I am a craft attempting, comfort food to healthy recipe cooking, sometimes exercising, adventure loving museum curator with a passion for politics, history, my husband, and our cat Mr. Moose.
Mr. C's mom is awesome, and gave it to me in an awesome cutting board in the shape of my beloved home state. Mr C. and I both decided that we'd prefer to keep it looking pretty, so he hung it up over our sink in a place of honor.
Awesome, right?
This is both a chance to show off my awesome gift, and also a lead-in to what Id id over my Christmas vacation. We started off in CT at Mr. C's family family for "Fakemas" and too much junk food, then headed back to my homeland from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day. It was awesome, and we also got SO much wedding planning done! Over the next few days, I'll break down the various appointments/tastings/trials that we had to catch you up, but for now, here's an overview:
In addition to all of that, I also got my likely wedding shoes (yay!), got most of the work done on the wedding website, and have a design for our Save the Date magnets that is now awaiting a final proof of an engagement photo before heading off to the printers.
If you'll recall from a few posts back, Mr. C and I recently attended the wedding of some friends in South Carolina, and the bride gave me her bouquet at the end of the night. I was determined to do something nice with it, but hadn't decided between a couple of options.
Well, the groom is in town this week and won't be again before Christmas, so it was now or never. I decided to start with the ornament, and if I had extra petals I'd talk to the groom and see if the jewelry is something his bride would like.
I've been keeping my eyes open for awhile trying to find clear ornaments. Hah. You'd think with all of the shops putting Christmas things out before Halloween that it wouldn't be tough, but after visiting three local big boxes I ended up driving to the nearest Hobby Lobby. I picked up the ornaments (50% off!) and honestly that's really all I needed. Initially I was thinking of doing one big ornament, but once I got started I realized I had plenty to fill four pretty decent size ornaments. I am going to try to get some ribbon to tie to the hooks so they can hang them a little more festively, but all in all this is a relatively inexpensive craft.
One nearly completed ornament
Mr. C was off at his second to last grad school class of the semester tonight, so I took some time to put everything together. Really it was pretty simple. I'd put her bouquet into a vase to let the flowers dry after the wedding, so I carefully broke it down. There were two colors of roses, some lilies, some sort of dark berry, these little green globes, and a couple of different sizes of leaves. She also had little red crystals in the bouquet, so I put one of each of those in each ornament. It took me about half an episode of Once Upon a Time.
Strips of invitation and curled hearts
I also saved their invitation, and cut it into thin strips to make into little hearts. Each strip I folded into half, then wrapped around the skinniest part of a mechanical pencil. Initially I thought I'd hot glue the pieces of the heart together, but I think they are staying together well enough on their own.
The Moose really enjoyed helping clean up the spare paper
All in all, I am very very happy with how this turned out. We're meeting up with the groom on Wednesday, and I can't wait to give this to him. Originally I was going to wrap it in Christmas paper as a surprise, but I want to make sure he knows what it is so he packs it carefully for the trip back home.
So I've been planning awhile (and talked in this post) about participating in NaNoWriMo this month. I'm three days in and only at 2,160 words, but my parents and Mr. C's parents have been here, so there hasn't been much time for writing. The good news is, when I do sit down, I'm able to churn out quite a bit of content pretty quickly. So far, we're flowing pretty well.
Mom & Dad P seeing the sites
This November I've also decided to try "No Spend November." I have a bad habit of letting little purchases sneak up on me; Target and CVS are the worst. I'm in no way in trouble financially, but I think taking the month to see what I really need will help. Basically, I'm cutting out all of my impulse buys and reexamining what it is that I really need. Hopefully this will help the holidays hurt a little less. Yesterday morning I went out and got the things I know I'll have to restock anyway; shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste. Toiletry and makeup wise, which is an area I tend to splurge a bit, I should be all set. Here's a list of what I'm going to avoid and how I'm going to try to mitigate the purchase:
Clothing - I refreshed a couple of months ago, and right now my wardrobe is in a good place. I could use another pair of khaki's, but those can wait until December.
Household goodies - Ugh, this is a tough one. I love buying new candles and little things to set around. If there's something I really can't live without, I'll see if it is something I can DIY.
Gifts - This is another hard one. I love buying little things for Mr. C, plus the holidays are fast approaching. I already have a couple of gifts for certain individuals, and hopefully can look at things to make for those who are left. Plus, no more little bottles of Coke Zero for Mr. C magically appearing in the apartment.
Toiletries/makeup - Like I said, I should be set here, and actually have a return to make to CVS.
Dinner - This is probably the easiest trap to fall in. Luckily, with our folks being here, we've got TONS of leftovers from the dinners out we've had, and they've been buying. So we'll live on those for a few more days, then I'll get back into cooking again. I also need to be better about getting supplies for lunches, instead of depending on leftovers that don't always happen.
So, that's the plan. I know I have some expenses that I can't avoid; student loan payments, co-pays for PT and my dermatologist visit next week, gas, things like that, but I'm going to try to manage everything else as best as I can. I'll try to remember to touch base and fill you in on how it goes!
There are moments every now and then where I sort of pull up short and just feel so astoundingly blessed. A few weeks ago, it was running to Kmart to buy Mr. C a bottle of shampoo. I know that sounds like the silliest thing, really I do. But I have a man who loves me, who cares for me, and who I love and care for. And sometimes that means I buy him shampoo. And that sounds strange, but it just sort of caught me as being wonderful.
This morning I had another one of those moments. While Mr. C works a regular Monday-Friday work week, I actually work Tuesday-Saturday. Most days, Mr. C's alarm goes off at 6:30, and he feeds The Moose.
The Moose says hi
Ala Pavlov, The Moose knows that when Mr. C's alarm goes off, it is time for breakfast. This morning, I woke up a little early. I sprained my ankle pretty badly, and it was aching pretty badly this morning and woke me up before my alarm. I stayed in bed for awhile, checking email and trying to find the perfect wedding necklace. The Moose hopped up on the bed, climbed right over me, and laid down on Mr. C's chest. Mr. C was still asleep, but sort of groggily came to, reached up, and started petting The Moose. Then the cat would jump down, trying to get Mr. C to follow him, realize he wasn't, and hop back up on the bed to start it all over again.
After three rounds of this, I managed to snag a picture. Mr. C might kill me for posting this, but it just makes my heart swell. Right after I took this photo, The Moose actually leaned down and sort of bumped Mr. C in the head, trying to get him to wake up, and Mr. C reached back up to pet him again. These are my boys. They are my whole life, and I love them so much that it almost aches. Mr. C has never had a cat before, and seeing how much he cares about The Moose makes me so happy.
I hear people ask sometimes why you should eve bother to get married, especially for people in our situation. We already live together, so what's the point? The point is, that as much as we love each other, after we sign our names on that paper we are officially a family. We are a team, emotionally, spiritually, and legally. In all senses of the world he is mine, and I am his, and we have the start of a very happy family together.
This weekend, we had the pleasure and the honor of heading to Greenville, South Carolina to celebrate the wedding of GM J and his new wife. The wedding party was just the siblings of the bride and groom, so Mr. C was an usher. They were a gorgeous couple, and the wedding was so much fun.
Two things really came out of the wedding for me. First, I feel reinvigorated for planning our own. Mr. C went down to South Carolina on Wednesday, and MaidoH A and I followed on Friday. On the trip back up, she and I had a four hour layover in Newark, and we spent a good hour of it talking about our wedding. We also walked through the duty free shops testing out perfumes. I think I may fall prey to the wedding day scent trend. What was nice though, is that after a few months of a lot of frustrations with work and ignoring wedding planning to be excited again. Some of the guests at this wedding will also be at ours!
The other piece of it was a very touching moment. The bride surprised me and handed me her bouquet at the end of the reception. I was honored and thrilled, and definitely carried it around with me the rest of the evening. Now I have their beautiful bouquet and Mr. C's boutonniere, and I'm trying to find something special to do with them that I can send back to the couple. I have two ideas, and I may do both.
I found this option online this morning while I was browsing around, and I really like it. You send in dried flowers from the bouquet, and they are made into beautiful pieces of jewelry. The best part is that they keep any extra beads for awhile, so if the bride really likes it, they can have jewelry made for their mothers. It is something I think Mr. C's mom would like to have.
This one was my original plan, basically from the moment she handed me the flowers. I saw it on Pinterest quite awhile ago, but really like it. You take petals from the bouquet and very gently put them inside of a large clear Christmas ornament. I like this one too because she has some very pretty crystals intermixed with the flowers, and I think this would look awesome on their Christmas tree.
New York indeed.
PS - I know Mr. C can sing. He sings in the car, he sang in the choir back at reunion, when we go to church and stand next to each other, I hear him sing. But. BUT. Oh my gosh. They had karaoke at the reception, and the groom finally convinced Mr. C to sing "New York, New York." Gotta love my Yankee. But, holy bovine, folks. Here's a photo of me literally fanning myself off because of the waves of hotness pouring off of my crooning fiance.
This year, for the first time ever, I am going to be participating in National Novel Writing Month. In fact, I've never written a novel before. But a few years ago, my very first semester of graduate school, I was sitting by the lake with my classmates. We were playing a game "who will be the first" where you basically chose different achievements (or failures) and decided who in the group would be the first to do it. The first to publish a book came up, and I was quite shocked when they unanimously chose me. Maybe a fiction book isn't want they have in mind, but I like the idea.
As for what exactly I'm going to write, I haven't decided yet. I have a number of thoughts floating around, and my goal for the rest of October is to decide on a likely one, lay out some background and figure out my characters so when I'm ready to I can jump write in. In order to stay on track for a 50,000 word novel, I'll need to write an average of 1,667 words each day for the month of November. The goal is to have a good draft completed by the end of the month.
I'm really looking forward to this. I've been talking about writing a novel for years now, but have never really taken any steps towards making it happen. I may be really terrible at fiction writing, but at least this is a chance for me to actually find out! I'll write more about some of my ideas as I do more over the next couple of weeks to solidify which story I want to tell.
When people say wedding, I almost always think of this song from My Best Friend's Wedding:
To me, wedding planning so far has been lots of wishing, praying, hoping, and planning. Luckily I've got an incredible team in my corner. They're incredibly supportive, and I can bounce ideas off of them all the time. Eventually, I'll do posts on each of them, so you can see how lucky I've been to have this network that is there to help me out, listen to my ideas, and call me out when I'm being an idiot.
That said, Mr. Burg, MaidoH A, and MatronoH K often get sent pictures or blogs of things that I've found that are awesome. I try to limit myself to things I'll actually be able to use, but every now and then fancy things that are nowhere near our budget catch my eye. We're exceptionally lucky and are receiving financial support from my parents and from Mr. C's, but I don't want to blow their money.
But, as is bound to happen, every so often something sparkly or fun or just downright amazing catches my eye and makes me wish I didn't have student loan bills or you know, basic living expenses so I could spend all of my money on these things. In addition to the finances, some things just seem logistically difficult. Especially when you consider we're in NY and the wedding is in Iowa. Makes things tough sometimes, but that doesn't mean a girl can't dream. Here's a few prime examples:
Take for instance this lovely, elegant statement necklace from BHLDN. It is pearl and blush, which are my two accent colors and would look AWESOME with my dress. The only problem. $480. I can't really justify spending $20 less than my wedding gown on the necklace to wear with it. It sure is pretty though.
Ah, the flower arch. With big, beautiful, puffy, soft, gorgeous flowers that are probably peonies and we're getting married in August. Now, I haven't totally given up on the idea of a floral arch, and Mr. C actually suggested the idea, but I have a hunch this would take a big chunk out of our budget.
This is from the same wedding as the arch from above. Can you tell that I love this wedding? Visually it just has a lot of the softness and elegance that I love, plus that blue color is exactly what I'm aiming for. And I adore the look of this lace overlay on the tablecloth, but yeah, custom designed table linens are WAY out of the budget.
Bakery Beauty Dress via Modcloth (no longer available)
Oh boy. There are some really freaking adorable little white dresses out there. And how adorable are they for things like bridal showers, bachelorette parties, and rehearsal dinners? I wish I could afford one dress for each wedding related event. After all, how many times in your life are you a bride? But I really don't think I can justify spending the money on a new dress for each event. Perhaps this will be a little splurge where I find one dress that will work for multiple events? Or maybe I'll just keep scoping out Kohls, Target, and Marshalls and see if anything jumps out at me. MaidoH A is awesome at scoring deals, so maybe I can ask her to keep her eyes peeled for a good deal.
Oh boy. I want this. Like, I'd forgotten about it until just now and going back into my Pinterest boards and I found it again. This one isn't so much the financial difficulty (although that many books isn't cheap) as the logistics. In the original iteration, this is actually one of two of these little displays, set into a larger wall. I'm not sure how you could do it to make it free-standing. And if we could do it, I'd want to try to find a way to move it down from the ceremony down to the reception.
This is the one I may actually see if I can find a way to make it happen. I haven't yet met a unity ceremony idea that I'm completely enamored with, other than copying my parents idea of giving each other trees. But then tonight, I stumbled across this. I adore glass. One of the neatest museums I've been to (and I've been to a LOT of museums) is the Corning Museum of Glass. What made the trip really phenomenal was getting to do a couple of the workshops while we were there. I also dropped quite a bit of cash in their gift shop, getting ornaments for my whole family. So, when I saw this, I was intrigued. Rather than a simple sand blending ceremony, you purchase various sand colors from the artist. After you've blended them during your ceremony, they form them into these beautiful sculptures or bowls that you can keep forever. You can also purchase ornaments or glass hearts with "your" glass after you've bought the sculpture or bowl. They start at $379 for the sculpture, but man how amazing would it be to have that in your home forever? This may be one of my big wedding splurges.
.jpg)
.jpg)
