Days off, schmays off...

Yesterday was a fun day. Jesse was having some work done on his teeth, so I had to take the day off from work in order to drive him to and from the dentist, and to make sure he was recovering ok after the appointment. (He has to be sedated to have his teeth worked on.) As the dentist office is relatively close to my work, I did have a chance to slip in the office for a couple of hours while he was being worked on and had the chance to set up a meeting for my boss and our team, as well as activate a new phone/palm device for my boss while he was in another meeting. (Although I learned today that the chick who walked me through the “very simple” activation process told me to do something wrong, so it didn’t work properly for my boss when he got back from his meeting, like I’d hoped it would, and he wound up having to go through the whole waiting on hold and then having someone help him activate the phone thing himself later in the day. Which makes me feel terrible, dammit.) It was nice to have something else to think about while he was being worked on.

Everything went VERY well, though, and they were able to sedate him without any major issue, they were able to accomplish much of what they had planned to do in the first place, and they have a much better idea of what the next step is now that they’ve been able to look into his mouth a bit more extensively. Woohoo! On the road to a healthy mouth for Jesse! :D

When I take days off from work, they are, to say the least, far from being actual “days off.” For example, I took last Tuesday off so we could get our engagement photos done and in order to also take care of a few other things that Jesse and I needed to do together. I woke up at my normal 4:30 a.m. to get to the gym by 5:20, so I could complete my cardio workout before meeting with the trainer at 6. I finish up there at about 6:40, and then head home for a teensy nap before I get up and shower. Then I had a hair appointment at 9, since my hairdresser knows how to make my hair do the perfect little things that make me look as pretty as I can, and then I ran home to get Jesse and head to the photo studio for our 10:30 appointment. Once there, we learned his shirt was too stripy to work well in the photos, and so we agreed on a new time to meet to take the photos instead. We then went to Macy’s to see if we could find a shirt that would work better for the photos and which would also match relatively well with my dress (which was a deep navy color), and then grabbed a couple of sammiches at Mr. Goodcents before heading home to change. We had reset the photo appointment for noon, so we had to eat lunch pretty quickly, and Jesse had an ultra-fast ironing session with the new shirt that wasn’t all-together successful. We went back to the photo studio, Jesse ironed his shirt a bit more once there, and we were done by 1:30. After that, we went to the gym to sign Jesse up with a new membership. We realized Jesse had left his wallet at the photo studio, so we headed back there to get it, and then made a pit-stop at a little vacuum store on Wornall Rd. to look into a new vacuum for the house. (We did have one on our registery, but I’d heard really good things about the vacuums they sell at this little vacuum store, so we went to check them out just in case. Also, waiting another 6 months for someone to possibly buy us a ridiculously priced vacuum from our registry wasn’t going to work. We need the new vacuum NOW.) We left with a brand new Riccar vacuum in tow after having had a delightful conversation with an apparently very bored vacuum salesman, and headed over to the bookstore. We’ve been wanting to get a book on the Virgin Islands for a while, so we can look into some of the attractions of the island we’re staying on for our honeymoon, and also check out what other island might be worth the price of a ferry ride for a day visit while we’re there. We got done with that at about 4, and I was STARVING at that point. So we went to the Whole Foods to figure out dinner, which I left up to Jesse to decide what we were going to make. I was far too hungry to be able to make any good decisions, so it worked out better that way. We went home, he made dinner, and I made my guacasalsa that I have come to love so very much over the past few weeks. (It’s a couple of avocados thrown in the food processor with some tomatillos and some onion. There’s other stuff, too, of course, but that’s the jist of it. Soooo yummy! And WAY less fat and calories than regular guacamole! YAY!) By the time I was done with dinner, I was exhausted, and willed myself into staying awake for another 2 hours so I wouldn’t reset my internal clock with an insanely early bedtime by going to bed at 8.

So THAT is what it’s like when I take a “day off.” Yesterday wasn’t very different. After making sure Jesse was comfy once we got home from the dentist (the fact that he passed out almost immediately gave me some idea that he was fine…), I had an appointment at the Brewery to meet with my caterer (Denise) and the Brewery event coordinator to go over linens for the reception. We needed, more than anything, to look into the possibility of covering the chairs they have there. They have some black and silver chairs that they use at standard functions, and apparently, no one has ever inquired about covering them before. Call me fussy, but black and silver doesn’t fit in with our color scheme at all, and I felt like the chairs would be sticking out like a sore thumb if we don’t cover them. (The mosaic bar they have in the room doesn’t fit in either since its blues and greens, but it’s prettier than the chairs. Plus, covering the bar would be a bad idea, IMO. So we’re gonna ignore that all together.)

Finding a chair cover to cover these specific types of chairs wasn’t easy. But the caterer found a company that carries “extra-wide” covers, and she ordered a sample. One of the materials she got was more of a silky material that didn’t have any give to it at all. It didn’t work. BUT. The other material is a lovely polyester that kind of stretches over the chair. AND IT FIT! Success! We found the perfect chair tie for it, and then set about deciding on a table cloth.

Ok, lemme tell you that these days looking for the proper table coverings for a party table is not a cut-and-dry process. We had to choose from ivories and slightly peachies and dark browns and light browns and prints and lacy things and shiny fabrics. And then we had the different fabrics to consider, which ranged from damasks to thin sheers to heavy brocades that seemed more curtain-in-grandma’s-house than a linen for the reception to me.

But we found the perfect linen early on, thank goodness, and it was tough to find anything that was going to change our minds about it. It’s a copper metallic color, actually, and it has this criss-cross pattern on it that gives it a lot of depth, and a bit more pizzazz. The chair tie wound up not matching it so well, so we changed it out for another color, and fell in love. Once we decided on those, we put out the china options, and found that the ivory plates with the gold band around them went perfectly with the chairs and the linens, and kind of tied everything together for us. I almost forgot about napkins, but Denise and I wound up agreeing that the same color fabric we’re using as the chair ties will look perfect, so that was an easy decision.

All in all, it took an hour and a half to work all that stuff out. Since there was an amazing quantity of fabrics to choose from, it just wasn’t as simple as I thought it might be. But I’m soooo glad we have it taken care of now! We’ll have a different fabric on some of the accent tables, too, so things won’t look so matchy-matchy and blocky all over, and that way we got to use some of the other linens that were sent to sample, but which didn’t work out for the actual main table linens over all. They should look beautiful in the areas we’ve decided to use them, though!

After I was done meeting with Denise, I went home to check on Jesse. He was fine…he’d been sleeping the whole time I was gone. I had to leave again for a hair appointment at 5, and then I stopped on my way home and picked up a variety of smoothly pureed soups for Jesse to choose from for dinner (along with some mashed potatoes from the deli at the market, as I didn’t have time to make some for him myself), and got home in time to make him the soup, eat some dinner myself, relax on the couch for a bit and let my dinner settle, and then headed to bed at about 10.

I really, really can’t wait to have some official “days off” in November. I think the shower in California will count as official “days off” as well, since all I need to do is go home and have a good time, but we’ll see.

And now I must head out and get some lunch stuff. I’ve lost 6 and a half pounds so far, but have another few to go before I hit my goal. Definitely seems I’ll hit the 15 before my next dress fitting on the 22nd, but we’ll see. I’m hungry much of the time, and I miss my favorite foods (and drinks!), but I keep figuring that I just have to keep hating food for another 5 months…that’s it. After that, I can love it again, and all will be right in the world. I’ll keep you posted on that.