wedding prep photos

now that people have seen me in my wedding dress, at my wedding (!!!!!!!) I can start posting the pretty prep pictures ;)

13 days..

I have been remiss in my blogging duties here on blogspot - but a lot of what I'm doing is on my wedding website blog


We also have engagement photos up!

13 days til the wedding. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

it's the small stuff

great sticker from Kelly Lovejoy

*the purple eyeshadow and really pretty way I did the eyeliner
*the new shoes which have received 4 compliments from the 4 people I've talked to so far today
*adam's skin against the green blankets when I left this morning
*the hyacinth bulbs that are getting some color to them
*the soft fur on Juno's ears
*Chris cleaning the shower door
*Protein for breakfast
*The desk calendar that Tulip bought me for no specific reason


A snippet from said desk calendar:

"Knitting is really good for your mental health - despite the moments when you think that it's the opposite. It's a great way to practice being successful, tackle problems without fearing terrible consequences, and watch yourself getting things done. Seeing these things on a small scale, like with knitting, can help you see them in the rest of your life."

That's self-efficacy, baby.

Adam and I started talking guest list last night. Phew.

SUSS

Nancy came in with her 8 month old niece today - the one that was almost born during the A2A Cinco de Mayo event. I want to hold a baby that looks like me the way Klohee looks at Nancy! I want to belong to the thing. :P

Yesterday I made rosemary steak with potatoes and green beans, mooshu pork, and a kale salad. I had a fantastic time buying produce at Sprouts, listening to Tom Russel on my ipod, standing in line looking at the photos of babies in knit hats on the cover of hippie-dippie mothering magazines.

Theme?

yes.

Went to an unschooling symposium over the weekend - really interesting now that I am engaged how much I felt like I was split between younger and older generations of unschoolers. There was a time where I physically didn't know where to go - play games with the "kids" in one room, or play games with the "parents" in another room. I did a little of both. Ended up in the parent's game room for most of the night because I was knitting and they were playing a sedentary word game, rather than a jump-around-and-switch spots game.

Adam has been fantastic the past few days. Know the secret to my happiness? Think frequently about how I can make him happy. Really pays off. Wish I'd thought of this before. :) He suggested that we go look at wedding bands on Saturday (the ring kind, not the music kind) - and we will paint the rest of the fence we built, and figure out what we need to start P90X so we can start on Monday! I love projects with him!

Living with a bunch of families for a weekend in Santa Fe and seeing the Dodd's house made me think about the kind of home I want.

I worked 2.25 extra hours tonight, because I am going to Stuart's mother's memorial service tomorrow. I am not going to talk much about that right now. It's happening tomorrow, near Griffith Park. I will pick up Salvador, and maybe Adam will be able to leave work for a little while. I invited KJ.

Tonight I am going to fold my last load of laundry, feed the dogs, make the bed, run at 9 with Rosie, work on my camp, do some bootcamp videos, do some dishes, and knit!

gratitude and my life

I love days when I feel recharged by work, as opposed to drained by it. I wasn't terribly thrilled to get up out of bed at 6:30am this morning - Adam's been having some deep-coughing issues for the last few days, and his coughing and wheezing woke me up on a pretty regular basis last night. I have a new phone, and the unfamiliar alarm sound was jarring. But I did it, I got up out of the house only 15 minutes after I'd intended - and still made it to work 15 minutes early. I had time to DO things before my morning meeting, and at the meeting I created an actually manageable to-do-list, rather than an overwhelming list of vague wants and desires.

The reason I am recharged is because of the Walk for Independence - this has been both the most frustrating project AND the most rewarding for me. We had some issues getting up off the ground - all stemming to my vision being distinctly different than the executive director's vision. I felt like I wasn't being trusted to run a good event - and she felt like I was letting what was important to HER slide through the cracks. But now that we've got some stuff decided, we have momentum, and we actually have people registering, both of us have relaxed and can just enjoy the show.

I am personally gratified that my pleas to my friends on facebook have come through in such an amazing way. I wanted to raise $260 - because I couldn't quite get all of the food donated, and I felt bad about that. $260 covered the cost - I asked them to donate even if they could only donate $1.00 - and some people did just that. I received several $1.00 bills in the mail - which actually DOES provide an entire lunch to someone, and is a very helpful contribution. On the other end of the spectrum, in the last hour, I received 2 $100.00 donations. I've received everything in between, and have basked in the funny little notes and well-wishes that have also been included.

We have 59 people registered now, with many more people saying that they are *going* to register, so I am feeling better about that too. I was afraid it would just be us at the park...but it looks like we will have some company. :)

Because of this walk, too, we even got an elevator donated to our building. We still have to raise $100,000 to install the thing, but the elevator could have cost us as much as $75,000 - and it was DONATED. All because of the walk.

I've been interviewed by newspapers, we're in the AAA magazine, we have an inter-departmental competition here, we made a fantastic video of our clients, we've harnesses the amazing support of PI staff, clients, board members, family, friends and strangers... I'm inspired. Really and truly inspired today.


In other news - yesterday was a good day too. I went to a Bridal Expo with my sisters and cousin...it was intense, and made me really glad that I am not planning a wedding like that. I am glad to have had the experience, though. We got bored wit it after a couple of hours, so headed to the MAC store at South Coast Plaza, where we did makeup trial runs for my wedding! My cousin in law has a discount there, so I got to purchase a bunch of stuff and not break my budget. She's going to be doing my makeup for the wedding, too, so I won't have to pay a makeup artist.

After that we stopped by my aunt's for a goodbye dinner for a friend of the family's - played Pop5, the BEST PARTY GAME EVER, and then I went home and did a 10 minute sparkpeople video for day 1 of my new bootcamp. I realized at the last minute that I needed to cook chicken, and all I can say is - God Bless the Crockpot. I threw in chicken with some broth, a few carrots, half an onion, a bunch of mushrooms, some garlic, and a cup of dried lentils..and this morning had stew ready to take for lunch. After I did that, I fed dogs, crocheted most of a hat, wrote in my journal, and fell asleep watching The Office once Adam came home.

Today at 4:50 I will put on my gym clothes and head to the Brookhurst gym, where I will do 20 minutes on the exercise bike, and 42 minutes of walk/jog combo (5 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 4 run, 5 walk). Then I'm going to go to Walmart to use my gift certificate to buy a stability ball, go home, do my 10 min. bootcamp video, take Juno for a walk, make lunches, spend 10 minutes working on my camp-to-be, write in my journal, pack for santa fe, and take my bag/spinning wheel/rosie's yarn over to my parents.

Tuesday, work and working out, Wednesday work, Thursday work til noon, then Santa Fe til sunday! When I get back I need to remember to call Adam's dad for some Juno training sessions.

I am very tired. I am looking forward to habit getting me to the gym, and the gym waking me up. I need to increase my liquid intake over the next few hours, and head for fruit if I get snacky. Luckily, I brought a bunch of oranges, grapes, and an apple with me.


my backyard lemon tree, the inspiration for my wedding!

marriage and xmas and stuff

It's been so cold here lately, I've been finding myself just *tired* and worn out from it. Craving somewhere warm. I want sunshine that toasts and bakes and gets down to my boooonnees. Our bathroom door doesn't close all the way, so showers are chilly. the next free day Adam and I both have I need to remember to get him to help me fix it.

My ring is still sparkly, and I want to get back into the wedding-planning rush, but everyone is consumed with finals and Christmas. I supppppose I can wait until after xmas, when I will go buy tons of twinkle lights and gold ribbon, and start collecting. I will feel calmer when we have a date set.

I have been exercising a lot this week - feels good. Yesterday was the 4th day in a row. I went online and found a Sprint Triathlon training schedule, and am following that. So every day I do a minimum of 20 minutes of varying amounts of swimming, running, and biking. To meet my goal of 600 fitness minutes this month, I am also adding in random 10 minutes on the elliptical here and there. Today I am going to do 16 minutes of running, 11 minutes of elliptical, and then my interval-walking, which will equal about 16 minutes also. This bumps me up to 45 minutes which gets me 2 activity points for weight watchers instead of just 1 if I left it at 44. ;o)

Defrosting ground beef, tonight I'll make taco salad. Made enchiladas two ways this week. Trying to get better at normal-everyday cooking, rather than huge-production meals like I usually do. Also trying to make a whole week's worth of meals using the same flavor-profile so I can use the same ingredients.... so I don't buy a bunch of cilantro, use it once, and waste it, for example.

Juno is my favorite thing on this planet right now. She is so freaking beautiful that I can just stare at her for hours. I gave her a very thorough bath last week and now she is all clean and fluffy and soft and fantastic. Adam's been working super late this week, and falls asleep on the couch so he doesn't wake me up, and so Juno's been jumping up into bed with me. She's been so good - hasn't destroyed anything for weeks! She sure seems like she's growing up all of a sudden. Man I love that dog.

Adam's job is going really well, though it feels like I haven't seen him in weeks. He's right at the point where he is both getting off probation and getting qualified to be on his own at the park. It's an exciting week for him.

I bought all of my Christmas presents online this year - SUCH a good idea. I love not having to go shopping. I'm excited about them too, and I'm just waiting for this to start arriving so I can start the wrapping! Adam has to work this Christmas, so we are doing our thing Christmas Eve, and will see if his aunt is available for breakfast that morning. I'm going to at least stop by his aunt's house on Christmas, because we didn't go to Thanksgiving since he had to work, and now that we're engaged, I feel different now...I can go to his family's celebration in my own right, not just attached to him. I am really enjoying these subtle little changes in my role as we plan on getting married.

random bits of catching up

It has been a little while since posting on here - I haven't exercised once. :P I am blaming the weather! It's SO cold, and SO rainy, and I just DO NOT want to leave my bed or my couch or my fantastic old worn out gray comforter that Adam had on his bed when we first met so it reminds me of him in the most comforting ways. I am going for comfort foods, and I am not cooking as much, and I am not doing as much laundry as I kind of need to keep up with my work days, and it's too cold to shave my legs because the bathroom door is kind of broken and doesn't close all the way and the guys leave the toilet seat up and it bothers me because of how much this cliche bothers me, and I have my wedding dress and one of my two veils in my closet, it's so long that it takes up most of my shoe space, so my shoes have invaded adam's portion of the closet, I vacuumed our living room 3 times in the last 4 days, and there is still dog hair, we bought our christmas tree today at Lowes, I bought clay on friday but haven't had time to play with it, I took over Adam's netflix with about 86 movie requests, I've been listening to an excessive amount of Leann Womack, I walk into things frequently due to the fact that I can't stop looking at my beautiful, beautiful, beautiful diamond ring.

On the wedding front, I've been making our website (almost ready for the public, but not quite), trying on my dress and showing it off to any relative who will let me, and been enjoying the hell out of talking to Adam about our wedding, our marriage, our finances, our house, our christmas ornaments, etc. (All the important stuff, you understand.) Now, maybe it will hit me soon - but so far, wedding planning has not been the horrible stressful thing people have led me to believe it would be. So far, it's been incredibly fun. I am going to have the ceremony in my parent's backyard, and the reception in mine - it's going to be incredibly SMALL, my flowers will be delphiniums, larkspurs, and other purple and yellow wildflowers, I have 5 bridesmaids, I already have my dress and all I need are shoes, Adam's got his groomsmen, I think I want them to wear dandelions, I will rent a dancefloor, serve champagne, get a few outdoor heaters, and some round tables. I know what the cake should look like, I want japanese paper lanterns, and.......yup. I know the feeling I want to evoke, I know my personal priorities and Adam's priorities. More and more this wedding is feeling like OURS, which is good - it's fun making these series of small decisions and see how they shape the overall atmosphere. I spend a few minutes a day doing wedding stuff, but mostly I am just waiting for the after Christmas sales so I can buy a zillion twinkle lights.

marina's wedding invitation

My very best friend in the whole wide world, whom I met at a homeschooling conference in Sacramento in August, 1998 is getting married.


She refuses to do anything by the book.

Among the things she is doing for herself, rather than have someone else do them, is make her invitations. That's probably the most traditional thing she's doing at this wedding - sending invitations.

Anyways, I am trying to help her create a background, so here it is.