*Yawn*

It's been a long day!

However, I was fortunate enough to get to spend the evening doing arts and crafts. I know, I know, I've got WAY too much to read and do to be spending an evening (a weeknight, at that) doing arts and crafts, however! I was making the invitations for Kortney's 23rd Birthday She-Bang, and I'm very excited. I think they're very cute, if I do say so myself. They're pretty simply, but, they're pretty nonetheless... AND, it was a labor of love, so what can ya say.

I can't express to everyone how good it is to get to go home at the end of the day and get to decide my own plans for the evening. Also, I can actually look forward to the weekend without worrying about whether or not I have to rush into the hospital to work, blegh! It's a beautiful and liberating feeling.

I haven't even begun my wedding invitations, although I do have the PDF made out and everything, ready to print. I will print soon enough, I am just too tired and lazy to right now. And let's not forget all that reading I mentioned just a second ago.

Here is the wedding invitation wording:

It's going to go on vellum, with different kinds of scrapbook paper/old wallpaper scraps underneath, and then I will be sewing them together in some sort of cute pattern, haven't decided yet... and THEN! I am going to put everything in the ticking fabric. Loves it. Tell me what you think about the wording. I love the fonts!

Mr. Perfect?

Downsizing

I have been thinking a lot about this wedding lately (surprise) and there are some things that I am just going to have to change.

As much as I love every single member of my church family, I don't have the money to throw a blowout for everyone to attend. I just can't. 250+ people is a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of bottoms to provide chairs for, and a lot to handle! A lot of tables, a lot of flowers, decor, etc. etc.

So Robert and I are going to make a list and check it twice and it's going to be a lot smaller than the 250+ we had originally considered.

Now, if I wasn't extremely anal retentive and a stickler for detail, I would say, you know what, forget the tiny little accents on the food table, and just put a couple more biscuits in the basket.. but because I do want beautiful details, everything will have to be cut back just a tad.

Hopefully, it will be beautiful, it will be all I ever wanted.. and hopefully no one will hate us after all is said and done! Hey, you're all still invited to my showers!

Sigh, I feel good about this. Do I feel good about this? Someone people reassure me that I feel good about this.

Brrr! It's beginning to feel like fall

I know I haven't updated lately, but it's just been ridiculously busy. I've had my nose stuck in book after book all week, projects, presentations, newspaper deadlines, Chimes, so on and so forth.

Our literary magazine release party was fantastic! We had several people read from the release, we had a TON of food, and Rachel did an excellent job singing.

It's finally starting to feel chilly around here! I was beginning to wonder, of course, because last week the days were hot and muggy, and with October right around the corner, it was a toss-up as to whether or not we'd have some real fall weather anytime soon. But, alas! It has come. Yesterday I made the mistake of going to class in short sleeves and I was freezing on the walk up the hill. In fact, weather.com says it's currently 62 degrees (totally believe it!) and the high for today is not past 75. This means I quickly need to re-organize my clothes so that I'll be warm and toasty!

On a completely different note, I just printed a trial of the invitation wording on vellum paper, and it looks frakkin' fabulous. I will take a picture and post it later.

Now accepting!

Donations.

That's right!
Look, we're in the poor house, we've got to do what we can. If you have once been in our poor about to be newlywed position, or if you just have a soft spot for people in need, I have now added a donation button up in the right hand corner of the page for anyone willing to help out. Any amount will do, and we will truly appreciate it! Spread the word!

Been learning about collages...

These are some of the collages I've been learning to make! I always see them on other wedding blogs and finally I've formed in my lacking in tech savvy brain how to do them. So, for a short entry today, here are some of the flowers that have inspired some of my wedding.

Picture Post for fun

Cute shoes! Cute wedding cake/pie stuff!

Out the window

So, okay, I have a confession. The lowercase typing has caused me so much grief and guilt that I can't do it anymore. I am a phenomenal (ok, so, maybe an overexaggeration) English major, taking an outstanding Advanced Grammar class and I can no more put my audience through this linguistic trauma. So, forgive me, and I will henceforth use proper capitalization and punctuation. ;)


Today has been one of the busiest days at the hospital I've had in quite some time. I have seen over twelve patients and barely got to choke down some chicken for lunch (which, sigh, did not go over well since I am on the shallow end of sickness).

However, the day is almost over! I get to leave here at 4, and I will then recess to my room in my comfy PJs, watch the Food Network, and do homework.. which I have a ton of! I also want to do a little more wedding planning. Since school started, it has gone on the back burner, but no more! I have GOT to buy fabric ASAP to start making my table cloths/table runners... I can't put that off any longer.

Also, I am frustrated like whoa because a few months or weeks ago (I can't even remember) I saw a gorgeous DIY Save-the-Date that I completely wanted to make.. but I can't find it anywhere in my bookmarks, and I've googled like crazy and can't find it there either! It was a cute little library card envelope with the date stamped on, and a small strip of photobooth photos in it! I know I could basically just make something up along those lines, but I would love to find it and the guidelines. Anyone have any idea? Would be much appreciated!

Okay, off to write my article for the paper, and maybe find some water cause I'm severely parched.

embarking on something else

today i've made two giant leaps in terms of self-respect. okay, well, they are so for me, so, don't think "pshh, what?" when you read them. first, i received an e-mail from my supervisor with our schedule for september (that's right, it's september 1st and we got the schedule today) and in it she made little sidenotes to everyone she sent it to (in other words, everyone read what she sent to each individual) and mine said something along the lines of 'i tried to give you all the days off you requested, but i needed you to work at least one day'. hellooo, i asked for three days off the entire month. the 5th, the 7th and the 20something, i can't remember right now. and so of course, i was scheduled for one of the three days i asked off (for the whole month). well, i was upset about it and normally i would have pouted about it to myself and had a pity party that day at work. but! i put on my big-girl panties and e-mailed her back and said something along the lines of 'in case there was a misunderstanding, i only requested three days off, not this whole weekend, so, if you'd like for me to work the other two days of the weekend, i will, but let's see if we can do something about saturday'. not those exact words, but you catch my drift.

also, sigh, this was a huge deal for me, but i did it anyway. i e-mailed both of my parents (yes, both of them at the same time) and asked about the wedding. it's september now, almost a year exactly away, if anything, we need to secure our venue. that's the one thing i'm most concerned about. what if we get to said wedding venue and want to secure our wedding date and it's already taken? gulp. i'll cry. i'll cry and get over it, but i will cry. so, lord, please give me patience for this, and please give my parents patience and please give them that "in my shoes" perspective for this.

also! i went by my adviser's office yesterday and spoke with her for a long time. she is amazing. i basically want to be in her position, so i figured she would be the best person to speak with. after exciting revelations (and okay, a little more stress, because, let's face it, life is all stress until you die, right?) i dropped my education class and picked up one more english class. yippee, i may very well be on my way to graduating on time! and getting married and living in our little married apartment (even though it will be slim pickins my friends, so don't expect lavish dinner parties for the first year) and snuggling late at night with my husband. not to mention working my butt off to pay the bills and getting through my masters program, but what are those compared to the former?!

in other news, i will be visiting here in june:

not to that exact spot, of course, but to ireland, yes!

and here:



isn't that a great picture? that's right, ladies and gentlemen, i'm studying abroad for a month in england and ireland. sigh. if all works out, of course. with a little prayer and pixie dust, we can make this happen. so, let's go for it!

picture time!

so, i know it's been a few posts without pictures, and if you're like me you get very bored with text very easily (when it comes to blogs, otherwise i wouldn't be an english major!) so it's time for some fun pictures. as a disclaimer, i have no idea where i've stolen these pictures from, so, if you recognize one as yours, please let me know and i will give credit where credit is due!



first of all, let's discuss rock candy. i love it, it's beautiful, and it's going to go in our candy buffet. however, i would like to find some of these wooden skewers with the wooden balls on the end for another project, and can't find them anywhere! anyone know where i can buy these? i believe michael's only has the regular wooden skewers and nothing more. if you know, please enlighten me.



secondofly, i found this beautiful green and yellow inspiration board. the green is a little bit more springtime than mine, but i still love it. that darling little organic cake is something like what we'd like, maybe even with the flowers. just for cutting, of course. we don't want to intrude on the pies!



and speaking of the devils, here they are. isn't that gorgeous? i need to find some old baskets and pie dishes to put them in. let me know if you've got any!

i am freezing, as usual. and a little hungry, at that.

you know what i want to do? move to san francisco. that would be awesome.

wedding party!

i love all the people in my life, and i love that i get to dress them up for the wedding. i have basically picked out everyone that's going to be in it.. but there are some minor details that i need to smooth over before i make a post about them.

the bridesmaids dresses are still up in the air. it's very difficult to choose a dress, mostly because my bridesmaids (or my tentative ones) are of such different shapes and sizes, not to mention complexions and hair colors. i would hate to be in someone's wedding and be the one bridesmaid that looks like complete and utter poo, so i hate to do that to my girls. for that reason, i've been very seriously considering picking a dress out for each of them.

to start off, i frackin' love j crew, i don't know if you know. i'm in no way of the "preppy" style, but lately they've decided to pick up a few way cute vintage and almost indie styles to add to their repertoire and i can't help but lust.



this dress is my absolute favorite from j crew's amazing line of bridesmaid dresses. if i had it my way, they would all wear this cut in different colors, but that would mean involving a tailor and a seamstress. is that an option? i don't know at this point. maybe... but isn't it gorgeous? and it just FITS. perfectly. gahhhh

dessy also has some relatively cute ones, albeit very traditional, but still cute. i was very much about the lace in the beginning (not so adament now, but i still like) and this one screamed out to me, in kiwi with the ivory lace as well as this one, in olive. don't judge, i love the pleats, but i'm not so sure about the taffeta.. right?

how expensive would it be to just have these made? cause, i really love the halter jcrew. and if we did them in a different color for the girls, it'd be fabulous. plus, honestly, i think that's a cut that flatters pretty much anyone.

also, i haven't really much pondered any others... i've got plenty of time.

i do, however, HAVE to have this flower girl dress:



and no offense, my tentative flower girl is the cutest kid ever. no joke. and sassy. so she will know how to work that wedding aisle.

enough rambling for today..

new experiences

well, i don't know if you guys know, but i've never been married before and i had never had gastric bypass before until recently. so, if you don't mind, i'm going to try to capture these moments of newness in this blog from here on out.. i'm very whiny, and i talk a lot, so forgive.

robert and i are getting married (lord willing) on september 18th, 2010. it seems like far away, but i hope we survive this next year without pulling our own hair out and that this wedding can be the beautiful thing we want it to be, and that my surgery proves to be a success (and that i look smoking hot in my wedding gown!).

i've been looking hardcore at some bridal blogs today, which i have fallen in love with, so i'm going to attempt to figure out this blogger thing and hopefully start updating regularly! if anyone has any advice, that is, if anyone reads this, feel free to share. be nice, please.