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband, entrusting his heart to her,
has an unfailing prize.
She brings him good, and not evil,
all the days of her life.
She obtains wool and flax
and makes cloth with skillful hands.
She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her fingers ply the spindle.
She reaches out her hands to the poor,
and extends her arms to the needy.
Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;
the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a reward of her labors,
and let her works praise her at the city gates.

The funny thing was that when my sister Wendy saw the reading that she was told she was supposed to read, she said, "This isn't right. Jennifer would never pick this." My coordinator came to the limo where I was waiting to walk down the aisle and told me what was up. I told her that I didn't know if anything could be done about it at that point...it was a couple of minutes before the wedding was set to begin. I don't know if anyone ever communicated the mistake to Father, and since he'd already set his homily around it, it's not like anything could have been changed anyway.

But I wanted to set the record straight. While I can appreciate the undercurrent of sentiment behind the Book of Sirach reading, I never would have chosen something that stated so specifically that a woman is some sort of present that's being GIVEN to the man she's chosen to marry. And then when it goes on to say that, "A gracious wife delights her husband..." etc, etc...without ever saying anything about how a husband returns the favor of "delighting" his wife? Well, call me a feminist, but doesn't that seem a bit archaic of an idea? Especially one for ME to conform to? I know it's the Old Testament we're talking about here, but that's why I didn't like that reading.

Anyway, that's the story behind that. Shoulda been a different reading, but everything went beautifully anyway. Yay!

Holy cow...

Ok, why didn't people tell me that I looked like a clown on my wedding day? Didn't want to upset me? Wanted me to have my face look like that of a hooker immortalized for the rest of my life in the photos taken during the day?

Fantastico...
Hell, at least the dress looked good, though, right?
And my flowers...
And my sisters and everyone else that were in town for the event looked FABULOUS...
More pictures to come as I get them. Thanks again to EVERYONE that helped make the day as special as it was. And the weekend as FUN as it was! I hope you all had as great a time as Jesse and I did. It was truly a blessing to have such a wonderful crowd of family and friends around us at such a special time in our lives! Hope everyone got home safe and sound...

Just stating the obvious...

Ok, so I've been busy. And sick. But mostly busy. (Although being sick hasn't made that very fun...)

The wedding is this weekend, and I cannot WAIT to see everyone that will be able to come! The only down side is that I'm already sad when I think about everyone leaving on Sunday. *sigh!* The fact that I'll be heading back to work on Monday doesn't help much, but I'm hoping that the honeymoon in the not-so-distant future will help to cheer me up again.

Not that I won't be happy already once this has all passed, and Jesse and I are finally man and wife...I'll be ecstatic! But still...there's a bit of a melancholy aspect to it all that we have to acknowledge.

The blog won't go away after the wedding, by the way. I'm sure I'll have lots of updates after the fact, and there will be pictures to post, and all that good stuff. So if I don't update again before the wedding, look for posts after!

Gettin' there...

Well, it's closing in on us now, so there isn't much else to say. And unfortunately, there hasn't been much time to say anything much, anyway! Work has been more than a bear. This week is the week of our move for our department, and between the meeting shuffling, the party planning, and the packing, it's been brutal around here.

And then my boss's dad had a heart attack.

So he had to leave quite suddenly yesterday to go to where his dad is (not within driving distance, unfortunately), because he was going to have a quadruple bypass surgery. And I still haven't heard from him this morning, which scares me, and I hope I hope I hope everything is ok!

But as far as planning for the wedding goes, we're pretty much up to speed on it. We're meeting with the photog tonight to go over our last minute bits and pieces, and to make sure we all have the same schedule in mind. And then Jesse and I will be putting together a checklist for ourselves for next Wednesday and Thursday, so as to make sure we don't forget anything. I'll be giving everything we have for the reception to the coordinator on Monday, so that'll be out of our hands at that point. And other than that, I just have some goodies to pull together for the out of town guests this weekend, and I'll be DONE!

In fact, I need to go write a little something to accompany those treats right now, so I'm off. Maybe more later...maybe not. I only started packing my desk up yesterday, so I've got to get that finished up! We cannot WAIT to see everyone, and even though the leaves won't be in full swing next week (we haven't had our first frost yet, so the leaves are all still green...which is better than nothing I guess!), it should be a beautifully fun time for all of us. So excited...so, sooo excited...

On and on and on and on and....

I am still playing with table arrangements. For the record, that's 3 days in a row that I've been thinking about it. Uh-huh...

I went to a local jewelry store today to have my wedding band sized, have both the wedding and engagement ring cleaned and to have their stones secured, as well as to request an apparaisal for the value so I can have them both insured. Which I've been remiss in doing thus far. (Bad bride-to-be! Bad, bad! I know, I know...at least they've survived this long without any problems, though! Good sign, since I don't usually wear much jewelry at all.)

I'm going to be without my engagement ring for almost 2 weeks while they get everything done, and I'm going to miss it more than I realized! I have a temporary one on right now, but it's bothering me because it feels so different and weird. *sniff!* Can't wait till I can get my real one back again!

At work, things are finally calming down. We had a large charity drive going on over the past couple of weeks that I volunteered to help with (the boss asked me, and I couldn't say no!) which comes to an end today. We're also moving our building around next week...no, not the ENTIRE building itself! Just the people in it. My boss and I, along with everyone else from our team, will be moving to a central location as of next Friday. Should be interesting.

I was a bit worried because a couple of managers on the team had brought up the idea of having a "Team Builder" on the day of the move, since we aren't supposed to be in the building after 12 p.m. that day. They thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do something like this! I didn't. It's the week before my wedding. The LAST THING I wanted to do was plan another party and deal with hosting and making sure everything went smoothly the day of. Not to mention I'm the move coordinator for our team in this location, so if someone needs help/something goes wrong during it, I would be the go-to person for that. And did I mention that I didn't want to plan and deal with another party?

So I looked into some things, and then we discussed it again and everyone expressed their interest in still doing it. But I noticed my boss's interest wasn't as strong as it had been. He was coming over to the dark side, and all it took was a little time. (Mwahahahahahaha!)

Finally, I sent a note out to the team last night, letting them know that I'd heard from some people that were aware it was a possibility that we were planning a Team Builder, and they weren't really interested in doing a Team Builder, and then alerting them to the fact that one of the managers wouldn't even be here that day...

So. It's been decided that we should NOT have a Team Builder. Our team doesn't need building. (They do, however need windows. Lots and lots of windows. Which is something I learned during this coordination of the move process. Kind of annoying quality on their part, I found...)

This helped my stress levels a great deal.

Happy weekend, all! 2 weeks to go, and I can't WAIT to see everyone!

A new day, a new burn...

Ok, I believe I've worked out the table issues. Thanks to a coworker who happened upon my desk yesterday afternoon when I was looking particularly frazzled over it, she made a suggestion within about 30 seconds of me showing her what I was dealing with (I made a little PowerPoint version of the room so I could see it better...I think I mentioned that yesterday, but I'm not sure), and that little suggestion solved EVERYTHING! Then she and I went for a quick walk around a bit of the campus outside our building...the fresh air did me good.

I can't believe how burned out my brain is over all this stuff, though! GAH!

Jesse and I went and got our marriage license yesterday, so now we're legal! Well, once we get married, we are, anyway. :) Last night he welcomed me legally into his life by socking me in the arm while we were sleeping. We clearly need a bigger bed. (There was a comforter-being-stolen-issue...it was 3 a.m....when I reacted to the comforter being pulled off of me by grabbing it and pulling it back, he hit me. I yelled, "OW!" and he apologized and rubbed my arm where he hit me, and I whimpered for a bit more, and then we fell back asleep. I told my trainer about it today. He then told me about the time his fiance punched him in the face while he slept. So I guess I have it pretty good...)

Jesse has also taken to counting down the days 'til the wedding. I'm still looking at it as a couple of weeks away, so it throws me off when he does it. I guess his mom mentioned it the other day when they were talking, and he's been keeping track that way ever since. It doesn't bother me...don't get me wrong. I just think its funny. I don't know why. Stupid story, eh? Ok then...

I'm heading out to lunch with some coworkers, so I'd best get moving. More fun from the wedding-brained bride tomorrow, I'm sure. It's crazy how much stuff there is to talk about, even at this point in the game!

Heartburn...painful.

I'm working on the table assignments right now. I should be doing other things, but I promised to have this info to the print vendor yesterday afternoon, so I'm already slacking as it is. The problem isn't where we're going to seat people, or what table to put them at. The problem is how to arrange the tables we've now managed to assign.

[Cue pulling out hair and running around in a circle screaming at the top of lungs.]

Why is this so hard? So stressful? So hair-pulling-out-inducing?

I don't know.

I mean, it's for dinner, right? People are sitting at their respective tables, eating yummy food, talking to their family or friends or what have you, and then they'll get up and mill around and dance, maybe go outside for a bit, get another drink, etc, etc...and everything should be peachy, right? So what's my problem?

The heartburn sucks...burning away at my soul, it is.

Last minute purchases

Being down to the wire like we are, at this point I'm pretty well ready to just throw up my hands and say, "Do we have the space? Check! Do we have food ordered? Check! Do we have alcohol to serve? Check! Alright then...we're done!"

But there is that small part of me that wants the details all tidied up and looking nice, so we continue to push on to collect them together and make sure all is well in the land of menus, kids' sections, and coordinators on the ball.

With that in mind, it was finally time to put our nose to the gridstone and pick out a cake-cutting set and some toasting flutes, already! I've liked the following cake-cutting set for a while, and finally purchased it today at BB&B...

I, however, feel that the matching flutes are a bit too girly with their "Love Knots" theme, since they had little bows on them at the top of the stem. For some reason, I couldn't see my fabulous husband-to-be holding a glass with a bow on it in his hand to toast our marriage together. So we finally took some time to visit the extensive fine china section at the local Bed, Bath & Beyond together last week, and we found some options that might work well.

He honed in on a particular glass that I didn't have a problem with, and so we finally found our flutes!

It's about 30 inches tall* and they look really elegant and will definitely be a special addition to our glassware collection after the wedding. So I'm pleased we were able to come to a conclusion on that issue. I had wanted to go with a champagne saucer myself, but Jesse was kind of anti-saucer for some reason. It was getting tough to find a cool one that was going to be available to us in such a short period of time anyway (I could have ordered the ones I wanted had I started thinking about this sort of thing 3 months ago...they hand-make them in Italy, or somewhere), and I wanted something that made us both happy. Eh voila! C'est finit!

Now if we could just get our first dance down, we'll be golden.

*Ok, not really. But they are pretty tall comparatively! It's going to be fun to have them...

Table Fun!

Jesse and I sat down last night after a fabulous trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond to find shelving solutions for the kitchen to help me stop losing my mind with our pantry area, and we worked on our seating arrangements for the dinner portion of the wedding reception.

I have to admit, I honestly thought this task would be much more difficult than it wound up being. I started with our own table, worked my way through my side of the family, then through our friends, and then Jesse's family, and then more of our friends (it was the way the invite list was laid out, which kind of explains the meandering back and forth...at least in my head it does), and then we were done! We're pretty sure we've done a good job of it, and hopefully we've accounted for everyone that will be attending. We do have a couple of RSVP cards that we never were able to account for who they came from, but I think we might've worked them out. Hopefully.

If not, let my first wedding day nightmare ensue! But I'd imagine it would be something the coordinator could handle in a snap, so we'll just be prepared in case we get any "extra" people we didn't place specifically. There's still room at a couple of the tables to place 1 - 2 additional people, as some of the tables have 10 at them, some have 9, and some have as few as 8. So it should work out.

I'm so glad to have that task done, though! Now comes the fun of naming the tables and getting ALL the info over to the printer. I can't wait to see how it all turns out!

And the winner is...

So, as I mentioned previously, during my search for the comfortable-all-day-long-yet-still-fabulous-and-pretty shoes I would be wearing on the wedding day, I found some truly...interesting prospects. Like the ones above - they light up! Or like these...

And these...is that a butterfly at the top? Gah! Ghetto-fabulous, anyone?
And to be fair, I found some very cute shoes as well. I would love to work these in somehow, but I'm afraid that heel is a bit too spikey to have any comfort factor going for it. But the polka-dots! CUTE!
Which brings us to...(drumroll please!).........



My Shoes!

I wore them the other night at our almost last dance class. (We thought it was going to be the last one, but because they gave us a rather mediocre teacher when we initially started there, the owner - who we are working with now - decided to add on an extra lesson for us for free! And boy-howdie, do we need it.) They aren't absolutely as comfy as can be...but they're VERY pretty on my feet. And yes, they're black. I gave up looking for a champagne/fancy-beige/off-white/light gold shoe a few weeks back. Seriously. Look at the pictures I've given you as a sample of what some of my options were. Do you blame me? Thank you...

I'll be using a black wrap that day as well, to keep my shoulders from getting too cold in the last-week-of-October breezes, so that will hopefully tie things together. And I know that none of it really matters, as no one will even see my shoes except for maybe a couple of times during the day, but it matters to me. I'll know what they look like, and I want them to look pretty. Because that helps make me feel pretty.

Thank goodness the search is over, though. I've never been a big shoe shopper anyway, so it's been kinda like torture to me to have to go through this. Being a woman is hard...

Shoes, anyone?

I think I absent-mindedly mentioned the search for shoes in my last post, and there wasn't any previous reference for you all to, well...refer to in regards to that reference, so I'm sorry about that. It consumed so much of my life for the past 3 months, or so, I guess I just thought I'd been mentioning it randomly in previous posts. But I don't think I actually have. (Although my bridesmaids and FMIL have been privy to some of the emails I've sent out regarding my shoe search. Poor things...hope they don't mind my sadistic sense of humor!)

Anyway, it's been a tough search for me, because it's hard to find something you actually look forward to wearing for 11 -12.5 hours in one day, and have them be cute, comfy, and match with your outfit.

I considered these...

But of course they didn't have them in my size for me to try on when I went to look for them. (Photo and shoe courtesy of David's Bridal. It's their style called "Jessica.")

I also saw these while I was there looking for the Jessica shoe...
Of course, not in my size in the store! (Dammit.)

So I tried these on... Cute, but not sure I'd be able to handle the material rubbing on my heel all day long. They were relatively comfy, though. But I also didn't like that there'd be so little of my toes peeking out, and I wanted more strappy over all.

Of course, my visit to the store came long after I'd found my first pair of shoes I thought I was going to wear at DSW. After I'd had them for a couple of weeks, I realized I needed an ankle strap to help keep my feet in the shoe all day/night (they were really cute slide sandals), and decided not to wear the ones I'd bought after all. Then I bought another pair...they were too shiny and the wrong color, we discovered when I was trying on my dress for the second time. So then I bought ANOTHER pair from Nordstrom. But it appears as though no amount of attempts at breaking them in will work...they are bound and determined to be a miserable pair of shoes on my feet. So they might be going back, if I can figure out how to get the foot petal-thingy I put in them to make them a bit more cushy (didn't work) back OUT again. Sticky nasty thing...

Throughout the entire process, I found some very special shoes, and I want to share a couple of those with you here now.

This shoe, for example, couldn't be created without the help of the feathers of some white, very beautiful I'm sure, birds from somewhere on this planet. God bless those beautiful birds for their contribution...

And THIS one? Well, who knew one could be a bride AND a stripper all at the same time?
There are more, but they'll have to wait for another post, as I've exceeded the alotted bandwidth I'm allowed to use per post with these pictures already. To be continued...

Obsession

I'm currently dealing with the obsession of trying to find appropriate cocktail napkins to have available at the wedding, and am running into a wall. We seem to have loads of options, this is true. But they range from what I consider run o' the mill...

To what is called "regal"...
To the relatively cheesy (but still sorta cute)...

And I don't know what to do! (And what does that first name say on that last napkin? Seems a bit off-color to me, maybe. But I might be reading it wrong.) Hopefully, we won't wind up with some craptastic version of whatever, since I'm being such a lame-o about getting them ordered already! But if you just see plain ol' Boulevard napkins lying about (if they even have them...), you know I just lost it and was unable to decide.

I thought the shoe obsession was bad...but this? This isn't right. They're napkins for heaven's sake! AUGH!

Weirdest Invite Issue

Ok, so the other day, I came home to find that we had received an invite back in the mail from a cousin of mine that I haven't seen in a long time.

The weird thing? We received their decline to the wedding back at the end of August.

*blink blink*

I'm beyond confused, have no idea what could have happened, and wish I knew what was up!

It rung a bell with me because we accidentally referred to the husband of this cousin as "Steve" when his first name is actually "Dennis." That was pretty embarrassing. But the name was noted on the RSVP card, I sent a follow-up note apologizing for the gaff - "it's been so long...relying on other people to help...so sorry for the mistake and that we won't be seeing you in October!" - and hoped they would forgive the mistake.

But the invitation we sent to them was returned to us due to an improper address. And how the HELL did they get an RSVP card to RSVP with if they never received the invite in the first place?

It's Twilight Zoneish...

Could we have accidentally sent them two different invitations? In which case it's somewhat of a blessing that the USPS somehow delivered the first one but not the second one, because, OMG, do we really need to look like complete idiots to this cousin? "Hi, I know you already RSVPd that you wouldn't be able to make it, and I know we called your husband by the wrong first name and all, but really, COME TO OUR WEDDING!!!"

I don't get it. How did this happen?