Home So Soon :(

It was so hard to leave this morning. It looked like it was going to be a gorgeous day at the beach except.....the medical waste washing up on shore. For the past week, the Jersey Shore has been plagued with medical waste washing up along the coast line. Last Saturday, medical waste (syringes, iv needles, and cotton swabs) washed up on the beaches of Avalon, NJ which is just south of Sea Isle City where my family was staying. A few days later some medical waste washed up on the beaches of Ocean City, NJ just north of Sea Isle City. We were very careful on the beach and made sure we were looking where we walked. Yesterday afternoon, a sign was on the beach one block from our house that said "KEEP OUT- Beach closed by order of Sea Isle City Police Department". There were still people on the beach and unfortunately there were people still in the water. They only closed one block of beach that I'm aware of. My outlook is if it washed up north and south of Sea Isle and one block away from us the entire beach should be closed...but what do I know?

I miss sitting on the deck and watching the waves roll in, seeing the dolphins jumping out of the water, reading on the beach, getting burned by the sun, the complete relaxation and lack of responsibility. What I will not miss about my vacation is the constant sand on my feet/legs, the green flies, the children living above us bouncing off the walls for hours on end, and the fear of taking a step and landing on a needle.

Only one more month until the wedding and my next extended vacation!

Vacation Pics - Wish you were here!

View from our balcony where I have my coffee in the morning. The past few days have been excellent! More to follow :)

Live from the beach

Unfortunately our beach house doesn't have internet access that I can "borrow." I'm at the local coffee house paying $6 for unlimited internet access, for today at least. Since I'm a good student I'll be here on Wednesday night for my online class. Actually the only reason I'll come here is because it's my last class, only for the semester though :(

Vacation has been extremely relaxing. Exactly what I needed and it's only Monday! I spent most of the past 2 days on the beach and am hella burnt. No cross stitching or knitting yet, but I have plenty of time left for that. We had a full house yesterday with my aunt, 2 cousins, brother's gf, and grandparents. Family gatherings are always fun especially since they are so rare now that we're all older.

Time to get back to paradise! Look for pictures of the beachfront view later this week!

1001 Things to Do Before Vacation

Tomorrow is the big day! Not that big day, but V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N! I never thought it would get here and I have to say I'm a little sad. Not because I don't want or need vacation, but because it's pretty much the end of summer. Summer is my favorite season because of the warm weather, pretty flowers, the veggies growing in the yard, the ice cream truck that goes up the street everyday at 5pm, the ocean, cute bathing suits, and flip flops.

There's just so much to do before leaving tomorrow morning for the beach. Nothing is packed! All of my clothing and FH's clothing needs to be washed. I'd also like to leave the house clean so that when I come back I don't have to worry about it. When me and FH go the beach we take way too much with us! FH doesn't really like the beach so he brings plenty to entertain himself. We're bringing a tv, the xbox 360, wii, multiple games, dvds, bikes, rollerblades, and both of our laptops. That should be enough to keep us busy for a week, right? Nope, I'm bringing magazines and a few books for beach reading, knitting needles and yarn, a cross stitch that I ONLY work on once a year during vacation, and our wedding favors that need assembling. In addition to packing all of this nonsense, we have to take Paige to FH's parent's house tonight. We'll most likely be packing tomorrow morning!!

Internet access at the beach is pretty unlikely so look for updates later next week!

Hurricanes and Other Natural Disasters

Tropical Storm Fay is currently pounding the state of Florida which normally would not concern me but....2 of my coworkers were sent to Tampa for work this week. I actually asked if I could go!! What was I thinking? My company's Tampa office is closed today due to the storm so hopefully my coworkers don't have to work today either. Fay could potentially rain out my vacation next week! She could take 2 tracks at this point. You know how exact the science of meteorology is right? They can't predict the weather until it's already here so I'm not too worried about it.

In other disasters, not quite natural, a large apartment complex caught on fire near one of my company's local offices. The fire occurred last week about 5pm just before people were getting home from work. It was an eight alarm (huge) fire! It started on a construction site next to the apartment complex from the construction workers' acetylene torches. The fire quickly spread throughout the construction site and then jumped over to the occupied buildings. Unfortunately, one of my coworkers lived in one of the buildings and lost everything including her cat. Many of the displaced residents will have the opportunity to go back this week and see what's left. My coworker will only be able to direct the workers to her apartment later this week as her apartment is in really bad condition. A few pets have been rescued since the fire and returned to their owners. I was even teary-eyed watching the reunions on the news. At this point, only a few pets have been unaccounted for so I'm hopeful that my coworker's cat has survived this disaster.

Soft and Crafty

I finally did it! I joined the gym again. The best part about my gym are the yoga classes that I've missed for the past 2 years. I'm sure the first couple of classes are going to be painful until my body remembers the poses. I hope yoga/exercising will help with the stress I'm feeling from the wedding. Oh, and I guess this means Wii Fit was a failure!

I joined the gym on Friday but didn't make my way there until Sunday. It was a busy weekend full of friends, fun, and food/drink that I'm sure was not on my diet plan. Friday night, I went with Mom to JoAnn Fabric to get the finishing touches for the wedding favors. We couldn't find the ribbon I wanted at a reasonable price (we need like 40 yards). I just got home in time for my brother to come pick me and FH up to go to a friend's for a fun night :)

Saturday afternoon FH, my brother, and FH's dad went to get tuxes. I went with to make sure the colors would match what the girls are wearing and then I was off for a shopping adventure of my own. I had big plans for the afternoon but only managed to get to AC Moore before my excitement for shopping went away. It's such an overwhelming store. I bought more things for the wedding and found the ribbon I needed (YAY!). I see a trip to AC Moore in the near future to get some more fun wedding crafts. Saturday night a friend was having a luau so we went over for a bit and then on to another friend's to watch the Olympics! I couldn't miss witnessing Olympic history.

Sunday was a long, busy day too! I'm still doing the church thing (and I'm very proud). I had breakfast with my friends from high school including SJ who lives in California. SJ was home for a wedding this weekend and we were all really happy she had time to see us before flying back. After breakfast, I went to the gym for an hour and then over to JoAnn again. I couldn't help myself since patterns that are normally $10-$20 were on sale for $1. Well I bought 7 patterns, plus gorgeous (cheap) fabric for pillows for our front porch furniture. I'm feeling crafty :)

Limos, Favors, and the Rite of Marriage

Welcome to my wedding planning blog! UGH, at least that's what it seems like right. Wedding this, wedding that....my apologies. As the wedding gets closer it's all I think about. I'm constantly trying to check things off of my never ending to-do list. I've become obsessed with checking my parent's mail for RSVPs. I'm on theknot.com checking out the message boards, making sure that I haven't forgotten anything or to give advice to other obsessed brides.

Now, am I a "bridezilla"? Well let's see. The definition of a bridezilla according to urbandictionary.com is: Bridezillas are a new breed of soon-to-wed women who abuse the idea that weddings are their "day." They terrorize their bridal party and family members, make greedy demands and break all rules of etiquette, to insure that they are the single most important person on the planet from the time they are engaged to the time they are married. Now of course I'm biased but I think I've been the least bridezilla of brides I know. Up until this point I really haven't cared about much of anything. I really only cared when it mattered, such as keeping things on schedule. The menu, reception facility, the flowers, my dress, the limo, and the photographer have all fallen into place. I'm willing to work with my family, FH's family, and my vendors on everything and I've only been pushy when time was of the essence. There is still 1.5 months until the wedding so there's plenty of time to embrace my inner bridezilla!

Every bride has a bridezilla moment though and here is mine:

I ordered my invitations the middle of June. The website I ordered through said it would take a maximum of 7 business days. 7 business days pass and the company contacts me about the font color I selected. So I had to go the physical store to OK the font. No problem! They then told me to expect a proof via email in 2 days. A week goes by and no proof. I contact the company and they said the printer sent the proof but there were alot of errors. How can there possibly be errors when I spelled out on each individual line what should be printed? I get the proof and there's still an error. No problem! I correct the error and send it back. At this point I'm running out of time. No calligrapher for us! The company contacts me and says I will have my invitations by July 28th, they are going to overnight them to me, and they are going to reimburse me for shipping because of how long this is taking.

The invitations do arrive on July 28th but they were shipped UPS ground. No problem! I was OK. I needed them 2 weeks prior for calligraphy but it's ok. I remembered seeing the invitations in the store and all of this bull$hit would be ok because these invitations were going to be perfect....EXCEPT the font on the actual invitation was such a small font I could barely read it and I wrote the damn things so I know what they're supposed to say!! I was beyond pissed, cursing a whole bunch in front of my mother. Lucky for them, the invitation store is closed on Mondays so I had to wait until Tuesday to complain. I was even more pissed because Mondays I have pottery and it completely ruined my night. I managed to calm down overnight and not yell at the guy on the phone Tuesday morning. When I called the company, the guy was very understanding. He looked at the sample the printer sent him and immediately called them. He demanded the printer have the invitations to me by Thursday, which he assured me would happen. Needless to say the invitations arrived on Friday August 1st and were shipped yet again UPS ground. What is wrong with these people?

So the reason for this post really has nothing to with the wedding...I'm depressed because I'm P-M-S-ing. End. Of. Story.

To board or not to board...

A few months ago, I went shopping at the new Petsmart in town which featured a cute Petsmart Hotel. The hotel looked very clean and the dogs looked like they were having a great time. I laughed at the idea of a hotel for dogs...at least until today.

I am considering boarding Paige for the day of the wedding just so that she would be out of the way and we wouldn't have to worry about her "accidents" since we would be gone for such a long time. FH and I have not decided if we want to get a hotel room for the wedding night yet. If we are going to, then obviously we will have to board Paige.

My first (and only) experience boarding Paige was a few weeks after I got her. I was going on vacation so I called a few local kennels and made a reservation. I was a little leery when we went to the kennel to drop Paige off because it was literally someones house. It was a scary beat-up house that was surrounded by trees, overgrown vegetation, and set back far from the road. Immediately I had a bad feeling. I knocked on the door for ten minutes and no one answered. I called and the lady who answered hung up on me. Now was I not only scared of who I was leaving my dog with but I was extremely pissed off because I was leaving for vacation and had no other place to take my dog. The house kennel lady finally answered the door but insisted that she didn't have any appointments that day or even that week. She finally took Paige, but only after we checked out the kennel.

I called and made a reservation at the Petsmart hotel today so that I could have peace of mind on the wedding day. At first thought it seemed like a "no-brainer" for the price and the peace of mind but now that I'm made the commitment I'm second guessing myself. I've read too many reviews online about pets coming home from the Petsmart hotels with kennel cough. Petsmart requires the Bordetella shot but that only prevents a certain percentage of kennel cough. Paige and I have plenty of experience with the unpleasantness of kennel cough. When I first brought Paige home from the shelter, they neglected to tell me in advance she had kennel cough. For the first month, she coughed constantly including through the night. It's an experience we don't need to have again.

So is a one day stay at a Petsmart hotel really worth Paige getting kennel cough?

Bug Bites

I visited the doctor yet again today, for the third time in 2 weeks. I just can't seem to stop injuring myself :( The "bite" or whatever on my leg was purple yesterday so I was a little freaked out. The doc gave me an antibiotic and some antibiotic cream for treatment and the color is already starting to lighten up. I'm glad I went because although we still don't know what kind of bite it was; it was obviously infected.