A Not So Shabby Life

Reading Time: 3 Reviews

2011-03-31T16:45:00.000-04:00

While I was away (that is what I am calling my blogging break), I managed to read 3 interesting books, 2 of which were pretty dark. The 3rd wasn't dark, but it was serious. Serious enough that I didn't feel comfortable posting my "Literary Life" posts because they weren't stories that solicited a little fun shopping after I was finished with them. The books I read were Never Let Me Go, The Road and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. There were things I enjoyed about all books, so I wanted to share them & my thoughts about them with you guys. This is a long post, so if you have no interest in any of these, feel free to skip!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book. I mainly picked it up because I had recently read an old review of the film, which starred Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley & Andrew Garfield. Maybe I had read something about The Social Network or something & it brought me back to Andrew Garfield, which brought me back to this. I can't remember. I had it because my mom's bookclub had read it, although her feelings were that it was "eh." A few months ago, my cousin, who posts the books he's reading on his Facebook, posted something along the lines of saying it's an awesome book.

I really liked the concept - which I would love to share, but I don't want to ruin it for people - and the author's execution. I think it was really unique and kind of powerful. I wish I could elaborate, but I can't. I do think you have to enjoy a certain type of writing or this kind of story to truly enjoy it. It moves at a fairly slow pace, the author tends to go on tangents a bit & I think the subject matter could be a bit upsetting. I mean, at the end of the movie, I had a tear dripping down my cheek, even though I knew the ending from reading the book. I did feel as though I was in a fog while reading the book - does that make sense? It took place in a dreary, dark kind of suburb in England, and I had this certain feeling of "something isn't right" and desperation, which I think was intentional based on the subject matter. So, I think how the author conveys the story & how he shares it with the reader is really successful. However, at times I did wish I got a bit more from the characters & the story, but I am not exactly sure what exactly it was that I wanted.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but only if you read the description on the back and are intrigued because it might not be up everyone's alley.

amazon.com's summary/review:
All children should believe they are special. But the students of Hailsham, an elite school in the English countryside, are so special that visitors shun them, and only by rumor and the occasional fleeting remark by a teacher do they discover their unconventional origins and strange destiny. Kazuo Ishiguro's sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, is a masterpiece of indirection. Like the students of Hailsham, readers are "told but not told" what is going on and should be allowed to discover the secrets of Hailsham and the truth about these children on their own.

Offsetting the bizarreness of these revelations is the placid, measured voice of the narrator, Kathy H., a 31-year-old Hailsham alumna who, at the close of the 1990s, is consciously ending one phase of her life and beginning another. She is in a reflective mood, and recounts not only her childhood memories, but her quest in adulthood to find out more about Hailsham and the idealistic women who ran it. Although often poignant, Kathy's matter-of-fact narration blunts the sharper emotional effects you might expect in a novel that deals with illness, self-sacrifice, and the severe restriction of personal freedoms. As in Ishiguro's best-known work, The Remains of the Day, only after closing the book do you absorb the magnitude of what his characters endure. --Regina Marler

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My Thoughts:
I really had no intention of ever reading this, mainly because it was an Oprah book club book and I think a lot of those books are overrated. I also think that sometimes this is one of those books that people say they love because it makes them sound smart. I know both reasons sound incredibly snobby and stupid at the same time, but I can't help it! My friend's mom ended up lending it to me & several months later, I finally picked it up. I think because M. & I were having a conversation about making this story I am writing post-apocalyptic, so I decided I might as well read a post-apocalypitc story.

Wow. This was an incredibly powerful book that made a journey that a father & son takes seem just so terrifying. I mean, there's really not much more I can say about it. It was just, wow. At the same time, M. was reading the Walking Dead graphic novels, which lead to the two of us having a conversation about what we would do if we survived the apocalypse. This was a date night conversation. He thinks that he's seen enough zombie movies to enable his survival. I said, "No, thank you. I do not want to be involved in anything post apcalyptic. You are on your own."

Would I recommend it? Yes, definitely. However, it is a very dark subject matter and can be disturbing. It does have hope though. Even when the world is at its worst, there is hope.

I am a wimp who has nightmares, and prior to reading, I considered renting the movie. I am not now. I have to build myself up to it.

And, I apologize to Oprah for doubting her. She has had some great books in her book club, including 2 by Charles Dickens & A Fine Balance, which is one of my favorite contemporary books. I think she also did East of Eden, which is my favorite book. So, not all her choices are questionable, just some of the ones she chose at the beginning of her bookclub & that stupid James Frey book. See me being judgemental again?

A review found on amazon.com:
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

My thoughts:
I am so torn about this book. It received so many rave reviews & I think the heart of it was a great story, great history & a great question about who get the rights to our DNA. It was fascinating to read about the science that goes into the study of DNA, that has led to cures for cancer, polio and so many other diseases. And truly, it was fascinating to learn that much of these research was due to the DNA of one woman.

The author places herself into the story - giving us part history and part present day. She tells us about her journey to learn more about Henrietta and her family, which leads her to spending a lot of time with the Lacks family, for better or for worst. Without giving too much away, I really wish that she had spent more time with the history. At the middle to end of the book, the author's focus on the family just kind of lost control & I think really distracted me from her main thesis. What I had enjoyed so much in the beginning just lost steam & when I closed the book, I just had such mixed feelings.

Would I recommend it? Sure, it seems like the overall consensus about the book is that it's great. I did partially lend it to a friend (it was a book that had been lent to me), but with the warning that I did not love it like everyone else & that I am interested in hearing her thoughts about it.

As always, amazon.com's review/summary of the book:
From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? --Tom Nissley

I didn't read much in the month of March, but I am gearing up for my next book. It's Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. It's another book getting pretty solid reviews and I am hoping it doesn't disappoint!

Have any of you read these 3 books? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Oh, Hello There

2011-03-28T21:35:00.000-04:00

I am a jerk and haven't written in almost 2 full months. Sorry folks. Honestly, I just haven't felt like I've had much to say. We've taken a few adventures, eaten delicious food & have had something almost every weekend, but I just didn't feel like anything was particularly noteworthy. And for that, I apologize for falling off the face of the Earth. BUT, I am back and I am going to update this bad boy far more. For those of you who have stuck by me, thank you. I'll make it worth your while.

Until tomorrow . . . Here is a picture of a beautiful Artic Fox sleeping. I snapped the picture during one of my photography classes that we had at the Baltimore Zoo. I loved him.

Friday Design Inspiration

2011-02-04T09:14:00.000-05:00

I think that I really really love blue walls . . .

Kelly Rae Roberts via Mabel's House, this whole room is full of prettiness, so just check out the link.

I also appear to really love strips so expect to see lots of striped stuff in the future. I might like them as much as I like polka dots, which is A LOT!

Also, M. and I really need to get rid of our coffee table, but I cannot for the life of me find a coffee table that I like. Most of the ones on Craigslist involve marble or glass or metal, which is not so much us. Anything I find online has lots of dollar signs in front of it.

I'm thinking that instead of a traditional coffee table, we might do a large storage ottoman, a la the picture below, or a vintage steamer trunk . . .

Canadian Home & House via The Inspired Room

I clearly love how Le Musings of Moi put together her entry and living room. I think it has a great mix of modern, whimsy and vintage style. And, it wasn't styled by an interior decorator or designer, it's someone like me (but probably more creative) putting together a pretty space that is easily attainable. I like that best!

Le Musings of Moi

A Novel Life: The Forgotten Garden

2011-02-03T10:44:00.000-05:00

I finished up The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton last night. Despite reading a lot of mixed reviews, I ended up really enjoying the book.

Most of the complaints I read focused on the fact that there were so many narrators and time periods being explored throughout the book and also the fact that the book's mystery was extremely easy for the reader to solve. I understand both complaints but didn't find that either factor impacted my enjoyment of the story.

As for the time period and narrators - there are 3 primary narrators, one in the 1900s, one in 1975-1976 and one in 2005. Their stories alternate chapters. Additionally, the book will break from this formula and tell pieces of the story in the point of view of secondary characters. They also break the book with three fairytales written by one of the characters. So yea, it is a lot. But, I didn't struggle with it or find it overwhelming. A little self editing probably would have made the story better, but each narrator moved the story along and exposed pieces of the mystery that the other narrators wouldn't have been able to.

As for the mystery, I think the people who complained about it need to realize that the characters are solving the mystery, not the readers. As a reader, we're privvy to more information than the character, so yes, it will be easier for us to solve the mystery. But, there is so much more to the book than the mystery that made it still enjoyable. Plus, the author throws one or two curveballs out there that made me question how sure I was that I knew the answer.

Amazon.com can summarize the book far better than I will be able to:

Like Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved classic The Secret Garden, Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales (every bit as magical and sinister as Grimm's) whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children. As Morton draws you through a thicket of secrets that spans generations, her story could cross into fairy tale territory if her characters weren't clothed in such complex flesh, their judgment blurred by the heady stench of emotions (envy, lust, pride, love) that furtively flourished in the glasshouse of Edwardian society. While most ache for a spotless mind's eternal sunshine, the Authoress meets the past as "a cruel mistress with whom we must all learn to dance," and her stories gift children with this vital muscle memory. --Mari Malcolm

That summary actually doesn't tell a whole lot . . . but, whatever. M. will tell you that I am the worst at summarizing stuff, so trust me, it's better than what I would have done!

1. My Greatest Adventures 8x8 Fine Art Print by The Light Fantastic's shop
2. My Grandmother's Garden Miniature Terrarium from doodlebirdie's shop
3. Second Star to the Right - Photo Print on Antique Book Page from miss quite contrary's shop
4. Burford Cottage from maryellengolden's shop
5. Snow White Inspired Locket Brooch from ThisYearsGirl's shop
6. The Collection Number XIII A Signed Fine Art Photograph from gilding lilies' shop
7. The Secret Garden Tea Cup and Saucer from zinnia pea's shop
8. Custom Shabby Chic Rosette GARTER SET from SweetlyFallen's shop

If you're reading along with me, the next book I read will either be Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurty or The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It all depends on my mood come tonight!

A Resolution Check-in

2011-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

As we enter February and say goodbye to the first month of the new year, I figured now is the best time to come back to my goals for the year and let you know how I did on Month 1.

I have 2 goals for this year -

Goal 1 is to lose the 25 pounds that my body has accumulated in the time period that M. and I have been together. Oh what love does to you . . . it makes you fat and poor. It's worth it, but still!

When it comes to diets, I always work hard at them for about a month but abandon ship once a plate of french fries or a bagel comes my way. However, I told M. that I'm not dieting, I'm making a lifestyle change. To be successful, I got back on board with Weight Watchers and I decided to set monthly lifestyle/diet goals for myself.

My goals for January were to get on track with Weight Watchers and stick with it; no more soda and reduce artifical sweeteners; and to reduce alcohol. A little later into the month, I also decided to quit fried foods, which means no more french fries and potato chips, which are easily two of my biggest weaknesses.

And how have I done? Big check mark! With the exception of one weekend of weakness, I stuck pretty close to all of my goals. I wasn't perfect . . . we went out for dinner with friends or family once a week during the month (thanks to a month of birthday celebrations). Last week we had pizza for dinner on Friday, I drank lots of beer on Saturday and on Sunday we indulged in wine and brownies. However, when we went to the bar on Saturday, I ate french onion soup and a spinach salad, despite being tipsy and everyone else around me eating delicious fried food. So, I might not have been perfect, but I am proud that I still practiced self restraint.

And, excitingly enough, the scale at the end of the month was kind to me. I have lost 8 pounds, which means I am 17 pounds closer to my final goal. I tell you what, I was giddy about that weight. I could not stop smiling on Monday and bragged to everyone about my weight loss!

Now, I need to keep moving and keeping losing! My goals for February include introducing consistent exercise to my weekly routine (I have started by waking up forty-five minutes earlier every morning and doing yoga as of yesterday), reducing white carbs and reducing sugar intake. I am hoping to lose at least 5 pounds this month.

Goal 2 was to drastically reduce my personal spending and to save money for our trip to Greece, our future home and the future in general. Despite having to buy gifts for 3 birthdays this month, I did really good! I was so proud of myself. And then I exchanged some Christmas items at Garnet Hill, which resulted in them withdrawing almost $400 from my personal account, to be reimbursed when they received my exchanged items. I didn't realized that they would take money from my account, so imagine my shock one day when I expected to see $500 in my checking account, only to have $36. Not cool. So, about 2 weeks later, I am still waiting for them to return my money. Once they do, it'll be moved into my savings account.

The good news is, other than that exchange, I have only used my personal account to buy gas, birthday presents and lunch one day in the month of January. So, I am willing to say that despite all the online window shopping that I have done, I still drastically reduced my spending compared to other months, which means I have been successful.

I am really proud of myself for sticking with my goals for my first month. I tend to stay motivated but find excuses to still break goals and promises that I make to myself. However, I stuck to it, with the idea that I want to wear a bikini in Greece and not be looked at as "the fat American" and I want more money! That alone has really made me excited this month and kept me motivated.

I know that some of this stuff will get more difficult as we get further into the year and as I get farther away from making my inital resolution. I hope that by establishing monthly goals, I can keep it up for the rest of the year!

Friday Design Inspiration

2011-01-28T10:39:00.001-05:00

February is quickly approaching, which means that in a few short months, M. and I will commence our search for a new home. We're kicking apartment style living to the curb and will, hopefully, find a house to make our own. It's taken us a while to get to this point, especially me, since my ideal situation would involve living in a new city every other year up until we have a kid and set our roots down near our families. But, we've decided that financially, professionally and for a whole bunch of other reasons that it's best for us to nix that moving around business and get to setting our roots down.

After much trepidation, I have come to happily accept our future and keep getting excited over different little aspects of home ownership. I'll get to decorate the home as I please, I'll get to have a garden, in the summertime I can actually sit outside and soak up the sunshine without worrying about the people in our building staring at me. However, I also realize that the driveway won't clear itself after snowfall, the grass won't just cut itself and when the shower acts wonky, I can't just call a leasing office to get it fixed for free, as we get to do in our apartment. I am choosing to ignore all those downfalls and look towards what I am looking most forward to, which is decorating.

So, each Friday, I am planning on posting some of the design inspiration that I have bookmarked for when we move into our own place.

I have realized that I prefer a classic look that has some modern aspects, while M. tends to favor shabby chic looks. I also love strong neutrals, like black, navy and gray, mixed with pops of color. I also apparently love blue, which is funny because I never did in the past.

I'm kind of excited to see how I use all the inspiration I find when we finally do move in.

But until then . . .

Centsational Girl

Armonia Decor, via Little Green Notebook

Tobi Fairley, via Everything LEB

Snow Love

2011-01-27T20:34:00.001-05:00

We got almost a foot of snow here last night. The coolest part was that in addition to the snow, we got thunder and lightning. A few people (my parents included) also lost electricity. It flickered off and on at our apartment a bit, but nothing too bad.

This evening, after picking me up from work, M. and I went for a little walk in the snow around our neighborhood. It might have been a pain this morning, but man, was it pretty.

Daytime to Philly: Prison, Bells, Cheesesteaks & Mosaics

2011-01-26T11:09:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, M. and I decided to jump into the car and make the 2 hour trip to Philadelphia so we could eat cheesesteaks. Although it was an extremely cold day (so cold that M.'s asthma inhaler was spraying out little ice crystals. He assured me that they wouldn't cut his lungs), we had an awesome time exploring Philly.

We started out at the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is one thing in Philly that I had been dying to do. We did the 1 hour tour, which involved us being outdoors a decent amount of the time, it was worth it though. Afterwards, we headed to the Liberty Bell so we could get another stamp in our National Parks Passport (more on that another day). Since I had been to Philly less than a year ago and M. had taken multiple school fieldtrips there, we literally stamped our passport, walked past the Liberty Bell, took a picture and headed out to get our cheesesteaks. Maybe 20 minutes later, we were sitting in the cold, outside of Pat's Cheesesteaks, enjoying a little break from our lifestyle change (diet). Soooo delicious.

One place that I remembered that I had wanted to go to was the Philadelphia Magic Gardens. I had remembered finding it online, had meant to bookmark it and never did. Well, I am happy that it suddenly came back into memory because the place was awesome!

The Magic Gardens basically consisted of a historic home and outdoor area covered in mosaics. The artist, Isaiah Zagar worked on the project for 14 years. Really, it is not a place to leave out when you go to Philly. M. and I are going back in the spring so we can tour Edgar Allen Poe's home (to get another stamp in our passport book), stop by the 9th street Italian Market and hopefully go to the Magic Gardens again, since I am planning on bringing my DSLR with us on that trip . . . it was way too cold for this trip.

Here is a sampling of pictures I took, but believe me when I tell you that it doesn't capture how awesome this place is!

Oh, and while we were there, I kept going on about how cool of a place it would be for a wedding or special event, and check these out!

Source Unknown, taken from the Phildelphia Magic Gardens website

Source

Through the Lens

2011-01-25T15:29:00.001-05:00

In December M. sold some of his old video games and purchased us a Canon Rebel t2i, with the intention of us learning how to use it successfully enough that we can have beautiful pictures when we go to Greece for our real honeymoon. So, once the holidays were over, I signed up for a photography class through an organization in Baltimore called Art Exposure, Inc. I had a great time with the class and learned a lot, and am now gearing up to take their "Beyond the Basics" class in February.

I am by no means a great photographer and probably still won't be by the time my classes up, but I am really excited to develop my skills and be ready to take lots of pictures in Greece!

I thought it might be fun to share some photos from my class's final photoshoot at the Palm House in Druid Hill Park. I can already see a few things I would change, namely played more with field of vision, but I am pretty proud of my final work from the Beginner's Class.

I also signed up to get weekly emails from the Digital Photography School that highlights different tips and information for amateur photographers. They do weekly challenges, which I plan on participating in and posting here. This week's challenge is a "Spot of Color." I already have an idea of what to shoot! I'll share it later this week.

A Novel Life: Ragtime

2011-01-14T05:47:00.002-05:00

I am about halfway through Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow and man, it was a hard one to put an inspiration board together for. There are so many things going on, so many different people whose lives intersect (or don't intersect), that it's hard to pin down one thing that is a constant. Even coming up with a description is kind of difficult, so I'll let Amazon.com do it for me:

The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.

The book takes place until about 1917 and explores a wide range of American history. There's diversity, movement and a sense of newness. I suppose the main characters include the fictional family, who I assume are white upper middle class who live in Westchester; a Jewish immigrant called Tateh; an African American jazz musician named Coalhouse Walker. Mixed in there somewhere is Evelyn Nesbit, a glamorous model married to a wealthy man who murders her lover; Harry Houdini, also an immigrant, as well as a famous escape artist/magician/whatever you want to call him; and many more historical characters.

You read about the boats bringing immigrants into America, about feminism (thanks to appearances of Emma Goldman), ideas of socialism and anarchy, the new experience of travel by train, exploration of the Artic. Just so much! I think it's so cool because all this technology and these ideas that are so old and part of our lives were once a new and exciting thing. This book lets you see it through the eyes of those people experiencing it.

When I put together my board, I decided that America and New York was the one constant thing between all the characters . . . and, isn't it fitting that Father's business produces fireworks for special events, including political ones? I think so.

1. Personalized Penny Party Invitation by Aprilink

2. Missing You Antiqued Book Locket by Back Street Creations
3. Carolina Grey Stripe Seersucker Bowtie by Bacon Neck Wear
4. 1910 Steam Ship Medal and Labradorite Brass Bracelet - Vintage Assemblage by Velvet Otter Hound
5. Ragtime Revival on Broadway Print by Squigs
6. A Pleasure Sailing Boat Hand-cut Wood Silhouette by Mountain Brook
7. Papercut Custom 8x10 New York Geography by Ashley Pahl
8. Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History Statement Necklace by Corso Studio

I was going to include an explanation for each item, but didn't want to ruin the book for those of you who might read it!

A Happy Exchange

2011-01-12T17:23:00.000-05:00

I've spent a decent amount of my afternoon on the Garnet Hill website, trying to decide what items I want in exchange for some pieces of clothing my Mother-in-law got me for Christmas that I wasn't wild about. I've settled on a few cute standards for Spring and am now ready to make the exchange.

Barcelona Skirt
Easy Cargo Jacket
Ballet Flats

However, I thought for a second about blowing it all off in favor of these adorable sheets. And then I realized that I would basically use $130.00 on sheets. Even if it's not my money, I can't do that.

Let It Rain Percale Bedding

I also loved these earrings, but my light spring jacket has holes in the lining and dirt all over it, so I figured the cargo jacket would be more practical than these. But, sigh, they're so pretty!

Mashka Teardrop Beaded Earrings

Mad for Chevron

2011-01-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

I am so loving how West Elm is representing the chevron.

I want these curtains for my future living room.

Chevron Printed Window Panel

And how about this bath mat? I have this fantasy of my future bathroom being painted black with lots of white accents. I'm not totally crazy, I've seen it done before!

This West Elm bath mat would work perfectly, even though it's gray. We could squeeze some gray into my black bathroom.

Tribal Bath Mat

Crazy for Navy

2011-01-10T16:56:00.001-05:00

When M. & I got our new couch, we discussed repainting our living room & doing a little redecorating in the apartment. The color scheme we agreed to involved khaki (because of our couch), pear green, orange & brown. I bought fabric to put on our pillows so they would match the scheme.

Then, we realized that we were going to move in about 6 - 7 months and decided not to paint. And, if we're not painting, then there is no reason to re-cover our pillows with material that won't match. And I am OK with it because I feel in love with a new fabric.

It's "Pressed Flowers Teal" from Anna Maria Horner's Drawing Room collection. I found it used on a couple pillows on Etsy (many thanks to Nestables for giving me the info about the fabric & your pillow covers are lovely).

I have a newfound love for navy blue, which has always tripped me up a bit . . . . I mean, what neutral color shoes do you wear with navy if you don't feel like wearing gray? Because, I don't have many brightly colored shoes & we all know that it's bright colors that work best with navy. I have recently determined that camel would work fantasically, unfortunately, I do not have camel colored shoes. So, I stick with gray or brown . . . and I digress.

The bottom line is that if I could re-do my wardrobe right now, I would replace many of my black pieces with navy, because I love navy right now.

So, maybe in my future house, our future living room with utilize navy as a dominant neutral color and possibly our future pillows will be covered in that beautiful fabric and our future accents will pull colors from the design - lovely gold, shades of blue, mustard yellow, gray, white. So many possibilities!

Till then, I can only dream . . .

Brick Succulent Planters are Pretty Awesome.

2011-01-07T15:05:00.000-05:00

I'm loving this brick succulent planter ReadyMade.

I could see someone using it to illuminate their outside walkway or maybe using it as a centerpiece . . . maybe for a wedding?

M. and I are planning on buying a house this summer, when our apartment lease is up (so lots more home decorating/projects inspiration will come up this year). This project has definitely been bookmarked as a DIY project for us!

Source

Green Snacks

2011-01-05T13:44:00.000-05:00

M. and I both make effort to go green and waste less in our daily life. Most of the ways we've gone green are really small switches that haven't made a huge impact in our life. We stopped buying generic grocery store dishwashing soap & laundry detergent in favor of Seventh Generation products. We've actually found that these product are less harsh on my husband's sensitive skin, so that's an added bonus for us.

Other little things we do include washing all clothes (except for dirty whites) on cold, instead of warm, which I prefer. We hang dry whatever items we can. We keep our heat down pretty low, so that we use less energy. I'm a pretty big nut about turning off lights & water, you can ask M. I tend to walk up behind him & turn off the faucet if I think it's been running too long. We can always make improvements, but we're pretty proud of what changes we have made. One thing we desperately need to change - start actually remembering to bring reuseable grocery bags INTO the grocery store! They sit in the back of my car for goodness sake, why can't we remember?!? At least we do the next best thing, we recycle the bags we have leftover at our local Giant grocery store, but we can do better!

One thing that I found together that made me a little excited are these reuseable snack & storage bags! We try to use our tupperware as much as possible, but there are some instances where we resort to using plastic lunch & storage bags. Each time, I think to myself that there has to be a better way to us to store our food than use plastic bags. It would be awesome to have these adorable bags instead. They're a little pricey initially but man, they could save you money in the long run, reduce waste & really, they are just so cute!

These bags are by Itzy Ritzy, who makes great products for babies and children. The bags are 100% cotton, BPA & PVC-free. And, they're machine & dishwasher washable. And see the cute patterns, they have tons to choose from, so you can choose a design that's a little more manly.

There are tons of other options on Amazon.com, if you just search for reuseable snack bags. I think it's worth the money & change. If only I were permitted to shop . . . .

A Novel Life: Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette

2011-01-03T06:08:00.000-05:00

I am currently reading Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund. I've never had much interest or fascination with Marie Antoinette, but after reading Naslund's book, Ahab's Wife, and enjoying it so much, I was looking forward to reading another one of her books.

The book is a historic fiction from the perspective of Marie Antoinette and details her life in the castle. I'm about halfway through and am having a hard time putting the book down. I'd definitely recommend it thus far.

I thought it might be fun to start a new series where I put together an inspiration board of items found on Etsy that remind me of the book I'm reading.

So, here goes!

1. I recently came to the part in the book where Louis XVI gave Antoinette the Petit Trianon, a place to call her own and give her privacy from the court. This small hoop from Tialys' shop reminded me of the excitement "Toinette," as she liked to be called by her loved ones, felt when Louis XVI told her that it was hers.

2. Much of the book recalls Toinette's letter writing with her mother, where her mother, the Archdutchess of Austria, guides Toinette in her assignment as Dauphine and then Queen. This French Carte Postale Hand Stamped Ribbon Trim from homesteadtreasures' shop reflects that and the beautiful roses that Toinette loved so much.

3. Toinette supposedly didn't really say "Let them eat cake," as rumored but this print from BluLima sure is fun!

4. Toinette had very close friendships with the sweet virginal princess de Lamballe and with the beautiful duchess de Polignac. I could imagine her giving them these simple and fun friendship necklaces from iadornu's shop.

5. Much of Louis XVI's rule was plagued by discontent of the French people and their rule ended at the beginning of the French Revolution. This tee shirt from Diatonic's shop recognizes that unsettling time in French history.

6. In the book, Toinette loves pink and the simplest pastel colors bring her joy, much like these gorgeous earrings from ThreeWishesStudio.

7. Toinette loved fashion and dressed proudly from head to toe. So much so that she would have her hair stylist fashion elaborate designs in her hair. At one point of the book, she even had him represent the Garden of Eden in her tresses. I imagine that if she had a silhouette done of her, it would be much like this from thelittlechickadee.

8. This beautiful cuff from RoseooftheMire is fit for that of a queen. I could imagine Toinette wearing it at one of the balls she and Louis XVI went to in Paris.

New Years Goals

2011-01-02T11:40:00.000-05:00

I typically don't make New Years resolutions because, like most people, I break them within a month of making them. However, M. and I have been discussing a few of our goals for this year and I am truly dedicated to stick with them.

And here we go . . .

Goal #1 - Save more, spend less. M. and I have a tendency to spend on small things, just because we can. It could be a DVD here, a pair of tights there or even one too many beers at a sporting event. So, we're putting a stop to it. My aim is to not buy anything unless I absolutely need it. And then put that money in our savings account. M. has made the same goal, which hopefully means we can put more to the side. We're actually hoping to buy a house when the lease to our apartment is up, so hopefully this will help.

Goal #2 - Eat better, eat less & lose more. I have to lose 25 pounds to get myself back to the weight I was when M. and I first started dating. I need to get back on Weight Watchers - which I always do well with - and motivate my butt to get back to the gym.

So, we only have two goals, but they're big goals that definitely affects our lifestyle. Hopefully we can both stick to them and end 2011 a lot lighter and although probably less rich, with a house to our name and living comfortably!

What are your goals for the new year?

We've Been Blogged!

2010-12-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

La di dah, we are so special! Both our florist, Local Color Flowers, and Day of Coordinator, Felicity C Weddings, have blogged about our wedding.

Check out their sites!

Local Color Flower blog
Website
Flickr
Facebook
Twitter

Felicity C Weddings blog
Website
Facebook

They Call It Mellow Yellow

2010-12-30T09:07:00.001-05:00

On weeks like this week, when most people have taken off of work & I am one of maybe 10 people on the road, I spend a little bit more time looking at my surroundings during my commute. It's about a 20 minute drive where I pass lots of small homes, one historic landmark (by the way, is there a website where I can look up landmarks, I try to read the sign that they have outside almost every morning but I pass it too quickly), a few small stores & then, as I get closer to the center of town, way too many commercial chain businesses.
One of the houses that I passed by offered me a little happy surprise this morning . . . I noticed that they had painted their door bright yellow. It was such a fun thing to see amongst all the white & black doors of the homes nearby.

You know, sometimes it's the little things that make you happy, and this was one of them.

This is not the house, but this house also has a yellow door. Source.

I have always dreamed of having a little stone cottage with red shutters & a purple door. M. kind of told me that I was crazy when I vocalized that dream, but I think that when we do get a house, he'll let me have my purple door. As long as we're not part of a HOA who puts the kibash on it.

Source.

Actually, while we're being honest, my dream really is to have a house that is painted a deep plum with white trim, white shutters & a red door. The dream above is just my compromise.

The Moon Was Red . . .

2010-12-21T11:18:00.002-05:00

I have a general rule of thumb to never turn down a once in a lifetime opportunity. So, when I read that the last time a lunar eclipse happened on Winter Solstice was in 1638 & it wouldn't happen again until 2094, I was determined to see it. Fortunately, M. was too. That is why we interrupted our sleep at 2:30 a.m. & didn't get back into bed until about 3:15 - we had a date to see the moon. We managed to see it when it was mostly covered by the moon, up until when it was completely covered. Let me tell you, it was worth it.

Unfortunately, my camera struggled to captured the beauty of the moon, but lots of media outlets have pictures posted.

Before we went to bed, I told M. that I was so happy that we woke up for it & we were able to share this once in a lifetime moment with one another. There's really nothing better than experiencing those moments with the love of your life.

By the way, anyone else notice the many headlines about the moon that read "Total Eclipse of the Moon." I was planning on using it as my subject line, but so many online news sources used it that I felt as though I had to be a little more original.

Source

Wedding Recap: The Details

2010-12-17T16:01:00.000-05:00

I am like most other people out there who really thinks that the details can make an event. I think you need a few personal touches thrown into any party to make it a little bit more special. I definitely tried to include some fun little details without driving myself crazy or putting too much on my plate.

Since there's not a whole lot else to say about that, I'll just get right to the pictures:

As guests entered, they were greeted by our friends, JH & JF with our programs & kazoos. The kazoos were a hit & ended up making our walk back up the aisle even more fun!

At our cocktail hour, as guests entered, the Woodstock Snowball Stand was the first thing they saw. I made a faux chalkboard with the flavors listed & matted a watercolor picture of the Snowball Stand (provided by the owner) to sit on the table. As I mentioned before, there were our cocktail napkins, bamboo spoons in our blue mason jars & cups made from corn for guests to eat their snowballs with.

As people entered the Gudlesky building, our escort cards were on their right.

We had a little sign (also a faux chalkboard) asking them to keep their escort card out so the servers could see what meals they were to be given . . . gray ribbons went to beef, pink ribbons for chicken & hot pink ribbons for dietary restrictions (we had 1 vegetarian guest & 2 that needed gluten-free meals). The servers ended up not really following the ribbons & just asked people what they had requested to eat. So, I could have probably just stuck with 1 color ribbon instead of purchasing 3 colors.

Also front & center was our faux chalkboard menu. In an effort to save paper, we did not put menus at everyone's seat, we figured that between their escort card, our wedding website & this menu, they should have had a pretty good idea of what they were getting.

We used one of the baskets that our greeter held on the card table so people could drop off their cards. The basket was a pretty cool metal vintage basket that I am now using in our living room to hold our magazines. On that table, we also had our guestbook. I don't have a wide shot of the table, but here are a few close-ups. You can kind of see that we had a color & b&w versions of pictures from our engagement shoot. Both were of us holding the book "I Like You" out, the color one focused on us & the b&w version is focused on the book. The color one was 5x7 & the b&w version was 4x6.

Next to the card/guestbook table was the vintage 6-pane window frame with our engagement photos.

And finally, dessert. I found a wide shot of the smore box in MOH JC's photos, just to give you guys a sense of what it looked like. Our caterer had it built specifically for our wedding, but I have a feeling they'll be using it many times after. They really did a spectacular job. It was truly everything I imagined it would be.

The boxes with each component of the smores was entirely the caterer, right down to the signs. It was awesome how it corresponded with our colors & style!

And finally, there are no lights on the walkway as you exit the Conservancy. We had the caterers place mason jars with candles inside outside, to provide a little light & ambience. I'm now using some in our apartment for decoration, and I eventually hope to make all the jars into candles to give as gifts. Maybe next Christmas . . . .

Other than our centerpieces, that pretty much sums up the little details that appeared at our wedding. And really, the pretty much sums up our big day - 9 months of planning & coordination!

Next, I am going to show some of my favorite pictures of the day that haven't made their way on the blog (and some won't even be in our album)! Beware, it'll consist of a lot of pictures of just me & M.!

Wedding Recap: Part V

2010-12-16T11:31:00.000-05:00

Now onto the part of the wedding that everyone looks most forward to, the reception! Our reception can be summed with with every other wedding reception in that there was eating, drinking, dancing & fun was had by all.

I got to peek in on the Gudlesky Center before our ceremony began and I was just so taken with how everything turned out. I patted myself on the back for working with vendors who made my vision possible.

Here it is during set-up:

Here it is later in the night, when the room is full. We had a fairly small wedding with 87 people in attendance. The room could definitely have held more.

I love how our tables turned out. If I could go back in the time though, I would probably have asked the caterer to do a fold of the napkin & leave on the table at each seat instead of in the water glasses. I didn't love that. I also might have considered chargers to fill the table out more, and probably would have requested that plastic water pitchers not be placed on the table. If I had known that, I might have sought out cool vintage water pitchers or asked them to use empty wine bottles instead.

Having that stuff didn't disappoint or upset me, but in retrospect, I probably would have liked that more.

After waiting outside for about 20 minutes, it was finally time to be introduced. Our bridal party all came up with cute ways to enter the room, resulting in this adorable picture:

Everything went as planned, M. & I entered & we did our first dance to "To Make You Feel My Love" by Adele. We then sat down & ate our meals, which was the option of filet or bacon wrapped chicken stuff with bleu cheese.

Since dessert had already been set up, people immediately went from dinner to dessert, which kind of put a cramp in the schedule. We were supposed to do the father-daughter & mother-son dance right after dinner, prior to dessert to keep things moving along since we didn't have a ton of time for the reception.

Once I saw people digging into dessert, I figured that instead of waiting for them to finish & put off the formal dance & limited our primary dancing time, we would just do the formal dance while everyone enjoyed their sweets. I wasn't super happy with that, but it ended up working out OK.

The desserts, were a hit though. The smores looked awesome & the chocolate fountain was an extra treat. Some of the guests actually roasted their marshmallows & then dipped them in chocolate!

After everyone was settled, it was finally time to dance! And dance we did!

Like I mentioned before, we didn't love the DJ. He went through our cocktail hour/dinner request list during the cocktail hour, which meant M. & I didn't get to hear any of the songs we had really been looking forward to. In retrospect, I would have put together a longer list & instead of combining cocktail hour/dinner, I would have separated them. For example, "My Girl" was one of M.'s dad's favorite songs, so it meant a lot for M. to hear it. He never did since I hadn't designated it specifically for when he & I would be in the area to hear it.

Also, at some point of time he completely deviated from our reception list & started playing music that you would more likely hear at a club, which isn't exactly my & M.'s style. BM JF later told me that he said to her that his computer had gotten a virus in the middle of the reception, so he lost all the music we had wanted to hear.

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you when I say that some of his choices brought more people out onto the floor than some of our choices. So, although I didn't love what he was playing, I was OK with it. However, when he kept going from classic rock or 80's tunes (from our list) to beat heavy rap or club-type music, it ended up not sounding very cohesive. I know this sounds extremely nit-picky, but it's stuff that I noticed and might be helpful for other brides to think about when they plan. If I had to do it again, I would have either skipped giving him a reception list entirely - he's a DJ & has done this tons of times & knows what people want or given him a list that would have lasted the whole reception with back up CDs just in case - I know what I like & that's what I want to hear. Based on my laziness & general lack of sweating the small stuff while planning, I would have done the first option.

You might notice that some of the reception photos are bright. At the conservancy, for weddings, they only leave on the perimeter lights but at their brightest setting. At one point of time, Felicity came over & asked if I wanted to do anything different with the lighting. I didn't realize that the perimeter lights could be turned down, so I said something along the lines of, "there's nothing we can really do about it, so I guess it's fine." My brother & a few other guests made mention that the lights should be turned down but I had no clue what to do or where to do it. Eventually, someone found the dimmer & turned them down, which made it feel much more reception-like. So, for all you brides out there, know your lighting because it does make a difference!

I know it sounds like I have a lot of gripes during our reception. I am just mentioning stuff that I noticed & probably would have liked to have done differently. However, I did enjoy myself. I ate, I drank, I danced and spent time with all the people I loved the most. We all celebrated & it was really an amazing end to our day.

And we got lots of kick ass pictures. Like this one, which is not wedding related in any way, but kind of perfect:

It's also a great way to transition into tomorrows post, which is all about the details!

Wedding Recap, Part IV

2010-12-15T11:34:00.001-05:00

After the ceremony, M., our bridal party, family & I all headed over to the barn on the conservancy's property for our formal pictures. Everyone else made their way to our cocktail hour.

Looking back, and M. & I are both torn about this decision, I do wish we had done a first look & taken all formals prior to the wedding. Neither of us made it to the cocktail hour and with the exception of maybe 5 pieces of shrimp, we didn't get to enjoy any of the appetizers we selected - all of which we were told by guests were delicious. Actually, in all honesty, the cocktail hour was the part that we got the most positive feedback on - the food, the setting, the atmosphere - and we were the only ones at our wedding completely isolated from that. Ideally, the plan was for us to take pictures as quickly as possible so we could spend at least 15 minutes at our cocktail hour. We did get the pictures done super fast, but never made it over there. And, that is one thing that we look back on with disappointment.

M. still stands by the fact that he wanted to see me for the first time that day when I walked down the aisle. He says that no one could ever prepare him for the feeling he had when he saw me walk down the aisle, it was indescribable. I agree, it was definitely surreal as I walked down the aisle on my dad's arm & saw M. standing there, waiting for me. So, choosing that was our compromise, but neither of us was totally happy about it.

So, back to the cocktail hour . . . we had a spread of fruits, veggies & cheeses, crab dip, artichoke and goat cheese bites that were breaded & coconut encrusted shrimp. We also had a great surprise for everyone, which was made even better since it was a very hot day outside - snowballs from a local snowball stand. This was one thing I was most excited about everyone seeing. Snowballs in the summertime are a great custom here in Maryland, and if you lived in my neighborhood, the one place you went to was the Woodstock Snowball Stand. My friends & family & I all spent many a summer afternoon sitting on the grass infront of the stand, enjoying an ice cold snowball. We had them come & serve up three flavors - blue raspberry, watermelon & wedding cake. It was a hit! And a really affordable, small detail that was greatly appreciated.

The cocktail hour was held in the Honors Garden at the Conservancy. When I dropped by for my site visit in the summertime, all the grass & plants were dying due to extreme heat & a drought. I have to admit, I was worried that it would continue into the fall, but we were fortunate that everything was green & blooming!

So picturesque . . .

Part of our spread. Our caterer provided floral arrangements for all the serving tables, one less thing for us to have to worry about!

Let's not forget the cocktail napkins I worked so hard on! I was so thankful when one of our guests commented on our great literary theme & asked us about the significance of the quotes. All our work paid off!

The hit of the cocktail hour - the Woodstock Snowball Stand. I seriously think everyone had one.

What also excited me about this was that we were able to be environmentally friendly here. Instead of using their styrafoam cups & plastic cups, we bought plastic cups made from corn that are biodegradable & compostable. We also served all the treats with bamboo spoons, also biodegradable. And you can see the appearance of our blue mason jars, which I was so happy to use.

Finally enjoying my cold treat. I had a little taste while waiting to be introduced for our reception - which took wayyyy too long.

By the way, totally unrelated, but I love my dark fingernails. I originally had them painted pink but went back to the salon on the wedding day to have them painted this deep red color. It felt so much more like me than the pink did.

So, cocktail hour flew by for us all. I wish it had been a cocktail 2 hour!

Next up, the reception.

Wedding Recap, Part III

2010-12-08T06:30:00.000-05:00

Our ceremony took place in the grass, in front of a tree. I think it was the best place for us to do it on the property, however it was on a hill & the ground was rather rough. My mom later commented that all my bridesmaids stared at the ground as they walked down the aisle & when I mentioned it to one of the girls later, she said that she was so worried about tripping or falling that she had to look down. My other thought had been to use the Conservancy's barn as the backdrop for our ceremony & I wonder if that would have been better.

Our officiant, Rev. Laura was really great. In fact, we got numerous compliments on her after the wedding and most of those people couldn't believe that we just found her on the internet! She had been easy to work with throughout the planning process & really was perfect on the wedding day. She was very controlled, she kept the ceremony short & sweet & was also just a joy to watch do her thing.

I had mentioned earlier that we had my brother do a reading of "I Carry Your Heart" by E.E. Cummings. He rocked it. We both wrote our own vows & we rocked that even harder. I'd share them here but I feel like our vows are a little too personal to share. We didn't set a template or anything for our vows. I have read about some couples coordinating to keep their vows the same length or have the same flow. We didn't do that. I actually feel like that would put too many restrictions on our vows. I wanted to speak from the heart & say everything I wanted to say to M. & I wanted the same from him. My vows ended up being much longer than his & his far more poetic than mine, but they were really just perfect.

About 17 minutes into the ceremony we were proclaimed husband & wife. We walked giddly down the aisle. Honestly, the ceremony was my favorite part of the whole wedding. Not just because of how personal it was . . . I mean, really & truly, the ceremony is the main part of the wedding, even if it's the less fun. But for me, this was the one part of the day when I felt like I could really relax & breathe. I didn't need to worry about where I was or whether anyone was having fun. Rev. Laura got to take control & I just had to say my vows & kiss M. It was almost a relief after months of planning & working & thinking about myself, my friends, my family & my other guests. This moment was just about me & M. & everyone else was simply an observer.

The best part of walking down the aisle? Hearing a funny noise & realizing it was all the kazoos that we had handed out. It was awesome & so much fun!

Afterwards, we went straight into taking our formal pictures while everyone else made their way to cocktail hour! So, tomorrow's recap - Cocktail Hour!

Wedding Recap, Part II

2010-12-07T04:55:00.004-05:00

My flowers were gorgeous. I could just tell you that I was beyond happy about them & leave it there. But really, I just need to rave about Local Color Flowers a little bit more. It could have been just as simple as that they gave me exactly what I want, but they went further than that, they produced centerpieces that could basically acted as a summary of what I was going for with the style of our wedding. They were perfection. I couldn't imagine them being better.

And our lucky guests, once they found out that they could take the centerpieces home, they could hardly believe it. My mom had to tell a few "that's right, you can take it home." We ended up taking home about 5 or 6 jars in the end, out of about 90. That says a lot right there. The only thing I regret with the flowers is that I couldn't take them home. They would have been dead by the time we returned from Las Vegas. But, at least everyone else got to!

The flowers were Dahlias, Lisanthis, some Sunflower and I am not quite sure what else. Awesomeness, that is it.

I am really happy with the decision to have mixed colors in the bouquets. I think it gave a lot more dimension to the flowers rather than going with a monochromatic look. I think the yellow gave a great punch amongst all the pink & gray of the wedding.

And the multiple jars looked great. At one point of time, I thought the centerpieces might end up skimpy and started to rethink my decison. I am glad I didn't.

And look how nice the Patron bottles looked!

Next up, Ceremony!

Wedding Recap, Part I

2010-12-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, I am now ready to begin my wedding recap. I have all the pictures, I have ordered some of my favorites and I have started working on choosing out the photos I want to include in our photobook . . . which means I need to whittle 847 beautiful pictures down to 60 favorites. Sigh. It's quite a task. I have fortunately gotten it down to 80, but I am not sure how I'll do with dropping 20 more.

I have been really thinking about how to do these recaps. I don't want to have my friends and family members faces all over this blog without their knowledge, and as a blog reader I personally care much more about the details than every single step of the way. So, I am going to break down everything in this order: Outfits & Accessories, Flowers, Ceremony, Cocktail Hour & Reception. I'll only share a few pics that I think are a pretty good representation of each. If there's something you guys want to see, just let me know! I'll also reflect on the wedding throughout.

Honestly, I loved my wedding. There were a little things that when I look back on, I would maybe change . . . I loved how our DJ did our friend's wedding, but maybe would have gone a different route. I still really wish we had gotten a bluegrass band to play the whole thing. But alas, we can't go back & change things. I can reflect & maybe offer tips or advice to other brides planning their weddings. So, you'll see a little bit of that mixed in!

Today, we'll start with outfits & accessories!

The dress I selected in the end was Maggie Sottero's Rachael. I love it, I got complimented on it. It was amazing. It was also very heavy. By the end of the night, I was so happy to take it off and lose about 15 pounds of weight. I think it was worth it though.

Look at the detailing!

Being laced up in it & out of it was not exactly the most fun, but as much as I don't love corset dresses, they do wonders for a girl's shape.

I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do with my dress. My mom had it preserved for me, but I keep going back & forth about selling it. We've already struggled with figuring out exactly where to store it in her house and it's pretty bulky. Plus, considering that the only alterations done to it was cut 3 inches off the bottom, it might be appealing to other girls who love it but want to pay a little less.

My mom argued that it's a great sentimental thing to hold on, but what is the reality of my future child wearing it or me really pulling it out to look at again?

I loved my shoes, they were adorable and very comfortable and really worth the price. They are Kensie Girl shoes in the Lisa style and in Pewter Snake. I got them from zappos.com. More importantly, they will be worn again.

Our ceremony was held in the grass on kind of a hill. Let me tell you, shoes with a higher heel than these would have been the death of me. These were great because they gave me a little lift without making me sacrafice comfort and really, stability.

My something blue, a beautiful cocktail ring made from a vintage shoe clip from a store on Etsy. Loved.

My mom treated me with a bottle of Cheri Dior perfume for my birthday, a scent I had been coveting. I wore it on my wedding day and continue to wear it on nights when we go out or do something fun. I love the scent and the adorable packaging.

Also pictures is my borrowed, an Irish garter lent to me from my friend, JH. It actually never made it on my leg but was there in spirit.

I also rocked the hell out of my heart shaped sunglasses. They were so much fun and I think gave me a little extra attitude. And check out my beautiful glittery headband, worked perfectly into my hair.

As for the girls, they kept it simple. Each girl got a Jcrew bridesmaid dress in gray silk chiffon in whatever style they wanted. They were also asked to wear any pink shoe they desired. They totally didn't plan it, but each girl also wore a pink flower (or for BM DG, flowers) in their hair. It all looked perfectly coordinated but also perfectly not. No girl wore something they absolutely hated. They also seemed to like the dresses, although they'll never tell me otherwise.

I personally think they looked hot.

We also kept it pretty simple for the guys. They all wore matching ties - including my dad & brother, who weren't in the bridal party - and whatever black suit they owned or whated to buy or what-not. The bridal party guys wore gray pocket squares instead of bouts. My dad & brother wore pink pocket squares.

Whenever I look at these pictures, I think that M. and the guys look so sharp. I seriously love those ties. $20 at Macy's, baby!

To keep it simple, we purchased the ties & pocket squares for the guys. Thank goodness because M. wasn't the best communicator about this. A week or two before the wedding, a few of the guys kept asking him what they were wearing & what was going on. At least we had it all taken care of.

Next up, flowers! They're so gorgeous that they get their own post!

Holiday Brain Freeze

2010-11-29T17:17:00.000-05:00

With Christmas coming up, I am getting super into the holiday spirit. We bought & decorated our Christmas tree, got up all of our other decorations, I'm planning on a holiday craft night with my sister-in-law and I am even more excited about my new Christmas CD!

However, I am having major brain freeze about Christmas gifts for people. It's weird, I don't want anything and I just don't want to get anything for anyone. I'd much rather just spend time with all the folks I usually get presents for & enjoy that instead of experience the stress of finding that perfect gift. Damn me for not being a giftcard giving kind of girl! I'm hoping that daily online browsing will help inspire me to put something in my cart, but it hasn't yet. Sigh.

I did find one item that I want for myself, but it's too pricey for me to buy myself or except anyone to get me, so I'll just covet it.

Division Chevron Earrings. Love.

A Sweat, Blood, Tears Free Ornament

2010-11-24T07:17:00.030-05:00

Earlier this season, I saw a craft usings clear ornament globes and shredded music paper that looked extremely easy to duplicate. I mentioned it when I was over at my mother-in-law's house and low and behold, she had a bunch of clear ornaments that she was throwing away. I snagged those from her and headed home to begin my craft.

The cap of the ornaments were a pretty gaudy gold, so I spray painted them black. All I needed was some shredded paper, and thanks to leftover thrifted books from the wedding, I had that no problem. In fact, everything was free except for the ribbon and the tinsel. It was essentially a $8 project and with leftover ribbon and tinsel!

Of course I took pictures with my new camera every step of the way, hope it's not too tedious for you!

And the final product!

M. was pretty impressed with ornament stuffing skills and told me it looked like something you could get in a store. If that's not love, then I don't know what is!

Shutterbug

2010-11-23T03:10:00.040-05:00

M. bought us a DSLR camera last week as an early Christmas present to us. He really wanted one but after our wedding he really really wanted one, so he sold some of his video game collection and made the purchase!

The camera he got us is a Canon Rebel T2i and I really enjoying how the camera takes photos. This past weekend I went over to my parent's house with the intention of practicing my photography skills on a few models . . . as in, my mother and my brother's dogs. Those poor pups were probably sick of having a camera stuck in the face all afternoon, but I think I got some pretty great pictures out of it and, even more importantly, I got great practice using the camera on its automatic settings.

I've signed up to take a beginner's photography class beginning November 29th with Art Exposure, Inc. in Baltimore. It's $90 for 4 classes and one outdoor shooting session. The teacher is a member of the Baltimore Photography Club and a professional travel photographer. I've always had an interest in photography and am really excited to take a class to learn about how to take better photos and how to use the manual settings. If I like this class, I am hoping to sign up for their intermediate class and continue learning about photography. Also, if this class is successful, I might pursue taking a Photoshop class so I can learn how to properly edit photos. I have a very basic knowledge of the program but really don't do much besides crop & maybe lighten.

I'm actually interested in seeing how my ability to capture scenery, people and animals change between now & the end of the class. Maybe I'll have to force the dogs to do another photoshoot, just so I can compare & contrast my skills!

A special thanks to Bugsy & Max for being such patient subjects!

A Gripe

2010-11-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

Dear soft rock radio station that I enjoy listening to during my mornings at work,

I choose to listen to you because sometimes the music on my MP3 player can be a little grating on my early morning nerves. But, your lovely mix of hits from the 80s, 90s and today is typically fantastic early in the morning. Sometimes you just need a little Wilson Phillips and Kelly Clarkson to start the day. When I started listening to you, it brought joy to my heart that I heard "Oh What a Night" by the Four Seasons every day. So much so that to this day, I email M. with the time that I hear it and it's become a running joke between us.

But, this repetition of tunes you seem to favor is not so cute when it comes to the "summer anthem of 2010." If you're unaware of what I am referring to, it's Katy Perry's "California Gurls." As much as I enjoy Miss Perry, this song really has no reason to be played anymore. Every radio station that had its hands on this song overplayed it throughout the summer and a bit during the fall. I could truly be satisfied living my life not hearing this song ever again. However, you refuse to stop playing it. In fact, I heard you play it at least twice the other day, and I spent a good chunk of the day NOT on your station!

Last month, whenever you would play it, I would turn the channel until the song was over & then return to your station. Now, when the song plays, I take it as my cue to turn off the station for the day in favor of listening to my MP3 player or another station. Keep it up and I might just stop listening to you altogether . . . . except come December when you play Christmas music, then I get to hear you overplay "Last Christmas."

So, please, listen to my plea, stop playing "California Gurls." I can't take it any longer.

Thank you.

Love, Kate

Who? Who?

2010-11-19T20:14:00.000-05:00

My mom has this white ceramic owl umbrella holder. I used to hate it and thought it was incredibly tacky. Many times I tried to convince her to throw it away but to no avail. Eventually it became a joke that I wanted to inherit it when she died. So imagine my surprise when I found a duplicate of her old ceramic owl on sale at Urba Outfitters for about $200. And then, before I know it, that same stinking owl started popping up for sale at other stores online. Mom must have had foresight that owls would become trendy and her umbrella holder would become a coveted item. And, by the way, I still claim it when she dies.

Once I accepted the owl umbrella stand, I started to develop an appreciation for owls and cute owl knick knacks are something M. & I always keep our eyes open for. In fact, we have our own tribute to mom's owl in our apartment in the way of 2 inch tall candle holders (from here).

So, imagine my excitement when I stumbled across My Owl Barn's customizable 2011 calendar. Yea, you better believe I made one for myself! Check it out, you have your choice of 30 owl images for each month of the year. Even better, it's free.

This is my January . . . what's up!

What Happens in Vegas . . . Part V, the Finale

2010-11-12T13:17:00.000-05:00

Our final day in Las Vegas was a busy one, jam packed full of activities due partially to poor planning on our part. Our schedule involved renting a car & going out to the Hoover Dam & Red Rock Canyon, dinner with MOH JC & her boyfriend and finally seeing Peep Show, a topless show with Holly Madison of Playboy (Girls Next Door fame).

We woke up early and headed straight out to the Hoover Dam. First, I want to show you something . . . The state of Nevada gets a minimal amount of rain a year. In fact, I think I read that it gets the least amount of rain of any state, about 7 inches a year.

And it rained the morning we went to the Hoover Dam. And, we got to the Dam before it opened & had to wait out in the rain. Oy! We had a good laugh about that one!

Check out the rain drops on our windshield and the foreboding sky.

Despite reading about how backed up the road leading to the Dam could get, we actually had a very easy ride and got in with no problem.

We paid for the full tour - I believe it was around $30 - which ended up lasting for about an hour. We got to walk through the power plant and some of tunnels inside of the Hoover Dam, coming out at the top of the Dam.

We learned a lot of cool things, like about how essentially a little town popped up around the Hoover Dam of families whose husbands were working on the Dam. The town ended up becoming a government run town & is the only town in Nevada that doesn't permit gambling. And much of the infrastructure is the same as when originally built, so we really got to see a piece of history.

We also got to see a new piece of history as they were finishing up touches on the largest arch bridge in the US. It was interesting to us because the city where we go white water rafting in West Virginia had held the title, so we've seen the 2 largest arch bridges in the United States! Fun Fact!

I took tons of pictures, so here's a little sampling:

They had the bridge's anniversary celebration the day prior, so we got a set of anniversary playing cards, which were really cool!

And we got to stand on the state line! You can see it at the base of the plaque below.

After leaving the Hoover Dam, we hit the road and headed to Red Rock Canyon. The trip wasn't too long, about 45 minutes and we had to circle around outside of the Las Vegas strip, which gave us a pretty cool view.

The Park was kind of in the back of a residential and very easy to get to. And, in my opinion, well worth the trip.

While we were there we picked up a National Parks Passport, which is basically a book that you can get stamped at any National Park you visit. We go to National Parks enough that we picked one up. Now it's kind of a cool keepsake over our relationship with the first stamp happening on our honeymoon.

In December we're going to DC & I intend on getting it stamped as much as possible!

The views at Red Rock were amazing, especially for us East Coasters who have never really seen a desert before. Lots of red clay, sand, boulders and cactus!

At the end of the park, right outside of it, is a place called Bonnie Springs Ranch. My girlfriend had recommended we stop there and try their BBQ ribs. Since we were famished, we made our way there.

As you can see from the sign above, Bonnie Springs Ranch offers overnight accomodations, it has a restaurant, a little zoo, horseback riding . . . really lots of stuff. It was really quaint and an awesome change from the bright lights & bustle of the city.

We sat down in the restaurant, had a cold beer, some potato skins and ribs. They were delicious. If you go to Red Rock Canyon, add a stop here on your list of things to do. I actually really wanted a tee shirt but couldn't find where to buy one! I really wish I had gotten one though!

At the end of the afternoon, we made our way back to the strip to rest a bit before meeting MOH JC & her boyfriend for dinner.

We got ready faster than we needed to, so we decided to head to the Bellagio, gamble and have a pre-dinner drink. We made our way to a lounge bar called Carmel. I really liked Carmel because it was nicer than the standard casino bars but wasn't a club. It gave us a nice relaxing drinking environment, which we didn't really get much during the week.

I got a delicious cucumber martini and M. got some scotch.

After we finished our drinks, we headed down the escalator to Prime, a steakhouse in the Bellagio.

Prime had great food and a nice atmosphere. It wasn't as formal as Le Crique from the night before, but it still felt like a really nice date restaurant. Our waiter was pretty awesome and we joked around with him a bit. I forget exactly what we got, but I remember having scallops and truffle macaroni & cheese. Mike had a filet.

We headed out around 9:30 to make our 10 p.m. show. MOH JC headed to watch the fountains go off, while we trucked over to Planet Hollywood.

Now, seeing a topless show isn't exactly something that M. & I originally sought out to do. But, I, embarrasingly enough, watched "The Girls Next Door" and really liked Holly Madison. Plus, topless shows are a thing in Vegas and we're always down for a new experience.

Now, the show was supposed to start at 10 p.m. But, the show prior to "Peep Show" ended up letting out late, so we didn't make it into the theater until 11 p.m. We ended up getting really antsy and line and were pretty tired from our long day.

The show was fun, it was really cheesy and mindless. The performers were great singers and some of the dances were fun. Would I see it again, no. Looking back, would I have still gone, probably not. But, it was fun.

We got out a 1:00 a.m., headed back to the Mirage, cashed in our last gambling receipts and went to bed.

The next morning, we hopped on our plane and said goodbye to Vegas . . . but, not without gambling at the airport a bit.

Overall, we had an awesome honeymoon but this experience only made us more excited for our REAL honeymoon, which will be the Greek Isles in June 2011!

What Happens in Vegas, Part IV

2010-11-11T14:52:00.000-05:00

Hey Guys, sorry for leaving you hanging during my honeymoon recaps! I feel like between some projects at work, Halloween, busy weekends and that darn time change that I'm currently running in place. I'm tired and exhausted and planning for the holidays doesn't really help to revive me from that feeling (although it does make me excited!). I did hear from my photographer about our pictures, and I should get to see my online gallery shortly, which means wedding re-caps! We all know that's why anyone who is still following this little blog is still here!

But, stick with me for my final 2 days of recaps, they're fun, I promise!

On Thursday, we only had one plan and that was to see KA, the Cirque Du Soliel show that takes place under water and to go to a fancy dinner in celebration of my birthday (which took place about a week before the wedding. I am not a big celebrator of my birthday and with the wedding, it seemed frivolous for M. & I to really celebrate). M. chose out the restaurant when we picked up our show tickets, so we were all set.

We had originally hoped to tour the Neon Boneyard on this day, but the tour was full and we weren't able to join in. A word to the wise, if you really want to do this, just book it when you book your trip. I was hoping to play everything by ear & didn't want to commit, but that ended up hurting us in the end.

Instead, we went back & sat by the pool for a few hours . . . our favorite way to start every morning!

After M. got sick of laying around, we went back up to our room, lounged a bit and tried to figure out what to do. We ended up deciding to visit on of the more notorious casinos that isn't on the strip, The Palms. Funny enough, at the same time, MOH JC was flying into Las Vegas & shared a plane with Pauly D from the Jersey Shore. He was DJing at The Palms that night. Creepily enough, she took a cell phone picture of him while he was sleeping. Poor guy.

The Palms kind of disappointed us. I think if we were nightlife people, we would have spent a considerable amount of time here since they had multiple clubs. However, unlike the other casinos that had some daytime activities, The Palms didn't so much. They really only had one or two restaurants and a food court and really, everyone must have been sleeping or out at the pool because the casino itself was pretty dead.

We grabbed lunch, a drink, gambled a bit and then headed back to the strip.

We then hung out a bit, grabbed a drink at our casino & laid around in bed until it was time to get ready for dinner. Every day we spent a few hours laying in bed & watching tv. It sounds so lame but was sooo enjoyable!

Once 6:30 rolled around, it was time for dinner at Le Cirque, a french restaurant in the Bellagio. This restaurant was definitely swanky and the food was fantastic. The coolest thing was that our table faced the Bellagio fountain, so we got to see the fountain show every half hour! When we booked our reservation, we let them know it was our honeymoon and we got a little surprise at the end of the meal.

We opted to go with the pre-theater menu with wine pairing, which was about $98 per person. This got us a 3-course meal with wine to go with each.

We started with a risotto (me) and a lobster bisque (M.). For our main course, I got a filet of Sea Bass with crispy potatoes, braised leeks with a Pinot Noir reduction. M. got beef short ribs with bone marrow, beets and sugar snap peas. It was both of our first experience with bone marrow and it was pretty cool. It tasted kind of like a delicious salty gelatin of beef stock. For dessert, I got creme brulee and M. got a raspberry milkshake with some mascarpone in it, underneath his bowl was also some raspberry cotton candy. Plus, our dessert plates came with a special message (M.'s pictured below, we couldn't capture how beautiful it was)!

Our food was absolutely delicious and I would definitely recommend that anyone go there, especially if you love food and don't mind spending a little more for awesome food and a great overall experience. Plus, they give all the women a little box of truffles to go home with. Awesome!

After dinner we gambled a bit & walked through a pretty cool art exhibit in the lobby of the theater. They had a video of the sculpturer working and it was amazing! He had the cirque performers hold their post while he sculpted away in clay!

PS - M. said I could post his picture on here now! I won't put many of him, but you'll see his handsome face here and there. Including now . . .

The show was pretty great. M. wishes there had been some more shows of strength, like he had seen at a Cirque show that came to Baltimore last winter. This one definitely had more of the art & flexibility displays & less of the pure strength. That I didn't mind, I thought everything they did was a wonder. Our only complaint was that the theater was so warm, uncomfortably warm. Warm enough that the woman next to me took a nice little nap during the show. And, as we left the show, most of the people around us were commenting on the heat. At one point of time, I was really hoping for an intermission so I could get some air, but the show was too short to have an intermission. So, if you get warm easily, this might not be the show for you!

After that, we went back to our room to rest up for Friday! Red Rock Canyon! Hoover Dam!

Loads of pictures coming in the next recap.

Chillin' Villians

2010-10-28T18:49:00.000-04:00

At work tomorrow, we're having a "Chilin' Villian" contest, where we all have to dress up as villians and there's a chili cook-off. I'm not making chili, but after much laziness, going back & forth about whether or not I'm going to do it and finally deciding that I'm not, I was hit with inspiration. Not being one to ignore inspiration, I took it and rode with it.

And that is how I came up with my villian costume that I paid $0.00 for. That's right folks, I had all the pieces between my apartment and my parents house.

So, which famous villian am I being?

How about that snarl? Recognize me?

If not, maybe this will help . . .

Still need help? Lame.

Hell yea. I am totally Scut Farkus, the bully who got his tookus beat by Ralphie in "A Christmas Story"!

Oh, and yea, I not only had a coon skin hat (which was a little small on my head) but I also had one of those fur Russian hats that sat easily overtop of the coon skin hat. Score!

What do you think? Do you buy me as Scut Farkus?

What Happens in Vegas . . . Part III

2010-10-28T08:53:00.000-04:00

We started Wednesday off low key. We got breakfast and received a text message from my brother telling us to be in our rooms by 4:30 p.m. for a special wedding present.

Instead of sitting by the pool, we made our way to the Siegfried and Roy Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, which was connect to the pool area in our hotel. The first part of the Habitat we came upon were the Dolphins, and we happened to enter the pools when they were doing a dolphin training. We sat back and watched for a bit and then headed under ground to watch the dolphins through the tank.

After we got our fill of dolphins, we headed to see the Secret Gardens, which was essentially a small area with lions and tigers. There were some tiger cubs though, which were cute, although difficult to get a good view off since a majority of the people in the place stood right in front of their cage. I kind of expected more from it but whatcha gonna do?

After we left the Habitat and Garden, we decided to resume our casino tour. We went to Treasure Island, the Wynn, the Venetian, the Palazzo, Harrah's and the Flamingo before heading back to the Mirage for our treat. Word to the wise, there is a complimentary shuttle service from the Mirage to Treasure Island and back.

After we completed our tour, we went back to our room to relax before our surprise.

At 4:30, we heard a knock at our door and opened it to find 2 masseuses with fold out tables. Our surprise was a private hour long massage from the Mirage's spa. Sooo relaxing! And, as soon as the women left, we heard another knock at our door and when we opened it, we were presented with a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. YUM!

After we enjoyed our strawberries and champagne, we headed to Caesar's Palace to dinner. M. and I wanted to eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa. However, the wait was much longer than we anticipated. Hungry, we wandered Caesar's until we found somewhere without a wait. We settled on Spago, which was delicious. I was totally OK with skipping out on Mesa.

Afterwards, we went back to the Mirage to drink, gamble and take funny pictures with the Beatles silhouette outside of the Cirque show, Love.

By the way, I was a winner . . . and we went to bed happy!

And that's a hot picture.

An Early Evening Smile

2010-10-27T16:42:00.000-04:00

These made me chuckle a little bit. I feel bad for the humiliation these dogs went through, but appreciate them for making me smile!

See more here.

What Happens in Vegas . . . Part II

2010-10-27T06:35:00.086-04:00

Day 2 of Las Vegas started at the pool. A word to the wise, if you stay at the Mirage, the pool gets packed by mid-morning. It opens at 8 (I think) and we were down there by 8:30 every morning. I know, we're wild.

The pool was pretty awesome. They had a few small waterfalls that M. and about 95% of the men at the pool were fascinated with. It also didn't hurt that there were servers taking drink orders. Yes please, screwdriver and bloody mary!

After M. got sick of sitting by the pool (usually by 11 every day), we went up, laid around and bit and then decided on what we would do that day. I suggested doing a bar crawl down the strip, which involved a drink in as many casinos as we could possibly hit. Our proof would be a picture of a cocktail napkin at each casino with our drinks. And so began what was probably our favorite night in Vegas.

So, how far did we get? We started at the Mirage, worked our way down to Luxor and back up to the Flamingo before crossing back into the Mirage. We did skip the Tropicana and Bally's because the entrance looked like more of a walk than we felt like making. Also, the map below doesn't show Aria, which is a newer casino before the Monte Carlo. I believe that made 11 casinos that we visited. I wish I could find out how far we walked because, whew were we tired!

Here's one of the same shot we took in every casino, just swap out the name on the napkin. We spent a lot of time in Caesar's the whole trip, mainly to cut in and out of the Bellagio.

In the Monte Carlo, we went into Minus 5 Degrees bar, which I believe they also have at Mandalay Bay. The bar is made entirely out of ice, including the cups that you drink out of, and it's minus 5 degrees (duh). You pay a flat fee to enter the bar and have a complimentary drink. They provide you with a warm jacket, gloves and Uggs to wear while in the bar, because it's too cold in regular clothing. Inside the bar, the have an ice luge, pretty neat etchings in the ice of Mt. Rushmore & other things and benches to sit on.

M. and I enjoyed 2 cocktails in there and ended up purchasing a suvenior photo. Honestly, it was all overpriced but a really cool experience.

I got a little excited when we hit New York, New York, and M. did too once we found out that they sold Nathan's hot dogs. MMMM!

And look who made an appearance. He was in one of those win a stuffed animal games. M. tried to win him for me, but he failed!

For some reason we turned around before we hit Mandalay Bay, which we kind of don't understand because it was the casino next to the Luxor, which we went to and it was the last one on the strip.

The MGM was pretty cool because we got to see the trainers with the lions as we entered.

As we exited MGM, we got a little turned around - we exited by the valet and ended up behind the casino, so we did about a 10 minute walk to get back to the strip. Not fun when you're tired and tipsy.

Here's the view of Planet Hollywood from above, when we bought tickets for Peep Show.

We then went to Paris, where we planned on riding to the top of the Effiel Tower. The wait was over an hour, which we nixed. So, we ate at a little bistro in the casino, which was terrible and a pretty bad way to end the evening.

We went to the Flamingo and had our final drink on the strip before heading back to the Mirage.

When we got back to the Mirage, we did some final gambling. According to M., I disappeared from him & he found me betting $10 on penny slots. I won $80, which was the most we won the whole trip.

We stumbled back to the room after I made my big win with sore feet, tired legs, full bellies and smiles on our faces. We had a truly memorable second day in Las Vegas.

More to come tomorrow . . .

A Halloween Scrooge

2010-10-26T17:17:00.000-04:00

I love Halloween. I like to say that it's my favorite holiday and each year I put a ton of effort into putting together a cute, unique and fun costume. However, this year I feel like a Halloween Scrooge. My ideal Halloween night would involve maybe doing a corn maze or something cute and fun in the afternoon, finding a house where I could hand out candy to kids and sitting on the couch to watch old school horror movies.

M. disagrees. The man hates dressing up and really Halloween as a whole, but he wants to go out. Unfortunately, nothing that our friends are doing sound particularly appealing to us. Maybe because we know that wherever we go, it's going to be packed and rowdy. I wish we could find something in the middle, but my online searches of Baltimore Halloween activities are coming up with a whole lot of nothing. I somehow ended up on a blog of kids activities for Halloween, and it all sounded so much more appealing to me than going out. In the words of Snooki, "WAH."

Here's my costume. Fortunately, I have most of the pieces, except for the knee socks. I am going to ask my dad to drop me off the highest pair of socks he owns & I'll make it work. "WAH."

PS - these are the senior girls from "Dazed and Confused." Shorts, check; sweatshirt, check; tennis shoes, check; high socks, NOPE!

Obviously, I'm trying to invoke Darla, because she's played by one of my favorite actresses.

I might end up walking around my neighborhood yelling, "Air raid" or telling people to "wipe that face off your head."

Ok, I'm done.

Help me find something to do!

What Happens in Vegas . . . Part I

2010-10-26T14:38:00.000-04:00

So, while I am waiting to really get our pro pics back, I figured it would be a good idea to recap our honeymoon. After the wedding, we gave ourselves a day of rest before traveling to Las Vegas. Basically, Vegas would be our "mini-moon" until we head to our true honeymoon destination of Greece in June 2011.

When it came to choosing our mini-moon location, we looked for a few things - 1. Southwest had to fly there (we used my mom's buddy passes and flew for free), 2. We wanted it to be warm, 3. Our hotel had to have a pool and 4. In addition to drinking & eating, there had to be stuff for us to do.

We threw out a few options that included New Orleans, Niagra Falls and Las Vegas. New Orleans was actually our #1 option, until BM DG pointed out that we would be going during hurricane season. Yea, I wasn't down with that! So, Las Vegas it was!

I had been to Las Vegas once before with my parents and brother for a family trip that included white water rafting down the Grand Canyon. Since I had experienced the city before, I was deemed the planner of our honeymoon.

We had stayed at the Mirage on my first trip, so I decided to just go ahead and book it again. I knew I liked it, I knew it had a pool and I liked it's location on the trip. Their website has deals for overnight trips and when I found a price for less than $100 a night, I went ahead and booked up for 5 days. I am really happy I made the decision to stay with what I knew because we really loved staying at the Mirage. I'd recommend it to anyone. We liked their restaurants, we liked the pool and we liked the overall appearance of the place. Plus, the price wasn't terrible.

Our first day in Las Vegas was very low key, mainly because we were exhausted from traveling. So, I took M. out and onto the strip to wander. We didn't go too far, just to Caesar's Palace (which is next to the Mirage), the Bellagio, the Wynn and the Venetian. One stand out was the conservatory in the Bellagio. The time before, it was decorated with a 50 states theme (I think). This time, it was all about fall! Lots of tree, pumpkins and beautiful fall colors. If you go to Las Vegas, make sure you walk through the conservatory. It's right off the hotel lobby and is small but really lovely. And look up at the ceiling when you walk through the lobby.

We gambled, had a few drinks and explored. Really nothing exciting, but I suppose we were relaxing for our next night . . .

More to come tomorrow . . .

** All the pictures were taken in the Bellagio, except that sign of the Mirage

A Picture in Taffeta

2010-10-25T17:23:00.000-04:00

Rumor has it, my brother's dog, Bugsy, is gloating over the fact that he made it on the blog. The other dog, Max, is not pleased.

So, this is my dress. My beautiful, beautiful dress. It is 100% absolutely not like anything I imagined I would wear on my wedding day. It had a big heavy skirt, no lace, beading, was strapless and had a corset. My ideal dress going into the store was not strapless, lace, flowy, almost bohemian. So yea, more proof that when you put on the one, you'll know.

I did purchase the bolero that went with it and wore the bolero during the ceremony and half of the pictures. We also had removeable straps added, which went missing as we dashed out of the house to get to the ceremony.

And now it is sitting my my old bedroom at my parent's house, just waiting to be stored somewhere.

If anyone is interested, it's the Rachael by Maggie Sottero. I loved it because it emphasized the positives (boobs and waist), de-emphasized the parts that I like least (butt and thighs) and just made me feel elegant. I think it was in ivory.

Photos by Procopio Photography. If you know what's best for you, hire them for your wedding (or any other special event). You won't regret it.

A Wedding Song

2010-10-22T21:58:00.000-04:00

M. and I shared our first dance to "To Make You Feel My Love" by Adele (originally sang by Bob Dylan (which I did not know until after the wedding, terrible Bob Dylan fan I am but first heard by me when it was covered by Garth Brooks in the film "Hope Floats"). I love that song, it gives me goose bumps and is beautiful.

But, tonight M. and I were watching a PBS special on Peter, Paul & Mary (don't hate on our awesome Friday night) and I heard the prettiest wedding song. I think anyone who reads this & is looking for a less known, non-country, simple & beautiful first dance song, should go with "Wedding Song: There is Love." Listen to it & enjoy.

Here's the lyrics:

He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts

Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part.
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love. There is Love.

Well, a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
They shall travel on to where the two should be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now until the end
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love. There is Love.

Well, then what's to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it Love that brings you here or Love that brings you life?
Or if loving is the answer, then who's the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you've never seen before?
Oh there's Love, oh there's Love.

Oh the marriage of your spirits here has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love. Ah there's Love.

A Sneak Peek

2010-10-21T06:10:00.006-04:00

Yesterday our photographers posted a sneak peek of our wedding pictures. For some reason it didn't appear on my Google Reader (who knows what else my Google Reader is hiding from me?!?), so thanks for Facebook and BM DG, I was figured out that they were up!

LOVE.

Take a look at Procopio Photography's Blog.

Happy Un-Baby Shower

2010-10-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

Tonight my girlfriends and I are throwing what I like to refer to as an "Un-Baby Shower" for our friend, JH. There's just going to be a small group of girls eating ice cream sundaes, drinking non-alcoholic drinks, decorating onesies and playing "What Sex is it" games. Basically everything that our 4 months pregnant friend, JH, enjoys or will enjoy. Considering that since she got knocked up, she's had to endure a bachelorette party, wedding, housewarming party and many other celebrations in which lots of alcohol present, I think it's only fair that we return the favor!

My responsibility for the party is bartender and I tell you guys what, I found the coolest non-alcholic drink book. It's called Preggatinis and I might be slightly obsessed with it.

The book is broken down into categories like "Pre-Pregnancy: Procreate" and "Second Trimester: Proclamate." In each section she has drink recipes that match what you might be craving at the time (yes, there is a chocolate and pickle milkshake), what vitamins you might need and just how to celebrate. One sections tell you how to order non-alcoholic versions of your favorite drink for when you go to the bar, and every recipe tell you how to make the drink alcoholic when you're permitted to imbibe again. So, it's great for before getting pregnant, while pregnant and after!

I selected 2 drinks from this book to make today, both of which have ingredients easily accessible at the grocery store (I went to Safeway). Some of the recipes have more obscure ingredients, but I feel like so many grocery stores these days have stepped up their game and have a wider variety of items. I was shocked by what I found at Safeway that I didn't think they would have, like Lemon Bitter and Blueberry Pomegranite Juice (both required in other recipes).

What I selected for this evening was the "Madras Mia" and the "Miami Mommy Mojito."

I'll be kind and give you one of the recipes, but I seriously recommend getting the book.

Miami Mommy Mojito
1 heaping tbsp of Strawberries
1 tbsp torn Basil
1 lime, cut into small chunks with the peel on
4 ounces Fre White Zinfindel alcohol-removed wine
Splash lemon-lime soda

Muddle strawberries, basil and lime in the bottom of a tall glass. Add ice. Fill with alcohol-removed White Zinfindel and finish with a splash of lemon-lime soda.

I'll let you guys know how the cocktails taste after tonight. It also looks like the author has a blog for those of you who might be curious to check it out!

We also had a brilliant idea for her baby shower gift that I am so excited to share. I just need to check with JF to make absolute certain that JH never makes her way onto this blog. I am certain she doesn't, but I just want to be safe!

Switching Things Up

2010-10-19T16:57:00.000-04:00

Things have been quiet over here lately. But truth be told, between the wedding, honeymoon and California (for work), I am just now really getting settled in from everything.

I'm hoping to do a honeymoon recap later this week or early next week. Until then, I am just waiting for a sneak peek of the wedding from my photographer and desperately trying to find new decorating/craft/inspiration blogs to fill up my Google Reader since I've deleted the many wedding blogs that I had been following for the last 3 years. M. and I keep saying that it's such a weird adjustment to go from planning a wedding for the last 9 months (and more if you count us talking about it pre-engagement) and one day it's all over. I was ready for it to be over, but it felt so weird to me when I started deleting those blog and got rid of all my inspiration pictures saved on my computer. Now it really is time to move on from wedding planning and get on with other things.

Maybe now I can finally make those wire wrapped bracelets that I bought $50 of beads for. I already have an idea for the large mason jars we used as luminaries for the reception . . . I just need to not be lazy and start crafting!

We did do something big this last weekend . . . we bought ourselves a couch and a new bed. Thanks to all you folks who gave us wedding money, we were able to replace a bed that has been used for over 10 years - first used by my sister-in-law, then her & her husband when they combined and then me & Mike. It has now made its way back into her house and is sitting in her guest bedroom, just waiting on someone new to sleep on it, although my money is on the first guest in that bed being me & M.

Our lovely couch is replacing one that my aunt gave us, that had been sitting in her basement in storage after being used to many years as the family sofa. It was red & green checked. Very comfortable, but after we decided to forego our gray slipcover (it was just too much of a bother), it never went with the decor.

Besides our car, this was one of our first big purchases we made and one that we made with the future in mind . . . these are going to be pieces in our new home one day and the couch we'll sit on when I nurse our children one day. Not just throw away pieces that we gathered from other people. And knowing that made turning over our debit card much more exciting than I thought it would be.

Now, we can't have a post without pictures . . . . so, here's the couch in its new place.

Now, the tan still doesn't match the decor (even though it does better than green and red check), so we're going to do a little repainting and new artwork. We're going from gray, yellow and blue to tan, brown, orange and green. I am really excited to revamp the living room a little bit with a few easy and affordable fixes.

The design below is the fabric we're putting on our pillows. We're going to paint the room a bright pear green. I've designed a scrabble tile-inspired print with the first letter of my new last name and the new orange candles that I brought it for Halloween but M. decided should just stay.

I really can't wait to get started this weekend! Living in an apartment, I feel like it's difficult to want to redecorate or put in the effort to switch things up because I'm eventually going to leave all that work behind, but I have been itching to change a few things in the apartment and think this will do the trick!

Heading to the Hills

2010-10-08T16:33:00.000-04:00

I am heading to California for a work conference this week. The conference begins on Sunday, but a co-worker and I are heading there on Saturday to explore a little bit. My co-worker is renting a car and we're going to head to L.A. or Beverly Hills and just get lost there for a little bit and maybe catch a few celebs and pretend like we're fancy.

So, I know what to pack while working, but I have no clue what to wear while in L.A. I want to look like I fit in a little bit and not like I'm a silly tourist. I know East Coast fashion (although I might not always adhere to it) but West Coast fashion I'm clueless about. All I know is what I see in People Magazine and I don't really have it. As of now, I hate my closet.

I emailed my fashionista friend, Anne (who is also a wedding planner in Charlotte, the girl is brilliant!). She suggested black leggings with boots for day and heels for night or skinny jeans with a cute top with flats for day and heels at night. She also told me that she generally looks to Jennifer Aniston's style, since she's pretty much a quintessential all-American California girl. This is how I feel about Jennifer Anistons though . . . SNOOZE.

Now, with my thick legs and round derriere, I usually shy away from leggings. But, I took Anne's advice into serious consideration and started Google Image searching one of my favorite California girls . . . this is so embarrasing . . . Lauren Conrad. The girl is right in line with Anne's recommendations of leggings and skinny jeans for California style.

Poor L.C.'s head got cut off when I put together this board.

But, I can do this! I have skinny jeans & cute casual tops & I have a maxi dress!

Tonight I am going to raid my closet and put together a kick ass hanging around L.A. outfit a la L.C. Maybe I'll post pictures.

My slight love of her is definitely a guilty pleasure. Considering that I lost brain cells whenever I watched "The Hills," I have no clue why I do. Maybe because she always seems so normal and I always thought she looked so cute (so was Heidi before she became a monstrosity).

And, look at how cute this picture of her with her BFF, Lo Bosworth is. Their shoes even match.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes!

2010-10-05T14:33:00.000-04:00

Now that I am a Mrs. and am changing my name, I decided to make a move and change my email address to pass. Since I didn't want to lose all the emails in my old account, I am slowly transferring them over to my new one. Gmail makes this easy on me by doing it through the click of the button (I was also able to easily move over my contacts & items in my Google reader from one account to the other). Now, as my old emails enter into my new address, I still need to archive them. It's a bit of a pain, seeing as though I've had my Gmail account since 2007. There are a lot of emails.

It's been kind of cool seeing where I was when I first started my account - single, in New York with my first real job - and where I have come. I have emails from when good friends have gotten married or moved or moved on. Emails from when I was so broke that I had to ask my parents for money. Emails from when I moved apartment in New York and when I moved back to Maryland. Hundreds of wedding inspiration emails archived from when I first decided that I would marry M. (about 2 - 3 years before we actually got married.

My favorite emails to look at though are the sweet romantic emails M. wrote to me during the year and a half that we dated long distance. I'd frequently come to work to little poems or emails that we called "Easter Eggs" - brightly colored, large fonted declarations of love. We were a couple who really thrived while dating long distance, and these special emails are a reminder of why. We were never short on love for each other and we never shied away from showing it. These emails made me smile then and make me smile now as I click through and save them to special folders.

Here's one of the emails, and since I'm checking in . . . a tiny peek into our wedding day.

I'm taking a moment out to look over our cocktail hour and to enjoy a delicious snowball . . . yes, we served snowballs at our wedding. We're that awesome.

Reckless Adventures in Love
Over a year now for Kate and Mike
sharing a love that is dreamlike
and not a thing can part
the bond of their hearts
much like Nicholas and Smike

No Rest for the Weary

2010-09-26T21:57:00.000-04:00

We had an awesome wedding night! I'll write more about how amazing it was, but before we leave for Las Vegas, I wanted to spread the word about the one negative we had with the night. It was our hotel, the only real hotel in the direct vicinity of the reception. Honestly, we would have been much better off getting a room at one of the other nearby hotels, but we thought staying at Turf Valley would be the best idea. It was about a minute away from our after-party location, it's a resort and supposedly nice and really, what could go wrong? Lots!

It's easier for you to read my letter of complaint to Turf Valley than give another explanation, so read the below . . . If you don't feel like reading, the lesson learned is that I think you should never stay there. For your own sanity, don't!

OK, now read, if you want . . .

I made a reservation to stay overnight at Turf Valley on my wedding day. At the end of the night, we were so frustrated with the lack of respect and service provided to us by your staff, that we opted to go home rather than stay in your hotel. It was an extremely disappointing end to our special night, and I hold Turf Valley and its staff entirely responsible for that.

My husband arrived in the afternoon and was given a very difficult time by the staff about checking in because the reservation had been under my name and not his. After going back and forth with the staff and informing them that it was our wedding day and he had arrived to get ready, the front desk staff begrudgingly allowed him to get a key for our room.

Upon arriving in the room, my husband and his groomsmen noticed an inordinate amount of stinkbugs. Because of the time crunch the men had to get ready, they got dressed and chose not to complain at the time. However, later in the evening, we called the hotel, explained the stinkbug situation and asked whether we could be moved to a different room, one where we wouldn't have to worry about sleeping in a room filled with bugs. The staff member who fielded our call essentially dismissed our complaint and simply stated that stinkbugs were a problem in our area with no additional explanation or move to honor our request. Again, we had to forcefully ask to have our room switched before she reluctantly agreed to switch our room and shift our items to the new one.

We arrived at Turf Valley after our reception and were excited to head up to our room and relax. We re-checked in and explained to woman at the front desk our conversation earlier in the evening. She told us that our items should have been moved to the room and gave us the key. When we arrived in the new room, we saw that our belongings were not there. Our bags had never been moved. At this point, we were exceedingly frustrated with the apathetic attitude we had been treated with that we decided it would be in our best interest to go home. I called down to the front desk, informed the woman of our frustration and told her that we were opting to check-out. We then proceeded back down to the lobby and were informed that we had to wait for security to arrive at the front desk before he would go up to the room and bring us our bags. Due to the incompetency of your staff thus far, we asked for a key to the original room so we could retrieve our belongings ourselves. When we left the key at the front desk as we were leaving, the staff member barely looked up from her computer. We were never given an apology, explanation or even an acknowledgement of the lack of quality service given to us.

Considering that Turf Valley touts itself as being a luxury resort in our area, we expected to be treated with respect and to have a nice experience. However, we realized that the service ended once we handed over our credit card to pay for our room. We were clearly not looked at as though we were guests to the staff at Turf Valley, we were simply profit. We paid $182.00 to be dismissed at every request, to be treated as though we were a burden and to drive home at 2:00 a.m. on our wedding night.

We will not only never stay at Turf Valley again, but we will be sure to discourage any of our friends and family members from staying at the hotel. No one deserves to be treated in the manner that we were treated, especially not when they are celebrating a special occasion.

Clearly, nothing can be done to take back our wedding night. However, I do hold Turf Valley and its staff responsible for the negative ending we had and the fact that we were not able to simply go, rest and enjoy our first night as husband and wife.

A Welcome Surprise

2010-09-22T07:44:00.000-04:00

When we first started wedding planning, I had my little list of stuff we don't want . . . like favors (FAIL), programs (FAIL) and guestbook (FAIL). Surprisingly enough, the guestbook is the fail I mind the least. You see, it turned into M. and his brother's special project.

M. suggested writing a kid's book style guestbook when we were walking around at my cousin's wedding. Because of his enthusiasm, I told him to go ahead and make it. He decided that he would write it and have his brother illustrate it. I had no active role in the project at all, in fact, I didn't get to see it until M. brother presented me with the final product.

Let me tell you guys, it's awesome. They went above and beyond and put together a book that I can't wait to show our future children. This is probably the coolest guestbook anyone will ever see on face of this Earth. No kidding.

So, here we go . . .

And here's where people sign in the back!

Pardon the watermark, it was per M.'s request.

I was so amazed at how much thought was put into the book. It's truly one of my favorite part of the whole wedding planning process!

Another Project Down, Part V

2010-09-20T19:28:00.000-04:00

THE FINAL PROJECT DOWN! Yes! Let's see whether I can coast through the rest of this week relatively stress free!

These are our escort card bookmark favors! The printer I used, Consolidated Graphics, located in Sykesville, MD, did an amazing job on these bookmarks and my programs. I use them for work on a weekly basis and so when I realized that I didn't feel like printing the bookmarks and programs myself, I asked for their help. I couldn't recommend Consolidated Graphics enough, if you need a printer in the area, give them a call. Chuck is one of the nicest guys I've met and it really shows through his work!

And now onto my beautiful bookmarks. I can hardly stop staring at them! I wish I could capture the texture in the photos. It's really beautiful.

The different color ribbon will signal to the servers who gets what meal. The light pink means filet mignon, the gray means bacon wrapped chicken stuffed with bleu cheese and almonds, the bright pink means dietary restrictions/vegetarian meal. Hopefully people keep their bookmarks out so the servers can see them!

Getting Down!

2010-09-16T04:13:00.002-04:00

We completed another task before the end of August. It's just that it's taken me this long to write about it.

If there's anyone out there who is looking for decent intrumental bluegrass music (although some of the music in the processional does have words, most of it is instrumental though), please feel free to snag some of these tunes from me. I spent a few hours at work over the span of a week listening to the bluegrass music on my MP3 player to create that list.

I'm just hoping that people boogie and when I was creating my list for the reception, I figured it's easier to put aside the fact that I might not love "Play that Funky Music White Boy" and that I might prefer a more lesser known song, and really list songs that everyone might love to dance to. Whether it's my 80 year old grandmother or 15 year old cousin. I hope I captured that. I think our cocktail hour and dinner music is more us . . . more bluegrass-country music and mellow indie tunes, but we're not asking anyone to boogie then, so it's cool to put that there!

So, please enjoy . . . If this posts tiny, click on it to make the list bigger!

Hair Trial: After

2010-09-14T19:30:00.000-04:00

So, the other day I showed you my hair inspiration . . . so, how about the after shots?

The orange ribbon represents the headband I am wearing on the wedding day . . .

I was pretty happy with how the hair turned out, until about 2 hours later, when it started falling down.

Please forgive my lack of make-up and tired face . . .

See the wonky tendril & all the loose baby hairs? That drives me crazy. And, considering that we paid $65 for the trial, I would have expected the style to stay together for more than 2 hours, especially since that 2 hours consisted of watching the Baltimore Ravens game (they won. Whoot whoot!).

This is what I hate!

So, I walked away happy with the concept but not totally happy with the execution. I know that we played around with the looseness & everything while in the chair, which is why it might be falling out. And, she said that it'll be shellaced to my head more on the wedding day. We also agreed that it needs some extra height at the crown, bump-it style! So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

Hair!

2010-09-13T06:01:00.025-04:00

Today is my hair trial. The girl doing my hair is a different girl than I originally wanted to do my hair. The girl I originally wanted left the salon and no one told us until my mom called to make her own appointment with the girl. It left us rather disappointed that no one contacted us to inform us of that but oh well, these things happen.

I am bringing this inspiration along with me. I'm thinking low, kind of casual but dressy looking up-do.

Oh, and I had my make-up done a few weeks back . . . I looked for celebrities who also have pale skin, light brown hair, a darker eyebrow and light eyes. I ended up gravitating towards Jenna Fischer and Kate Winslet. I told her I wanted to look glamorous-natural and I wanted to glow!

She worked her magic and I love the result! All the make-up used was Bobbi Brown. Ooo la la, I am so fancy!

Here's a close-up on the eyes after sitting around and watching tv in my make-up for a few hours . . . she went more with the grays, leaning most heavily on the Kate Winslet picture on the bottom right.

Forgive my unruly eyebrows and large pores and that wrinkle in between my eyebrows!

Let's hope hair turns out just as great! Fingers crossed.

Our "Calm Before the Storm" Weekend Getaway

2010-09-12T21:05:00.000-04:00

M. and I have had a very busy summer and we're about to hit our busiest time of year. Next weekend we have our rehearsal dinner (yes, a whole week before the wedding) and then our wedding. We're 13 days away and are preparing ourselves for chaos. So, when we realized that we had this weekend free, we asked my aunt if we could stay at her beach house in Bethany Beach, DE for a quiet weekend of alone time. No chores, no errands, no nothing except enjoying time together.

We arrived in Bethany Friday evening and immediately went for BBQ at one of our favorite places to eat, Bethany Blues. After dinner, we walked along the Bethany boardwalk, hand in hand, staring at the ocean, the people enjoying the fleeting warm days we're still having and all the families with small children. It was so nice and relaxing.

We slept in on Saturday morning (until 10:30 a.m., woo hoo!) and then headed to Ocean City, MD so M. could do the one errand he wanted to do all weekend, get a Droid cell phone. It took us over an hour to get him hooked up with one, but he has it and it's awesome. Then we went to do the one thing M. loves doing the most when we're at the beach, putt putt!

After putt-putt, we were pretty hungry, so we made our way to Ocean City's most popular place to go out and be outside, Seacrets. Now, Seacrets isn't really our scene at nighttime (we're not club people and the place becomes one big beach club with a wide assortment of people, and you have to go through a metal detector), but I heard it's pretty fun in the daytime (I like daytime drinkers), so we made our way there. 2 Red Stripes and a chicken salad later and we were full and happy.

After relaxing at home for a few hours, we made our way to Dewey Beach for dinner and drinks. We ate at a hawaiian surf bar called Nalu. It had pretty good standard bar food, nothing special but then again, we didn't try their Hawaiian-themed food. I did have a pineapple frozen cocktail which was amazing. We left as two bachelorette parties came in and surveyed our options for getting another drink. Across from Nalu was one of Dewey's more popular bars, the Rusty Rudder, which was already insanely crowded. Next to Rusty Rudder was a bar that I spied while eating called Que Pasa. It looked like they had a bar connected to the restaurant portion that sat on the beach, faced the bay & was all open. My beelined it there. And it was awesome.

You could sit inside at the bar, or do what we did and grab a chair or table on the sand. It was so peaceful and relaxing and perfect. It's officially our favorite bar in Dewey.

You can't really see it well here, but this is Que Pasa from the back . . . you can kind of make out the chairs & tables on the beach.

My toes weren't exactly in the sand, but they were close!

We left the bar when our meter ran out and headed back to the beach house to sit on the porch and smoke our cigars. We also might have watch Aladdin. Yea awesome Disney movies.

We woke up to a rainy Sunday, which meant our plans to walk along the boardwalk one last time before the end of the year had to be cancelled. Instead we went to the outlets, bought M. a pair of socks, saw the traffic heading to the other set of outlets (the Rehobeth outlets are broken into 3 locations) and headed home for lunch. We grabbed some Grotto's pizza, relaxed a bit more & then headed home. We were very sad for our weekend of relaxation to end but really had an amazing time.

Crossing the Bay Bridge, almost home!

We were both so happy to have taken our "Calm Before the Storm" weekend. If you're planning a wedding and can do one too, I highly recommend it. We're now going into the home stretch rejuvenated and ready to taken on the final days of wedding planning!

Another Project Down, Part IV

2010-09-09T21:10:00.000-04:00

Seriously guys, I'm on a roll!

One of the baskets we're using to hold programs will also be used to collect cards and gifts. Of course, I had to make a sign so people will know that! I don't like how it flops down in the middle though, so hopefully some zots will help hold it up!

Bridesmaids, Done!

2010-09-09T08:58:00.006-04:00

As of this week, all my girls should have their shoes purchased, which means that their ensembles will be finalized. Want a little peek at what we'll see them in?

I think they'll look lovely!

Another Project Down, Part III

2010-09-08T20:49:00.000-04:00

More signs! This is most likely the last project until I can get cracking on the escort card bookmarks. Hopefully it won't be too big of a nightmare.

M. and I are going to the beach this weekend for the calm before the storm. I am so ready for it!

PS - do you like my fake chalkboards? When chalkboard spray paint rejects plastic and you run out of paint and glass frames, you need to be resourceful and make fakes. It's black posterboard framed with a little bit of chalk rubbed over it. I used my sweet bistro chalk markers & wrote on top of the glass/plastic. And that's how you get fake chalkboards. I think it turned out looking nice enough, even though I wanted all my signs to be real chalkboards . . . At least we made the table numbers real chalkboards. Unless someone snags them, we'll have 12 left after the wedding . . . I guess I know what Christmas presents this year will be!

Another Project Down, Part II

2010-09-07T20:49:00.000-04:00

Yes, I ended up changing my tale numbers. Oy!

The Name is A-changin'

2010-09-07T06:50:00.000-04:00

So, I am taking M.'s name after the wedding. Actually, I am tagging his name onto my current name, so I will be Kate MiddleName MaidenName MarriedName. No hyphen. And, I will primarily go by Kate MarriedName, except for when I sign paperwork.

We all know I am kind of lazy, so my plan for changing my name started with not actually changing my name and just telling M. that I did. Then it eventually turned into paying $30 for MissNowMrs, a site where you enter in your personal information and they drop it into all the paperwork you need to do to change your name, so all you have to do is mail the proper forms (and sometimes wait in line). But then I decided that being cheap might be better than being lazy. Enter Google.

I typed in Maryland name change and came across this glorious site!

It broke down the name change process into 2 simple steps: Primary Name Change Notification (notifying government agencies of the name change) and Secondary Name Change Notification (which covers insurance, bills, work, etc.). Each step gives you an easy checklist of the relevant organizations and such in that category, and even better, directs you to the link so you can download the paperwork yourself. I've already printed off my name change information for my drivers license and social security card. Next on the list is my passport.

So now, when we get back from the honeymoon, I'll be already to change my name, which is perfect!

Even better, you can use this site for all states and it's free. Awesome.

Pink + Gray

2010-09-03T05:49:00.005-04:00

Source via Here

Photo Sharing Site . . . Worth It or Not?

2010-09-01T06:26:00.001-04:00

Even though we're paying our lovely photographers a ton of money to capture our day, I am obviously going to want any and all photos that our guests take too. It's from the guests that you sometimes get more candid moments or shots of stuff that we might not see as we wander around, saying hello to everyone and dancing. Ideally, immediately after the wedding, all our guests who took photos will go home, upload their pictures and email them to me. Ideally. But, I know that's not going to happen. Some people might post the photos on Facebook, some might email them to me within days or months, some might just never send them to me, holding onto them to admire alone.

It seems as though a popular way to corral guest photos is by setting up a photo sharing site, so when they upload pictures to their camera, there is one simple place where they can put them, for all to see. Typically the word of this is spread via a post card or business card that gives the link to the site, password and so on. I love this idea and it seems like a really simple way to get pictures from those who are willing to share. I liked it so much so, that I went online to irave and set up my account. I liked that with irave, people can just email in the pictures, which seems appealing for maybe the less technologically saavy guests. And, when bored one day, I designed the cards.

But, is it worth it or not? Will people actually use the site? Or, will the only people who use it be the 4 people who would send me their pictures anyway?

It's not a cost thing because I know I can go to Vistaprint and get 100 cards for a dirt cheap rate. But, I don't want to waste the paper, give the guests something else to take home (aside from my programs, their bookmarks/escort cards and kazoo . . . yes, I bought them) and add another project on my plate if a minimal amount of people use the photo sharing site. And, like I said, will the people who use it be the people who were going to email me their pictures anyway?

Any advice or input on this?

Another Project Down, Part I

2010-08-26T06:33:00.010-04:00

Clearly I can't stop posting . . . I don't have a whole lot of content, but I'm going to slowly and progressively show you my final tasks as they happen. It's so nice seeing it all come together.

Engagement picture window, to go somewhere . . . maybe the escort card table?

1 Month Away!

2010-08-25T06:21:00.000-04:00

This is the home stretch!

Like my programs and kazoos? The bottom basket is too big, but eh. I don't really care. I like the basket. Both will double as card baskets for our wedding gifts/cards.

A Mountain Wedding

2010-08-24T03:51:00.000-04:00

You know when you see a wedding and you can almost imagine being there. This is one of those weddings for me. It's beautiful. I can seriously picture the soft grass under my feet, the warmth of the sunshine on my arms and sweet crisp mountain air.

Love it. I want my wedding to feel like that. Like warm, soothing fresh air. Like fun and happiness. And like love.

Source via Here

Beautiful Flowers!

2010-08-21T05:35:00.000-04:00

I know, I just wrote my "Over It" post and threatened to not post much between now & the wedding. It's still mostly truly. But, I HAVE to show you these amazing florals done by the florist for our wedding, Local Color Flowers. They're flipping awesome! I have to say, these might be my favorite ones that they have done ever.

Sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers of all time, but sunflowers at weddings always feel a little too country kitchen sunflowery to me . . . almost like they become dominant and part of the theme. I love how they incorporated these sunflowers in their florals though.

I love these little tiny flowers that kind of look like Daisies (also another favorite flower of mine . . but, the simple white & yellow ones, not Gerbera). I think 95% of the pictures of flowers I have saved have these little Daisy-esque flowers in them.

Can we talk about how excited I am that Dahlias are supposed to be one of the flowers I get for my wedding day? They might be one of the coolest flowers ever. Look at that pink and yellow one!

And the finales . . . Words cannot describe how divine these bouquets are. They rendered me speechless. They are perfection. I even dare to say that they are beyond perfection. I would feel honored to carry these.

It's seeing pictures like these that help lift me out of my wedding funk. Thank you Ellen for posting them.

Source via Here but view more Here. Go check them out!

Over It!

2010-08-20T06:50:00.006-04:00

I’m over it. I know, not the best way to title a blog post. I’m not over getting married to M. or anything like that, I am just kind of over wedding planning. I am just ready for it to happen. I don’t want to make any more decisions or plan or organize. I just kind of want to show up at the Conservancy on the 25th and be directed to walk down the aisle. I don’t really want to think about anything else related to the wedding, I don’t feel like tying up loose ends. I just want it to magically come together here in my final month and a half. Clearly, that is not going to happen. I guess it’s good enough to know that there’s only about 6 weeks left and any decisions I make from here are final decisions. Projects are all slowly being wrapped up and boxed up for Felicity or my caterer or my florist. And, in about 6 weeks, I get to be married to M. and go on vacation. I am so looking forward to that vacation.

I want to know how girls who have a 2 year engagement do it. I would be so sick of wedding planning by then!

Projects I have left are:

Take a photo of the image I want to use on our wedding thank you cards (there is actually a street name that is KatesXXXX Road and it intersects with MikesXXXX Road. There is an intersection of our married names, how cool is that?)
Paint one of the baskets being used by our greeter/program hander outer
Order engagement photos to mount in a 6-pane window frame
Mount said pictures
Take the remaining photos of our table numbers
Mount our table numbers and menus
Find a large frame or mirror or something to spray paint and make into a chalkboard
Escort cards . . . start them! They can’t be done until I have all the RSVPs done though, so it’s my final project
Figure out table seating
Make sure I have the proper amount of jars and vases for the florist

This doesn’t include any follow-up of ongoing stuff with any of our vendors. And I am sure I am missing stuff, that is just inevitable.

But yea, I am burned out and kind of over the wedding. Not over it in that I don’t want it to happen, because the day is going to be awesome. But, I am over the tasks. They’ll get done, just not with the vigor that they were done 8 months ago.

I am mainly writing this to say that posting will be light over the next 6 weeks. I really don’t have many fun and exciting projects to share. All of our pre-wedding events are over for the most part. We’re just waiting for the big day. I’ll pop up here and there, but maybe now once a week or slightly less. Don’t be offended, it’s not you. It’s me!

Showered with Love

2010-08-18T06:02:00.002-04:00

I have a confession, I not only chose the theme of my bridal shower, but I practically forced it upon the people planning it. I know it’s kind of bridal shower cliché, but I wanted a tea party. I wanted to sip out of little tea cups and eat little sandwiches and I wanted to drink cocktails. Months before the shower, I might have sent my mom links to tea party blog posts, you know, just in case she needed inspiration.

Needless to say, I got what I asked for and it was awesome. I don’t know which is more awesome actually . . . was it the vintage tea cups that MOH JC’s mom started collecting from thrift stores months in advance; the adorable pink polka dotted nametags that everyone wore; my favorite tea sandwiches from Beans on the Belfry in Brunswick, MD (carrot ginger filling on cinnamon raisin bread, how did I not steal 500 leftovers? Oh yea, because they were all eaten); the homemade quiches; the amazing cupcake stand made out of thrifted plates and tea cups; my favorite cupcake flavor that filled that stand (vanilla cake with chocolate icing, thank you); the peanut butter cookies my aunt made that I didn’t discover until the end of the day; the delicious sangria we got to sip out of the thrifted tea cups; the adorable favors of custom tea bags and honey sticks; the collection of tea pots filled with fresh flowers all of the house; or any one of the 10,000 little details that I haven’t listed above. Honestly, I think my favorite thing was just being surrounded by the women I love and knowing that they did all of the stuff they did for me. Like I said in my bachelorette party post, they all just made me feel so special and loved. That is an amazing feeling.

Oh, and I also learned that M. told BM JF which “How Well Do You Know Your Fiance” questions I had been practicing with, so she only asked 4 that I knew the answers too. My mouth was grossly full of bubblegum. Not pretty.

Here’s the highlight reel!

Wine! Wine! Wine!

2010-08-16T10:32:00.000-04:00

We celebrated my bachelorette party this weekend. It was really everything that I wanted . . . it was a low-key relaxed fun day. No wild late nights with strippers, no tiaras or sashes, no sloppy messes, just good and simple fun.

Oh, and this is going to be long because it’s going to be a review of the wineries we visited, in case anyone is reading who might want to plan something similar. So, here are my picture highlights in the beginning, and if you want to read more, scroll down past the photo highlights.

The day was scheduled around the Maryland Wineries Association Mason Dixon Wine Trail. The Mason Dixon Wine Trail consists of 8 wineries in Maryland and Pennsylvania. We visited 4 of them, which includes Basignani, Woodhall, Fiore and Boordy. We planned on ending the night at Boordy to participate in their weekly summer Dancing Under the Stars event. If you have any interest in doing a wine tour in Maryland for a bachelorette party or for any other event, there are a number of trails. There is a trail along the eastern shore, in Frederick and Montgomery Counties, Calvert & St. Mary’s Counties and so on. I am sure they are all unique. Just keep in mind that this is part of Maryland Tourism and the Maryland Wineries Association, from what I can tell, there’s no set organized wine tour that you can just jump in on. They more so offer a guide for you to organize yourself.

We started at BM JF’s apartment, where we snacked on bagels, drank some beer and waited for our limo. BM JF and MOH JC had favors for all of us, which were amazing. BM JF painted wine glasses with glass paint, so we could all have a personalized wine glasses for the day. They had pink & purple polka dots on them. Enough said, right? They were perfect. MOH JC put together goodies bags with water, Gatorade, cheez-its, granola bars, Flintstone vitamins, aspirin and I think some other little snack. We drank almost non-stop from 11 a.m. until about 11 p.m. I woke up with no hangover. If you’re putting together a bachelorette party, take a cue from BM JF and MOH JC and give these gifts.

We jumped in the limo and headed for Basignani, which was our first stop for the day. I don’t know if any of you had been on wine tours before. I went on one on Long Island a few years back and these vineyards we visited today were dramatically different. While on Long Island, most of the wineries had huge tasting rooms and were more tourist driven, these were for the most part, very small wineries. You could tell that their focus was on wine and that they were opening up more for tourism. So, as we navigated our way through small windy roads and arrived at locations where we were almost unsure if it was someone’s house or a tasting room, I felt like we got a pretty good idea of how these businesses run. You felt a bit more of the agriculture of things, these people are hard working farms and their crop is the wine.

Most of our locations had a tasting fee of around $5, give or take. BM JF had collected everyone’s money prior to the day and had everything ready for us to get paid up and ready to taste. Basignani basically let us go down their complete list of wines, and my favorite was their Seyval. The staff at Basignani was overall friendly and welcoming, they asked us lots of questions about our bachelorette party and were patient when all seven of us had to use the restroom before tasting.

The next stop was Woodhall. We got back on the windy country roads and headed straight for it. I wish I had gotten the name of the woman who led our tasting because she was really great. She was fun, friendly, welcoming to our bachelorette party and really set a standard for what we wanted from our tasting. Again, she went right down the list and let us try everything. After tasting, we were welcomed onto their beautiful back porch for our picnic lunch. We weren’t rushed, we were just permitted to lounge about, drink wine and eat. Oh, and we all generally liked all their wines. I bought a Pinot Noir, but can’t think of anything that I genuinely thought wasn’t good.

After lunch we headed to Fiore, and this was probably the biggest disappointment of the day. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with our tasting there, it’s just that we all felt as though we met a lot of resistance with some of our requests. Fiore was hosting a wedding there that day, but we had been given the OK to come and taste. It was good fun to pull up and see the grounds, which were beautiful on their own, decorated for a wedding. We entered and began tasting. It was communicated to us that we should all just choose what we want to taste separately because we wouldn’t be able to taste all of their 20-something wines . . . we weren’t able to go down the list like we had at the other places. Understandable, because they had about double the amount of wine as the other two places had. But, we all wanted to taste together, so I started just choosing wines at random. We hit a little road block when I requested to sample a Cabernet Sauvignon, to which we were informed that it was not open. And, by their lack of an offer to open one for our group for tasting, we never got to sample it. That was kind of weird to us because a Cabernet Sauvignon is a fairly common wine, so we didn’t quite get why they wouldn’t open it, but we weren’t given an explanation, so that was that.

As we kept sampling and enjoying ourselves, we were informed by the woman serving us that we were only permitted to sample 6 of the wines and we were essentially at the end of our rope. BM JF asked if we could pay extra to sample more, to which she was told no. We asked why, to which we were given a general explanation that most people who stop by are part of the wine trail and have already consumed wine and they don’t want them to drive loaded. To which we remarked that we had a limo and it wasn’t a big deal. We got a big final fat no and that was that. I know broken down, neither of these things sound like a huge deal, but the vibe we all got was that they had no interest in accommodating their guests and almost as though we should just go.

But, we had time budgeted to hang out at the winery, so we waited around and took a tour. The tour was nice and pretty short, but we got to see where they bottled and labeled their wine, we got to see their barrels . . . all that fun stuff. After the tour we decided that we would purchase some wine to take home and get 2 bottles to hang out and drink before we needed to make it to our next destination. I went in and asked for 2 bottles of Prosecco, which had been our favorite wine. I was informed that they didn’t have any refrigerated Prosecco, so that wasn’t an option. At that point, we were done with hitting dead ends with the staff at Fiore. So, we went outside, laid out our blanket and had a few snacks before making it to Boordy. So, clearly we weren’t ecstatic with our tasting there. I don’t want to make us come off as brats who expected everything we wanted served on a platter, but I want to be honest if anyone reading this wants to take a tour and just say that our experience at Fiore was disappointing when compared to the experiences we had at Basignani and Woodhall. Where we were greeted with warmth and staff who were happy to accommodate our group, we felt the complete opposite with Fiore. Had they not had a wedding going on that day or had we come earlier, maybe it would have been different. Who knows.

Next stop was Boordy, which I believe is the most commercial of the wineries on our tour. They have regular events, I believe they are more widely distributed than the other wines and their grounds are definitely made for tourism. They had a dancing under the stars event that began at 5 p.m. We got to Boordy about 30 to 45 minutes ahead of time and got into line. BM JF waved down some of the staff and asked them about where we could put our cooler and bottles of wine purchased along the trail, because we knew that we were only permitted to drink Boordy wine at their facility. They were very friendly and helped us with everything we needed help with. They permitted us to leave our things in a storage barn until the end of the night, which was great because we really didn’t have a plan B if they didn’t let us bring all our newly acquired wine inside.

We were finally let inside, we claimed a table and then did exactly what the event called for us to do, we ate, we drank and we danced. We didn’t do any sampling, which is fine because most of us had been to Boordy before, and because of that, we didn’t get the intimate tasting experience that we had at the other 3 places. But, by the time we reached Boordy, I think we were ready to just cut loose anyway. We were a little tasted out. I swear time flied when we were at Boordy because next thing I knew, it was 9 p.m. and time to go home. We had an SUV taxi pick us up and as we drove off, we ended my bachelorette party.

Some of us returned to BM JF’s apartment for late night pizza, beer and girl talk. We all took our vitamins, drank our water, popped an aspirin (with an open bottle of water and another packet of aspirin by the bed for when we wake up). It was the end to a great day of simple fun with my favorite girlfriends. I could not have been happier.

The more that you get into wedding planning, you kind of become an ostrich with your head buried on the wedding. There are projects and meeting and so on and so on, which mean plenty of times that you feel like you’re taking on the world alone. Between my bridal shower and bachelorette party, I was completely overwhelmed with the amount of time, effort and love that my friends put into my special events. I feel and see love from them on an almost daily basis, but never so outwardly and obvious. I can’t really say that there have been more times that I have just flat out felt special. And, I truly thank my girls for giving that to me.

Next to come, pictures from my bridal shower!