Finding Space

As you may remember from the last blog, I have generous friends and family members (as does my fiancé--now husband--can't get used to saying that) so I received quite a few gifts at my bridal shower.  It took three cars to get everything home--mine, my Mom's, and my Mom's friend's.  Getting home was actually kind of comical.  My fiancé took my car and filled it up so there was no room for me so I went with my mom.  Someone also made me take balloons home so I had to hold those so my mom could see to drive, which meant I couldn't see a thing.  Anyway, we got everything home, chatted for a bit, and then I set to work rearranging my kitchen and bathroom so I could fit my fabulous new gifts.  Apparently, I am a slow worker because by 10:00 I still had a lot left to do and I hadn't done a thing to get ready for work the next day.  I finally stopped, got my stuff ready to go back to work the next day (paperwork, made lunch, etc.) and eventually went to bed.  I took that Friday off from work because I had a personal day left to use that was soon going to expire.  It was nice to sleep in, but truth be told I spent some of the day catching up on work paperwork (um, aren't you NOT supposed to do work on your day off?).  The rest of the time, I did manage to get most of my stuff put away and I made a huge dent on my thank you notes.   I'd like to tell you I finished writing them all that day, but that would be a lie.  It took a few more days. 

Bridal Shower

So as I was getting ready to blog about some of the latest in "wedding land," I realized I never blogged about my bridal shower.  So here it goes...My bridal shower was a little over a month ago and it was fabulous.  Actually, I should rephrase that, my showerS were a little over a month ago and THEY were fabulous.  My co-workers threw me a shower too.  I got some nice gifts, delicious cake, and several people wore purple since that is my wedding color.  One of the organizers even wore purple gloves to cut the cake!  Who knew! 

 

My non-work shower was also wonderful and a little overwhelming.  I knew the date (my schedule is a little crazy so I had to know when it was), but not all the details.  My fiancé drove me over and we walked in and all of a sudden people realized we were there and started clapping.  It was funny because I could hear some of their voices as I was walking up the stairs, but they didn't see me right away.  I didn't really know what to do so I started to walk around to all the tables and say hi to everyone and thank them for coming.  Goodness knows I've helped throw many showers, but it was strange to be on the other side.  I had so much fun though.  I normally don't like being in the center of attention, but I embraced it and enjoyed myself.  After some mingling, a funny trivia game with questions about my fiancé and me that people had to answer, and some delicious food, it was time to open presents.  OMG, I cannot believe how generous people are.  It took me days to find spots for everything (that's a whole other blog in itself).  I could not believe how much stuff I got.  We had quite a few things on our registries and well, let's just say we received most of them (and then some).  Oh, and did I mention that when they cut into the cake, it was purple inside?  :) 

Parking Rules Do Not Apply

I'm going to give you a break from wedding blogs for a post to talk about something else.  I'd love to tell you it's something amazing and exciting, but it's not, it's parking.  Yes, parking.  Now as many of you know, I am a rule follower (well, most of the time, anyway;  people constantly tell me I need to break a few rules and they also say it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission).  So when I go somewhere, I generally park legally.  I did once get a parking ticket for being parked in a spot that was supposed to be vacated at 8:00 because I was still there at 9:00--oops!  I did however, pay my ticket in a timely fashion.  We have assigned spots where I live so not only do I always park in my driveway and have my better half park in his spot (soon to officially be his spot and not just my second spot :-)), I always make my visitors park in visitor parking (what a concept, huh?).  Sadly, not everyone else is as rule follower.  I've lost track of how many times someone other than my fiancé or me have parked in my second parking spot.  A couple of days ago, my fiancé went to the grocery store.  He came home and pulled over to the side of the road for approximately two minutes--with the car running--to unload the groceries.  In the time he did that, someone drove past him and parked in his spot.  ANNOYING!  So I kept staring out the window to see if the car would ever leave.  It did a few minutes later so I yelled my fiancé to go move his car.  (He had moved it to guest parking as there was no other place to go).  Well, in the approximately 5-10 minutes it took him to put  his shoes on, go to the guest spot, start his car, and drive to his real spot, SOMEONE ELSE parked in his spot. Thankfully, he got down there when the person was still in sight so she moved, but seriously, people, there is a guest spot within walking distance, why can't you have your guests park there?  It's not just around here.  I go to the gym 5-6 times a week (less if it's a crazy week, but you get the point).  With the exception of snowy Januaries when everyone is back at the gym and there are snowbanks taking up parking spots, there is usually PLENTY of parking.  It's not some tiny lot.  Well, several times in the past week or two, I have gone to the gym, parked (legally) seen plenty of spaces and yet there have been several cars that just decided to randomly park on a grassy area near the entrance.  I've seen people do this at the mall too and I just wonder, are people that lazy?  And how can you be that lazy and not be able to walk a few more feet if you are GOING TO THE GYM.  It can't be handicapped people because there are handicapped spaces free (speaking of which, I find it rude when non-handicapped people park in handicapped spaces and when people leave their shopping carriages in the middle of spaces instead of walking 5 more feet to the carriage corral).   I just don't get it.  So there's my parking rant.  We'll probably go back to wedding stuff tomorrow.  Have a good night!   

The Challenges Of Make Up

I think I may have mentioned on here before that I don't wear make up too often.  I'm sure I'd look better with it, but I'm lazy.  Getting up at 6:30 is early enough thank you, I am NOT getting up any earlier to put on make up.  I wear make up to work 11 times a year.  This year I wore it 12 times because of my work bridal shower. I will wear it if I'm going out some place nice in the evening or if I'm going to a wedding or party or whatever.  But on a typical day like today for example when I am not working and spending much of today cleaning and reading, there is no make up on this face.  So given my limited make up knowledge, I was NOT doing my own wedding make up.  After some research I found a place that was only slightly obnoxiously expensive as opposed to obnoxiously expensive as most other places were.  I went for my trial appointment last Friday and the woman was very nice.  I warned her that I do not wear a lot of make up and I am indecisive.  She was nice and patient, but my right eye would not stop watering.  My allergies were out of control--yet only in one eye, strange.  Anyway, despite my misbehaving eye she did what she could and assured me she would get waterproof make up for the wedding day--yes, please!  Because combine allergies with a girl who cries at everything and I'm going to need it!  Well, I had a few friends over that evening and they said the make up looked good, but by the end of the evening, my eye was watering up so much that I started to look like a raccoon.  A little later I morphed into a baseball player.  One of my friends asked if I was getting ready to try out for the Red Sox.  Bring on the waterproof! 

Wedding Planning: A Few Bumps Along the Road

They say when you plan a wedding, no matter how hard you try, something is going to go wrong.   In most instances people don't notice or it's something so small that the bride and groom notice, but no one else really does.  I guess the same goes for planning a wedding.  There will be problems, but in the end most of them have a way of working out.   So in tonight's blog I'd like to share a few of the problems we've had (besides trying to figure out the seating chart of course because most of my married friends have told me that's a pain so I'm going to just guess that is the norm, and actually
4-5--I've lost track, attempts later, it seems like we have a seating chart that will work). 

1.  Wedding Party Changes:  Quite a few months ago one of my bridesmaids had to excuse herself from the wedding because she is having a baby right around my wedding date.  Obviously, I was happy for her and understood.  She's still been a fabulous "honorary" bridesmaid and helped with my bachelorette party.  Since we had one more bridesmaid than groomsmen, I didn't worry about trying to find someone else to even things out.  But then two months ago one of my fiancé's groomsmen had to excuse himself from the wedding--he is not having a baby close to our wedding date ha ha.  My fiancé panicked a bit (shh don't tell him I told you that), but asked one of his friends if he would be willing to fill in.  His friend, Joe quickly said yes, and all was right with the wedding party again.  Joe was originally going to bring up the bread and wine at our wedding, but since we "promoted" him to groomsmen, it meant I got to ask my friend Natalie to do that instead.  She kindly said yes because she is awesome. 

2.  Flowers and Florists:  In May, we found out our florist's health wasn't good and he unfortunately had to excuse himself from doing our wedding flowers.  We understood and wished him good health, but I'll be honest I panicked a bit.  I hadn't really thought at all about flowers because he was taking care of everything.  It was someone we knew and that was going to be his wedding present to us.  I had sent him a few pictures--but truthfully, some of those pictures were stuff my friend Megan had found me (Megan rocks).  Our wedding package included centerpieces so it simply meant we would use their centerpieces and not get a credit for that so that part was easy enough, but I had NO clue on bouquets.  It also meant I now had 15-20 vases lying in my guest room that I didn't know what to do with because I wasn't sure another florist could use them.  Well, it turned out the florist who was doing our centerpieces, although not thrilled about it, was willing to use our vases--thank goodness because the 90 day return deadline had passed and I didn't know anyone in desperate need of 15-20 vases.  After a little digging around, it turned out one of my fiancé's groomsmen's girlfriend was  willing to do our flowers.  yay!  Thankfully, she has been very patient since I know so little about flowers. 

And finally (well for this post anyway)

3.  The Priest:  The priest who was supposed to marry us took a medical leave. No problem, the assistant priest can marry us.  On Monday I found out the assistant priest has been reassigned to another church.  No problem, the new priest will just marry us, right?  Right???  Well, when I was at church this weekend, I found out the new priest does not work on Fridays.  Did I mention my wedding is on a Friday night?!  I don't have a yay for this problem yet because it has not yet been resolved,  but I would think the church would find us someone, right???  We did pay them and sign a contract.  Perhaps God is trying to tell me something?   Do you think he's mad at me for all those weeks I did not go to church?

I'll keep you posted.  In the mean time you can look forward (or not) to blog posts on make up and my awesome friends.   :) 

Political Ads

I try not to mix politics and blogs, but this one is irritating me so I'm throwing it out there.  In the past two weeks, I have gotten the same ad approximately 6 times (maybe it was only 5, but either way, that's a lot of times to send the same ad).  It is some political group encouraging me to call Senator X and tell Senator X that Y is bad.  It also complains about the way Senator X voted for stuff in the past.  For the record, let me state that I am registered as undeclared (much to my father's dismay, I think he nearly had a heart attack, when I registered to vote and did not wish to declare a party), but I do try to vote in every election.  Anyway, these ads are in color and on heavy paper.  As someone who has had to print, copy, and distribute ads for my job, I know that heavy paper and colored ink are NOT cheap so if these people are sending me this ad 6 (or maybe only 5) times, I imagine they are doing the same thing to many others, right???  How much money are they spending?!  Couldn't they take all that money they are spending on repetitious ads and actually use the money to SOLVE SOME OF THE ISSUES they are so concerned about.  I googled them and they have something about prosperity on their website.  Is it very prosperous to send the same ad 5/6 times???  I think not, but what do I know!    So their ads go straight to my recycling bin, but now I'm thinking I could be creative with them.  I could give them to my neighbors for their fire place in the winter.  I could use them to catch dripping paint for painting projects.  I could bind them all into a book and then mail them back to the people that sent them.  What do you think?  Got any creative ideas for me?   

Another Wedding Blog: The Church Stuff

This blog is a little random and all over the place, but the underlying theme is church stuff.  So as you may remember, I'm getting married in a church.  My fiancé and I took that test back in March and we were quite nervous to get our results since he misunderstood some of the questions. Well, a little over a month after we took the test, we got our results and we didn't do so badly.  In fact the woman who went over the results with us was a sweetheart and found it kind of funny that Mike misunderstood the drug use question.  One less thing to worry about
We met with the church coordinator a few weeks after that and things went well, except that as we were leaving the church coordinator noticed I had a flat tire.  Trying to find someone to change a flat at 8:00 on a Wednesday night proved challenging, but not impossible.  We got it sorted out and I was able to successfully get to work the next day. 
And on a final church related note, we now have no idea who is marrying us.  The priest that was going to marry us switched churches.  The assistant priest was going to marry us, but he was just reassigned so hopefully, the new priest who started this past weekend (who we have not met) will marry us.  A part of me is wondering if I'm going to show up at the church for my wedding and all the guests will be there and there will be no priest.  Then what do we do?  Maybe there'll be a JP in the audience?  :-)