You Can't Take It With You

Family Pictures

2012-01-06T15:31:00.014-06:00

For Christmas, my sisters, Ryan and I got my parents professional family photos. We wanted them to be really casual, laid back and include all 4 dogs (my parents dog Mia, my sister Alli's dog Henry, and Ryan and I's dogs Ninja and Oscar). We definitely got the fun, relaxed pictures we were aiming for!

My awesome parents with Mia:

Everyone:

Sisters make the best friends. Isn't it nuts how much SHORTER I am than they are?:

Our first official family picture!:

The puppies were handed over to their grandma:

Ryan and Mary were involved, so the following was inevitable:

Alli's friend Karen took the pictures (she was home visiting family for Thanksgiving and was kind enough to take these the Saturday after Thanksgiving). She actually specializes in pet photography-how beautiful are these pictures of my dogs! I mean, I'm biased and all.

Needless to say, she did a phenomenal job. We linked my dad's laptop up to their big screen TV, so Christmas Eve morning we were able to show them the pictures for the first time. Mom and Dad really liked them, thereby cementing Alli's status as best gift giver of all time. Well done!

Check out more of Karen's work here.

The Stockings were hung....

2011-12-06T10:37:00.005-06:00

...on the buffet. No chimney in this house!

The buffet is new, Ryan found it on Craig's list. LOVE IT and it holds a ton, so it's really freed up some cabinet space. Ryan's stocking is on the left, mine is on the right. I made them from a Butternick pattern, I think? Had to get mom to help, couldn't figure out the cuff part. Then I forgot all over again when I made the second one. Genius, right here. I'm really happy with these. Next year, tree skirt! My snail like pace will eventually result in decorations. Eventually.

Ok, you should make these and then eat them. Because they are SO GOOD and then you feel all virtuous that you just ate a ton of veggies for dinner.

Zucchini Cakes:

This is about to get realllll scientific up in here.

Shred a zucchini, then squeeze out the water. Mix squeezed, shredded zucchini with 1 egg, a generous handful of fresh, grated parmesan, some fresh garlic, a couple sprinkles of bread crumbs (I've used panko and Italian seasoned, both with success), and a dash of seasoned salt or paprika. Now heat up a skillet with some olive oil, and drop in some of the zucchini mixture. Press it down all flat and wait until it's all brown and crispy on the bottom to flip. Flip. Cook other side. Then stand by the stove and devour the ones you just made while you wait on the second batch. Maybe give your husband one or two.

Definitely a new go to recipe. Have you made any Christmas decorations this year? And new go-to recipes for nights when you don't feel like thinking?

Bad Blogger

2011-11-30T15:32:00.005-06:00

Bad Blogger indeed. I haven't felt like anything I do is of interest, but then I find everyone ELSE'S blogs interesting. So yeah. Doesn't make a ton of sense.

I'm addicted to Pinterest, are you? Come find me, it'll be fun.

We had Thanksgiving with my family at my aunt's house in St. Louis Thursday morning then dinner at Ryan's Dad's side that evening. We shopped the next morning like it was our job! And I ordered my bridesmaid's dress for my SIL Erin's wedding in July. I'll post when it comes in, sweet sweet J Crew!

I just finished reading this book about women in the ministry (can't find the title, go figure) but it really got me thinking. It's making me think about giving the Disciples of Christ church here in my town another shot, especially since I checked out their website and they welcome everyone, including those of different sexual orientations. I love the Unitarian Universalist church where Ryan and I got married, but its 2 hours away, and the UU fellowship here in town does not feel at all right to me. I'm feeling more and more of a pull to be invested spiritually somewhere that doesn't compromise my beliefs....I'm hoping our DOC church here will work the second go around.

I made Ryan a Christmas stocking:

The pattern threw me for quite the loop. Yay for moms who come over and help you puzzle it out! I'm working on my stocking tonight. And debating on if I should scale the pattern down and make the puppies stockings.

How hilarious is this picture of Ninja? We are throw pillow free by this point.

We got my parents family pictures for Christmas and took them last Saturday. I can't WAIT to see how they turn out! It was my whole family and 4 dogs. Whew.

How was your holiday?

Kitchen DOMINATION

2011-10-02T12:36:00.002-05:00

I am having some serious cooking/baking triumphs this weekend, I'm on a streak!

First up I made this Cake Batter shake courtesy of Oh She Glows. I'm been very doubtful of the "frozen banana soft serve ice cream" stuff. I figured it was nonsense, that it would be healthy food poorly masquerading itself as ice cream. Which is just mean. But yesterday I had 2 bananas going bad so I figured, "why not?" If it turns out good then I have a whole new breakfast.

Holy crap you guys, this was SO GOOD. I made it this morning too, and while I was waiting for the oatmeal to soften in the fridge (the oatmeal soaks in 1 cup milk for an hour to soften it up) I was like "is it shake time yet, now? Now? SHAKE TIME!" There's 1/3 a cup of oatmeal in the shake, and today I upped it to a half a cup, which is the serving of oatmeal I normally make myself on the stove. It is a light breakfast that kept me full all morning. I added chocolate syrup instead of carob powder and used skim milk instead of almond milk. Oh also I used peanut butter instead of cashew butter. SO GOOD.

Then I made my husband and I spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, who was just getting back from an overnight cross country meet. I used this recipe from Julia's Healthy Italian Cooking and Ryan has already asked that it make a repeat performance, so they are officially on the rotation! I love adding stuff to our meal rotation that we normally have things on hand for-I suck at trying to buy and use up specialty/out of the ordinary stuff before it goes bad. Or I forget about it. I made so much we both have portions for lunch this week which excites me so much that I know I'm getting old.

Still riding high off of frozen-bananas-tasting-like-cake-batter, I made Oh She Glow's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls in preparation for a "blizzard". You basically make up some banana soft serve and blend in these cookie dough balls for a DQ-esque Blizzard, according to the recipe. These might not last long enough to make it into any blizzard, they are so delicious and the perfect little snack. I used almonds instead of cashews, white sugar instead of cane sugar and honey instead of maple syrup. These are the perfect little sweet bite that I don't feel guilty about.

Also yesterday I made Ryan homemade vanilla bean caramels, as he's a huge caramel fan. I would say that I wouldn't cook the caramels to such a high temp again-I'd pull them off the heat after they hit 335/340, because these caramels are so hard and chewy that they could yank a filling out! They soften up after you jaw on them for a few seconds, but I like a softer caramel. This was my first time making candy and using a candy thermometer, and it was much more straight forward than I thought it would be! I won't shy away from similar recipes in the future.

Whew! I've had some major cooking failures lately so it's nice to have some new recipes that work for us.

What have you cooked lately?

I'm Dumb

2011-09-23T19:22:00.002-05:00

So I went to put in a load of laundry and was out of soap. Weird, I thought, I could've sworn I just made it! So I get everything out and start to make a double batch since I ran out so fast. 5 minutes into making the double batch and I see a handful of jugs of laundry soap on the very top shelf in the laundry room. There all along.

So...anyone need laundry detergent? I guess I won't have to make it for a while!

Here's the recipe I use, it has saved me a ton of money-we do stupid amounts of laundry for 2 people!

Homemade Laundry Soap
Grate one third a bar of bar soap (I use Ivory). Dissolve in 6 cups hot water on stove. When dissolved add half cup each Borax and Washing Soda (they had both at WalMart, $2.50 each for big boxes). Add soap mixture to 26 cups hot water (that's 1 gallon plus 10 cups) in 5 gallon bucket. Let cool and store in clean milk jugs or laundry detergent container.

I'm sure I saw this recipe somewhere but its been a bit.

I forgot to add that I use a half a cup per load, and to leave an inch or so of space in your containers because you need to shake it a bit before you use it.

Why You Shouldn't Let Your Dogs Wear Collars Unless You're Going Somewhere

2011-08-12T15:16:00.005-05:00

It's taken me over a week to be able to sit down and write about this without getting upset all over again! We had quite the scare last week-our sweet puppy Oscar came way too close to dying on us. Spoiler: He's alive and very well!

Last Tuesday night I was sitting on the couch watching TV. Ryan was in the master bedroom (on the main floor) watching TV on his laptop, and both dogs were outside playing the yard, like normal. All of a sudden I hear this awful screaming from the back yard. I flew outside, and saw the dogs in a corner of the backyard. I knew that something was v

ery, very wrong, but I got upset so fast and couldn't figure out what was happening - it looked like a ball of panicked dogs thrashing around. I thought that maybe Ninja had seriously injured Oscar? I stupidly tried to break them up from what I thought was a totally-out-of-character-vicious fight, and Oscar bit the snot out of my left hand. Apparently I was screaming this entire time because I turned around and Ryan was vaulted off the deck and running towards me, asking me what was wrong.

I was sobbing and shaking and panicked and I had no idea what was happening. Ryan was crouched over the dogs at this point, and he yelled for me to go and get the scissors. I dashed in the house and grabbed them, then ran back outside and handed them to Ryan. At this point Ryan tells me that Ninja somehow got Oscar's coll

ar wrapped around her back teeth and Oscar was choking. He couldn't g

et any slack on the collar to cut it off of Oscar, after attempting this for 10-15 seconds. Then Oscar passed out and went totally slack, and Ryan cut the collar off.

I was across the yard losing my mind while Ryan was hunched over Oscar trying to get him to wake up. He was 100% unconscious and nonresponsive. Ryan picked him up and carried him inside and laid him down on the kitchen table. This was my worst moment..Oscar's head was flopped back and his eyes were wide open, with the pupils rolled back in his head. I thought he was dead. We laid him down on the kitchen table and Ryan is yelling at Oscar to wake up, to start breathing. Ryan rubbed Oscar's ribs and did some light chest compressions, and after 30-60 seconds of being out, Oscar raised his head up and wagged his little tail.

2 minutes later we were in the car with both dogs on the way to t

he emergency vet. Verdict: Fluid in lungs. After puking up blood and other gunk, and an overnight stay with pain killers, we picked Oscar up 7 hours later and brought him back home.

It was the absolute worst night of my life. I have never been so out of my mind scared. I didn't know what we'd do with poor Ninja if anything happened to her brother...we adopted them as a pair from an animal shelter, they've never been separated. They were kept in the same kennel at the shelter from day 1.

So yeah. If I get that worked up over my dog, how am I ever going to handle kids? These dogs are my babies, we were entrusted with their care

and well-being. If Oscar was a 12 year old dog who had had a good long life, that's one thing. But he's only 9 months old, I would be devastated if anything happened to him. And what would poor Ninja do?

What gets me the most about the whole thing is the fact that that is a scenario I never dreamed of. I've imagined them running into the street, or something, but strangled by his own collar in his sister's mouth? Now every time I come home and let them out of their crate I think "how could they have fatally injured themselves while I was gone, what if they aren't breathing, what did I not think of?" I check on them every 5 minutes, now I'm psycho mom. Also what hit me hard was how quickly I lost it, and how worthless I was. If Ryan hadn't been home, what would have happened? On the way to the emergency vet, Ryan told me he hadn't heard the dogs making all that noise at all, that he heard me yelling and that's why he ran outside. So maybe it really was a team effort. How sweet is he to be trying to comfort me on the way to the vet when all that had just happened and Oscar is laboring to breathe on my lap?

Anyway, moral of the story, please take your collar off your dog(s) unless you're en route or on a walk. Our dogs are micro-chipped, so if they somehow get lost, they are easily identified. I remember the vet saying how puppies will bite at each others necks, but I never dreamed something like this could happen. I wish I could say it was a fluke, but the vet said it's happened to her dogs before.

Quite the reminder that everything can change in an instant. Now every time I let the dogs out, they get petted and told how much I love them.

Puppies in March, when we first got them

Family Pic, May 2011

Whew! I was reeling all last week from this, it took me this long to chill out enough to write it down.

Any freak accidents ever happen to your pets?

Finally

2011-08-04T09:44:00.003-05:00

I'm on the Twitter. Wanna be friends?

1 Year

2011-07-27T13:18:00.001-05:00

Sunday was our 1 year anniversary. I had no idea a year could go by so fast! We made this year count too-we bought a house, we both started new careers, and we adopted 2 puppies. No wonder it's gone by so fast.

Here's the highlight reel, mostly because I just haven't gotten over how much I love our pictures yet:

All photographs courtesy of Gail Fleming.

This is how vain I am: I purposefully did not preserve my wedding dress (or um, have it cleaned, *cough*) so that I can try it on every year on our anniversary. Because I'd prefer that it continue to fit.

So it's Sunday morning, and Ryan and I are sitting down to a lovely breakfast that included the best bacon of all time (from a no-hormone, no-antibiotic, happy pig farm), and Ryan goes "So how bad is my day going to be if this dress doesn't fit?" Luckily we didn't have to find out! It zipped right up like a dream. Don't you wish you could wear your dress again? It reminded me how much I love my dress. And how much I need to get mine cleaned! It's filthy. But the dry cleaning costs like $150, and I am not excited about dropping that much cash. Maybe with my Christmas money!

How was your first anniversary? Did your first year of marriage go by fast too? Did you preserve your dress? Are you vain like me and busted it back out?

It All Ends Here

2011-07-22T09:50:00.007-05:00

Or, my un-asked for opinion on the last Harry Potter movie.

I rocked the premier with the sisters and Alli's sweet boyfriend Chris. We all wore Harry Potter shirts Alli made for past movie releases. Mary and I are way too lazy to just make our own. We got to the theatre last Thursday at 7:20 to get in line for Part 1 at 9 p.m. We watched part 1, then had an hour wait until they started part 2 around 12:25. (REALLY WEHRENBERG)

Friday at work sucked, but it was worth it! We were in line behind Hagrid-and the guy was huge. He even had an umbrella!

We decided that me and Alli are Ravenclaws while Mary is a Gryffindor. Can you tell me and Mary apart? Having a sister who grows up and suddenly looks just like you is like getting a twin in your 20s. Kinda freaky!

I loved the movie, but I do have a major issue with the director changing sh*t just for giggles. Little, minor things....like, do you honestly think you can improve upon the book? Because you can't. I really hated that Harry didn't go into the headmaster's study after killing Voldemort to see Dumbledore crying tears of joy as all the other headmaster's applauded. And he didn't fix HIS wand with the Elderwand before he destroyed it! AHHHH. I did appreciate the focus on the trio of Ron, Harry and Hermione. I thought that was very sweet. And I cried and cried when his parents, Sirius and Lupin showed up. No surprise there, I bawl my eyes out at that part in the book. I guess the movie was just like every other HP movie-some parts honored the books while some didn't.

I do think they could've made it longer. And had more battle scenes. And extended the epilogue a bit, especially to include Teddy.

I'm so sad it's over. Harry forever!

Did you catch the final installment yet?

To Do List

2011-07-13T09:24:00.000-05:00

There are so many projects I want to and a very limited amount of time, with all the summer traveling we've been doing! Courtesy of the blogs and Pinterest, I end up with a year's worth of projects in a week's time.

This is just outrageously pretty. I'm going to start shopping for embroidered pillowcases ASAP. My friend Jodie just had a girl, and I'm starting to think maybe I just need to have a little stock of homemade bibs/receiving blankets/baby paraphernalia since lots of our friends are getting knocked up.

Source

A bed for the dogs needs to be next on my list. We're hoping to transition them from their crate to a bed in our room at night, and we need a bed for them first. All the cushions I've found have been so expensive-like $30/$40! I want something decently sizable so both 17ish lb dogs can cuddle up, so I'd have to up the size of this bed big time.

Seriously, what cat is going to sit on a bed designated by someone other than themselves?

Source

I want this skirt SO BAD. I LOVE the chevron. I have all pencil skirts, and I'm trying for some slightly more full silhouettes, this being an ideal transition. And the chevron pattern? I could wear this to work once a week. My grandma says this would be a good beginning apparel sewing project....I have a tendency to dive into less than simple apparel projects that end badly. No more. I need to start at the bottom. I've conquered an apron, so I feel ready for this skirt.

Source

It's the new Ginger pattern from Colette patterns.

This is a no-brainer project that requires me to only remember to buy magnets, because I already have the dish. Sticking pins into the pin cushion is clearly exhausting, and it would be so much less taxing to hurl the pin into the dish.

Source

So my husband is a classic piler. He has little piles all over the house with vitally important stuff. Maybe if I could have enough storage bins then the piling would be more contained? I just like storage bins. I want one for the dogs stuff, I want a handful for the laundry room, and I want a few for my nightstand. Also for my sewing room. I want lots of these. And one for the guest baths.

Source

This is just super cute.

Source

This is potentially the cleverest bit of embroidery I have ever seen. I want to make throw pillows for our bed then embroider this on them.

Source

Originally stitched by Buitenlander25 via Flickr

Um yeah. Also I'd like to make a quilt for my sister sometime. Then I have a finished quilt top that needs to have a completed backing and then finished up completely.

Someday, I will get to some of this. I'm smack in the middle of a present for my sister, and I'm working on a t-shirt quilt for one of Ryan's cousins. After those 2 things, I am closed for business for a good while so I can catch up on some stuff for myself....I'm really bad at sewing away for other's, but I tend to backburner my own stuff.

What are you working on this summer?

I just finished reading....

2011-07-06T08:40:00.000-05:00

Lots of books! Some good, some bad, one or two AMAZING. I was like a fat kid with cake.

I started reading The Taking by Dean Koontz on the way down to Alabama.

Source

Ryan is a big Dean Koontz fan, and I picked this copy up at a used bookstore for $1. The book was written in 2004, and Ryan says his stuff goes downhill post 2000. The beginning was good, and the ending was great, but the middle went ON and ON and ON. The plot is pretty out there, but I really liked the way he wrapped it up. I'm not mad I wasted the time reading it, but I won't pick it up again either.

Next I read Falling Angels, by Tracy Chevalier, who also wrote The Girl with the Pearl Earring.

Source

The book seemed more about the setting than anything else-an elaborate Victorian cemetery. It was almost as if the author had a picture of this place in her head and that's what made it down on paper the best. The plot was not nearly as well developed as the background.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett was SO GOOD.

Source

I'm sure this is old news for most of you; the book is a best seller and it's been out for quite a while. But I loved it from start to finish. It was by far the best book I have read in a bit. The book chronicles a young journalist fresh out of Ole Miss who decides to interview the domestic help of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60's, fueled by her friend Hilly's campaign to require separate bathrooms for black maids. There's a movie coming out with Emma Stone playing Skeeter- I can't wait!

Then I read another Chevalier book, The Lady and the Unicorn.

Source

Once again, it seemed like Ms. Chevalier took one "thing" and built the story around that. In this book, it was a series of famous tapestries. Not my favorite book by any means, but she did tell you what happened to all the characters at the end, which I always appreciate.

After that I picked up What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth: Radio Shangri-La, by Lisa Napoli.

Source

This was a documentary-esque book about a woman who works for NPR who travels to the remote country of Bhutan, where the GDP doesn't exist....instead, there's a Gross Domestic Happiness measurement. I loved it, and it made me want to find out more about that little country. This is a great travel book that really takes you to Bhutan.

I also read Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett.

Source

This was all about Sir Thomas More's adopted daughter, Meg Griggs. Sir Thomas More was a big muckety-muck in King Henry the VIII's court who stubbornly clung to Catholicism and refused to recognize the king as higher than the pope-which ended in his execution. Sir Thomas More was famous for his revolutionary schooling of his family, particularly the women. This book did drag a bit but it was a really good piece of historical fiction basted on real life events.

Rounding out my beach vacation was The Beach, by Alex Garland.

Source

I liked this much more than I thought I would! A group of travelers stumble upon the location of a legendary and secret beach in Thailand, and the people they find there have created their own world in paradise. This reminded me of Lord of the Flies but with grown ups. And fields of marijuana.

I also picked up Swampandia! by Karen Russell, Bad Men by John Connolly, Love Among the Ruins by Robert Clark, Being Dead by Jim Crace, and A Secret Gift by Ted Gup, none of which I could finish. I got 2/3's of the way in to Swamplandia! but just couldn't power through. I get maybe 5 pages into to about half of the books I read and just put them down-there are too many good books out there to force myself to slog through a book I don't enjoy.

I love gorging myself on books on the beach! I also signed up for the adult summer reading program at my local library, like a nerd. I LOVE it.

Are you doing any summer reading?

The Beach

2011-07-03T10:02:00.000-05:00

We just got back from a week on the beach in Fort Morgan, Alabama. It was the most amount of time I've had off work since.....2008. I only took 2 days off work for my wedding, so having a whole week to relax has been heaven. AND Monday is a holiday so I'm off work for that too!

This is where we lazed out big time.

My sister's dog would have nothing to do with any ocean.

Mary and Ryan constructed several epic sandcastles.

We also outlet shopped, boogie boarded and got TAN. How did I fill the rest of my time?

And lots of it.

It was to die for!

I am so fortunate.

(Aren't I the runt of the litter?)

We were ready to get home and see these guys though:

Next travel goal: Honeymoon!

So big!

2011-06-23T20:02:00.005-05:00

Puppies grow SO FAST! Here they are at the shelter the first night we met them back in March:

Here's them about a month ago, at my sister's graduation party (Ryan's wearing the same shirt, weird!):

It's ridiculous how much we love these dogs. In our defense, they are as sweet as can be, blissfully happy, playful and lovable. We couldn't have asked for a better pair. Plus they spent the first couple months of their life in a shelter, we have lots of loving to make up for!

That dress makes me look like I'm huge, but I swear I'm not! Next month is our 1st anniversary (what the H*LL happened to this year?!) and I'll be trying o

n my wedding dress (that I still haven't gotten cleaned....it costs like $100, boo) to ensure that it fits. Which it will. But if it doesn't, it won't be pretty.

Anyway, with Ryan being gone as much as he is for work during the school year, these little boogers have turned out to be the best company with fur.

Guess who's lazy? Oscar is.

Ninja getting loved on:

I'll stop being obnoxious about my dogs (at least I stopped with the bouquets, right?). Both of my sisters-in-law are engaged, so I'm sure I'll have lots of wedding stuff to fill you guys in on. I finished my first quilt (I made a second for a friend who's pregnant too) and I have a quilt top finished that needs to be basted and quilted. I need to make a t-shirt quilt for my husband's cousin Mike, so you'll see some of that. Also our one year anniversary is next month, and there are some wedding pictures that....well let's just say they didn't make they cut. You'll see why.

Is it sad that my dog-raising strategy is identical to my child-rearing strategy? Namely, let them run until they have no more nonsense left.

Did you rock the newlywed cliche of getting a dog?

2011-06-23T08:25:00.001-05:00

I'm on Pinterest and it's like shopping but for free. If you want to follow me e-mail me!

Busted

2011-06-23T08:18:00.002-05:00

You guys, this blog has been broken for like a month or more! I couldn't figure out how to fix it (it looked like Google had removed it for some reason?), and then I checked today and it's BACK!

Not that you've missed much. I'm boring.

But! Our puppies are getting so big, we had a huge group of friends down for a weekend, we're going to the beach on Saturday, and I have quilts to show you. Also I figured out how to make delicious frozen yogurt with Greek yogurt and fruit so in my mind-100% guilt free. Oh and I went to a wedding last week that had Chiavari chairs! And they were everything I thought they'd be. And I've been lifting weights so I'm working on a set of guns.

I've missed you guys!

Test

2011-06-10T09:37:00.001-05:00

Test

New Addition(s)

2011-04-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

We have been BUSY lately!

A couple weeks ago, Ryan and I doubled our family size--we adopted 2 puppies from a no kill shelter!

The blonde is a girl, and Ryan named her Ninja. She does these flying Ninja lea

ps that suit her name perfectly. That handsome thing you see on the right is Oscar, our little man.

They are beagle/schnauzer mixes, and they are 4 months old. We love them to pieces!

As you can see, they have it very rough.

They have plenty of toys, but of course the most attractive toy is the one the other dog has. Watching them trot around neck in neck with the same toy in their mouths is unbelievably cute.

They put on the most pitiful act with baths. They shiver and carry on, and we feel sorry for them of course.

We are so lucky to have them! They're so sweet and friendly.

As far as potty training goes, I think we're on track. They go out every 4 hours or so (even in the middle of the night, ugh), and we still have a couple accidents that happen when we deviate from that schedule. They know how to sit, and they mostly listen. They have these crazy spurts of energy for a couple hours then they absolutely collapse. They are happy little puppies, and we adore them.

We have officially joined the ranks of the Newlyweds with dogs! It's good practice for parenthood, right?

I just finished reading....

2011-03-14T17:48:00.000-05:00

Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married, by Gary Chapman.

Source

Same guy who wrote the Five Love Languages. Most "self-help" books make me feel like crap about my marriage-all I do is pick out the stuff I'm doing wrong. Not helpful. But this book was quite the confidence booster; I picked out lots of stuff that Ryan and I OWN at! Like the chapter on "solving disagreements without arguing." Granted, we're human and we argue, but we aren't hateful to each other about it. We're both totally fine with "apologizing being a sign of strength" and that we "married into each other's families". Domination!

The book honestly wasn't that helpful, but I did get from it a sense that we started our marriage off well, that our foundation is good. So...nothing I didn't know all ready.

Though Ryan still thinks the "love languages" are comical.

Also, the author comes across as kind of an *ss to his wife.

Are you a Gary Chapman fan? Do self-help books send you into a downward spiral of "my marriage is DOOMED!"?

Our House

2011-02-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

We bought our house in November, and so far all I've shown you are somewhat scary construction pictures. I've been waiting until the house was clean and it was sunny out, but I settled for no sun and clean house! We are still working on so much, but we've come a long way from the super dirty and neglected house we bought a few months ago.

It's so gray and dreary looking! We've hardly done any yard work, so in 6 months, this should look totally different. The landscaping is so overgrown, we really just tried to get enough done that our house wouldn't look completely terrible all winter long.

We have a nice deep front porch, here's the view:

There's hooks for a porch swing. Oh and that bush, on the lower left? Bushes like that line the front and one side of the house. They're infested with poison ivy. Those'll be fun to work with!

You walk into the living room from the front porch. This room is pretty much done-we scraped the popcorn from the ceilings, painted the ceiling and repaired/painted the walls. I can't wait to get a comfy sectional in here, the room is so big we can fit one easily.

We hung our Christmas cards up on the door frame in between the living room and the kitchen. Hey Emily! Still need to take these down....

Another view of the living room. We spend lots of time on this couch. We got the blinds at Penney's during a day after Thanksgiving sale for a killer price. I cannot believe they fit our weird-sized windows. I wasn't super pumped about them initally-I thought they'd look kind of naked and such, but they are so easy to clean, and I think the molding at the top makes up for no curtains. That's what my sister Alli said and I'm going with it.

When I moved out of the house my sister and I shared, she let me take this console with me. We bought it in a local antique store a couple years ago for $20. I need to decorate this-that cake stand was used at our wedding! This is also where our wedding album lives.

Wedding album! I wanted to be cheap and do a MyPublisher book, but Ryan talked me into this, and I am so glad he did.

I literally sent the poor photographer over 50 edits. She probably hates me.

I love our kitchen. It's so big and bright, and the table in the middle acts as an island when needed. Ryan is painting the cabinets white for me....they are huge pains. Like 2-3 coats of oil based paint with curing times, obnoxious brush clean ups and lots of sanding. He is amazing.

Cabinet close up.

More kitchen. There are 41 doors poor Ryan has to paint. I'm happy to not have doors....saves time.

Our house was built in 1924, and some genius before us added a main floor laundry right off the kitchen. LOVE. I have always had basement laundry, and now I can't go back. This room needs lots of work-we want to tile the floors and add way more shelving. I'd like to store cleaning stuff here as well as kitchen stuff we don't use that often, like some appliances.

The master is right off the kitchen. It's kind of weird placement but I really like it. And its so close to the laundry room that putting clothes away is easy. I really like our bedding. We pretty much just need furniture/accessories in here.

The door to the master bath used to go outside, but another genius added a master bathroom. I hate the blue panes in the door, I really want to switch them out eventually. The transom over the door actually works! I just love old houses.

The genius who added the master bath unfortunately wasn't smart enough to insulate. So this bathroom is super chilly.

When you walk into the bathroom and turn right, you see this.

When you turn left, there's the closet. Very handy for getting ready in the morning, everything is right there.

The office is right off of the living room. It's our current dumping ground. Eventually this will be Ryan's spot-he has some really cool baseball memorabilia that he can showcase here. This room had carpet that we ripped up just to find holes and 3 different finishes on the wood floors. We'll get these floors refinished and add a piece of trim to the baseboards to hide the gap created when we ripped out the carpet. You solve one problem (gross carpet) just to create another one (hole in floor)!

This full bathroom is also right off the living room. We replaced the light fixture (the one you see will also go in the other 2 full bathrooms, we bought 3), the shower head, the towel bar, and we need to replace the toilet. And we ripped out the old oak medicine cabinet and Ryan installed a simple mirror with beveled edges.

The dark wood on these stairs kind of sucks to keep clean. Every speck of dust shows!

This is the future reading nook-Ryan is going to build bookshelves and he bought me this awesome chaise for Christmas!

On Sunday mornings I like to bring my coffee up here and read. It feels like a vacation.

There are 2 bedrooms and a full bath off of the foyer, here's the unfinished one:

And here's the finished one. We had our first house guest this weekend! The hotel is open for business.

That's my little sewing spot, with a new quilt draped all over the place. Eventually my sewing room will be in the unfinished bedroom, but its in here until we get the other space together.

The storage space kicks *ss.

We have a deck that looks out over the fenced in part of the yard....just ready and waiting for a puppy!

Whew. We are so, so fortunate to be able to live in such a great home. I've always wanted an old house, and thanks to my handy husband I have one!

I'll post on decorating ideas later, I have TONS.

So in our first 4 months of marriage, we both got new jobs and bought/renovated a house. We aren't good at taking things slow!

Did you take on lots of stuff right after your wedding?

Milk Glass Out and About

2011-02-17T08:14:00.000-06:00

Part of my marketing plan for my job was to increase my medical practice's involvement with community outreach. So, I volunteer at several area senior center's during lunch time-handing out drinks, collecting trays, etc. 2 of the 3 senior centers I volunteer at (by the way, I LOVE grassroots marketing like this...and I LOVE that my bosses let me do it. It is by far the most smart marketing move my practice is making right now, IT WORKS) have milk glass centerpieces, like the ones Ryan and I had at our wedding!

So I just went through and looked for a picture of our centerpieces....and couldn't find but one. Um. Probably because I did lots of this....

One was for Ryan. Really. Who is now saying that he didn't drink it. I could've sworn I got this for him...

I'm sure I could find pictures of our centerpieces via our photographer's CD we have with pictures, but...that's upstairs. But yeah, every time I go to one of those senior centers and see that milk glass, I think about our reception and how much fun we had, and how much fun Ryan and I had picking that milk glass out at thrift stores and garage sales.

Go milk glass!

Do you see reminders or your wedding at odd places?

I just finished reading....

2011-02-14T18:24:00.000-06:00

Lake with No Name, by Diane Wei Lang.

Source

I didn't like the protagonist very much at all. Does that make a book hard to read for you? It does for me. The author of this book lived through some pro-democracy protests in China in 1989 (Tiananmen Square), which I was really looking forward to reading about. Unfortunately the book was mostly about her dumb relationships. I just couldn't like the girl...she kept making such idiotic choices. The parts of this book that talked about what it was like to be a University student in China at that point in time were really interesting, and I'm glad I read the book, but I won't read it again or recommend it due to the needless/dumb relationship stuff. If I want that I'll watch the Real Housewives.

What are you reading right now?

Humph

2011-02-03T19:46:00.005-06:00

WHY NOT A YEAR AGO VERA, WHY?

David's Bridal has an incredibly affordable and lovely collection of bridal gowns courtesy of Vera Wang herself. I LOVE high end stuff brought down to a level of affordability that makes it more accessible. But why, oh why, could this not have happened last year, when I was wedding dress shopping?

Source

That one on the far right? I for sure would've rushed in to try that on, sans the belt.

Seriously though, it makes me so happy to see such a high end, unique designer make lovely gowns available to a much wider price point-the gowns range from $500-$1500.

Do you see things that you wish you would've had access to/known about when you were wedding planning?

Cold weather running

2011-01-23T19:12:00.004-06:00

One of the best parts of running in the winter is running with the dogs! My parents' dog Mia and my sister's dog Henry love to run when it's cold and they don't get too overheated. Last week both of my sisters, my mom, me and the dogs went for a run on a bike trail and I did my best to document.

Mia is a little gray blur at the left of Mary's feet (Mary is in orange) and you can see Henry rarin' to go!

Story about this hat: Ryan was in St Louis for a weekend while I was shopping with my family in Lake of the Ozarks. We both bought my mom running hats for Christmas. I got the one we didn't give to her!

The little reflective bits on the back of Mary's hat look like Ninja eyes!

I couldn't get any pictures of the dogs while we were running...they're too fast, and they were too excited! But here's Henry coming in from the snow earlier this week:

And Mia in the snow!

Winter sucks, and I am SO READY for spring, but what is one of your favorite parts about the cold weather?

Side note: I am successfully back on the work-out wagon, thanks to a gym pass to the same gym my sister goes to! I shoot for 5 workouts a week, regardless of what they are--anything that takes 30 minutes counts, even if its a very leisurely elliptical session. Holding myself up to unreasonable expectations--6-7 workouts of set intensity--just set me up for failure.

New Job

2011-01-06T12:06:00.002-06:00

I don't think I ever told you guys about my new job! I started at the very end of October right when all the house craziness really hit.

I'm a marketing rep (ahem, "community liaison") for a wound care center in town. I travel in a 45 mile radius trying to talk physicians into sending patients to our practice, and I volunteer at area senior centers to have a friendly presence among our biggest demographic.

I have my bachelor's in Public Relations, so I'm actually doing what I went to school for! Which is weird, doing the stuff I read about in my textbooks. I'm the first marketing person my wound care center has ever had, so I have to be really creative and fill up my time. Which is sometimes easeir said than done. Since I'm the only marketing person, I work by myself pretty much all the time. Which is nice, because I don't have to collaborate, but it kind of sucks, because I can't collaborate.

It's kind of my first "grown up" job. I'm meeting tons of people and I think this is going to be a great thing to add to my resume.

Are you working in the field you went to school for/intended to work in? Have you ever started a new job in the midst of a major house renovation?

Working on a house will destroy your blogging

2010-12-22T18:08:00.016-06:00

Obviously, right? But SO MUCH has happened! And Ryan bought me a camera (it's orange!) so now I can actually show you what I've been doing!

Ryan is painting the kitchen cabinets for me! They were this gross dark stain, and it was all streaky. They will be this gorgeous bright white. I LOVE the way our Crate and Barrel Essential dinnerware looks inside. Definitely the silver lining of no cabinet doors, I can enjoy my dishes. And I LOVE these dishes.

Since the kitchen cabinets are somewhat out of commission, our living room is the holding area for the majority of our kitchen stuff:

Ryan was baking pies today (yes, my man makes home made pie crust, yes, I scored big time) and discovered how truly inconvenient this is. Which is why he's painting the cabinets right now. Honestly it doesn't bother me too much, I know how time consuming the cabinet painting is and I moved in prepared to be inconvenienced. It bothers Ryan though. Hence the painting right now.

More of the inconvenient kitchen. Isn't that sky blue color pretty? Ryan is so nice to paint these, I can't tell you what a huge pain in the *ss these cabinets are. The oil based paint looks like it's awful to work with, and the clean up takes him so long it almost isn't worth it unless he can paint for a while with no interruptions.

We have decorated for Christmas though! Having our own Christmas tree has made me feel more "grown up" than anything else. Isn't that weird?

Our Christmas tree. With tinsel!

I'm thinking that after I clean up said tinsel, the only exclamation points will be after expletives. It's so pretty though.

A dear family friend gave us a set of wedding-themed ornaments. I hung the bride and groom up together.

My Grandma quilts, and she pieced this lovely quilted ornament for me last Christmas. It's one of my favorites, and it has our wedding colors in it.

Ryan's Grandma on his mom's side used to make these gingerbread cookies for ornaments:

Yeah our "tree skirt" is a yard and a half of fabric that looked somewhat Christmasy that I pooled around the base of our tree. I will be way more prepared next year!

Ryan set up the train he's had since he was 10 around the bottom. It actually blows smoke out of the engine, but we're too cheap to buy 6 C batteries. Next year.

Our neighbors brought us this poinsettia over, and I put up our brand new nativity set next to it! Ryan says without a stable and animals it's not a nativity set, that this is just the Holy Family. I maintain that it's the nativity right after Jesus was born and before everyone else showed up. Obviously.

I am beyond thrilled to have a camera and have more free time, so I can get back on the blogging train!

How're the holidays treating you so far?

Whew!

2010-11-22T18:16:00.003-06:00

Hey guys! We're still alive...I've missed blogging, but this house is sucking up 110% of our free time. We're hoping to move in this weekend!

The basement has really set us back, time wise. The jack*ss who owned the house before us (we also call him "that sh*thead," among other things), owned a dog that he had no business owning. The dog escaped from the fenced in backyard and bit someone, so the owner locked the dog up in the basement. For 4 months straight.

This breaks my heart for the dog. The dog was forced to go to the bathroom in its playspace, which is so cruel.

We knew the basement was gross when we bought the house, but I didn't think that clean up would be this intense. The basement is unfinished with concrete floors, wooden stairs, a walk out, a 4 windows. Last week Ryan and I soaked the floors with Comet and hot water and scrubbed with these nylon scrub brushes he bought at Big Lots. That made it smell worse, because then it smelled like old dog pee and wet dog. Yum.

Then the drain clogged. Ryan pulled out handfuls of matted, soaked dog hair, but the drain wasn't draining 100%.

The next day, Friday, my mom and I scrubbed again with a special product made for animal urine in concrete. That got off at least 1 layer of grime. (Mom had a snake and unclogged the drain. A dog toy was stopping it all up). I took a shop vac (best thing EVER) and sucked up all the fossilized dog turds and huge wads of dog hair, then we scrubbed the floors again with vinegar.

It still smelled worse. The more we scrubbed, the more dirt leeched up from the concrete floors, the more urine smell we seemed to unlock. The smell was rising upstairs, too.

Saturday. Saturday we scrubbed twice with Tri Sodium Phosphate and a power sprayer. This was the most effective thing yet. We've come to the conclusion that the stairs (which are wooden) are responsible for a great deal of the smell, so we're painting those with a special odor blocking paint. We're also going to rip out the wood shelving that's down there. It's oak, and we hate to do it, but even if the dog didn't pee directly on the wood, those shelves have been marinating in that stench for years.

Just working in the basement requires masks for your face and gloves. It is the grossest thing I think I have ever done. But we are finally seeing some progress, because when we got to the house yesterday, the odor seemed much less pungent than it has.

Anyway. Hopefully I'm buying a camera this weekend, so I can document all of our progress!

Did you run in to any roadblocks with your home?

Another WTH moment

2010-11-10T08:52:00.000-06:00

Last night, while I was happily enjoying a fantastic episode of Glee at my parent's house, my husband was finishing up painting the trim in the office, so that I could rip up the carpet and take out staples, etc. We knew there was hardwood under the gross and dog-urine stained carpet, and Ryan was trying to get the painting done so I would have something to do.

I come back from watching Glee, and Ryan informs me that there is good news, and there is bad news.

Good news: lovely, honey colored hardwood floors underfoot for a good half of the room. Darker stained hardwood floors for the back half-no biggie. Character, right?

Bad news: Gaping hole in the honey colored hardwood floors, plugged with a random piece of wood. Also gaping hole by the closet, also patched with random piece of wood.

So like I said last week about the poisin ivy....WHO CUTS A GAPING HOLE IN INDESCRIBABLY GORGEOUS HARDWOOD FLOORS?!

Anyway. I have plans, plans that include salvaging the original hardwoods from the closet to patch the holes. Plans that might not work, but I have back-up plans that include rugs. Area rugs.

Honestly I'm not that bothered by it. When my sister and I were ripping down wood paneling in our house we live in now, we found a window that had been bricked over and stuffed with insulation behind a chunk of wood paneling.

Truly though, it's a small room, and we can definitely make it work. With houses as old as ours, you have to go into it expecting crap like that to happen. But it does concern me for the upstairs, which is 100% carpeted. We can hide stuff in a small room, but the upstairs has much bigger rooms, meaning any fixes we have to do will be more expensive.

Other happy house news: the entire main floor is 100% popcorn ceiling free, and our living room and office are both painted a cheerful, sunny yellow. Also we did yardwork almost all day Sunday, and the house already looks much more loved.

Have you ever had any home improvement or decorating surprises? And how good was Glee last night?!

Holy Hell

2010-11-05T09:06:00.003-05:00

Holy Hell is exactly right. Ryan and I are both covered in poison ivy that we got from our own house. WHO LETS POISON IVY GROW IN THEIR FRONT YARD?!

Ryan did some yardwork Monday, trimming bushes in the front yard. I did his laundry late Monday night, and I've got poisin ivy and so does he. Not cool. And I'm in a wedding this weekend, so I've been having mild anxiety attacks that the bright red welts will show, but it looks like they are all going to be covered. Whew.

My friend Melissa is getting married tomorrow! I get off work at noon, then I have some stuff to finish up and a few errands to run and I am on the road. According to the intinerary, the b-maids are decorating the church from 3-6, so I will hopefully get there right at 3. I am failing miserably at the bridesmaid bit this week...I told Melissa's mom I'd bring some baked goods for the wedding breakfast tomorrow, but this house is sucking up 100% of my free time. I was up until 11:30 last night baking bread and muffins, and I just didn't have it in me to knock out cinnamon rolls too. So I'm cheating and stopping off at a bakery on the way to get something delicious. I'm heading home from the wedding after the reception tomorrow night, so it's going to be a marathon however many hours! I'm so excited for her...she's had such a time of it, and I know she's going to have a beautiful day.

Also, my little sister Mary is running at her state cross country meet tomorrow at 9 a.m. She's a senior, so this is her last rodeo. My sister Alli is video taping it for me :)

We're scraping popcorn ceilings. It's a much bigger project than I thought it would be, but hell, we'll NEVER do it while we live there since it's such a freaking mess, so we might as well do it right now, right? Right. Thankfully it's coming off like a dream, and revealing nicely textured walls that we don't have to patch or sand. Woohoo!

I am so worthless on Fridays....what about you?

Blogged!

2010-11-04T16:32:00.003-05:00

Wow I'm slow on the uptake...but our wedding was blogged by our photographer, Gail Fleming! You can check it out here, and if you aren't 100% sick of our wedding pictures yet, at the bottom of the post you can click on "Stacy and Ryan slideshow" to see a sampling of pictures.

I just love our wedding!

House

2010-11-04T06:58:00.000-05:00

Ryan and I closed on our house on Monday, and we've been over every evening since working on it. Ryan has taken on the huge job of sanding, priming and painting the kitchen cabinets, and I've been cleaning along with help from my mom and my sisters.

We are lucky to have such a large amount of cabinet space, but lots of cabinet space means way more work for Ryan. It'll be worth it in the long run! We both knew that once we moved in the cabinet painting project would just keep getting pushed off, since it comes close to making the kitchen unusable. Who wants to mess with that when you live somewhere? So Ryan is doing this before we even move in.

The kitchen is huge, and the cabinets and appliances are in the great U-shape. The fridge is pushed way out from the wall for cleaning right now.

This is the living room. The big opening on the right is the kitchen. I love the open staircase.

We are super lucky that my family is so close and so helpful! Mom, Alli and Mary have been over every night this week. Mary took a toothbrush to the woodwork last night...needless to say, their help is making this gargantuan project seem much more managable.

This was post-floor cleaning.

Mary cleaned dog hair and dust out of the vents. Sidenote: Mary qualified for state in Cross Country, so she'll be running in Jeff City this weekend!

The ceilings are 10 feet high, and the woodwork around the windows is original. This is the living room again.

More living room.

This is wildly unique for an old house: main floor laundry! And it's right off the kitchen and the master br, so it couldn't be more convenient.

This is the upstairs landing. We're thinking sewing machine spot or reading nook, not sure yet.

Here's one of the upstairs brs (the master is on the main level). We'll set this up as a guest room..maybe that will induce some of our St. Louis friends to come down for a visit!

I love the transom above the front door.

Our first night in the house, all I did was clean out the fridge with bleach spray. I worked on it for over 3 hours and didn't even get to the freezer. I have never in my life seen a dirtier fridge.

It's sparkling clean now. We have 2 pears (courtesy of Grandma, thank you Grandma!, 1 Coors Light courtesy of my mom, 2 bottles of Michelob Ultra and 1 bottle of champage. The freezer has freeze pops to bribe people to help us.

(That's a sorority rush shirt, I was a ZTA but I went alum when I transferred in the middle of college.)

Here's the other upstairs br.

This is the main floor guest bathroom, nice and clean.

Last night we realized that the popcorn ceiling comes right off and reveals a lightly textured ceiling that looks WAY better than the popcorn. So tonight I scrape popcorn ceilings. I'm hoping it won't completely ruin all the cleaning I've done, but we'll see....

We are hoping to move in in a couple weeks, but we'll see. If we keep on discovering big messy projects it's going to be longer! We also have to decide on paint colors tonight. Any ideas?

How long did it take you to move in to your house after you closed on it?

Bachelorette

2010-11-01T09:52:00.008-05:00

Saturday night we threw Melissa the best bachelorette we could manage! With everything that has been doing on with her, we just wanted her to have the best possible time. Mission accomplished!

Everyone minus me and plus a few others took a bus to some wineries all day. I met up with everyone for dinner and the bars.

We dressed up to go out downtown in the worst b-maid dresses we could find.

This picture is from the local paper's online photo gallery for Halloween. The caption below it says "A bride and her groomsmen walk down Main Street on Saturday, Oct. 30th." I personally don't feel as if we look manly, thank you!

I pinned a bow to my dress to give due honor to the classic bridesmaid butt bow.

No idea:

It was a great night, and I hope Melissa had a blast!

Also, a hangover at age 24 takes much, much longer to shake than a hangover did a few years ago. Who knew.

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

Not Cool

2010-10-29T08:50:00.003-05:00

You guys.

A dear, dear friend of mine, Melissa, is getting married a week from tomorrow. I'm a bridesmaid in her wedding.

Last night, her matron of honor called her and dropped out of the wedding.

She didn't drop out of the wedding because of a death in the family, or a sick husband or child, but because of selfish reasons. She was in charge of the bachelorette party, and she refused to let anyone help her plan it. The planning was very poor, prices for the party doubled overnight on Wednesday for all of the participants, and she called the bride, wanting the bride to front the extra money. She "tearfully" called another bridesmaid and turned over the planning of the party to her the day before yesterday.

In conclusion, this girl is embaressed. Her solution is to drop out of the wedding. Scratch that. She had her husband call Melissa's fiance and drop out FOR HER.

This post isn't to crucify the ex-matron of honor, but I wanted you all to have enough background to know that her reasons for dropping out are selfish. I feel that she needs to suck it up and stand up with Melissa regardless of how embaressed she is. Because that's what friends do.

I am heartbroken for Melissa. Her wedding planning road has been rocky at best, and I hurt for her, because she has had to work so hard to isolate the joy in this process. She has had to cling so hard to her love for her almost-husband in the face of some really ugly family nonsense and now, some really ugly friend nonsense. I wish I could do something for her, to ease this a bit. But all I can do right now is listen and do whatever I can to make sure she has a blast tomorrow at her bachelorette. Which doesn't feel like it's nearly enough.

It's just another reminder that wedding planning truly does bring out the best, and the worst in people. And sometimes it's a reminder of the warm and lovely people you have around you, and sometimes it's a reminder that a close friendship wasn't at all what you thought it would be.

I hate hate HATE this for her. She's so close to wedded bliss, then this happens.

Did bad behavior surface during your wedding/wedding planning? Do you have anything warm and fuzzy to pass on to Melissa? I know how much kind comments can help when bad things happen!

Boring Money Stuff

2010-10-21T10:20:00.000-05:00

So Ryan and I close on our first house November 1st! We are first time homebuyer's, and this whole process has been quite the education. Mortgage stuff sucks hardcore. It isn't nearly as fun as looking at living room inspiration pictures. It's actually just like wedding planning!

Closing on the contract=getting engaged

Excitement all around, woohoo! We're on top of the world!

Waiting waiting=initial planning stages

We can put this here and paint this this color. THIS IS SO EXCITING. Much akin to wedding colors and the pretty pictures on heavily styled blogs.

Mortgage nonsense=wedding logistics

They need to know where I worked 5 years ago? They want pay stubs from my internship? They want WHAT faxed to them right this second?! Very similar to "the hall only holds 300 but we can't possibly invite less than 400...WHAT DO WE DO?! and my parents want to invite their 3rd cousins WHY WHY?!" Hair ripping out ensues.

And I'm assuming that actually closing and getting the keys and walking inside your first home is a lot like the wedding day...overwhelming and wonderful. A happy ending!

Ryan and I are so, so lucky to be able to have the kind of house we're about to have. I am super pumped to really make it our own and make it look like new again (it isn't in very good shape and needs work).

Quick warning on escrow: Escrow can suck it. And the banks are so into covering their *sses now that you have to pay 14 months of taxes and insurance up front AND keep paying both of those every month like you haven't paid way ahead anyway. Apparently with interest rates being so low, this is just the new climate of home loans.

I want to show you all pictures so badly, but the pictures online are not my property, and I hate posting things without giving credit to the source. I don't want to link back to the house for safety reasons...but I don't think the real estate site cares, right? So I'll throw a couple up here without giving credit. Shhh, don't tell anyone!

I am itching to paint those cabinets a nice clean white and paint a wall navy. I saw it in a picture online and it looks phenomenal.

The living room:

Just a sneak peek, with so much more to come! This place is going to be full of house nonsense.

Is the nesting bug getting to you?

Long Lost Friends

2010-10-15T08:04:00.000-05:00

So last night, Ryan and I went to my little sister's conference cross country meet. Ryan had to stay and do recruiting stuff, so we didn't leave until 6:30. We were both starving, so we went and ate at Panera. Ryan had brought some bank papers in to show me over dinner, but we both got so excited over the prospect of broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl that we lost track of them. So we're driving to Schnuck's to get some produce to tide us over until our next big grocery run, and Ryan realizes that he left said bank papers at Panera. I pull up at Panera, park haphazardly so Ryan could run in, and wait until he comes back. As I'm waiting, I spot my long lost friend Suz sitting inside! Of course I dash in and bear hug her.

I worked at an Italian restaurant in town for 5 years, all 5 of those years with Suz as the manager. We were buddies. She's one of my absolute favorite people. Her dad passed away a few years ago, and she quit her job and moved in with her mom, changed phone numbers several times and stopped going out. I've been looking everywhere for her ever since, and last night I finally found her!

Me and Suz on a Bella Italia lake trip:

Me and Suz at Halloween:

I wish I could've tracked her down so I could get her an invitation to the wedding, but she has been through so much and I am so glad that I found her again!

Hurray for long lost friends!

Have you lost track of anyone important to you?

I'm It!

2010-10-13T11:18:00.000-05:00

So Nikki over at The Fashionable Wife tagged me in this question game that's been making the rounds. Hopefully this will alleviate the spectacular boredom of waiting until Nov 1st WHEN WE CLOSE ON OUR FIRST HOUSE!

1. What is your favorite book?

I have about 50. I can't help it.

-Favorite Sci-Fi book: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Best surprise ending EVER. And there's a movie coming out Card is writing the screen play!

-Favorite Romance: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. And Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, both by Jane Austen. Oh and Like Water for Chocolate.

-Favorite Scary book: The Stand by Stephen King, also The Shining and his collection of short stories, Skeleton Crew.

Misc: Anything by Dr. Crossan and Dr. Borg. Anything Pearl S. Buck writes, especially Imperial Woman.

2. How did you meet your significant other:

He was assistant coaching my little sister's cross country team, and I spotted his hot self at the state meet. I facebooked him and 6 months later we were dating!

3. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Prague by myself. London with my sisters, Fiji with my husband.

4. What is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

I love thrift store browsing. I love to sew and quilt, and I never get tired of books.

5. If you didn't have to worry about money, what would be your dream job?

I would love to organize events for the Alzheimer's Association. Sewing or quilting would be a fun job too.

6. What is one thing that never fails to make you feel better after a long or hard day?

Ryan giving me a shoulder rub or making me dinner. And a successful shopping expedition is always good therapy!

7. What is your favorite thing to cook or bake? Or, what is your best recipe?

I have a tiramisu layer cake recipe that absolutely kills.

8. What is your favorite thing in your closet?

I have a black dress from Banana Republic with a ruffled neckline that makes me feel like a million bucks.

So who's it next? I'm tagging...

Mrs. T at 99 + Forever

Kristy at I'm Going to Marry You Someday

Tenille at 9 Years in the Making

Buhdoop!

So ladies, if you have a few minutes....

What was your favorite moment from your wedding? The one where you think of it and feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Do you sing in the shower or in your car when no one's around? What's your favorite song to belt out?

Flats or heels?

How long do you want to wait to have kids, if you're planning on having them at all? No judgment meant in the least, just curious what other people's time lines are!

How many nights a week do you and/or your partner cook?

If you could change 1 thing personality trait about yourself, what would it be? (I would 100% change my grudge-holding tendency)

Recent Happenings/Brain Dump

2010-10-07T11:14:00.005-05:00

So....Ryan and I put an offer in on a house! And after lots of back and forthing, we have an inspection set up for tomorrow. We'll see what it turns up...I'm cautiously excited. The house was built in 1924, so there could be dozens of things majorly wrong with it. The house was really nicely renovated 6-7 years ago (wiring updated, plaster pulled out, new insulation, drywall put in, new windows, etc), so we should be in good shape. But we'll see, I'm not going to get all "we can put this there, and we should paint this room this color!" until we see how this inspection turns out. I have lots of ideas of course...but I'm not going to superimpose those ideas onto said house until this inspection is done.

Also, last week, I was driving home from an interview (more on that next week!) and I got in a wreck. Lame. But it turns out that a guy I went to grade school with works at my insurance agent's office! Weird, right?

Ryan and I have a double date tonight with my sister Alli and her super adorable BF Chris. He only eats cheese on pizza and he makes phenomenal popcorn.

Ryan and I are camping this weekend too! The weather looks like it's going to be gorgeous.

Oh and we turned in our first draft of edits on our wedding album. The list was...lengthy. And we need to pick out which pictures we actually want to print. Because we haven't done that yet. Oops!

I don't understand how people who have kids get anything done. I've been trying to get over to my Grandma's all week to finish up the binding on my quilt (I'm DYING to show it to you but I want to wait until it's finished) but it just hasn't happened. ARGH. Next week Grandma, I promise!

So what's rocking your world?

My Secret Love Affair

2010-09-30T10:50:00.009-05:00

I LOVE Orla Kiely.

I remember the day I first stumbled across Orla. I was in college in Springfield Missouri strolling through a factory/reject store (clothes with broken zippers, missing buttons, items they had too much of at the department store, etc), when I found a super, super cute brown purse with a mod, graphic print. It had a very slight red line drawn on it that you could only see if you were really looking for it, and the handbag was made of a coated canvas. I loved it, but it was $30 so I almost put it back. But I carried it around for the hour that I was there, and finally sucked it up and bought it.

Years later, I am STILL carrying said bag, with only minimal signs of wear. It's held up beautifully.

So now I have a serious love for Orla Kiely. When her collection hit Target my sister and I were all up on that. I am kicking myself for not buying every single piece...hindsight is 20/20.

Needless to say, with the house search going on decorating is on my brain. Whatever house we end up in, I'll have at least a corner for my sewing set-up, and I really want to tie some Orla in. Because her stuff makes me so happy.

Source

Do you SEE those chair cushions?! I can't afford her fabric, but I could easily embroider her iconic stem print onto a pretty solid and recover a chair seat. I can't talk about her furniture, I get too upset and I question my whole philosophy of "do what you love, who cares how much money you make if you're happy!" Which is dumb, and I know this, but that's how much Orla tempts me.

Wallpaper will never, ever make an appearance in Ryan and I's homes...both of us have spent way too much time scraping old wallpaper off various walls to ever willingly put it up. But, if we weren't so anti-wallpaper, and if it wasn't $98 a roll, this would be in consideration....

Source

Sigh.

Here's Ms. Kiely's office in England:

Source

Light, with a few pops of color. Simple.

My stubborn fixation on replicating expensive things that I love and can't afford has turned it's focus from wedding planning (*bouquets cough cough*) to Orla in my sewing space. Get excited, because I will have Orla's mod, unique and graphic touches without designer prices. Come hell or high water, it will happen!

But, I am thinking of asking for this for Christmas....

Source

Do you have a fav designer you love but can't afford? Do you want to incorporate expensive stuff into your home without paying lots of $$$?

Album

2010-09-27T07:40:00.000-05:00

A part of Ryan and I's wedding photography package were 3 professional albums-40 pgs a piece, with 2 of them being smaller than 1. We're giving the smaller ones to our parents and keeping the big one for ourselves. We're greedy like that.

Our photog sent us the 1st draft of our albums 2 weeks ago. I guess I didn't really understand the whole process...I thought maybe we'd send her a list of our favorite pics or something? Anyway, she put the album together and then sent it to us for edits.

And do we have edits.

There are some pictures neither one of us care for, and some that we love that didn't make it in. Overall though, the way its organized and everything looks great. I think they're going to turn out really well, I just feel so nitpicky when I say "on page 33, take out this and this and this and replace with this and this and this." These are the only professional albums we'll have though, and I know we both want them to be perfect.

Did you get a professional album from you photog?

Houses

2010-09-23T08:02:00.000-05:00

So Ryan and I have been house hunting for months. After seeing every house built before 1970 in our price range (it's not a big town, we had to see everything because that's just how we decide on things), we narrowed it down to 3 homes. We put an offer in on our top choice this week and we're into the negotiating process. So far so good, but plenty could go wrong. Even knowing this, I can't help but mentally decorate. Our realtor says this is 100% normal.

The bathrooms are all generic, cheap and bland apartment looking. The house was built in 1924 (!!!!), so I think that classic basket weave tile would look amazing:

Source

Plus, it's only $6ish a square foot.

The kitchen is screaming for a backsplash, and I LOVE subway tile.

Source

We also need furniture....have you seen how much furniture costs? Luckily, Ryan is super handy, AND I found a blog that has furniture plans based on popular projects so you can build them! Ryan also doesn't work during the summer (his coaching job is a 10 month position) so I'm thinking that he'll have plenty of time to make some furniture, right? Right Ryan? I'm just kidding, I worked set crew in high school and I am super handy. Plus, measuring fabric and sewing can't be that much different than measuring wood and cutting it.

Let's be honest, Ryan isn't going to let me go near his power tools.

Moving on!

This headboard was a door:

Source

Very doable.

I have big plans my friends, big plans. But first things first, scoring the house.

I'll keep you posted!

Are you house hunting?

Party

2010-09-22T07:22:00.000-05:00

Our wedding was really and truly the most fun day of my life. It was laid back, everyone was easy going (for the most part and minus some minor stresses like missing suit pants and late arrivals), and it was celebratory in every sense of the word. I've had lots of people tell me how beautiful our wedding was, but I've had way more people tell me what a blast they had.

Both our caterer and the coordinator of the Polish Heritage Center told us that there was absolutely no way we'd go through more than 2 kegs. No way, especially since we also had wine and a signature drink. We had to tap a 3rd keg by 10, and we were 95% through with the 3rd keg at 11 p.m. when the bar shut down. That's 600 beers in 3.5 hours. Sweet success.

This is just a fraction of the dance floor, it was packed all night.

This a former professor dancing with one of my former classmates:

Sisters are the best!
Have you guys played that Wii Dance game? We LOVE it, and we know all the moves to "You Can't Touch This." We replicated the entire dance, don't worry!

This is Jason, one of Ryan's best buddies. They miss each other, and reunions are always happy and full of love.

Ryan's dad TORE UP the dance floor!

Every pretty little detail and DIY project aside, our wedding was outrageously fun, and completely joyful. We were surrounded by all of our favorite people, and they were all there with bells on to celebrate with us. And there is nothing like that feeling...I hope I never forget what that felt like.

That closes out the wedding recaps! It was the most intense, blissful, overwhelming, celebratory, hysterically fun, most spilling-over-with-love day of my life, and I wish that everyone could have a day like ours. I feel selfish saying that I want more like it...but I do. How could I not?

Books

2010-09-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

How awesome is this!

Source

It's a desk made from books! I would've but the spines out, but this gives it a much lighter look, don't you think? Maybe I can get Ryan to make me one like this....

I just finished reading...

2010-09-15T07:58:00.000-05:00

...lots of books. I am way behind!

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, by Kathryn Joyce.

Source

This was scary. The Christian Patriarchy movement, where women must obey their husbands without question and happily bear as many children as God blesses them with is chronicled. I wish the author would've gone more in depth of the women's every day lives, but she focused on leaders of the movement and their philosophy. The movement is just twisted and champions the breeding of children to increase their political prowess.

The Year of Living Biblically, by A. J. Jacobs.

Source

This is the second time I've read this book, and I really want a copy for myself so I can read it again. It's hysterical. The author goes an entire year following the Bible as closely as possible. He meets with a wide variety of religious personalities, from Hasidic Jews to a snake handling Tennessean. He had a great deal of respect for everyone he dealt with, and he really drove the

point home that it's impossible to NOT pick and choose what you honor from the Bible. Fun fact: The author's wife got mad that he wouldn't sit on seats she had sat on when she was on her period because they were "unclean."

The Well and the Mine, by Gin Phillips.

Source

A very ethereal Southern novel, very Kaye Gibbons-esque. The setting is a poor mining town and the book is mostly a character sketch. It was a great light read.

City of Thieves, David Benioff.

Source

This was so good! I've read lots of WWII novels, and this was an entirely new perspective. The book is about a Russian Jew (I think he was Jewish? But I'm positive that he was Russian) escapes from a besieged Russian city alongside a Russian deserter to steal eggs for a Russian general's daughter's wedding. They are stuck in enemy territory full of starving people and have to get the eggs and make their way back. They strike up quite a friendship, and you see a side of WWII that you don't see all that often.

The Stand, by Stephen King.

Source

BEST STEPHEN KING NOVEL EVER. Yes, this book does indeed warrant all caps. I am a big Stephen King fan, and this was the best one. You should read it. If you're going to read it, stop reading this now, spoilers ahead!

It's all about a flu that sweeps the planet and kills off 99.8% of the population. This is a fatty book and will take you a while to read. I was reading this book during the wedding and brought it along with me in case of downtime...HAHAHAHAHA. Anyway the superior (so superior its sometimes tedious) character development that is typical of Stephen King sets up a large variety of characters. The book culminates in a massive battle between good and evil with the vindictive God of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures and not the forgiving God of the New Testament. It rules. I read it, then turned around and read it again. So good.

World War Z, by Max Brooks.

Source

This was super funny. If you liked The Zombie Survival Guide Manual, then you'll like this.

The Lives of Pearl S. Buck, by Irvin Block.

I love Pearl S. Buck, and this was a biography about her. I loved hearing about her early life in China and about the writing process for books.

Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain.

Source

Loved it. This was another 2nd reading. I got this book for pennies at a thrift store. It has some coffee damage, but who doesn't like to enjoy a good cup of coffee while they read a book? Bourdain details the gritty behind the scenes life of professional kitchens. Lots of profanity and real life stories of restaurants made me feel like I was waitressing again!

Dragon Seed, by Pearl S. Buck.

Source

I landed this pretty copy at an antique store for $3. This wasn't my favorite Buck book (that would be Imperial Woman), but it was still good. It was all about WWII in China. Holy crap do women get the short end of the stick in wartime.

Blooms of Darkness, by Ahron Appelfeld.

Source

Not so great, I wouldn't recommend it. This was about a Jewish boy who hides with a Russian prostitute during WWII. It was very ehhh. The plot was really weak and there was no connection to the characters.

Mockingjay, by Suzanna Collins.

Source

This was the last in the Hunger Games trilogy. While I wasn't crazy good about the ending, I was glad that the author didn't tack some happily-ever-after ending on. The characters had been through so much, it just wouldn't have been honest. The trilogy was wonderful, you should read it if you haven't! Be sure you block aside some serious time, you won't be able to put them down.

Joy Comes in the Morning, by Suzanna Collins.

Source

SO GOOD. This book is all about a female reform Rabbi who works a lot with hospital patients. I loved the descriptions of the Jewish prayers when waking up and before eating, I really want to look them up. This book was great, I highly recommend it.

A Desert in Bohemia, by Jill Paton Walsh.

Source

This was all about Communist Russia from the end of WWII until the present day. One family was followed throughout the years, and the loss of their property was chronicled. It was OK, but I wouldn't read it again.

I feel like I've been on a book binge and need a vacation from reading! The last 5 or so books I picked up I couldn't get into, so I'm on a bit of a hiatus. I'm working on quilts, which I can't wait to show you!

What are you reading right now?

The Big Announcement

2010-09-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

Ryan and I had a big announcement to make at the wedding. Up until a week or so before the wedding, we had absolutely no idea where we would be going. Ryan and I were both committed to him pursuing a college coaching career, and things were still up in the air. Ruthy, I SO know how you feel!

Anyway, a week before the wedding, Ryan got the opportunity of a lifetime to coach a Division I cross country and distance track team. In my hometown. It doesn't get any better! We kept it a secret from most people (which was super hard, because every single person we knew asked us "So where are you two going to be living after the wedding?" Daily.) We waited to announce Ryan's new job at the wedding reception after the toasts.

I stood up and thanked everyone for being there, and told them all how much it meant to us that they could celebrate with us that day.

Then I handed the mic over to Ryan.

Who was quick to clear up any discrepancy. "There's no baby!" Much to his Dad's chagrin...

And he got a standing ovation. My heart burst, it was absolutely beyond words.

My cup runneth over.

We truly could not be more lucky/blessed to be starting off our married lives the way we are. Ryan is so, so happy, and I am so, so happy for him. Having a husband who comes home every night fulfilled and content is the best feeling.

Did you have any big announcements to make at your wedding?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

I spy....

2010-09-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

Funny faces...do you see them?

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Toasts

2010-09-09T07:20:00.000-05:00

As everyone chowed down on Italian food, some of our nearest and dearest gave lovely toasts.

First up was my Dad (isn't he handsome?). He talked about how proud he was of us and referred to the Boston Marathon as a BM multiple times. It was funny, and really sweet.

Then Ryan's brother Matt, the best man gave a really nice speech. Public speaking isn't his idea of a fun time, so him standing up to say such wonderful things meant so much to us.

Ryan: Here's the on button. Don't touch it, it's already on.

Me: Touches it, turns it off, then has to turn it back on again.

Maid of honor #1, Allison, gave a meaningful speech that tied in Pride and Prejudice. I cried. She also doesn't care for public speaking, but she's a trooper!

Isn't she gorgeous?

Mary amused everyone with her rules of a happy marriage. She had everyone in stitches.

Apparently when I laugh, I LAUGH. There are so many pictures of my throwing my head back with my mouth wide open. I love them.

Here's Mary's speech:

For Stacy and Ryan, it always seems to come back to one thing: running. The day they met, for example, was at my freshman year state XC meet. She noticed him by his shaved legs. If you would like to thank me for the reason this happy occasion has occurred, I’ll be over there after the toasts.

Now, fast-forward to their engagement. It was at the starting line of the Boston Marathon. They met at a running event, were engaged at a running event, and I’m completely surprised they weren’t married at a running event.

So, although running seems to be you two’s number one hobby, be careful of a couple of things and follow Mary’s Advice to a Successful Marriage of Two Runners.

1. Don’t run with scissors. I know everyone says that, but seriously, bad idea.
2. Refuse to look at each others’ feet. That will surely end in disaster.
3. Don’t have 400 running Kenyan babies. I know Powerthirst is your number one place for advice, but just resist the temptation.
4. When you have children, don’t be too hard on them. Let them grow to at least 4 before you make them start training for the marathon.
5. Ryan, let me just say keep up the good work. Continue to restrain yourself from running when Stacy mentions Mormons or Hitler.
6. Stacy, don’t humiliate Ryan too much when you race. Also, know that when someone whistles when you and Ryan run by, it was directed at your good looks, not his.

Basically, if you follow my guideline, you two will have a happy marriage. Let’s toast to the newlyweds. I love you both and Congrats!!!!

We have some kick-*ss people in our lives. Siblings are like built-in best friends!

Did you have toasts at your wedding?

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

2010-09-02T12:14:00.000-05:00

If you need shopping money, then you should enter my giveaway, it ends tonight at 7!

Garter

2010-09-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

Ryan kept telling me that he had something "hilarious" planned for the garter toss, and he wouldn't tell me what it was. Anyway, he was the ultimate gentleman, despite his warnings, and the garter toss went off without anyone's head up my dress or something equally awkward.

Once again, another odd choice for "the next to be married"...Ryan's cousin Mike laughs when he talks about marriage. Though he is dating a lovely woman...

I was pleasantly surprised...no shenanigans and fun all around. I'm also glad that I didn't spend very much money on the garter since you toss it and all.

Did you do the traditional garter toss?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Mother of the Bride Dresses

2010-08-31T10:30:00.002-05:00

Don' t you love mutually happy events?

I'm winding down my wedding recaps and I've been wanting to thank you all for following along on the wedding planning process, and then DesignerApparel.com e-mails me wanting to give one of you all a $75 gift card to Nordstrom's!

DesignerApparel.com is buddies with online retailer's like Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's, and they have this Mother of the Bride Dresses page that helps brides-to-be and their moms (and their partner's moms!) find the perfect mother of the bride/groom dress. They have designers like Adrianna Papell, Tadashi and Eileen Fisher, all of them that don't look bridesmaidy (some moms don't want to blend in to much) but don't look matronly, so it's a really good mix.

The traditional long-dress-with-a-matching-jacket dress didn't fit the style of our wedding, so both my mom and my mother-in-law got their dresses at Nordstrom's -- which is why I thought this giveaway was so perfect since I can personally vouch for what a great idea this is!

I even have proof! Here's Ryan and his mom in her pretty Nordstrom's dress (I am 99.9% positive her's was from Nordstrom's, but she ordered several and returned the ones she didn't like so I'm a bit fuzzy on what came from where)....

And here's my mom in her Nordstrom's dress! My mom walked in, we looked for 20 minutes and she bought this. It was too easy.

DesignerApparel.com also makes your life easier with nice touches like price comparison, free shipping notices and sale notifications.

Here's how to enter: Just comment and tell me something warm and fuzzy. Was your coffee order perfect at Starbuck's today? Are you rocking your favorite outfit? Have you caught up with an old friend lately? Are you pumped it's almost fall? You have until...let's say Thursday September 2 at 7 p.m., Central time.

Just a note: I'm not getting anything out of this contest. They e-mailed me, I thought you all would love it, and I personally used Nordstrom's for my wedding shopping. There's the full disclosure my friends!

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Bouquet Toss

2010-08-31T10:14:00.008-05:00

I was pretty so-so on the bouquet toss...I know lots of people are eliminating them, but I didn't have a problem with it and I thought it would be fun, so I went for it. I'm really glad we did it, because it was much more entertaining than I thought it would be!

You know that scene in Glee, when the football team does a dance "Single Ladies"?

That's what I was going for. I don't know if anyone got it, but it seemed to be funny.

I 100% had a toss bouquet. I wasn't throwing one of my gorgeous bouquets anywhere!

And of all people to catch the bouquet, my 17 year old sister Mary! She better NOT be getting married any time soon!

Then we danced to Single Ladies. It was a blast, and I'm glad we included this kind of ridiculous tradition, because it was lighthearted and fun.

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

????

2010-08-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

So, Ryan and I are in the market for a camera. We want something in between a point and shoot and an SLR, and we are not interested in spending more than $400 for absolutely everything (bag+memory card). A guy at work recommended the Pentax X90 Super Zoom Digital Camera. It has 12.1 MP, a 26 wide-angle optical zoom lens and a 2.7 inch LCD screen.

Here's the thing: I understand the difference between digital and optical zooms, and I understand megapixels and whatever, but I don't understand these things in relation to the kinds of pictures I want to take. I want to take really good action shots at cross country and track meets, and I want to take pretty pictures when I'm out and about with friends and family. I want to have enough control over my pictures so that I can work up to using the aperture and shutter speed and stuff, but I don't want it to be so high tech that it doesn't make sense to my liberal-arts-non-tech brain.

Do any of you lovelies have any ideas for us? Thank you for your help!

The Big Entrance

2010-08-26T08:02:00.000-05:00

Running has been a major part of Ryan and I's relationship since day 1. I met him at a cross country meet and we got engaged on the starting line of the Boston Marathon, so incorporating running into the wedding was a no brainer....but it was harder to do than I thought. So when I got the idea to enter the reception song to the theme song from Chariots of Fire and have our wedding party slow-motion run into the reception (it started off as a joke but he thought it was perfect), Ryan was all about it.

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves here, but if you want to get a better effect, the music is below.

Source

The groomsmen all wore pencils behind their ears...you can't catch Ryan without his signature pencil. Don't worry, he wore it for all the pictures...he had a special "tuxedo" pencil in place. I met the man with a pencil behind his ear, and I married him with a pencil behind his ear.

Get it!

I would like to note that I practiced slow motion running multiple times, and I'm terrible at it, as pointed out by my lovely sisters. How awkward does that look? Don't worry, I did that in front of all my family and friends. In 4 inch heels.

I would also like to note that our wedding party were the absolute best sports ever about this. It was hysterical, everyone loved it, it was very "us," and it honored how important running is to us. Definitely wishing we had this on film!

How did you enter your reception?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

The Ceremony

2010-08-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

After our receiving line, we all went to our places to get ready for the ceremony. I cooled off a bit first...

...and had a serious look on my face when I talked to my Dad. We didn't talk about anything serious, so I'm not sure what the look is for. I took my shoes off whenever possible, they were really hurting by this point.

Ryan looked cool as a cucumber.

Everyone headed down the aisle...

As soon as "Dawn" from Pride and Prejudice started going, so did my tear ducts. I was struggling not to cry as I walked down the aisle both of my parents, and trying to soak it all in, but it was beyond overwhelming. In the best possible way of course!

The hand off:

Mom's brooch snagged Ryan's tie, so he tried to tuck it into his jacket.

The ceremony was just the right mixture of light and meaningful, and we clocked in right at 20-25 minutes.

Our parents stood up for the parent blessing:

Mr. Hennon: And now, would both sets of parents please stand.

Family is very important to both Stacy and Ryan. They would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge you, their parents, for the love, support and encouragement you have given them over the years. The ideals, values and respect they have for each other, have their roots in the love and care they have received from their families. To have your blessing and approval is very important.

Do you, Lisa and Pat, give your blessing upon the union of Stacy and Ryan and their new family?

Stacy's Parents: We do.

Do you, Susan and Patrick, give your blessing upon the union of Ryan and Stacy and their new family?

Ryan's Parents: We do.

I can't get over how gorgeous Eliot Chapel is. It has the lovely, classic woodwork but it is still simple and bright.

So I forgot to switch my engagement ring over to my right hand. I should've just left it, but I tried to switch it over from my left hand to my right hand and promptly dropped it. Before I had realized what happened Ryan swooped down to pick it up!

We exchanged vows that surprisingly didn't make me cry. They felt so right, and I am so glad that we wrote them ourselves.

Before we knew it, we were married!

Our ceremony could not have been more perfect. The homily the officiant gave was so, so fitting. I got the Unitarian Universalist wedding I had my heart set on, and it was a great fit for Ryan and I's brand new family.

How was your ceremony?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Thank You's

2010-08-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

We had 3 showers and a wedding, all with beyond generous family and friends. Needless to say, we have been busy with thank you cards for months now (we have under 10 left to write and we're all done with the wedding thank yous!). While I would love to buy pretty thank you cards off of Etsy, with the volume we're writing, it just isn't feasible financially...but I can't stand to send out boring ones on crappy paper.

So thank you, Target, for your letterpress thank you cards that run $12.99 for a box of 50. They're pretty, the paper feels nice, and they don't break the bank.

We've gone through 2 boxes of these and are working on box #3:

Source

Aren't these pretty too?

Source

They have way more options in the store, PS.

Where did you get your thank you cards?

Favorite Formals

2010-08-23T09:12:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to do a big post on the b-maids, then the groomsmen, then all the family pics, but I did want to highlight some of our very favorite "posed/formal" pictures.

I got my tree picture!

The photographer took this picture with me+individual b-maids, then Ryan+individual groomsmen, then Ryan+ individual ushers. They all were absolutely lovely. Alli is still that much taller than me AND I'm wearing 4 inch heels.

Here's Ryan with his ushers, being bad*sses.

This is on the steps of the St Louis art museum. I LOVE that fish eye lens!

More trees!
The church was gorgeous inside and out.

Ryan found these rocks called The Cascades in Forest Park, and they worked out really well as a backdrop. I wanted trees, Ryan wanted rocks, we both walked away happy.

A little twist on the traditional bride w/groomsmen....

Ok, this is Ryan's cousin Mike. This guy is incredible. He lifted me up like I was nothing. He's a strength and conditioning coach.

BOUQUETS! And you thought I was going to stop yammering on about them!

Woohoo!

The posed, perfectly arranged formals are nice to have, and I'm glad we have them, but the ones that make my heart sing are the fun ones, the ones where we're laughing or being silly or having a "moment." I have a feeling the goofy ones will be the ones that end up in the album!

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

The Way I Am

2010-08-19T11:02:00.000-05:00

Ryan and I did our first dance to Ingrid Michelson's "The Way I Am." We picked it because we're both kind of weird and love the oddities (most of the time at least!) the other possesses, and because it wasn't super long. We took 1 50-minute dance lesson and learned a basic foxtrot. We also learned some fancy entrance/exit stuff, but the entrance part flew out of our minds.

This picture is in my top 5 favs from the wedding:

And we ended a bit early (my fault), so we stood there and made it out. It worked out just fine-when in doubt, just make out!

I am so, so glad that we took a dance class. It was such a simple dance, but I had my bona fide princess moment. And it was awesome.

How'd your first dance go? Did you take dance lessons?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Post-Wedding DIY

2010-08-19T10:14:00.008-05:00

All of the powerhouse women in my family make quilts.

My MeeMaw made quilts from double knit fabric she found at thrift stores. My mom makes these now, and they aren't the prettiest things to look at, but they are warm and they last forever. My Grandma hand quilts absolute masterpieces that are more for display purposes...you would never take one of her quilts outside and h

ave a picnic on it.

I'm aiming for a combination of the two. And I have been chomping at the bit to get one started, and now that the wedding is done with and those DIY projects are over, I can figure out how to make a quilt.

I'm starting with a baby-sized quilt, because I don't want to invest the money and time into a full sized quilt when this is a learning experiment for me. I was sold when I saw the Road Trip Quilt, and I bought fabric for my very first quilt adventure today! The fabric is the Nicey Jane line from Z&S Fabrics. Originally I was going to with some 1930's repro fabric I found in my hometown quilt shop, but it was $9/yard and I wasn't 100% crazy about it. THEN Z&S announced a 20% site wide sale, and the line I had wanted from the get go was suddenly affordable.

This is what I bought:

I think the colors go together nicely but aren't super matchy-matchy. Hopefully they'll come in ASAP and I can get started!

What was the first big post-wedding DIY project that you took on, or are you DIY-exhausted and don't want to hear about this nonsense?

Favorites without Heads

2010-08-18T10:42:00.000-05:00

I love this one because our shoes are bad*ss, and we all know how obsessed I am with that bouquet.

And I love this one because...wow.

Also my butt looks phenomenal.

And I love that pin.

Clearly, your head doesn't need to be in the picture to make it amazing!

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Favors

2010-08-18T10:26:00.000-05:00

Favors were fighting for the bottom spot on the I-don't-care list along with programs and place cards. So when Ryan's mom volunteered to make cookie favors for the wedding, I was all "go for it!"

She made butter cookies dipped in white chocolate that she dyed aqua (genius) and then dipped them in red sprinkles. They were then tucked in simple cellophane bags and tied with a red ribbon. Voila!

So delicious. And when I got to our hotel room after the wedding, my bag had been stuffed with them. I enjoyed them very, very much at midnight in my filthy dirty wedding dress and bare feet.

It was a spur-of-the-moment planning decision that worked out beautifully, thanks to Ryan's mom and family for the wonderful idea and execution!

Doesn't going with the flow work out beautifully?

Did you have any random decisions that lead to something fantastic?

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Details Scmetails

2010-08-17T08:30:00.002-05:00

Or, how your wedding can be absolutely gorgeous and insanely memorable without gratuituous amounts of details.

First of all, I have insane amounts of respect for the people who can pull off elaborately coordinated weddings, where everything goes together perfectly and everywhere you look you'll find thoughtful, creative details. If you are one of those people, high five to you my friend!

But this post isn't for you. This post is for the lazy brides, the brides who just aren't super detail oriented. The brides who don't notice 95% of those details unless they're on a wedding blog such as Once Wed or whatever, and then they make you break out in a cold sweat. This is to show the non-detailed oriented brides like me how your wedding will not suck because you aren't making 5,000 handmade cupcake flags.

Exhibit A: Our church. It's lovely, isn't it?

We didn't decorate a d*mn thing.

Except for the gay pride decorations that were already there.

We didn't need to decorate the church. It was gorgeous. Did you see the ugly green chairs? Yeah I didn't notice either. Besides, we were in this building for 25 minutes tops. I'm not decorating a room for 25 whopping minutes.

Probably the most detaily thing at our reception: the dessert table.

Here is a typical table. Simple centerpiece, table overlay, favors at each seat, and the reserved sign since this was a parent's table or something. This is super, super simple. And it looks fine. Please note the non-decorated chairs. You can pass on the chair upgrades you guys, trust me.

The buffet line. We had a buffet because it's way cheaper, and they are the only kind of wedding meal around these parts. We moved 225+ through these tables in under 20 minutes. The decorations here are just left overs from the tables.

Here's a peek at the head table. The empty vases are for the bouquets. It's really simple, once again.

And here's a good shot of the hall with people in it. If you look closely along the sides of the room, you'll see fake trees with Christmas lights in them. The center refused to move them. I didn't fight this since they were pretty much unnoticeable.

Our gift table with our stunning $5 card box with the lid that wouldn't fit. I refused to cut a hole in the top (that would've look nicer) because I wanted to reuse this box for fabric storage post-wedding. This probably could've looked better....but here's where the lazy part of me kicked in. Didn't care, still don't.

This table was set up when guests first entered the reception. Some extra overlays were thrown on it and there was a display of family wedding pictures in NON-MATCHING frames. I was too lazy to get matching frames, and it worked.

There were no place card holders, no photo booth with clever props, no pretty linens, no fancy chairs...and I thought everything looked lovely.

So if you're like me, and have a full time job and lots of other things going on, or you're lazy and don't really care, it'll be OK, I promise. I had to dig to find these pictures, and I can guarantee you that they will not be making it into the album. We kept it simple and went with spaces that were already nice looking, and I am thrilled with how it all turned out. Once Wed is not knocking down my door to blog my wedding...but that wasn't what this was about. It was about us staying sane and keeping things affordable, and we did that and still had a beautiful wedding. The details were never a priority for us-it was about committing ourselves to each other for life, bottom line. Everything else was purely extraneous to us.

Are you a bad*ss and had lots of gorgeous details? Are you nervous your wedding won't have enough details? Or are you lazy like me and owning it?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Rave

2010-08-16T08:20:00.012-05:00

We wanted to get people to the dance floor ASAP, so directly after toasts we did the mother/groom dance, the father/daughter dance followed by the first dance...and then we had a rave.

As soon as Ryan and I got off the dance floor we dashed for the head table where I had glowsticks (from the Target dollar spot!) ready and waiting. "Sandstorm" came on, we ran over to the table where all of his ushers were, we handed out glow sticks right and left, and wonderful things happened...

I cannot tell you how hard I was laughing, it was absolutely awesome! Most of Ryan's runners were dancing, and a ton of his old co-workers hopped onto the dance floor too.

It was so Ryan, and I am so, so glad we did it. It was a blast for him and his friends (lets be honest...everyone thought it ruled), and it really got the party going in a big way. The dance floor was packed all night.

Did you add anything to your reception that was a big hit?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Let them eat cake!

2010-08-11T10:18:00.020-05:00

Marie Antoinette never said that, apparently. Anyway, cake!

I had absolutely nothing to do with selecting the cake. Ryan did it all, and my little sister Mary went to a cake tasting with him. So the cake was a total and complete surprise when I got to the reception, and here it is in all of its glory....

We ordered 2 of the round cakes for display purposes, and the rest of the cake was the exact same flavor, etc but they were sheet cakes that were cut up and ready to go in the kitchen. The milk glass cake stands we got at thrift stores, and the ribbon was from Michael's, and Ryan ordered the cake from Russell's Bakery in Fenton, MO. And wow. Ryan knows how I feel about strawberries, so he ordered white cake with cream cheese icing and strawberry filling. NO WORDS. So good. People were telling us and our parents all night that it was the best cake they had ever had. I agree!

We didn't really know how to start. Cutting into a pretty cake is somewhat intimidating!

Me: Let's just cut it.

Ryan: No cake smashing!

Me: Ok, just FEED ME CAKE.

Me: OMG that cake is so good. Let's make out it's so good.

Me: Oh, I guess you want cake too. FINE. Here you go!

Moment of silence for the cake.

It's so good we obviously need to make out again...

Me: Feed me more cake!

Hehehee, I love how grossed out Ryan looks here.

We didn't wait for forks or plates, we cut that piece of cake and plopped it on a napkin and went it at with our hands. Classy? Probably not. But I can't be expected to maintain self control when that pile of deliciousness was in front of my face!

My stomach was weird the whole week before the wedding. I worked 40 hours in 4 days and dinner just got put on the backburner, so I didn't eat much. By Friday I was too wrought up to eat a lot, so I think the biggest meal I had all week was at the rehearsal dinner. I hardly ate anything for dinner at the reception, so I was all over that cake. All over it.

Did you have a ton of cake left over? Because we had entire untouched sheet cakes left over. If we could do it over again, I think we'd literally order 1/2 of what we ordered, because we have a massive chunk in our freezer, Ryan's old workplace got cake, Ryan's parents handed it out...it was insane how much we had left over.

Ryan blew me out of the water with this cake. Did your partner surprise you with anything on the day of the wedding?

This is making me hungry...

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Receiving Line

2010-08-10T08:30:00.002-05:00

One of the absolute BEST decisions we made concerning the wedding was having the receiving line before the ceremony. Oh my goodness you guys, seeing everyone beforehand and seeing how happy they were and excited for us....talk about a warm and fuzzy feeling all over! We definitely felt the love.

So many people made the 2 hour trip, and we were so glad that they did.

We got lots of hugs...

...and a chance to visit with pretty much everyone.

I got to meet some of Ryan's friends I hadn't gotten to meet yet...it's so nice to put faces to names!

There were fist bumps...

After the wedding, I realized that my Grandma and I hadn't ever taken a picture together. I had this awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach over it, and I had just about decided that I was going to bust out the dress again and have Ryan dress up in his suit (he was 100% game) and use my Dad's nice camera to get a picture with Grandma. Then we got our pictures...and I saw this candid shot from our photographer. And I was blown away, because it's better than any posed picture we could've taken. I LOVE this picture.

Ryan and I got to hang out, which was really nice.

There were meaningful moments...

And before we knew it, it was time to cool down and get ready to make it official!

All photos are courtesy of the talented Gail Fleming.

Things that went wrong

2010-08-04T14:40:00.001-05:00

I write this post not to sound like a downer or to sound negative, but to let you know that stuff will go wrong, and that you'll still have a beautiful day. You might not even care, I know I didn't!

Here goes....

-At 1:30 (we had to leave for the church by 2:30), my Dad realized that he had left the pants to his suit in my hometown, 2 hours away. So he made a frantic run to Macy's and picked up some pants. He was back right at 2:30!

-People were late for pre-ceremony photos. We still had time left over.

-The heat index was 110 that day. We would take 10-15 minutes of photos outside, then go in for 20 minutes or so. That way no one looked like a sweaty mess. Ideal? No. Workable? Of course.

-We did a receiving line before the wedding, but tons of people arrived right at 5 (when the ceremony started), and we ended the receiving line at about 4:45. So we missed some people. We ended up catching 95% of our guests between the receiving line and the reception.

-The church had ac pouring out of vents where the guests were sitting, but the vents on the stage where we were were not functioning. We were pouring sweat throughout the entire ceremony.

-My shoes KILLED my feet. I still have scars 2 weeks later. I just wore my flats I brought whenever I could. But those heels were so gorgeous they were hardcore worth it.

-We didn't get a formal picture with my grandmother. The photographer actually got a candid shot that is way better than any posed picture could've been.

-We caravaned to Forest Park, and no one knew where to meet (apparently the designated meeting spot was a mystery to everyone), so the first 10 minutes (and we only had 40 minutes) were spent trying to get everyone to the same place. This was stressful, but it worked out. People got to spend a bit more time in air conditioned cars, so it was probably for the best!

-Some of the ushers made a pit stop so we were 15 minutes late for our reception entrance.

-Ryan and I messed up on our first dance. He had a tough time navigating my dress and we ended too early (which was totally my fault). It was fine, we just stood there and made out. No one noticed the mess ups. I'm 100% sure they noticed the making out.

-I drank too much champagne on an empty stomach and had a rough 10 minutes wondering if I was going to puke or not. I wasn't drunk, just a bit tipsy at worst (or best, right?), but I missed some crazy antics on the dance floor. I barely ate that day and the whole week before, so that did not help. Don't worry, I didn't puke!

-The bustle ripped out of my dress so I had a half-*ssed train for most of the night.

-This is the biggest one. The bartenders for the reception was the woman who ran the Polish Heritage Center and her husband. We'd been paying them with checks for deposits, etc for a year with no problems, and figured that we'd be paying the bartenders (which we booked through the hall) the exact same way. Ryan's mom went up to pay her, and that's when the woman who ran the center insisted that she wanted cash. Like $200 in cash. So Ryan's Dad and my Dad had it all worked out, and the lady was going to get her d*mn cash. Ryan and I are dancing to the last song, kind of by ourselves towards the back of the hall, and the woman comes up to us demanding like $300 (a 3rd keg had to be tapped, so thats where that extra hundred comes in, but I hadn't heard a thing about any of this..it was all news to me and a bit of a shock!). Apparently my face just fell, Ryan's mom comes dashing up to try to intercept the woman, and it was just really sucky in general. I think I cared for a grand total of 3 minutes.

I think about every thing that could've gone wrong...and it was quite a bit, because we had no wedding coordinator or day of coordinator to handle it for us. We brought everything in ourselves, separately, and there is so much that could've gone south. But it didn't. We have an amazing family, equally incredible friends, and they all wanted us to have a beautiful day. And we most certainly did.

It was such a huge, intense, emotional, overwhelming, gorgeous, blissed out day, that it would've taken sooooo much more than what happened to bring me down even a little bit. That's why I say I didn't care, because it all felt so small and insignificant and silly and 100% inconsequential compared to the day itself.

Let crap go wrong, you'll be so up high on Cloud 9 that you won't even notice!

And the lady who ran the center called and apologized to Ryan, which was nice. Happy endings all around!

What went wrong at your wedding? Did you give a rat's *ss?

Practice Makes Perfect

2010-08-03T15:24:00.012-05:00

Sooo....we got our pro pics in Friday night. Yeah, 5 days later. How lucky are we! She told us at the wedding that she was leaving for Maui, so it'd either be 1 week or 4 weeks. I had braced myself for 4 weeks, so waking up Saturday morning to an e-mail from our fabulous photog was fantastic. But I have no clue how to do recaps. I don't want to do anything exhaustive (I'm absolutely guilty of doing a quick skim of "Family Pics!!!" or "All the Groomsmen!" posts) and to be honest, I am still gathering my thoughts about the wedding. The pro pics look f*cking amazing. Like, they exceeded my expectations by 100000x. Anyway, as soon as I get my sh*t together, I'll kick off the recaps, but until then, I had to blog about the rehearsal and dinner. Because it was SO FUN!

So I had been running around St Louis all day with Ryan, and met up with my fam at their hotel about an hour before the rehearsal. Alli packed her body pillow. Bad*ss.

It had been a long day and I guess I was a little stir crazy. That must explain this:

We're all ready!

We got to the church first. Waiting waiting....

WOOHOO open and affirming churches! I made them keep the sign up for the wedding. Not really made them but just asked nicely. You catch my drift.

Then Ryan and pretty much everybody arrived all in one fell swoop. Apparently the itinerary had said West Argonne Street when it was actually East Argonne Street, which led to a panicked discussion as to if the invitations said East or West. Luckily, they said East. Whew. Also Ryan was super excited to kick off the most photo-heavy weekend of his life. Obviously.

Our amazing officiant arrived and we knocked out the rehearsal in 40 minutes or so. We ran through it twice and figured out logistics...it was all pretty easy since it was so simple. We didn't have big bridal parties or anything, so it was lots of "who opens what door when" and "who walks down with who when." So exciting I forgot to photograph it! Then we all headed a block or so over to Mike Duffys, the sight of our rehearsal dinner.

Confession: I had never once sat foot in the restaurant before that night. I booked it sight and taste unseen and kept my fingers crossed. And wow did it work out...they had a private room all set aside for us, happily accepted a cake delivery, and kept the yummy buffet stocked. It was great.

I didn't tell you all about this, but I surprised Ryan with a groom's cake from a bakery he loves. I told the bakery that Ryan loves Werther's and caramels, and they hooked it UP. Caramel buttercream frosting with white cake and candied pecan filling (they even let me drop off pecans from my MeeMaws farm to use in the cake). Omega Falcon is Ryan's running team. I think he liked the cake.

The thing that surprised me so much about the rehearsal dinner was how well everyone got along! Ryan's runners, my friend Melissa, Ryan's friends and fam and my fam...everyone mingled and had a great time! The officiant (who I LOVE) even stopped by and everyone loved him, especially my mom. Everyone was having a great time, which was fantastic because it was Ryan and I's nearest and dearest and everyone was thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Mary and Melissa tried to take a picture but Dad had other ideas....

Family picture!

And everyone loved their gifts, which was great. I got my girls handmade tote bags and jewelry rolls and a pashmina scarf while Ryan got his guys laser engraved wooden bats.

I thought the rehearsal dinner would be on the tedious side, but it was a blast!

How was your rehearsal dinner, work or play?

Guest Bloggity Blog!

2010-07-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

Back when Ryan and I were honeymooning in Chi-town, I contacted Mouse for some tips (since she lives there and all), and she wrote an absolutely lovely guest post for me detailing just where one should go to thoroughly enjoy the delights of that fine city. Without further ado, Mouse!

Hi there, people, this is Mouse from Souris Mariage. Stacy told me she
was honeymooning in Chicago, which is where I live, and I had to scoot
on over here and tell her all my favorite stuff! Sadly, Miz S, I have
no hotel advice for you at all. But once you eat at some of these
restaurants, I promise you could quite happily sleep in a cardboard
box and still feel happy and romantic.

LOGISTICS:
For Chicago, you probably need both a rental car and an El pass.
Sorry. It's true.

TO DRINK:
I always drink around Damon and Milwaukee. This is mostly because of
inertia, but also because there is great stuff there.

• You must go to The Violet
Hour, which is too cool to have a sign. Look for the yellow lamp.
Excellent cocktails; you must order the Juliet and Romeo (the third
best cocktail in the country), which smells of cucumber and roses, and
you must munch on chickpeas fried in truffle oil. Nom nom nom. Pricey,
but have one drink and then walk around to other, cheaper options.

• For margaritas and tacos and a rollicking good time, try Big
Star, right across the street. They also have decent micheladas.
Well. For Chicago.

• For wine, try Bin Wine
Cafe. Cute flights, good cheese.

• On the north side, check out Hopleaf, where they have 875,893 kinds
of beer. (About.)

• Clubs: Debonair Social
Club is fun for going out dancing but not getting grabbed. So is
Empire Liquors, where the
party starts earlier and they occasionally play Boyz 2 Men. Also,
Chicago clubs stay open til four, so no rush.

TO EAT:
• Have amazing Ethiopian food on the north side at Ethiopian Diamond.
It will change your life.

• See Sushi Mike in Andersonville and let him make you a special roll
at Tanoshii.
You tell him about what you don't like/are allergic to and then he
surprises you. Enjoy the (oddly fun) horrible eighties music.

• Have an excellent meal for $18 at Ben's Noodles, where
their Pad See Ew will make your knees quiver with joy.

• Have brunch tapas at Cafe Babareeba in
Lincoln Park, where you can order tiny breakfast churros and do an
AMAZING make-your-own bloody mary bar for $7. ($7!! With Grey Goose!!)

• Other excellent brunches: Toast,
Milk & Honey, Melli Cafe.

TO DO:
• Go to Architectural
Artifacts. Wander around looking at amazing and bizarre old stuff.
It's like a museum where you can touch stuff.

• Do the Chicago
Architecture Foundation river tour. (NOT THE OTHER ONE. The other
one has no alcohol. Paah.) It's entertaining and relaxing. Bring a big
hat and ample water because you'll be out there for a long time.

• Walk along the lakefront. (Or take a segway tour, if you find them
as funny as He-Mouse does.)

• Have a drink in the cheesy bar on top of the Hancock tower. (Or go
on this observation deck, if you are a trusting person. You couldn't
pay me money to go out there. As my brother says, "I'm not afraid of
heights. I'm afraid of the dude who made the platform.")

• Have a Chicago culinary treat, a
chocolate bar with bacon in it by Vosges Haute Chocolat.

• Go to Underthings
in Lincoln Park. Tell them you're on your honeymoon. Get them to help
you pick out something nice. Bring the boy along for input/fashion
show/peep show. Head back to your hotel and enjoy!

OH, YEAH
• We also have museums
and stuff. You should see the new Modern Wing, and more importantly
walk along that cool bridge they built between there and The
Bean.

Amuse Bouche

2010-07-28T07:40:00.000-05:00

So pictures have been demanded, and you guys are right, I do have some that friends have posted on Facebook (that I look at a dozen times a day). Here's a little amuse bouche until the pro pics are in, I catch up on my sleep and try to figure some of this married thing out:

Maids of honor + me during pre-ceremony pics.

Married!

Melissa and I, getting ready to head to the church.

Cake! Ryan surprised me with. No words people, no words. Best cake ever. And the vases with the carnations and branches were our centerpieces.

B-maids + me in Forest Park by some rocks Ryan loves.

It was super, super hot; the heat index was 107. So the air vents in the church were very helpful.

Stay tuned for the pro pics!

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

2010-07-27T13:20:00.000-05:00

I'm married!

And I have no idea where to start.

I'm just now tacking coherent words onto Saturday. I need some time to gather my thoughts and process all of this, and I am almost afraid to "shake the glitter off." I also have no clue how to do recaps. I'll fill you all in on the wedding, the pictures, etc, but I have to get it all straight in my head first. It was such an intense day!

Also...Ryan and I live in the same town. In the same house! Which leads me to finally tell you all....Ryan got the coaching job he's been working towards for years. He has paid his dues and then some, and I couldn't be happier for him. His first day was yesterday, and I have never felt more humbly blessed in my life. We waited to tell 95% of our family and friends until after the toasts at the wedding, and every single person in that room stood up and applauded Ryan. I don't have any words for how I felt at that moment. We were both speechless.

Since Ryan started his dream job 2 days after the wedding, we are putting off a honeymoon for now. I don't mind nearly as much as I thought I would. Having him in the same house is a honeymoon after being 2 hours apart for over a year.

We're starting off our marriage with everything we have ever dreamed of, and I am sitting back and soaking it all in. I'll keep you all posted as soon as I can string some thoughts together on the wedding. It was all so huge I'm having quite a time with it!

End of the Road

2010-07-22T11:50:00.004-05:00

Well, ladies (and gentlemen?), this is it. I'm leaving for St. Louis after work today to kick off the wedding weekend. It feels like we've been planning this for forever, but then it feels like it crept up on us so quickly! I have Friday and Monday off, and Monday I have some really exciting stuff I have been dying to tell you all but can't until after the wedding. I'll fill you in on the honeymoon then.

Source

This wedding planning process has not always been fun, and it has been 100x more difficult than I ever thought it would be. Job stress + a long distance relationship + wedding planning was a pretty wicked combo...but with all of that being said, I am very thankful that we had the kind of engagement that we had. I learned and grew so much, and it wasn't even a little bit easy. Learning how to fight, argue and disagree with Ryan in a respectful and loving way was hard; but I am completely positive that the conflict resolution skills we hammered out between the 2 of us will come in handy. Growth does not feel good, and parts of the engagement did not.

Parts of it did feel really good though. Seeing how happy my family is for me, that I've found someone who loves me so much, and seeing how happy Ryan's family is that he found someone who loves him so much has been amazing. Ryan's family has welcomed me in like one of their own, and so many people have offered their help and support.

Just like you all have. I am absolutely positive that we would not be having the wedding we're having without the blogging community. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for reading, commenting, and putting up with all my crazy. You have truly added a whole new dimension to wedding planning, and I am so grateful for that.

I feel so ready for this. And I'm so, so over the moon happy.

Caring and How We Just Don't Right Now

2010-07-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

So....we're 4 days out, and a wave of apathy has washed over both Ryan and I. Which is unfortunate, because at least ONE of us needs to care long enough to make decisions.

Here's what I mean.

Saturday we're at Costco with Ryan's mom, buying cups for the reception. Since we're bringing everything in to the reception hall ourselves (and consequently saving a ton of money), we are responsible for the cups for both the bar and everyone else. So we needed cups for the water/iced tea/lemonade and for the beer, wine and signature drink (which is cranberry juice, rum, and pineapple juice. Anyone got any funny name ideas?). We bought clear plastic 14 or 16 ounce cups for the beer, iced tea/water/lemonade, and we were buying clear plastic 10 ounce cups for the signature drink that we were also going to use for wine.

Ryan's mom really didn't think the 10 ounce cups would work for wine, and she had some in mind that she thought would look better. She pretty much insisted on them, which is fine, I don't really care one way or the other, but Ryan and I are in this streamlining mode...where if we have to invest a single iota of extra effort into it, then we are not interested. The 10 ounce cups didn't look bad, and they were THERE...the other cups were at Sam's Club and would require an additional trip. Which we were 100% uninterested in. So Ryan's mom is telling us how she can go and get them and we won't have to mess with it, and Ryan curls up in the fetal position, on the floor of Costco, and lets the cart drag him. Yes. He perfectly illustrated how we both felt about the wine cup situation. What I would have given for a camera.

Needless to say, Ryan's mom went and bought the wine cups she really wanted. We didn't care either way, so everyone's happy.

But I didn't expect this tidal wave of apathy. We've got our major bases covered, and I can't help but think that no one is going to notice detaily nonsense. I think I'm so steeped in the wedding blog land philosophy of "it's about the marriage, the union, not about the details," which is a good thing. We picked a great church, we wrote a beautiful ceremony, or reception hall is lovely all on its own without many decorations...I know that we're in good shape. But wow am I glad we aren't doing lots of last minute things, like programs or whatever...because they would definitely fall to the wayside with this streamlining we've got going on.

I love it, this streamlining. All I can think when these details come up is "I want a nap" then "we're getting MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!"

We've done what we can to make this a beautiful wedding and I'm just not interested in doing any more than what we've already done. It's going to be an ethereal day regardless.

Anyone else completely losing interest in detaily nonsense, or did have serious lack of caring right before your wedding?

Guest Blog from Maid of Honor/Youngest Sister, Mary Chris

2010-07-19T08:50:00.000-05:00

Hello followers of my fellow sister’s blog. I’m Mary, Stacy’s youngest sister (note that I am taller) and 2nd in line maid of honor. She asked me to make a guest appearance…so here I am.

Also, an FYI: I am fluent in sarcasm.

Here’s my guide to being the best maid of honor:

1. Just smile and agree. Face it, if it’s not the bride’s way, then it’s the highway
2. Order your dress RIGHT when the bride asks or prepare for havoc
3. Give everything a chance. I didn’t like the idea of fabric flowers, but hey, they turned out to be gorgeous!
4. Make sure you help with the most important task: wedding cake tasting
5. Prepare for the reception by playing “Just Dance” for the Wii.
6. Know how to make a TP dress just in case the actual dress rips…and for bridal parties
7. Force the bride to pee before putting on the dress. Stacy, I will NOT hold a bucket for you to pee in day of.
8. Be there to listen. Most of the time, if you just say, “Yes, of course, etc,” while she’s on a rant, then it will all simmer down. She didn’t want your opinion, just someone to explode on.
9. Make sure that MC Hammer is on the DJ’s playlist
10. Write the toast more than 2 weeks prior…trust me, bad idea.

Yes, I know Allison would have completely different guidelines, but hey, I am the better maid of honor J.

Thanks Mary! You rock my face off!

On Tanning

2010-07-13T14:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am tanning for the wedding. I know how horrendous it is for you. I am tanning for the 3 weeks prior to my wedding for maybe 10 minutes at a time, and it is the last time I ever plan on getting into a tanning bad.

Now that we've got that out of the way....so I'm tanning for the wedding because I am super pasty. Ryan, being part Italian, has this lovely olive skin that turns this bronzed golden brown after maybe 30 seconds in the sun. All the while my veins are showing very clearly through my skin. One of Ryan's favorite games is to show me his tanlines, or hold his golden arm up to my pasty one and say "Look how PASTY you are! You're so WHITE."

It's super fun for him.

Needless to say, I am slightly....bored with this game. And I knew I was going to tan for the wedding anyway. I haven't seen Ryan since the 4th, so I wanted to show up in St Louis this weekend crazy tan and be like "WHAT'S UP, who's pasty NOW." Last night Alli and I are on our way to Target and she's all "um, you know how you told me I need to tell you when to stop tanning? Yeah well that's right now, you need to stop tanning." And I was bummed, because I want to WIN (win what, I know, but I've just got that moment where I show up on Friday all tanned and golden goddessy looking and prove something, not sure what in my head, I can't let it go). Then Alli told me that 11 days before my wedding is the worst possible time for a tanning contest.

I think she's right...but I just can't get rid of this stupid sports bra tan line! I think I'll go maybe twice more and lay off.

Did you do something beauty wise that you normally never do before your wedding?

Wedding Night Hotel

2010-07-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

Just booked the wedding night hotel.

Here are some fun snippets from the conversation:

"Hi! My name is Stacy and I'm getting married July 24th, I needed to book a hotel room for my husband and I."

Reservation blah blah blah credit card number blah blah blah

"So how many people will be staying in that room with you?"

"Um...2? It's our wedding night? Other people would be super creepy."

"You know, you're right, it would. I have to ask though. Stupid questions."

Reservation blah blah blah

"So is this going to be your first time?"

"My first time...what? My first time what?"

"You know, your first wedding."

"Whew. Yes, my first wedding!"

Heheehehehehe.

Booze and 15

2010-07-09T08:20:00.005-05:00

Source

Even though our caterer really has nothing to do with the booze, she was still nice enough to do some research and help us figure out how much alcohol we need.

Side note: Everything we're doing is separate. The hall provides nothing, so we're bringing everything in ourselves, which is great because we know that we're getting the best possible price, but it increases the complication factor. So we can't just tell the hall how many people we need to serve alcohol to, we have to figure it out ourselves and bring it all in. Which is completely fine, its what we signed on for, but...lots to figure out.

So it looks like we're going to have about 225 people there, and Ryan has 15ish co-workers arriving after dinner for party time. So that puts our number of drinkers at about 240. We're serving 2 kinds of wine (chardonnay and cabernet), 2 kinds of beer (Budweiser and Budselect...we had 3 whopping options, but no big), and a signature drink that will consist of cranberry juice, pineapple juice and rum. Oh yes.

We'll be ordering:

80 bottles of wine, 30 red and 50 white

2 half barrels (known as kegs) of beer, 1 of Budweiser and 1 of Budselect

6 1.5 liter bottles of rum, 7 gallons of pineapple juice and 7 gallons of cranberry juice

I feel like such an alcoholic ordering all of this! I feel this urge to be like, "So I need to order 80 bottles of wine but I'M GETTING MARRIED AND ITS FOR MY WEDDING I SWEAR I'M NOT GOING TO DRINK IT ALL MYSELF."

We're ordering the kegs from the reception hall even though they're just a bit more expensive, simply because my brain hurts from all of these logistics and I don't want to try to figure out how to get them to the hall and then back to the beer place they came from. The rum we'll be getting from Costco ($17.99/1.5 liter!) and the wine is from Trader Joe's, at $2.99/bottle. I've done a taste test, and it is delicious.

So while I'm really glad we're handling everything separately, because I know we're saving a ton of $$$, but I do see why people pay 1 price to have all of this in one place for them. And we are very lucky in that Ryan's family and friends in St. Louis are being beyond helpful. Get this-his mom's neighbor, who I've met ONCE, is driving a car down to the reception sight mere hours before the wedding to help set up our entire reception for us, including the centerpieces.

Also speaking of lucky....my friend and bridesmaid Melissa is coming to Cape tonight and staying until Sunday morning, just to help me with last minute wedding stuff. Wine will be involved. I can't even tell you how excited I am to see her!

15 Days out my friends! I haven't lost my mind yet, but we've still got plenty of time for that to happen.

Wedding Day Salutations

2010-07-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

RYAN GO AWAY.

Sorry to ask you to scroll lovelies....but its in the interest of secrecy.

So I really want to get Ryan a funny/sweet card to open the morning of the wedding. Here are the contenders:

Up first, one that references Ryan's love for aging video games.

Source

This next one will probably offend someone, so if you are a Conservative Christian you might want to skip this.

I just think it's hysterical, but I think this might be more of a I like it deal than anything else.

Source

I think this one might be it. Because let's just say that he feels very liberated...so liberated that he has held me down and farted on me before. Yes, I am still marrying him after that.

Source

Are you getting your hubs a funny card for the day of the wedding?

Almost

2010-07-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

So...we're getting married in 18 days.

And it's getting so real. We have a marriage license and everything.

To top this off, we're waiting on some absolutely monumental job stuff with Ryan. Dream come true kind of job stuff.

Lots of waiting is going on. And we're kind of drowning in a sea of details right now (I didn't see this coming...I'm really in to working ahead, but the amount of details we're trying to wade through and sort out is just a touch overwhelming). We aren't just paying a per-head cost, we have a venue, a caterer, a photographer...it's all separate, so all of the coordinating comes down to us. Which is fine, but...a lot right now. But I'm going to get a huge chunk done this week, and then we're going to be in really good shape. Plus I'll be in St Louis the weekend right before the wedding, and I know I can get some odds and ends taken care of then. I don't want the weekend of the wedding to be super stressful.

Did 100000000000 details surprise you close to your wedding?

On Crying and Weddings

2010-07-05T14:20:00.000-05:00

Definitely just got teared up watching the preview of Bethenny walking down the aisle in Bethenny's Getting Married.

We're 19 days out, and the thought of walking down that aisle towards Ryan is absolutely cry inducing.

But I'm wearing fake-*ss lashes, this isn't going to work!

Ryan and I are seeing each other before hand, we're taking a ton of pictures, we're doing a receiving line before the ceremony...I hope to goodness I can get as many tears out then as possible, because I don't want to lose it when I see him standing at the altar.

I'm really not that much of a crier (though Ryan would disagree).

So married ladies, fill me in: Did you cry? Did it surprise you that you cried? How much did you cry?

Confession

2010-06-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make.

I picked up my wedding band 2 weeks ago...

and I can't help but wear it around the house sometimes.

Pros and Cons

2010-06-29T14:50:00.000-05:00

Con: Our violinist has a busted collarbone. He will not be able to play at the wedding. The music was our wedding gift, we have not budgeted to pay for a ceremony musician.

Pro: We found out now, and not July 23rd.

Anyone know of a violinist who works for cheap in St. Louis and doesn't have a gig July 24th?

Bunions, and Why It's Time to Get Married

2010-06-29T08:20:00.003-05:00

It's time to get married.

How do I know?

Ryan asks how my bunion is doing.

(DO NOT google bunions to try to find a picture of them. Serious ew. Trust me on this.)

Ryan knows so much about feet. He's been working at a specialty running store since last August, and he knows when people are wearing the wrong shoes, which shoes they should be wearing, and all kinds of other super detailed stuff. We'll be out at the grocery store or something and he'll nudge me and whisper "See that guy over there? He's over-pronating. He should be wearing XXXX shoes."

So of course he's glanced at my feet before, and a while ago he noticed that my left big toe was pointing just a little towards the other toes on that foot, and not straight ahead. I'm growing a bunion, it's super sexy.

But he didn't just notice it, comment on it, and leave it, oh no. When he was down for the weekend he casually asked "how's your bunion doing?"

It's like a starter bunion, you'd have to know what you were looking for to notice this thing. So it's not like it hurts or anything, he just wants to stay updated on the progress of my weird toe.

And every time he asks how my bunion is doing (it's just fine, thanks) he comments on my finger toes. My toes are super long. He also likes to tell me that I'd be a whole shoe size smaller if my toes weren't so abnormally long. He's not at all mean about any of this, he talks about my weird feet like we're discussing the weather or something.

Time to get married? I think once you casually ask your future spouse how their slightly deformed/odd foot is doing, it's definitely time.

Anyone want to share something odd/funny about their partner?

Brain Dump

2010-06-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

I had the laziest weekend ever. I cannot remember the last time Ryan and I just...hung out, with nothing else to do. It felt, wrong, almost, or foreign. But it was really nice. We didn't even do any wedding stuff. Glorious.

Our ceremony is clocking in at 15 minutes. I'm going to have our officiant lengthen his homily a bit, and I'm looking to add a reading. I'm also thinking about adding in a piece about why we're getting married in a Unitarian Universalist church, since we aren't doing programs (they seem to be tossed quite frequently...and I'm just lazy) I think it'd be nice to fill people in a bit.

Big job things are happening. Huge ones. Job things that could be just the break that Ryan (and indirectly, me ) needs. So if you would, pray, or send happy thoughts or good karma our way. And now I'm having a crash course in how not-to-freak-out-and-lose-my-sh*t. So far so good, I just try not to think about it. Because when I do my heart gets all fluttery and I get light headed.

I successfully finished a major sewing project on Friday, but I can't tell you about it because a certain someone reads this blog regularly. I am obnoxiously proud of myself, and I have my sights set on a quilt, next. I'd like to buy the fabric for it on our honeymoon, and then it could be a honeymoon quilt! I know, it's silly, I've got the idea in my head and I can't get it out.

I have my first physical in years today, and Wednesday I'm getting my teeth cleaned. I'm trying to get all of this in before I get booted off my parents insurance. The nurse practitioner I'm seeing today is such a bad*ss. She completed P90x and it wasn't hard enough, so now she's into this workout called Insanity. I know, right! Appropriate naming there.

We're still waiting on RSVPs. Lots of them. The deadline was Thursday. Luckily, we have willing family members to make phone calls. What's so hard about dropping a postcard in the mail?

What's going through your head today?

Ceremony

2010-06-22T13:40:00.000-05:00

Our completed ceremony was sent off to our officiant this morning, and he replied with such kind words. He did mention that it would last 15 minutes at most the way we have it now.

I was aiming for 30 minutes. Hmmm.

We have to add to it. I'm going to ask the officiant to add some length to his homily, but that will buy us maybe 2-3 minutes max.

We aren't having any songs in the middle of the ceremony, and we aren't doing a unity candle or sand ceremony or anything. We have one reading that isn't very long.

Thankfully, Ryan has an idea.

Making it Legit and Stuff

2010-06-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

I figured I'd better take a peek into what needs to happen marriage license wise, because it would be just our luck to accidentally not legalize our marriage.

The City of St. Louis provided this helpful information:

$48 cash is required at the time of application

We need to bring a current ID and proof of social security numbers

$12 is needed for the certified copy which I need to change my name

After we apply, we have 30 days to have the ceremony done, and we can pick it up 3 days after the application is made.

How needlessly complicated is that? I'm going to have to be in St Louis with Ryan on a week day when neither one of us is working and pay an *sston of money. Yes, $60 is an *sston of money, especially for paper. And the scheduling is guaranteed to be a nightmare.

I would continue to complain, but I am humbled by the fact that we have the right to walk in there and obtain a marriage license at all. So I'll stop now and soak that in.

What did you have to do to get your marriage license?

Hello Goodbye!

2010-06-16T08:50:00.000-05:00

Operation: Have as little of a break between the ceremony and reception as possible.

When there's a huge break between the ceremony and the reception...it's always a bit weird, especially if you're from out of town. The break between our ceremony and reception is 2 hours at most, and the reception hall will be open for our guests to go and relax if they choose. This means we have a small window of time between the ceremony and the reception to take pictures with our wedding party in Forest Park. We're taking as many pictures beforehand as possible with the families at the church pre-ceremony.

Long story short, since the time between the ceremony and reception is so small, doing the traditional receiving line after the ceremony means we would have maybe 30 minutes left for pictures, which definitely doesn't work. We thought about talking to people at the reception, but you really run the risk of not being able to talk to everyone, and some people might not be there, blah blah blah. Plus, the selfish side of me did not want to spend the party portion of the reception making small talk and not partying. I know, call me what you want in the comments, but I've been planning this wedding for over a year and I want to party.

Source

After much deliberation, Ryan and I have decided to have our receiving line before the ceremony at the church. We're going to talk to people as they walk in, before they reach the guest book.

It'll be just Ryan and I; the bridal party and our parents can talk and mingle as they so choose. We'll start greeting people around 4:15, and since the ceremony starts at 5, there's a definite cap on this. Since the ceremony will start promptly at 5, we'll just talk to who we can talk to before then and then retreat around 4:50 or so to get ready for the aisle walk. This way the receiving line can't possibly run on for forever, since we have a ceremony to start.

Quick aside. We are seeing each other before the ceremony, as I'm sure you've deduced. I haven't been hiding pictures of me in my wedding dress from Ryan, and we're getting lots of pictures done before the ceremony together. When we first started wedding planning, I was planning on keeping the first look for the aisle walk, but then I read into the tradition behind it (there's a super brief overview of the tradition here), and we decided that the tradition did not hold a lot of meaning for us.

Ryan mentioned last night that we need to come up with a quick, polite line when people inevitably ask us "But you're seeing each other before the ceremony, isn't that bad luck!?". I suggested something that involved an obscenity, and Ryan suggested something along the lines of "Shut up and go sit down." Obviously neither will work (though I will use the obscenity with my friends), so do you all have any suggestions?

What are you doing for your receiving line?

I just finished reading...

2010-06-16T07:20:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit behind, so we'll go 3 for 1!

Portrait of a Marriage by Pearl S. Buck.

Source

I really dig Pearl S. Buck, but this book sucked big time. It was terrible. It's all about this rich New York artist who marries a Pennsylvania farmer's daughter. Cliches about the "simple folk" abound endlessly and the artist is 100% worthless, he won't help her do anything and produces little income. I've decided that I only like Mrs. Buck's novels about Asia, the rest seem to be unfortunate.

The Saint of Lost Things, by Christopher Castellani.

Source

This was also pretty lame. It's about a young Italian woman who marries a guy who takes her back to America. They live with her in-laws and work all the time and then can't get pregnant, and her hubs is kind of an *ss. Though the ending was good, it wasn't worth all the nonsense in front of it, so I wouldn't recommend this book.

Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanca.

Source

OK this book was amazing. It starts out as a series of e-mails sent anonymously by a Saudi Arabian woman about her and her upper class friends and the dating scene in Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal to interact with the opposite sex for the most part. It was fantastic, I think I read it in under 24 hours. Dating and marriage are so much more complicated over there, and so different. Women will have boyfriends for years they only correspond with via phone or e-mail. Anyway I loved it, you should check it out!

What are you reading right now?

Bachelorette Debauchery

2010-06-15T07:02:00.000-05:00

So, my bachelorette par-tay was Saturday, and it was out of this world.

The day started off with a present for me to wear for the day. It's a personalized bride shirt from the Wedding Chicks, and it was so, so cute.

Alli and I dropped Henry off at my parents for the day and picked up Mary. Henry sits in our laps while we drive. He isn't spoiled or anything, I swear.

We made a pit stop in Perryville at Hoeckle's donuts. It's pretty much the highlight of the town. Obviously:

Our next stop was close to the City Museum, so we stopped for a pic. If you ever visit St. Louis, definitely go here, it's amazing.

Then we were off to the London Tea Room for lunch/tea! Melissa had called ahead and had dessert waiting for us (bad*ss), and we had a lovely lunch and Alli and I shared a pot of tangerine ginger tea.

The tea was awesome. Iced tea would've made much more sense, since it was 90 something outside with 90% humidity...but then we wouldn't have gotten to pour it out of a tea pot, and that just couldn't happen.

My lovely Maids of Honor.

I was presented with a gift at every stop that day (so much spoiling), and Alli got me a mug from an Etsy seller with a Pride and Prejudice quote on it that said "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." I love it. I love it even more because Elizabeth totally turned Mr. Darcy down after that proposal. Hehehe. I've had my eye on that mug for forever, thank you Alli!

Then we went antiquing on Cherokee street, which ruled. I love thrifting/antiquing, and new stores are always fun. The owner of the following shop was a real artist, he had stuff I have never seen before, like old circus advertisements. I scored a copy of Pearl S. Buck's Imperial Woman (it's my FAV Pearl S. Buck book, and it's a pretty copy) at the coolest bookstore ever. Hammond's books was a maze and shelves of books were absolutely everywhere. I am 100% going back to spend the afternoon the next time I have a chance.

After 2 and a half hours of antiquing, we saw a restored mansion, the Chatillon-Demenil house. Our tour guide was really quirky and funny and she was an architectural preservationist of some sort, so she had some really interesting things to say about how the home was restored.

Then we went to the zoo! I LOVE the zoo, it's such a happy place. No room for sadness at the zoo. I was forced to wear a crown with a veil (I obviously didn't mind) and one little girl thought I was a princess. My ladies certainly made me feel like one!

The ring is ON IT!

Then we rode the train around....I love this train so much. And Melissa, love her so much too.

See how wonky my hair is? Thank you humidity...another reason I was so impressed that my hair trial worked out!

So it poured after we got off the train but we waited it out at the train station and then headed to dinner. The rainbow made it worth it.

Melissa went to dinner there the night before to drop off centerpieces. She made these herself...isn't she the best?

All of the ladies at Square One Brewery. Yum, beer!

Me and Alli.

I am 99.9% sure I said something totally inappropriate and told my sisters to put earmuffs on. I love how grossed out Mary looks, hehehe!

Do you SEE Alli's face here? I am obviously talking nonsense. That's what 3 beers does to me. Yup, 3 beers...that's why Ryan's marrying me, I'm a cheap date.

Then Alli drove us back to Cape. It was a day that made me feel so cared about and loved. Everything was so thoughtful and amazing and I felt so spoiled. I can't thank Alli and Melissa enough for putting everything together, and all of my bridesmaid's for pampering the pants off of me!

What did you do for your bachelorette party? No bad*ss dance moves like you, Em, the only moves I have I learned from the Wii Dance game!

My Bouquet

2010-06-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am still harping about the bouquets.

My bouquet is different though than the bridesmaid's bouquets that you've already seen. The bridesmaid's bouquets have 16-18 flowers in them, and mine has 22, so it's bigger. Mine also has more pins, and small feathers are stuck in the top. Oh and mine has an aqua handle while the b-maids have ivory.

Ta da!

The big pin on the handle is my "something borrowed" from a dear friend of the family, Suzanne.

I could stare at these all day. So pretty. I am going to carry this around as much as humanly possible on July 24th.

What's your fav DIY project that you've done or seen?

Upcoming

2010-06-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is my bachelorette party, and I am so, so excited! Ryan's spending the weekend at the lake with the guys and I'm going to be cutting a rug up in St Louis with some of my favorite ladies.

Tonight I'm thinking a leisurely evening of experimentation in front of my sewing machine. I promised my sister Alli a case for Kindle, and I want to give this tutorial a shot. I also promised my buddy Melissa a garter for her wedding in November, and I have some ideas I want to try out.

Sunday, I have nothing on the books, so the house will be cleaned and I'm going to try out a new Unitarian worship service in my hometown. And if I get lazy tonight all of the sewing projects will be moved to Sunday. And I want to antique for some vintage rhinestone earrings for the wedding. Now that I'm wearing my hair down, the post earrings I have won't work. This puzzled Ryan, that earring plans had to change when it turned out I could wear my down.

Monday I am going to harass you ONE LAST TIME about bouquets, I finished mine and it is different from the b-maids and I am of course way too proud of it. I'll also have some pics of the bachelorette extravaganza!

What are you up to this weekend?

Slimfast

2010-06-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

F*ck you Slimfast. For shame.

Hair Trial

2010-06-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

I had my hair trial last weekend, and it went super, super well.

I wanted it down in loose curls with some volume on the top, and I got just that.

In my car 5 seconds after:

8 hours later:

8 hours later from the side:

It took an hour and a half, so I'm glad we know to budget more time in for the day of the wedding. The hair stylist was a friend of Ryan's sister Erin and she will be doing my hair on the day of the wedding. I don't think we'll really do anything differently, this hair stayed put through wind and 90% humidity for a good 8 hours. Talk about staying power....and I have thin, fine hair that goes limp pretty much 2 seconds after I'm done styling it. So yeah, I'm thrilled with it, and relieved that I can have the hair style I want without it falling apart and looking straggly.

How are you wearing your hair for the wedding? How did your hair trial go?