No longer newlyweds!

According to my grandfather, you are a bride for one year.  I've enjoyed my year as a bride and our first year of marriage.  I look forward to the many years to come!  Happy Anniversary Hubby!

Six Months Ago Today

I married the love of my life and we went on an amazing honeymoon to Mexico...

Six months later, it's business as usual! I still procrastinate and just got around to approving the final layout for the wedding album. We still need a new roof. Our dog still needs some obedience training. We still live next door to the same annoying people. The only real changes are I'm getting better at cooking (i think) and we might (but probably not) get another dog.

Most of today will be spent cleaning the house and cooking. The only time we clean the house is when we have people over which is not nearly enough. We are having my brother and his family over for dinner tonight. I'm making spaghetti, meatballs, and sausage for dinner plus peach cheesecake for dessert since it's so darn easy to make.

Professional Pics

Pictures from our photographer:

Check out more pics of us on his slideshow here: Ryan Estes Blog

Back to Reality

Happy Monday!! - if there is such a thing.

This weekend was our first non-wedding planning weekend home. It was awesome. Saturday and Sunday I slept in until 9am (wow!).

Saturday I didn't really do anything....I laid on the couch all day, took a nap, and around 6 went to a b-day party for my brother's girlfriend's son. Hubby and I stayed out and had a few drinks before calling it a night.

Sunday I woke up too late for 830 mass....ooops! I laid on the couch almost all day except to go to the gym around noon. It's been about 2 weeks since I'd been to the gym and I surprisingly didn't have any problem with my normal workout. Time to step it up I guess!

The best part about being married: I'm so done dieting. My dress fit... so now I will eat what I want, whenever I want. I will however keep going to the gym so I don't gain weight but I'm done eating salads/fish every day, skipping out on having bagels at the Monday morning work meetings, and having a salad for lunch while Hubby has a double cheeseburger.

Hubby and I watched Rambo during dinner last night and it wasn't that bad. I actually liked it. After dinner/movie, I cut out fabric for a dress for mom. I forgot how long it took to cut fabric for a pattern! All that pinning, ugh! Today after work I'll assemble it and post some pics. It's a simple dress so hopefully it'll take 2 hours or less!

Some Non-Pro Pics

Enjoy!

~with my parents at the house

~Outside with the girls

~Waiting outside the church...so nervous

~Walk down the aisle with dad....even more nervous

~first married kiss :)

~chris and the pretty girls

~Outside in downtown Haddonfield

~Posing for more pics

~With highschool girlies

~showing off our flip flops made by Hubby's mom


~the girls


~Dancing the night away~

I'm a MRS.!!!!!!

Yesterday was our big day! It was beautiful! More details later....time for the honeymoon :)

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

What a weekend!! The weekend started with a trip to the hair salon to get a pre-wedding cut and get these dreaded highlights out of my hair. My hair is much darker now and from what everyone tells me, it looks good. I'm not convinced though.

Saturday was my bachelorette party!!! I was picked up by my MOH and taken to the city. We took a taxi to the restaurant. This was exciting for me! I'd NEVER done the taxi thing. We had dinner outside at La Fontana. Amazingly the weather cooperated and the food was delicious. I had their ravioli and a cannoli for dessert. After dinner and multiple glasses of wine we walked to Continental Midtown. After that the night was a blur! Just kidding, of course! The girls got me a veil with shot glasses attached, a penis crown (lovely, I know), a Bride-to-Be sash, multiple buttons, necklaces...basically I was a walking party favor. This of course caused me to get lots of attention, both good & bad, as well as my picture on an awesome website. No drink was off limits either. I think the shots of Grey Goose and Jameson did me in. Hubby took good care of me Saturday night and Sunday. It was only fair!

Oh and Philly's night life and restaurants are awesome. Can't wait to check it out with Hubby after we're married!

Rite of Passage

Saturday night was Hubby's surprise bachelor party. Hubby thought we were going to the bar with my brother and his girlfriend, but instead the guys picked him up in a limo.

I had a little party of my own while the guys were gone. Unfortunately for Paige and the kitties, I had a few drinks and a solo Karaoke night :) I played Rockband for a few hours and had a blast. At about a quarter of one, Annabelle started acting weird and looking at the door. I open the door and there's good ole' hubby leaning against the wall. He then falls on the living room floor and passes out. I will save you from further details of the night. I had all intentions of providing a complete synopsis of the evening that followed, but posting it for the world to see would only make me hold on to the anger that I've worked past.

My bachelorette party is this weekend! Although I'm quite the vindictive little b*tch; I'm going to be good. I can't wait for a night out with girls! The night is entirely a surprise. My MOH knows me really well so I know we'll have a blast! Details & pics to follow!

We're MARRIED!!!!

Kinda, sorta, NOT REALLY married! FH, who we'll now call Hubby, thinks so. We went to get our marriage license today. We filled out a basic form, gave them $28, and in 72 hours we can officially be married. It's a major check on the list!

Hubby jokes that I'm his property now and he could bet me in a poker game if he wanted to. (He watches too many old movies!) Last night, I told him that if it's my last single night I'm at least going out and partying it up!

Instead, I went to pottery last night like a good girl. Now that I'm done the favors for the wedding I'm at a loss for what to make. I'm not inspired to create anything in particular right now but I could get an early start on Christmas gifts. The new teacher is kind of strange...I don't really like her and she's not very helpful. I managed to throw 2 bowls, a mug, and a candle holder. Sunday is open session so I think I'll go work on plates or pitchers.

DONE, well sorta!

Ugh going back to work after a week off was unbearable!


On a positive note, I'm finished with my Environmental Law class. I submitted the final at 10:00pm Monday night and it was sitting in my inbox at 6:51 am Tuesday morning with SEVENTEEN comments!! Yes, the teacher was nice enough to offer us the option of revising our finals if we sent them in early but I figured, eh it's good enough. Nope, not really. I addressed each and every one of those damn comments. I resubmitted last night and prayed that it would not be in my inbox this morning. It was due at 12 noon today so I wouldn't have time for any more corrections. Nope, instead of being in my inbox, she posted my grade.....an A! Thank God it's finally over, I was beginning to lose it!


Now what to do with all this spare time I gain from not having class on Wednesdays or homework due every week you ask? Plan a wedding! Duh! I thought I would feel a weight lifted from my shoulders after being done class but I'm starting to think the giant knot in my stomach is wedding related. So instead of sitting here blogging I should be assembling the favors (blah), contacting my vendors, figuring out how I want my hair, buying wedding day jewelry, starting a seating chart, creating programs...I think you get the picture.

RSVPs are due tomorrow and I'm still waiting to hear from 50-something people. That's literally half of the people we invited! How hard is it to fill out the little card and put it in the already addressed/already stamped envelope? Seriously? Seriously! (End Rant)

So instead of sitting here...I'm going to get off my butt, go to the gym, and maybe try to accomplish something wedding related tonight.

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?

Surrounded By Leaves

Here's the latest of what I've been doing in pottery besides throwing:

Since we're having an October wedding, I decided to cut leaves out of clay and make magnets. A coworker made magnets for her friends wedding using marine animals so I borrowed the idea from her. Lucky for me, we're only having a 100 people. I think her friends wedding had around 250!!

Here are the leaves post bisque prior to glazing. We are using 4 different shapes although for some reason I've been slacking from using the maple leaf. I wonder how that happened! These leaves were textured using a piece of lace-y fabric crocheted by my great grandmother. The fabric was rolled onto the clay before the shapes were cut out. They came out really nice and I wish we had done this from the beginning!

Here are the leaves after glazing and the second firing in the kiln. I've made about 75 so far and have been trying multiple color combinations. The reddish/pinkish leaf with the yellow around the outside was a test leaf. I really like the way it turned out. I think the tech at the pottery studio hates me though because there's a never ending stream of leaves for him to fire! My favorite so far has been green with tinges of purples throughout sponged on. The color combination looks beautiful however unnatural the leaves may look.

Besides leaves, I've cut out butterflies (which are even smaller than the leaves) to make wind chimes for my bridesmaids and I added handles on 3 mugs last night and threw a tiny completely off center plate. I'm struggling with centering again which is really frustrating because I've been doing this for 2 years now. There's only 2 weeks left of pottery before class ends so I'm definitely going to the studio this weekend to get some more throwing in.

wedding sickness

So Monday I called out sick from work. I woke up around 3:30 am and felt really nauseous. Like you know how you feel when you have a stomach virus? Kinda like that. I didn't get back to sleep until 5:30 or so. I felt like I had a fever so I figure better safe than sorry, so I stayed home. I still went to pottery Monday night although I still didn't feel good. In addition to the wedding favors, I'm now working on making some more coffee mugs and wind chimes (using butterfly cookie cutters) for my bridesmaids. I couldn't not go! Tuesday I woke with a really bad earache. Seriously!! I've had it since so I think it's about time to call the doctor.

Tuesday night was our tasting at the caterer's. It was de-lish! FH's parents came, my parents, and of course me and FH. We had salmon, Chilean sea bass, mahi mahi, filet mignon, and 2 different chicken entrees. They gave us huge portions plus dessert (yum). After talking to the guy, I'm starting to freak out about everything I still need to do. I made yet another to do list and it's crazy long. One more thing to cross off is....I got my wedding ring (finally). It's perfect!

My e-ring and wedding band.

Our wedding rings.

Bridal Shower Surprise!!!

So instead of my parent's anniversary brunch, Sunday was my surprise bridal shower. I must admit, I had my suspicions but I wasn't positive. My entire family, including my grandmom and FH, have been lying for months about it!! I guess you could say I knew, but wasn't positive. What gave it away was my brother offered to pick us up (he never drives) and FH's family kept calling all morning, including his Nan who never calls. I was really surprised that all of my bridesmaids were there as Em lives in California! We got really cool gifts like a programmable coffee maker, a grill, pots and pans, a rug shampooer, toaster oven, crock pot, and gift cards. I'm going to my mom's tonight to open my gift from my parents since I didn't want FH to see it as the mother of the bride traditionally buys what the bride wears her wedding night.

The shower theme was 'baking' which the girls picked - i loved it! I now have tons of cookie cutters since they hung them as decorations around the room and lots of recipes since the girls sent out recipe cards with the invitations. FH's dad made us a recipe box for the shower (it's beautiful) with a really old piece of cherry wood he had been saving. It's like 25 years old or something! I love baking/cooking so I was really excited about the theme. I received a rolling pin and all sorts of baking pans, now I just need to get in the kitchen!

After the shower, FH's family and mine came over to the house since alot of them still haven't seen it. Thankfully, FH knew about the shower so he picked up around the house! I'm fairly traditional so I thought my mom would keep the stuff from the shower at her house until after the wedding. She wasn't too keen on that since there was so much stuff so everything came back to our house. FH and I debated what to do with the goodies and decided storing them in our attic (too hot) or our basement (too wet and musty) until after the wedding is crazy. So as I write out my thank you cards I'll be unpacking our new fun stuff :)

Wedding Updates

My mom found this wedding store near our house that has EVERYTHING! I needed to get my brother's girlfriend's daughter Micky a birthday gift so my mom agreed to go with me if I went with her to this store. I think we were in this bridal store for 2 hours! I found a headpiece which I was avoiding as everything I looked at was over $300...craziness. The first headpiece the lady put on me was perfect and get this; it was less than $100. I also got my shoes. They're hott! Two more things to check off of my list. I will definitely be going back to get other wedding stuff like toasting flutes, unity candle, etc.


Oh, and I ended up getting Micky barbies at the toy store :) She loves them and so did I when I was a little girl!

Other wedding fun: there was no response from the vendor I picked for the invitations. I should have had the proof last week and still hadn't heard anything. I think it was a big mixup with my phone number. I finally talked to them today and I have to go in to look at the font colors to make sure they're right. So much for doing it online! It's ok because they are only 10 minutes from my house. We're just about at the 3 month mark and I'm starting to PAAAANIC!


Sidenote: FH got his ring (they sized it wrong the first time) and his passport came in the mail last week. His passport is different than mine. I hope they let me leave the country for the honeymoon but more importantly that they let me back in!

Let's Get This Weekend Started!

So excited for the weekend! Nope, we aren't doing anything special. I just won't have to be at work!

This week wasn't too bad. There were 2 major accomplishments in the wedding plans!! FH finally applied for his passport which I'm really excited about. Maybe we can go to Canada in August :) And I ordered our invitations yesterday! I did it almost entirely online. I really didn't want to have to go to the store to order although it is local so instead I worked out the details over the phone. Unless you know what you want or you really don't care, I recommend going in and picking the invitations out. The font colors look entirely different on the preview screen than they look on the sample invitation, which is why I had to call. I should get them in 2 weeks or so which is awesome. Our wedding is fall-themed so the invitations have pretty leaves on them with goldish writing. Now if only I could find a wedding ring!

Weekend plans include Phillies game Saturday night (Go Phils!) cleaning the house, maybe a BBQ with family/friends, and crafting :) I also have this second job I haven't been to in awhile, like 6 months, that I should go to. It's OK, my mom's my boss!


I've been on break from school for the past week and haven't had motivation to do anything other than lounge around the house and water the plants occassionally. (BTW- I got 2 A+'s....that's just crazyiness! Oh and I start another class next week.). I think to help get back on track and be more active I'm going to make a list of 50-100 goals, set a completion date, and of course blog about it. I borrowed this idea from Anna (who's blog I read because she's so crafty) who is working towards 101 in 1001 days. I can't wait to get started although coming up with a list of 50-100 things will be difficult. More to follow...

We have RING!

Yes, ring singular. FH got his wedding ring today while my search continues. I'm being very picky probably because FH got me such a fancy e-ring :) He's the best! FH's ring is titanium (very non-traditional). With the price of gold and the fact that he'll probably lose it since he's never worn jewelry before, titanium was a better choice. I told him I'd get him gold but he really likes his ring. It's very manly.
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On a different note:
My job description is officially changing FINALLY! I've been transitioning out of my group for about a year and today I was informed I am no longer in the chemistry group but am now in some other (better) group. I will be celebrating tonight.
I was awesome at my old job. Now I'm worried because I'm pretty much starting over again and maybe I won't be so awesome at this. I used to have my own work and I was always busy but with starting in a different group I don't have my own work yet. I hate not having work to do....it makes me want to blog :)

Walmart Wedding Rings

Well we're down to t-minus 4 months until the wedding and I'm FREAKING out! There's so much to do and instead of getting stuff done I'm avoiding it altogether. My next big steps are to get the rehearsal dinner booked (overdue), wedding bands (on time), and invitations (slightly overdue). After that I can relax for another week or two.
So FH as you might expect could care less about the invitations or picking our wedding bands. He doesn't think he needs a wedding band. Actually what he really said is if I don't take his last name, he won't wear one! I'm traditional but I'm also very attached to my last name so I said I wanted to hyphenate my name. I am still in the early stages of my career but my name is out there in the environmental blah blah field and I don't want to lose my identity. Well FH is not happy but it's not really his decision. Maybe I'll change my mind, maybe I won't.
I wanted to go look at wedding bands tonight which brought up the whole argument again. Regardless we need wedding bands for the ceremony (oh, if he's not wearing one neither am I) so I suggested we go to Walmart and buy $30 wedding bands :) Well it's 8pm and no invitations ordered and no Walmart wedding bands, but I'm sure you already knew that!