A Researcher Of Life

My Last Post On This Blog

2011-09-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

For a number of reasons, time mostly, this is my last post on this blog. I write a number of blogs on a variety of topics. I've decided to try and meld all those into one blog that hopefuly won't be too disjointed. I invite you to join me there as I will continue to talk about all the things I've been talking about on this blog.

Come play with me

Y'all know by now I have an odd sense of humor. Moving on.

I hope to see you over at my new blogging home! It's called My World In Reflection.

My Internet Shy Best Friend

2011-09-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

Usually if I'm using the word "internet" with the phrase "best friend", I'm referring to my good old pal Google.

Google certainly isn't internet shy, so I'm not talking about this best friend.

This time, I'm talking about one of my best friends, Top. We grew up together in the same church in Chicago, and we even attended the same college. She moved to New York City in 2009, and it's been a while since she's spent any real time in Chicago.

But she's in town and she'll be here for the whole weekend. I'm really excited. Like this excited.

Definitely at least this excited

Of course, this is the weekend I work every day except Sunday. I literally work Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. I have a very limited window in which to enjoy the Labor Day weekend. I guess what better way to celebrate than to work, right? Nah, that's just more like the definition of irony.

Definitely at least this ironic

So I do at least have Sunday off. I will be spending a good chunk of that day with Top. She's having a going away party that day. It's more of a she-moved-away-two-years-ago-but-now-she's-definitely-staying-there-and-not-here-so-let's-send-her-off-properly party. I've been asked to tend the bar, which is awesome, so I'll be there helping people tie bells on!

I'm sure by now you're wondering why I call Top internet shy. Well, she's not on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media. I do have an entire day dedicated to her love life on my other blog, but I keep it all very vague. And she doesn't like her picture up. I can't even use her picture in my wedding blog. Yeah, I have a lot of blogs; get over it and get back on topic.

My one photo pass for her is I can put up photos with her in them from the actual wedding day. So how is she depicted in my blogs til then?

Tip Top Tuesday icon

It shows Top, how her hair was when I first started the blog, on top of the world and about her business in NYC. I love this pic and I took a lot of time to make it playing with the Microsoft clipart and Paint.

How do you handle friends that are internet shy? Do you just leave entire sections of photos out of your Facebook albums?

Are you missing any great friends you don't get to see that often?

This Is The Training That Never Ends...

2011-09-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

It could go on and on my friends. Please tell me if you're interested enough in what I write, you're born before 1990 and get my Lamb Chops reference!

Image of Lamb Chops and Shari via Puppetville

If not, Wikipedia it, then come back here for more reading. Now that there are only people reading this post who understand who Lamb Chops is, I'll move on never to mention it again.

This post is about my work. I've been in training for one thing or another since I started working. There's always something new to learn. In the world of organ and tissue donation, things are real intricate around here.

I'm training right now to be in charge of placing organs with recipients according to the national donor list. This is an amazing responsibility and I feel so blessed that they've chosen me to undertake this.

The only thing is this training is taking forever!! We're understaffed right now (if you want to work in donation, Google will direct you to how to apply for my company without me having to publish that info on this blog. I won't do it!), so most of my shifts are spent answering phone calls from hospitals, coroners, and funeral homes. When I'm not doing that, there's the occasional talking to the families of donors.

Time to learn who to send a kidney to is few and far in between. They've come up with a solution. They want to put me on call. Visions of my life as a harried resident fresh out of med school flash in mind. But this is different than that. I'll still work 40 hour weeks, I just won't know weeks ahead of time which days I'll be working.

If I agree to it, I get a pager in the form of a blackberry. So I'll have two blackberrys I'll have to carry with me everywhere I go. It will be like I'm a drug dealer. A fancy schmancy Blackberry-carrying drug dealer.

Imagine him black, female, and wearing fancy schmancy Blackberry owning clothes.

Once I go on-call, my training should be completed rather quickly. And then once I get that done, I can start training to place the other organs. Soooo much to learn.

But it's worth it. I love that I save lives without having to stick my finger up anyone's butt. I love that I make a difference. I love my job and when I get up to go to work, I'm happy. Well, except when I have to leave Easy, we've barely seen each other during the week since he started working.

So I'm training. And training. And saving lives. And training.

My Home Is My Castle

2011-08-31T09:30:00.015-05:00

I don't strut around as if I'm running things in the place, but I do feel like royalty in my home. Taking steps to make our new apartment special and cozy is becoming a fun and accidentally long-term project. I thought it would be like when I've moved into previous apartments; I'd have everything unpacked in one weekend.

I wrote a post recently about settling into my new apartment.

Since then, we've been slowly but surely turning it into home. Our big bedroom still isn't unpacked. And it seems to be getting worse not better. So now our thing is to figure out how to prioritize our home. Things as simple as vacuuming don't happen like they should. We're not home enough for it to matter, but our shedding cat makes it more important.

If I'm only home sleeping between shifts and Easy is only home taking a nap between his day job and his night gigs, when it is supposed to get done?

Here are our options:

I Could Become A Housewife
I do have a penchant for wearing A-line skirts that have a lot o' fabric. And I bake a mean casserole. Perhaps I could give up my job and stay home like the little lady I could be. I would pick up after my man and have a piping hot dinner and a perfectly chilled martini waiting for him when he got home from work.

Wait, our collective annual salary is just over 100K. I'm not giving that up just so our one area rug gets vacuumed.

Image via Photobucket

We Could Get A Maid
A Maid who we paid to come in a clean the blinds, mop the floors, wash the clothes, and of course vacuum would be lovely!

We would give her bonuses at Christmas. And I feel very strongly about this, so we'd give her something toward medical insurance. It's be great. Maybe she'd be very traditional, wearing one of those maid outfits. Oh wait. Hell no.

Image via Fun House Theatrical

We Could Get Rid Of ALL Our Stuff
Why finish unpacking? We can't take all our stuff to New York anyway. Plus, we're registering for more stuff for the wedding. We need to downsize. I wouldn't want to do a yard sale because there's no way to make that happen realistically out of an apartment in crowded Hyde Park in Chicago.

There is another way...

Image via WizBangBlog

Eh, that might get us in trouble with the law. I'm pretty sure Chicago's fire code doesn't allow that...

So what shall we do? I guess we'll have to grow the hell up and make time to keep our home feeling like the castle it could be.

Image via CTRiverValley.com

Or maybe I'll just keep repeating, "my home is my castle" until it magically comes true. Where is a fairy godmother when you need one?

A Big Big Day At Work

2011-08-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

In the world of organ and tissue donation, there are some big stories, like the time we ended up on ESPN. That was big for us because it generated a lot of goodwill for donation. But on a regular day, it's the little victories that add up and make the work worthwhile.

I'm in training, so every day there are new things to learn and do. Early this morning, I took a giant step forward. This morning was the first time I called the family of a potential donor to request they go through the donation process.

It was very hard for me to do this. Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I don't like asking anyone for anything. It's literally the one part of my job I've been dreading since I got hired.

Luckily, the family I approached was pleasant. I can't go into too many details, but it was relatively painless on my end to get the paperwork completed. I really sympathize with this family and I pray they get peace for their situation.

Even though my hands were freezing as all the blood in my body ran screaming from my extremities, I got through it. Now that I'm on the other side, I can only think about the good that family's gift can do. I was so appreciative of the choice they made in such a difficult time.

It takes a big person to think about someone outside themselves even when they're hurting and grieving. I'm truly blessed to have the job I do.

Bonding With Co-Workers

2011-08-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

Last night was a kind of busy night at work, but there was still time to chit and chat at work. There was an organ placer working who I'd never met and we hit it off.

We bonded over pets and sports.

She and her husband take care of rescue cats and dogs and she shared some amazing stories about that. I've since decided I really have to go ahead and spend the money to get an automatic litter box cleaner. I shared with her some of my favorite recent pics of our cat Belle.

And the bonding over sports was really great. We're both baseball nuts and have had the pleasure of getting amazing seats at US Cellular Field to see a Sox game. In my post about the best weekend ever, I talked about us going to the game. She and her husband are going this weekend. We had 4th row seats on the first base line. They're getting 3rd row behind the plate. Good times. So I showed her more pics.

Read the scoreboard on this one. It's from when their pitcher got taken out in the 4th inning. Priceless.

I love bonding with co-workers. That is, when they are worth bonding with. 'Nuff said.

Craziness At The Hair Salon

2011-08-21T09:30:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows anything about black culture in America (or who has seen Barber Shop or Beauty
Shop) knows that the buildings in which folks get their hair done is always full of shenanigans.

The last time I was at the beauty shop, something unexpectedly ridiculous happened. Well maybe it was expected.

I'm sitting in the chair getting my locs twisted.

This isn't me, but that's what we all looked like in the shop.

There was a woman there getting her hair dyed. She was under the dryer when a young man walks in and hands her a piece of paper. She looks at it.

"What the hell?" she asks.

"The cops gave it to me," he replies calmly.

"They gave this to you?! I got a ticket?! Why didn't you stop them?"

"I was just sitting there and they gave it to me. Do you want it?"

"Nah, take that shit and go back to the car. Damn, boy, why you let me get a ticket?!?!"

After he walks out the shop, she turns toward all of us and says, "why let me get a damn ticket? Him and his cousin sitting in the car and they gon' let me get a ticket. And the boy run track!"

We all began cracking up. Things quickly turned back to discussion of my wedding and the wedding of another one of the stylists who's getting married the same day as me (yay wedding twins).

Shortly after that, no more than 20 minutes, the young man comes back into the shop. This time, he's accompanied by the cops.

"What's going on?" the woman asks.

"Is this young man with you?" asks the cops.

"What did he do now?" asks the woman.

"I didn't do nothing. They just wanted to tell you how to not get another ticket," responds the boy.

"Wait, you brought them in here because I was about to get another ticket? Why didn't you tell me that the first time?"

You could see how mad she was getting. The cops then explained she was parked in a zone that was no parking from 4p-6p (dumb Chicago laws) and she had to move her car or she could get tickets every 15 min until 6 pm.

She hopped out her seat and went to go move her car. The cops and the boy walked out before her. Before she left, she turned back to say, "I thought he was in trouble. I was about to tell those cops he wasn't with me. Lol, good thing I asked questions first!"

We again cracked up laughing. Ah good times. Even though I'm at the shop for hours once a month, the entertainment value is certainly there, even without me keeping my nose stuck in my Kindle. It's like reality tv but less megalomania.

Back On The Exercise Bandwagon

2011-08-20T09:30:00.001-05:00

I've been getting back in shape, y'all. Cue pleasantly surprised applause. Crickets? Darn.

Well, I haven't been doing it for very long, so there's a chance I'll fall right back off again, but I have hope. The other bride bloggers on weddingbee.com have inspired me to not neglect my fitness just because I've got more demands on my time right now. Here's what I've been up to:

Diet

I haven't been eating the best diet, but I haven't been eating too badly and I certainly haven't gained any weight. I do have the lucky (I think?) benefit of the opposite of stress eating. When I'm stressed, like I've been with planning this wedding, I don't eat. I will go all day and night and then it occurs to me to eat. It's not that I even get hungry, it's that it crosses my mind that it's been 15+ hours since I've eaten.

I've also been staying away from junk food and fast food for the most part. It's just that pesky home-made baked goods that get to me. I can't help it, I like baking for my man. Easy appreciates it, so I'll keep doing it, just maybe a little less.

Exercise @ Home
My Wii Fit Plus is my best friend. I want to keep it up, but it's hard to find the time when there's so many other things I could be doing at home. But I took some time out of my day yesterday to exercise, and I hope to keep it up the on my next day off. Wish me luck!

Exercise on a Date
Easy and I took a long walk after dinner the other night. It was romantic and sweet. And it was a good exercise. I felt great after that walk. I wasn't tired like I usually am after a big dinner. I'd love to make that a routine to get in some exercise on date nights. At least while it's still warm. I'm not going for a one hour walk in Chicago past October. Maybe by then we'll go jogging instead.

Exercise Away From Home
Starting today, I'm going back to yoga classes. I figure if I go right when I get off work to the early morning class, I should be able to work it into my schedule without losing sleep or anything else. I'm going to try it out this weekend since I work three days and see how it goes. If it goes well, it will be my new plan. Toned thighs, I will welcome you back to my world shortly.

Future Hobby/Plans
I miss rock climbing and ballroom dancing. They were great ways to exercise and have fun. I'll work them into my schedule at some point. Sooner rather than later, I hope.

Not Accepting That The Honeymoon Could Be Over

2011-08-17T09:30:00.002-05:00

Easy and I have been having some issues lately. I don't want to go into detail, but let's just say they've been big enough where he's questioned more than once whether I would leave him over it.

I think we learned a lot about love and trust and communication in this past week. We learned the actions that match our feelings and words. I was confronted, for the first time, with the depths of my emotion and just what that meant for us as a couple.

After spending years as an emotional dwarf, I've been opening up to Easy about things more and more. Feeling betrayal wasn't something I was prepared to handle. Now that I've been forced to, I honestly feel stronger coming out on the other side of it.

Been tested by fire and emerged stronger. Maybe that means the honeymoon phase is over. Isn't that usually what happens? Reality sets in and suddenly all your fantasies about how things could always be happy float away, like so many hot air balloons.

But I refuse to accept it. Easy certainly wants us to stay in our honeymoon phase forever. I think we can. Knowing that any and every blow to our happiness won't keep us from finding that place again makes me even more confident. Nothing will stop us from looking like this for at least part of every day.

Engagement Party For The Ages

2011-08-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

Our engagement party was amazing!!!!

There were all these little details there that I can't imagine how my mother pulled off. It was this fantastic party that brought together all the people Easy and I love all into one place.

It alleviated my fears of how well our two families would mix. It also set the stage for a rocking party come February.

I definitely want my wedding to be a big party. Now I really believe that's a possibility.

Up next is writing all the thank you notes for the party. I hate writing thank you notes, but I'm really so grateful to everyone for coming, I will just suck it up and go for it.

Although the party went well, I'm really glad the next event isn't until December. I'm interested to see how that will play out with so many women from my family and Easy's will fit together into one event.

Trying to keep down the stress in life isn't as easy as it usually it. Wedding planning stress, plus short-handed-at-work-whilst-also-training stress, plus settling into life with the fiance stress is a lot. We're trying to stay grounded, and so far it's working.

What should I do to deal with the stress that doesn't involve alcohol or something reckless?

Best Weekend Ever!!!

2011-08-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

This weekend should one of the best ever for Easy and I. We had a great week last week between me finishing a huge section of training at work and Easy getting job offers plus finishing recording his CD. And now we have an amazing weekend!

Our engagement party on Saturday. A baseball game on the 4th row on Sunday. I just know it's completely fitting that we should enjoy the hell out of this weekend.

I hope to have lots of great pics to share when the weekend is over.

What are you doing this weekend?

Like A Baby

2011-08-12T09:30:00.001-05:00

Not like a baby like that. Well, actually kind of like that. Jake was noisy and uncoordinated. I'm like a baby, at least according to Easy. Just not quite that way.

I am like a baby in that once my basic needs are met, I'm good. I need to be fed, not sleepy, and not cold.

He laughs when he sees that I have a huge attitude and then I eat a sandwich and turn back into Glinda the Good Witch, instead of the alternative.

I never noticed that about myself til he pointed it out. But it's definitely helped me assess my moods and what I need to do to be a more pleasant person more consistently.

I know some people are really even keel and even-tempered. That's never been me and now I know why. All I need is a nap, a sandwich, and a sweater to go through life almost permanently happy.

Anyone ever find out interesting things about their quirk through another person?

I Finally Had My Girls' Night Out...

2011-08-11T09:30:00.000-05:00

...And it kind of made me feel old. This was actually a while ago, but I"m just now getting around to blogging about it.

My girls came and scooped me up and we headed to Navy Pier. <a href="http://quitethelovelife.blogspot.com/search/Michelle">Michelle</a> wanted to go to Margaritaville, so we were all down to try it.

I haven't been able to drink tequila since an over-indulgent experience years ago. I can put away tequila shots with the best of them, but it couldn't touch my tongue.

I don't know what the Margaritaville people put in their drinks, but I'm all over a good margarita now since that night. I had a very tasty drink and I've been back on the tequila bandwagon since. I still love you tequila shots, but you're no longer my only agave option. Winning!

There was only one bad thing about the night. My girls brought a new chick to the party. She was sweet and I liked her a lot. After the night, Michelle called to tell me the girls who brought her (her cousins who I call Thing 1 and Thing 2 in my blogs) wanted to apologize for the new chick because she's normally not like that.

"Not like what?" I asked. I found her to be funny and sweet and cool. Apparently, Thing 1 and Thing 2 neglected to tell me their friends was recently un-engaged. They say she's usually more talkative than that and they're sorry she was a wet blanket.

I'd love to see this girl when she's her normal self 'cause I really liked her. But I definitely added Thing 1 and Thing 2 to my list of people who make bad decisions. We spent a good portion of the night talking about my fiance Easy. I was recently engaged at that time.

I didn't bring him up, the twins did. They wanted to congratulate me and then proceeded to ask a ton of questions about him and us and being engaged. Had I known what their friend had been through, I wouldn't have even encouraged that line of convo. I love talking about Easy, 'cause he's wonderful, but not in front of a recently un-engaged girl. Sheesh.

We ended the night early, but we still had fun. We just came back to my apartment and cracked open some wine and beer. It's definitely not the same list of activities (or order) we'd do for a night just a couple years ago, but it was really enjoyable. Getting older isn't the worst thing in the world.

Flaky friends, only Gloria has excuse.

Back From The Dead!

2011-08-10T02:20:00.000-05:00

My phone is back! Oh yeah!!

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qSpWvodDlJI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm feeling very happy because I don't have to shell out unexpected money to get a new Blackberry. I already had to do that last month for my car breaks. Goodness, this being an adult thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I knew that, but I prefer to focus on the positive. And I'm positively happy my phone decided to just start working again.

I miss my friends. I need to catch up with them. I've barely updated <a href="http://quitethelovelife.blogspot.com/">my other blog</a> with info on their love lives.

And my parents would normally be concerned I'd fallen off the face of the earth. But their new son, Easy is waaay better at keeping in touch than I am. So they know I'm alive 'cause they both talk to him a couple times a week. I think it's pretty sweet actually.

Even though there's so much going on all the time with friends, family, work, romance, and wedding, I finally feel like I can breathe. Maybe it's because I"m getting in a groove. Maybe it's cause Easy and I finally settled an issue that's been hanging out in the background for a while. I'm not sure entirely, but I feel good.

I'm tired as hell cause I only got 3 hours of sleep last night, but I feel good.

I have a very busy weekend coming up with this engagement party, but I feel good.

My apartment still isn't completely unpacked, but I feel good.

Smile!

Used To Be Something of a Rover

2011-08-09T09:30:00.000-05:00

That video is from Guys and Dolls, it's one of my favorite musicals. You should really watch the whole thing, but this scene in particular took on a new meaning for me the other day.

I was watching the movie in my new apartment, and Easy came and joined me about halfway through. When that scene in the video came up, I cracked up laughing. Since the first time I watched this movie, I wanted to be seated next to my significant other so I could be amused by that line.

They really point right at the camera. I still chuckle when I think about it. This happened back when we first moved in together, so that was the end of June.

This sparked a conversation about the changes expected and unexpected about living together. We expected that we'd enjoy each other's company. But we didn't expect to be so happy about it. Even after we spend an entire 24 hour period together, once we separate, one of us calls or texts the other to say, "I miss you already."

We also expected we'd make a good team in the house. We mostly do because of our ability to divide up housework and responsibilities. The hardest thing for me to get used to is how much stuff he uses. Toilet paper, toothpaste, floss, milk, you name it. Easy uses it in ridiculously comically large quantities.

But we're working on better utilization and other solutions. He's trying to use less floss. I agreed not to get upset about his use of toilet paper considering the alternative (yuck!), and now we buy milk two gallons at a time.

An unexpected change was how we consult on our schedules. I wouldn't call either of us fiercely independent, but we also are our own people. An unexpected change was that we both sort of naturally started checking with each other before we make or change plans.

I wonder what other changes we'll begin to notice as more time passes.

A Reunion Concert And Phone Woes

2011-08-08T09:30:00.001-05:00

It wasn't a reunion for me that I'm talking about. It was for Easy. His friends from high school started a group in which they each played an instrument. Saturday night, they had a reunion concert.

It was at Easy's church. It was really enjoyable. It was gospel music with a jazz flair. I was glad to go with Easy to this concert. I got to spend more time with his friends and bond with them. I also got to chat wedding planning with the sister of Easy's best man.

Here are some photos from the event:

They had a wonderful video that played before and after the show. That is their symbol for MV8.

They started playing and I was immediately enjoying the show. Good times.

Oh yeah, Easy doesn't just play alto sax. He also plays the flute.

And he raps. Well, he hasn't really done it since high school, but he's good at it. He could win a cipher still I bet.

This is the group members who were there for the concert, plus all their friends from high school who came to the show.

This is the five who played in the concert. There are three more who couldn't make the show. I'm hoping they'll play the next one.

They are currently planning on having another show around Christmas. I think it will be even bigger and better and I can't wait.

I love that I'm marrying a musician who's actually talented and undertakes ventures that are easy to support! It would be hard to support an artist who wasn't that good at what they did...

Moving on the phone woes. My Blackberry is acting up. The keyboard is functioning improperly. I really only turn it on to try and check my voicemail. Each time I put in the battery, I have about 3-8 minutes of proper functioning before it goes hay wire.

I'm not due for a phone upgrade until October, so I'm contemplating what to do about the phone. I'm definitely sticking with BB, and I want the flip phone, but I just don't know if I can shell out that extra money right now. Le sigh.

Missing My Mister

2011-08-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

Easy is a musician. Did I mention that? Well, he plays the alto saxophone and he has a music group called Quatuor de Force, a jazz quartet.

He's been writing music and this past week he's been practicing with his group to record a CD. That's right, he put together an album. His music is amazing, and if you like jazz or neo soul or just good music, you'd love what he's written.

While he was working on actually recording the music, I didn't see him for days. He and I haven't gone too many days without talking since we decided to date exclusively last October. Even when he was in Europe for a month, between gmail and video chat, we still spoke almost every day.

Though Easy has been busy recording his album, it didn't take 24 hours of each day. I worked Wed-Fri though and slept almost the entire time I wasn't at work. Add to that the fact that my BlackBerry has given up on cooperating with my desire to use it for any purpose other than an alarm clock, and we have no way to communicate.

I was missing my man like crazy! Getting home from work on Saturday morning after my shift ended made my heart swell. Being away from him sucks!

Back To Your Normally Scheduled Programming

2011-08-06T09:30:00.000-05:00

Hi people! Welcome to the first blog post I've written in weeks that has nothing to do with my wedding planning! If you want to read about my wedding planning, you can click my weddingbee icon on my blog page or <a href="http://www.weddingbee.com/author/kettle/">click here</a> or see my wedding blog (which has all the same posts) <a href="http://misskettlewedding.blogspot.com/">here</a>.

Moving on. So, my life has been interesting outside of the wedding. I've been training furiously at work. They moved up my training timeline so I was training for three different parts of my job, with three different trainers, all at once. It was a lot. A LOT.

But I finished one part Friday morning and another part Friday night. Two down!! I got hired to do a job that requires three phases of training. I'm now officially signed off on everything except the last phase.

This last phase is very involved and will take a couple months. But we dove in head first at work Friday night and I'm very excited to be started on this. I want to learn as much as possible. Every part of the job of the tissue and organ donation process is important. But every piece I am involved in makes me feel like I'm doing just a bit more to make a difference in peoples' lives.

If I had to decide today, I would definitely make a career out of the job I currently have. There are so many options for career paths that the choices would keep me interested throughout my career. And the opportunities for advancement are vast as well.

Right now, I'm leaning more toward applying for Master's Programs in Health Administration. I've been wavering back and forth between that and getting and MPH. It feels really good to finally have some direction in mind. Score one for figuring out my next step in life!

Put On The Kettle!

2011-08-04T10:30:00.002-05:00

Hello hive!

I'm Miss Kettle. I'm so excited be here. I wish there was a way to convey through words the extent of my joy. I could try, but I'm not a writer, I'm a scientist. My grasp of spelling and grammar is no small feat in itself, so I will accept that proper word choice is just outside my grasp.

That, my new friends, is why God made Google. It's my best buddy on the Internet. There's nothing Google can't do. Well, that's not true. But there are no Internet needs of mine that it can't meet. The best example of this was when Mr. Kettle went to Europe for a month last winter and we were able to talk on the phone and video chat -- for free-- through Google (technically gmail, but it's the same thing). But I digress...

Through Google, I can find pictures to try and express my joy.

Image via bitstorm.org

Nah, that's not really it. But I am having fond memories of my childhood while also wondering why in the world my parents let me watch that show!

Image via ravensquetarot.com

Yeah, now that's more like it. This joy is not mine alone because Mr. Kettle is really excited too. He was very supportive of my plan to be a Bee and almost submitted the application for me. Thank goodness it was still too soon to apply because I wanted to go over my application myself and have my voice shine through.

Now that I've done my very best to express how happy I am to be a Bee, let's talk about how I got here. Mr. Kettle and I first discussed marriage very early on in what was a short courtship. It was the night of Mardi Gras that we decided we'd be married by that time the following year. Almost immediately after that, I started looking at wedding websites and Google sent me to Weddingbee. I fell in love instantly and had dreams of being a Bee myself one day.

Mr. Kettle and I overshare, so I told him of my new obsession with wedding websites and surprisingly, he didn't back off the discussion of marriage or the development of our relationship. Possible "crazy" label avoided. Winning!

When we were officially engaged (he liked it so he put a ring on it), I realized there was only a short amount of time before we were at the 8-months-out-mark and I could apply to Weddingbee. Well, they rejected my first application pretty quickly. I was sad, very sad.

personal bmp

I didn't cry, but I was wondering why I couldn't be fascinating enough to catch their attention. I took another look at my blog and tried to figure out what to do. I began tailoring my blog posts as if I were actually a weddingbee blogger, which meant more pictures, more details of how I arrived at decisions, projects, and feelings.

As soon as four weeks passed (technically a few days before..) I submitted a second application. Then it was all wedding blogging every day. My personal blog became wedding central. Mr. Kettle spoke of how I "better be a Bee blogger this time after all this". He is very passionate you see.

But it paid off! I got the e-mail from Pengy (I call her that 'cause everyone else does) and I was over-joyed. I was at work when I read it so I had to do my best to contain my glee. It was hard. Real hard.

I called Mr. Kettle and after a bit of phone tag, he got the good news. He was just as happy as I was. Then we hashed out what my icon would be. Knowing that he would have to be Mr.______, he wanted something that was manly. He didn't say that outright, but I got that vibe after he ruled out both bracelet and petit four.

He wanted ticket, But I really wanted sunhat. He probably frowned (we were over the phone so I can't be sure) and then we played a game we're very good at. This game is called compromise. We decided on an icon that fit us as a couple and one that both of us would be proud to be the Mr.______ and Miss ______. Ultimately, kettle it was.

We drink a lot of tea, so I think it fits. We're very warm, we like bright colors, and with all the music we constantly have around us, the tea kettle whistle fits us too.

I look forward to months of blogging and having you all go with me through this planning process. I've already done some DIY projects and I will be glad to share those with you.

Here are the Kettles (and our cat Belle). These are both personal photos.

she thinks she's people

he's turned me into a pseudo-cuddler

The New Buzz In My Life

2011-08-04T09:30:00.015-05:00

Hey y'all, I've got great news! This news comes with good news. Also, depending on how you take it, there is other news. Weddingbee accepted my application to become a blogger!!!

I've chosen the icon of Kettle, so by all means head over there and become engrossed in all things wedding. That's the good news.

The depending-on-how-you-take-it news is that I will not be blogging about my wedding planning process nearly as much on this blog. I will, finally, get back to talking about the rest of my life.

With my work shifts and all the wedding planning, there's not a whole lot of other life stuff going on, but it does happen. I'm just glad my obsessiveness paid off.

For any readers I have that could care less about my wedding planning, this is a great development. For those who do care, I'll put a link right at the top of the page on my blog so you can find my Weddingbee blog.

The next post that goes up will be my welcome post for Weddingbee. After that, it'll be regular CeCe. I promise I won't start calling myself Miss Kettle here.

You're Such A Tool, But Yet I Love You

2011-08-03T09:30:00.001-05:00

I have two major tools in my life. One is my super sexy wedding binder from russel+hazel.

The other is our wedding website.

I don't know what I would do without these two tools. I love them wholeheartedly.

I carried my wedding binder around with me everywhere I went. Somewhere between coming to terms with our old wedding venue and some bridesmaid-dress related stress, I stopped carrying it.

It sat by the door, ready to be carried along every time I left the house. Instead, I would glower at it as I walked past. It just sat there in it's adorable carrying bag I bought at Staples.

I paid more attention to the website. But I really focused my attention on the part people would see (such as the screen shot above). Well, that and the guest list.

The guest list caused me no small amount of grief. Getting the list whittled down, tracking down addresses, and getting them all into the website was a very involved project.

But then the clouds parted. I saw on the website a very easy format to put the guest list info into that would make it very easy to upload into the computer. I'm a hgue fan of putting in a lot of work on the front in to never have to do it again.

Once that happened, things got better. Suddenly, my fiance Easy and his mother were able to track down their addresses. My parents became a big help in getting our Save-the-Dates out.

And then the best thing ever happened: we changed our wedding venue back to the place I'd been secretly pining for since we first saw it.

This actually looks a lot like a Justin Alexander ad with my exact dress on weddingwire. I couldn't get the ad to come up of course, so no screenshot. Sorry.

Oh, but I did go to the Justin Alexander website and I found it. I'm hesitant to post it because Easy still hasn't seen my dress. If he promises not to look, I'll post it. You promise not to peek, Easy? Okay, everyone else scroll down and you'll see it.

I knew you'd look! That's why I didn't put up the ad. Perhaps eventually I will show it, cause I really love the ad and I'm going to save it as an inspirational picture for my photographer for the day of the wedding.

Moving on. Being the reasonable person I try to pretend I am from time to time, I never outright said I wanted that venue and no others. But when it finally happened, I felt a weight lifted. I didn't even know that weight was there, but I sure as hell noticed when it was gone.

Monday, on my way out the door, I stopped and picked up my wedding binder and bag. I took it with me to work. I even cracked it open at work and began filling in the stuff I'd neglected for 2 months. I took out stuff I didn't need anymore.

Besides all the work I do at work, I felt very productive wedding-wise. It's amazing to come out of doldrums you didn't even know you were in. I knew I felt some kind of way about my wedding binder, but I didn't know just how bad it was until I didn't feel that way anymore.

And now I love all my wedding tools again. Checklists, guest lists, and menus, oh my!

Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

2011-08-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

My best man, Lion, has an older brother who was engaged while we were in college. His wedding party was spread out geographically. The best way for him to keep everyone in the loop was to let them know is a very classic way: a newsletter.

I loved this idea then, and I love it still now. While we have five people in our wedding party out of town, that's actually only a small fraction of our hugely large wedding party. But needing to keep everyone on the same page has been... a task.

In order to better serve the needs of our sanity, I came up with a great newsletter. This isn't just for the bridesmaids though.

It will go to the bridesmaids, the jr. bridesmaids and bridal attendants, the groomsmen, the parents of the flowers girls and ring bearers, and also to the ushers and hostesses. That's a lot o' mail to send out. But it will be worth it to keep anything from falling through the cracks.

I'm not sure how often I'll have to do these newsletters, but this one was right before the 6 months-to-wedding mark, so there's no way to tell.

In this newsletter, I covered:

an introduction of who was all in the wedding party (there's over 25 total)
a reminder of our engagement party in 2 weeks
information about our changed venue
clothing FAQs, as we're coming up on the date to order these items
other cute-sy things.

I tried to make it interesting visually and interesting to read. Lots of white space, nice graphics, pictures, and a fluid layout are all essential to making a great newsletter.

It wouldn't be my first choice, but I made the whole thing in our wedding colors. The taupe came out a bit too orange, but I think it will do.

I imagine I'll have to do another one of these at least in December right before the bridal luncheon. And probably another one in January for the wedding shower and bachelor/bachelorette party. And of course, one with final instructions leading up to the wedding weekend.

And of course, by now you're dying to see the newsletter. No? Well, I want you to see it anyway. Tell me what you think of the layout. I used a screenshot so you could see the intended taupe color instead of what came out of the printer.

The writing really didn't look as small on the printout as it looks in the picture. I hope they like it. I didn't intend to come up with anything so awesome that people are putting it in their scrapbooks, but I did want to keep them abreast of everything without having to make 40 calls.

Score one for finding a way to have less stress with my gargantuan wedding party.

My Mansion For A Day

2011-08-01T09:30:00.002-05:00

If you still read my now completely wedding-centric blog, you may be asking yourself what's so fantastic about the Patrick C. Haley Mansion that I could be on the edge of giddiness at the thought of having my wedding there.

Well, I finally unloaded all the pictures from my camera so I can shower you with a barrage of loveliness to help you understand just why I am happy. I am writing the post ahead of time, and God willing, the contract will be signed with the Mansion by the time this post publishes.

So without further ado...

When you first walk up, you think, what a lovely looking mansion. Gosh, I hope those steps aren't slippery.

This is what it looks like when you first walk in to the ballroom. Stairs leading down to tables, chandeliers, and a garden through the windows. Cue contented sighs.

Even if you don't drink, how can you not be enthralled by the beauty and sophistication of this bar. That would be open. For the entire wedding. Open. The whole time. I'm just saying.

This is the front of the ballroom, where the ceremony would take place indoors. See the skylight? See the garden through the endless windows? Yeah, that's hot.

Then, turn to look at the ballroom from up front where the ceremony would be held. Gosh, it's lovely. And look at the head table, all made up. Don't you simply have to take a closer look?

This almost makes me want to have a real head table. Almost. But there's just too many of us. But the chair covers are amazing, as is the silver and gold on the tableware. Begin to drool, and not over the food.

Say, you're getting married in February. Are you really considering sneaking outdoors for a few *hopefully* in-the-snow photos? After seeing this, yeah, you are.

You hear about all the lovely spaces around the mansion upstairs to explore before the ceremony and during cocktail hour. You imagine people mingling. You also imagine one of your feistier friends sneaking up here during the reception...

Oooh, more to explore? All those chairs are included? Winning!

There's a third floor?? What's up there? Suites for the wedding party! Is it just me or does this room look like an upscale barber shop/cigar club? I have been envisioning photos of Easy getting ready in this room since I first laid eyes on it.

After seeing the guys' room, I waited with bated breath to see the bride's room. And it is ah-mazing! Perfectly round, bright windows, lots o' floor space to accommodate my ridiculously large number of bridesmaids. Good times. You don't even see the abundance of mirrors in this photo.

Eventually, the tour is over. On the way out, this is a last look at the ballroom from the outside. Yup, there's a fountain there too. I hope they put twinkle lights on it in the winter...

So.... do you get it? Do you see why this place is perfect for me? Every time I envision my wedding, I see it as a big party for lots of people Easy and I love. The party is fancy, cause that's how I roll, but it's also in a setting that speaks to my love for beauty and nature.

The hands-on service they provide isn't half bad either. The one thing I couldn't show through the photos is the smell of the food they were cooking the day I took all these pics. It smelled amazing! I can't wait for the tasting.

Changing Wedding Venues... Again

2011-07-31T09:30:00.000-05:00

The "again" in the title of this post isn't exactly fair. We only put down a deposit on one location. We have, however, settled on a location more than once only to change our minds.

So what happened?

Glad you asked.

Thursday evening, my mother calls me with fretful concern over our choice of venue. There are a number of reasons she listed, but the top two were:

1. She'd heard from reputable sources that they tend to... shuttle people in and out on the day of their event.

This could be a valid complaint since they hold multiple events in multiple rooms on the same day.

2. She was worried that no one room was large enough to accommodate our guests and we would be crowded into two adjoining rooms. The thought of having a "B" room where people can't easily see the first dance or the cake cutting, and have to hear toasts through a speaker had become increasingly less appealing. Just imagine them trying to shove into the doorway to watch the proceedings.

Add to these two very reasonable concerns an uneasy feeling in her stomach/heart/mind, and she had a pretty convincing argument on her hands.

My family rarely uses emotions in their arguments, so when we do, others take notice and it carries extra weight.

So Easy and I went by my parents' house after his gig and we talked numbers. We tried to figure out our options. We had already put down a deposit with our first venue and didn't want to lose that money.

My first love (no not the Botanic Garden, that was just a fantasy) was the Haley Mansion in Joliet.

Imagine it with snow for February.

It seemed originally outside our price point for budget. But we moved around some numbers and it seemed feasible.

On Friday, my mother and father drove to Joliet to take a look at the mansion. My father finally understood what the fuss was all about. The question was now how to sort out the issue of the deposit.

But we were in luck! The mansion and the chateau are owned by the same people! They told my parents they could transfer the deposit from one venue to the other after they sign the contract with the second venue.

It still feels less than real that I will actually have my wedding at my dream venue. It just has so much to offer. The third floor, for example, is dedicated entirely to the wedding party having a place to hang out and get ready.

I want to jump for joy, but I will hold it in until the contract is signed and the deposit is transferred. If you'll excuse me, I have to go change around several things on my wedding website.

Can You Wear Your Birthday Suit To Your Engagement Party?

2011-07-30T09:30:00.056-05:00

There is something that is gravely important One should wear clothes to their own engagement party. I'm serious, it's truly important.

No matter how much you want to bury your head in the sand and try and forget about the million and one details of wedding planning, you must take time and find actual clothes to wear. Not doing that is against the law.

Shopping for an e-party dress should be fun. It's a cocktail party after all and I love shopping. What could be better?

Well, I think I put too much pressure on myself. I don't really have the time or money to shop the way I'd like. And I had the silly notion I should wear our wedding colors. There's only one problem with that. Regency isn't really in right now.

left to right: regency, black, tan, ivory, gold

Color fail.
So I branched out. I found a great dress at Delia's that I bought. I know you want to see it.

Dress from Delia's

Because I am so very short, it stops right at my knees, making it perfect cocktail length. And it's a great color for summer. But it's just... plain. I'd have to jazz it up. I and don't really do jazzy.

I don't have a blingy belt or jewelry or anything else like that. Sexy high heeled shoes is about all I have. So this dress would require waaay more shopping to get it perfect.

So I am now searching for either another dress or some killer accessories. Of course, I'm starting with Macy's because that store never lets me down. They had tons to choose from. I wanted something cute and sexy, but not too sexy. I wanted it simple, but not too plain. I hope I can come up with more focus for my other pre-wedding outfits.

Here are some of my favorites.

Ralph Lauren One Shoulder Dress

Sexy and simple. But is it too simple? And should I really be wearing black to a party in the middle of August? I don't know.

Ellen Tracy Sleeveless Floral Print Dress

Girly and sweet, but is it sexy? On me, it will go below my knee and it looks like something I'd wear to church or work maybe...

Nine West Beaded One Shoulder Dress

Let's be honest, one shoulder dresses are not my thing. I only own one and it was forced upon me through participation in a wedding. And perhaps it's too sexy? And I will clash with all the golden decorations, won't I?

Jessica Howard Asymmetrical Cocktail Dress

This one is actually called a cocktail dress. And it's exactly my style. But is it too sweet? Is it too blue? And might it be too hot for an August party at which I'll already be nervous?

BCBGMAXAZRIA One Shoulder Mini Cocktail Dress

Everything this man makes looks great on me. It's sexy and a soft tone, so I wouldn't be overdoing it. But I have a small frame. Perhaps it's just one detail too many. That's a lot o' ruffles. And I have a small frame, but not small hips. Le sigh.

Ellen Tracy Sleeveless Sheath

This one kept catching my eye, but when I look at it, all I can think is my grandmother telling me I need more color and pizazz in my wardrobe. This dress is just my style though. But perhaps it's not enough.

I think a trip to an actual store is due. I will have fun trying on dresses. Whenever I find a sales associate to bond with, I always buy a dress. So here's hoping there's someone there who can be wowed by my ability to look good in any dress (except ones with too many ruffles. those are not my friends).

To RSVP Or To Not RSVP

2011-07-29T09:30:00.014-05:00

That is the question. I've been very worried about how RSVPs will go for all our wedding events because of two people, namely my mother and my fiance.

In dramatic fashion, I've been drawing the back of my hand to my forehead and sighing worriedly that no one will RSVP to our events. Don't worry, I knew they'd come, I just figured we'd never be able to get an accurate head count ahead of time.

This is because those two have put out into the world horrible RSVP karma. They never RSVP. Okay, that's an exaggeration. They hardly ever RSVP for things. I'm praying that others don't do to us what my mother and fiance have done to them.

Our e-party invites have gone out and on them people are asked to either call/text my mother with their RSVP or go to our wedding website and do it. There have already been some RSVPs online which only brings a smile to my face.

There are rebels too. One of our friends RSVP'd through Facebook on Easy's wall. And he wanted to bring a plus one. Easy had to inform him that he wasn't getting a plus one for our e-party or any other wedding event.

That's rough to say, but if we're not inviting family members and close friends of our own, we certainly don't have room for extra random people two and three degrees of separation away.

I think the rules of plus ones are pretty simple. Spouses, children living in the house, significant others in years-long relationships, those who live together, and engaged peoples. The one exception to this is if someone is invited who knows no one there other than the bride or groom.

But so far so good on the RSVP front. I can deal with the occasional Facebook RSVP or even just someone calling me to ask me to RSVP for them online. As long as those people are in the minority, I can hang.

Here's a tip for anyone planning a party of any kind: Don't forget to put a date by which you want people to RSVP!! I forgot to do that. Luckily, we only need a head count 3 days before the event. Luck was on my side with this. I won't make that mistake again, trust me.

Music To My Ears

2011-07-28T09:30:00.030-05:00

The first vendors we booked were our musicians. Finding the right musician in the right price range can make a bride go crazy. That will not happen to me because I am marrying a musician. Winning!

The day Easy announced our engagement on Facebook, he asked who would play at our wedding for free and several people responded. He was joking, but he definitely took them up on their offer.

Three guys who all play in the same jazz trio each individually offered, so that basically settled the question of what music we'd have for our cocktail hour between the ceremony and reception. Live jazz perfectly fits the mood we're going for with the time of day, passed hors d'oeuvres, and open bar.

We needed ceremony musicians as well. We happened to be heading to an open bar with some friends who (now that I see everything in terms of the wedding) were basically a mixture of wedding guests and groomsmen.

We passed by Bar Louie, which is one of my fave hangs in Chicago. Seated outside was an old friend of Easy's. She happens to be a fantastic violin player (I think. Maybe the viola??), and she's part of a string quartet. Easy told her she should play at our wedding and she readily agreed. Now we had our ceremony music.

While I was wondering about what we'd do for the reception, Easy explained he'd already taken care of it. A friend of his from St. Louis who is a DJ had already agreed to DJ our wedding reception as a wedding gift. A couple of times when we went out in St. Louis, this guy was the DJ, so I know I love what he spins.

It all just seemed to good to be true. A string quartet, a jazz trio, and a DJ all for the price of paying just the string quartet?!? Both my mother and I were thrilled.

Of course we'll be paying everyone something. I've never been one to take advantage of someone's kindness. I am, however, grateful that I will get so much amazing music for my wedding at a really affordable price.

That means more money in the budget for flowers! And I love me some flowers. It's time for musical instrument and flower porn!

"Looking For Corny In My Life"

2011-07-27T09:30:00.025-05:00

The Holiday is one of my favorite movies. It combines Christmas and romantic comedies and it has an ensemble cast and a couple of the characters break into song for no reason at all plus a sexy man with an accent is one of the leads? That's a special kind of movie heaven for me. Watch the clip. Around 8:55 is the part of the scene that inspired the title to this post.

I have my moments where corny things are what I actually prefer. I'd like to blame my fiance for making this even worse. I usually try to avoid embracing my mushy side. But Easy keeps making it seem like this is good behavior, so I keep indulging here and there.

I posted back in June about what I got my Dad for Father's Day. One of his gifts was a hat that said "Father of the Bride".

Well.... I bought myself one too. I bought a hat that says "Future Mrs. McBride". I truly did. It's the pinnacle of corniness. And I bought a hat that I'll only be able to wear for another 6.5 months. But I did it.

When we get around having wedding events, you'll probably see me with my Future Mrs. McBride baseball cap and Bridezilla sash. I'm starting to hoard some serious pre-wedding swag. Throw that in with the wine glass my mother got me that says "Bride" and my pre-wedding gear is almost complete.

The question is what to get next. Should I get a cute Bride-to-Be Tank Top?

Image via Zazzle

Or maybe a cute tiara?

Image via FunSlurp

Already having a shopping habit makes me even more prone to this, the corniest of indulgences. Have you ever gone overboard with themed swag?

Outsourcing Invitations

2011-07-26T09:30:00.031-05:00

After the headache of figuring out just our Save-the-Date mailings and engagement party invitations, I know there's no way I ever, ever, ever, want to do this again. So I have concocted a solution.

No, I'm not finding an international invitation designer, though that does have a fantastic ring to it. Makes me think of fashion instead of unemployment. Moving on though.

My fiance Easy has been a well of goodness in this whole wedding planning thing. Every time I'm stumped as to the best route to go, he ends up supplying, without trying, the perfect solution. The best example of this is our wedding musicians, but that's a different post.

This post is about wedding invitations. I went through so much for our first wedding doohickeys. Because of timing and some other stuff, we decided to send out moo cards, engagement party invites, and save-the-date mailings all at once.

This seemed like a good idea. And it still is a good idea. Based on the length of our engagement and the date of our e-party, it really was the best option. But getting those mailings out was no small task.

It forced us to finalize our guest list early (thank God!). But tracking down addresses was only the tip of the iceberg. I didn't like any of the designs on vistaprint nor did I want to pay $7.99/ten invites. Not when we had to send them to 152 households!

So I designed them myself in a word document that could be uploaded and placed on a postcard. The postcards ended up being around $25 for 250, which is waaaaaay better than $199.75 for 250. Designing these invites was no small matter.

I'm very proud of them. Want to see them again? Okay.

You just get a snippet here. You can read the whole post here.

Designing these took waay longer than I expected. First I had to change the font. Then the wording. Then the color. Then the monogram. There was just so much that went into it. I lovingly spent a ton of time making sure they were just right.

Having gone through all that taught me one thing: I will never design another invitation in my life if I can help it. I know I can do it. DIY mission accomplished! Winning!

So the question became how was I to ever get something that would match what I've already done, but look even better for our actual wedding invites? I didn't want to break the budget, so I looked to Easy.

A good friend of his will be attending our wedding. His girlfriend is very sweet. She's also... wait for it... a photographer/graphic designer!! You can check out her blog here. She's got a great eye, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what she'll come up with.

She agreed to take a look to see what we'd like done and we agreed to pay her for her trouble. If she designs something wonderful, I won't be surprised, but I'll be very glad I will have successfully outsourced something that is not my passion to someone who would love to do it and be good at it.

The More The Merrier

2011-07-25T09:30:00.037-05:00

I said I was going to do it and I am sticking to my word. I will detail the hundreds, nay, thousands of members of our wedding party. Okay, I'm exaggerating. It's just upwards of 30 when it's all said and done.

Yesterday, I went through just how many people we had for the men. It was a grand total of 20! Yikes!

There are 16 females in total in our wedding. There's me, the bride. Both Easy and I have a maid of honor. I have 6 more bridesmaids. There are 2 junior bridesmaids. We have 2 flower girls and 3 hostesses. Yup, that's a lot. A whole lot.

Our wedding pictures will look like this:

I'm hoping that with that many people, all the wedding events will go like this:

We talked about who would be in our wedding party a long time ago. It was probably March when we first began discussing it. That isn't that long ago in real time. But in the course of our relationship and considering we've only been engaged since Memorial Day, that was forever ago.

We picked our bridesmaids, groomsmen, maids of honor, and best men based on who our close friends were. We couldn't narrow it down, so we decided to include everyone.

I've known for years that Lion would be my best man. But I don't think he knew I really meant it. And having Top as my maid of honor was a no brainer. She's my closest friend since I was about 9.

My other bridesmaids and bridal attendants are close friends of mine who I write regularly about in my other blog. Read about Bad, Camille, Gloria, Michelle, and Sonny on that blog. The other three haven't been written about in the blog... yet. There are only seven days in the week, so I'm working on that.

For our ring bearers and flower girls, the decision was a no-brainer. I don't any appropriately aged people in my family. Easy, however, has two sets of twins in his family that are just the right age. So we will have the most adorable little boys and girls. I am fully prepared for all the oohs and aahs.

Even two of our groomsmen are twins. But they look nothing alike. And there are multiple people throughout the wedding party with the same last names, so their names won't necessarily give them away as twins.

We also have two officiants. Why? Well, we both wanted our pastor to officiate the wedding and we rock at compromise.

Let's see, who's left... Well, I'm not going to tell the story of why Easy picked his groomsmen because I don't actually know all the stories.

Ah! The hostesses and ushers. Two of the hostesses are younger female family members who are in college, one of my side, one on Easy's. Our two hosts are in the middle of high school, one from each side.

We added a fifth hostess/usher because my mother says we need 1 for every 50 guests at the wedding. So we added a high school girl from my church who I mentor. She and Easy met when they were both in the wedding he and I met at last summer. They get along great, so she will fit in like she's part of the family.

And that is all. That's quite a lot, right? How many people is too many for a wedding party? I'm crossing my fingers that people say numbers over 40.

Put On Some Pants!

2011-07-24T09:30:00.045-05:00

One of my favorite moments in The Hangover inspired the title of this post. It makes me think of Easy because he's morally opposed to wearing pants when he doesn't have to. Our wedding is such an occasion for which he must wear pants.

Watch the clip here. Around 2:43 is when the pants funniness begins.

Needing to have pants for our wedding, Easy went with his best man to find tuxes for the males in our wedding party. There are a lot of males in our wedding party. I think my next post will talk about just how many people we are including.

We have the groom, Easy. Both Easy and I have a best man. He has 8 groomsman and I have 2 male bridal attendants. We have 2 ring bearers. We have 2 teenage ushers. We have two officiants. And also there is my father. That's 20!

Argh!

Okay, I'm calm.

Easy and his best man did a good job of narrowing down what the guys would wear. I told them they had to get dove gray, charcoal gray, or black suits or tuxes. They needed to look at tie options along with vest, cummerbund or suspender options. They had to come in all our wedding colors.

left to right: regency, black, tan, ivory, gold

And they tried on some stuff (I assume...) and narrowed it down. The males will all be wearing black tuxes, not the kind with tails. Easy prefers vests over cummerbund's, so they will be wearing vests.

I made a big push for cummerbunds and my father told me if I wanted cummerbunds so badly, I should wear one. I quickly replied (like the smart aleck everyone keeps telling me I am) that I am, in fact, wearing one. The way my dress is made has that detail at the waistline.

But it looks like I'll be the only one. Sigh.

The guys will be wearing vests, and we're still undecided on ties though I believe Easy is leaning toward regular ties (no skinny ties!).

We aren't going to have our officiants wearing the same matching tuxes. My father will be in a black vest/tie. The groomsmen will be in regency along with our best men. Easy will wear ivory possibly. The ushers and ring bearers will be wearing tan.

I think the colors will work very well with the ladies in the wedding. Our flower girls and hostesses will also be in tan. The bridesmaids will be in regency. And the gold color will only be accents, think earrings and cuff links.

I wish I had asked the guys to take pictures of what they tried on. But perhaps I can tag along when they get measured and get some pictures then.

What do you think of our color palette? Does it seem to far out there? I will put up pictures when I get them and it will all make sense, I promise.

But to get an idea of what we're envisioning, here's a picture from my inspiration board on Weddingwire.

This One Time At Band Camp...

2011-07-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

My fiance Easy is a musician. A very good one. He's also a teacher. A very good one.

Because he is these two things, he gets invited to teach at the NIU jazz camp every summer. He's there now. They bring in all these high school students and teach them amazing things.

A lot of his friends who I've met since we've been dating are also amazing musicians and teachers and they're there too. It's like a who's who of musicians who will be wedding guests (see how I still had to slip something wedding related in?).

Last year, right after we'd just met, I was heading up to Rockford to pack up my apartment since I was moving back to Chicago. Since I was in the area, Easy asked me to stop by and visit him there.

Back then, I felt like I was doing this crazy thing. It was literally the second night I've ever spent in a dorm. I never stayed in a dorm during college, except once during a slumber party with my girls. I didn't even stay in the dorn during orientation. Call be spoiled, call me bourgie, I just wasn't about to do it.

But now that I'm grown as hell and about to get married, I'm staying in a dorm. Planning on sleeping in a twin size bed for the second time in two summers. I must really really reeeeallly love this man, ya'll.

Snail Mailing All Our Friends And Family

2011-07-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

My father went to the post office Monday during his work day and bought the postage and mailed our Save the Date/Engagement Party Invite/Moo Card package.

After slaving over these for a very long time, it felt good to have that big step accomplished. Designing invitations, finalizing the guest list, and tracking down addresses has been a special brand of wedding hell that makes a girl just want to run off and marry in Vegas.

Not that we're actually done. Nooooo. That would be awesome, but it wouldn't be true. We still have 20 more addresses we need from my FMIL (future mother in law). But, there's always a but! But, we have the process down!.

Putting addresses on labels and getting them out for that last 20 will be easy-peasy. The only real downside is that we're less than 4 weeks from our engagement party and some of the addresses we still need are invited to the e-party. But I have decided I am no longer worrying about that.

I've already shown you my lovely invites. I spent so much time on them and I am very proud of them.

So the question you may (or may not) have at this late point in the post: Why am I singing the praises of the post office?

Well, the STDs were dropped in the mail either late Monday morning or early Monday afternoon. And everyone in the Chicago area, suburbs included, got theirs on Tuesday. People who get their mail delivered at 10 am on Tuesday had them!

I lived in Florida during college and mail took forever. I could mail something to myself-- from home-- and it would still take 2-3 days to be delivered.

But in Chicago, my kind of town, things are different. Things are better.

Credit: Zazzle

In Chicago, your mail magically find itself where it's supposed to be in less than 12 hours. Because it's magic. Bippity boppity boo magic. I'm convinced that what it is.

So now we're just waiting until his mother tracks down the addresses. And also I'm focusing on the silver lining. There's always one.

And this time it's that in just a few short days, we'll have all our addresses and a completely completed guest list! Our wedding isn't until February 11th and that major stressor will be over and done with.

I'm currently intending on completely outsourcing our invitations to the actual wedding, and I'm not planning my wedding shower or bridal luncheon or bachelorette party, so I am possibly (cross your fingers) officially done with wedding invitation stress. Could it be true? I dearly hope so.

As It Turns Out, This Is Really Not Just My Wedding

2011-07-21T09:30:00.002-05:00

Every vendor I go to tells me, "this is your big day, honey! It's all about you!" The deadpan look I give them lets them know I'm not that type of bride and that's no way to get in good with me.

They usually quickly change tactics and begin to ask lots o' questions of me and whoever I'm there with. These vendors catch on quick, you know?

And while I know all the big decisions of this wedding (i.e., guest list, venue, colors, flowers) are not all at my choice alone, some moments have felt like I was doing it alone and pulling everyone along to do their part.

Figuring out our wedding colors was a 7 step process that included the majority of the women in my wedding sphere. I'm not joking. Me, my mother, my FMIL, my FSILs, my maid of honor, both my hostesses and junior bridesmaids, 6 of my bridesmaids, and my two flower girls all had input. Oh, and of course Easy did as well. Believe it or not, that was a fun decision to make.

But other things, like tracking down addresses has proven incredibly difficult. It wasn't until Saturday afternoon and Sunday night when I finally felt like I wasn't doing that whole project against everyone else's wishes.

Our engagement is short. Very short. Too short to have a guest list that is currently over 300 people. But it is reality and I'm not pushing my wedding back. But there is more urgency to do things like sending out our save the dates.

Easy came with me to my parents house. He helped narrow down the guest list that was at one point upwards of 350. He tracked down all the addresses he hadn't already gotten.

My parents also had the rest of their addresses. And with the help of my parents, we got every single envelope stuffed, addressed, and sealed by early Monday morning. My father took them to the post office to be mailed Monday morning.

There was a lot that was stressful about this big step. There were a lot, a whole lot, of addresses to track down. Then we had to sort out our engagement party invite list. We decided to send those invites in our STDs to save postage. That meant two different types of things to put into the envelopes.

The big point is that it got done. And I didn't have to do it all by myself. I think once everyone realized we were less than four weeks from our engagement party, everyone went into working mode and we got it done!

It feels really great to know that my people are down for the hard work and not just the fun times. And we did a lot of preliminary work so the next steps will be easier for future invitations.

One thing: We still need 20 more addresses from my future mother in law. I should be called her my FMIL, but she's way cooler than that. We're calling her the Notorious M.O.G. I know you get the reference. Yeah you do.

One of the best rappers, also Easy's favorite

How My Wedding Dress Is Like My Future Husband

2011-07-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

Oh, how I wish I could share with you my wedding dress, but my fiance Easy reads this blog (stalker!), and so I cannot. Although he knows a bit about the dress, such as the unique color, he hasn't seen it.

But it's really beautiful. Chances are if you are immersed in the bride world (and have enough regular brain vs bride brain left), you have probably seen it. It's a pretty popular dress.

It's such a special dress. It's made for women who are either very short or very tall. Seriously, if you're 5'4"-5'8", I can't even imagine how you'd pull this off unless you have some unconventional torso-leg proportions.

I've loved this dress since the moment we put down the first down payment. Even though almost every dress I tried on looked good, this one was exceptional.

When I went for my dress fitting, I was dying to try on the sample for my dress again. There were two other brides there. They were both trying on dresses. Again. Perhaps it's the indecisive person in me, but I'd never put down money on a wedding dress that I wasn't sure about.

If I were anything less than completely sure, I'd be guaranteed to be like them. I'd be back in the shop, trying on another 20 dresses. To me it's like finding a husband. You don't stop trying on dresses until you've found THE ONE. And then once you've found it, you're done. You don't do this:

Even if you come across others dresses you could possibly love, they end up not being enough. You don't even want to try them on. If you don't feel like this about a dress, keep looking. Of course, if you wait too long to find a dress or have an extra short engagement, the rules change.

But just like I knew almost right away my fiance was the one, I knew the same thing about this dress. And unlike a living breathing person, my dress is just waiting for me to take it home (or will be in December), it doesn't hem and haw with indecision. Dresses want to be loved, not loved and left people!

Okay, moment of drama over. Did I mention I love my wedding dress? It is unconventional, but it makes me feel like a bride like nothing else I tried on. Kind of like how Easy makes me feel like a wife like no guy I've ever dated.

I I will try not to compare Easy to every decision I make in the wedding. But no promises.

Engagement Party Dish, Part Two

2011-07-19T09:30:00.001-05:00

This two-part pun of a post series is now concluding. The first divulged a secret. Get it? Dish? Right. I'm fully aware I'm not nearly as clever at 3 am when these posts are being written as I would be were I writing them around the time they're being read...

Anyway, this second post is literally about dishes. Specifically, what are we serving at our engagement party. Our choice of venue, L26 restaurant, has an amazing array of food. It's seriously tasty.

Having eaten there three times since we booked our party, I am ashamed to admit it never crossed my mind to take pictures of all the food. But in my defense, what they serve for lunch and dinner and late night isn't actually on the menu for options for our cocktail party.

But I can find some pics online that almost do it justice. Some of my favorites? You know what time it is. It's food porn time.

everyone loves mac and cheese; L26 has superb mac and cheese

honey glazed broiled salmon. droooool.

I love strip steak so much, I'm serving it at my wedding, and maybe my e-party too.

asparagus is a dish everyone who's important in my wedding loves!

Okay, enough food porn. But prosciutto wrapped asparagus on the cocktail party menu is calling my name. And the beef skewers with peanut sauce. And the chicken wings. And the hummus.

It's going to be a tough decision to narrow it down to 3 or 4 things. But we'll make it happen. And I'll be glad to report what menu we decide on.

And because we like a full party, we'll be having some sort of foodstuff for favors. Why do we need favors for our e-party? I'm still not sure. But my mother swears they're important, so have them we shall. I just hope they go well with the wine toast we're planning for the end of the evening.

What have we got in mind so far? Um, let's see. Personalized Hershey's kisses, home-made cookies, those mini bundt cakes that are labor intensive but so tasty, personalized M&Ms. So you can see we're be getting something sugary and/or chocolatey.

Mmmm. Chocolate. How does anyone ever make the 1,000,000 decisions that go into a wedding that you ordinarily wouldn't actually care about?

Engagement Party Dish, Part One

2011-07-18T09:30:00.001-05:00

I want to dish about my upcoming engagement party. Easy and I are plotting to turn in into a jam session for his musician friends. There a lot of them that are not making the cut for the wedding invitation list.

The ones that are making the cut are my favorites of his musician friends that live in Chicago. They are amazing musicians and people. So having them around is enough to "spontaneously" (hard air quotes there) kick off a jam session.

If more people who weren't "invited" show up to jam, that should help us avoid offending my mother's etiquette-driven sensibilities. She's right that inviting people to pre-wedding events who aren't invited to the wedding is rude. But Easy wants a party, so we're going to try and make it work.

Don't know what a jam session is? Well, for jazz music, it's a gathering of musicians to jam. They play lots of different songs and mix and match which musicians will play. They set up drums and a keyboard and all the horn players and singers come up and make great music.

The restaurant where we're having our e-party hosts a weekly jam session that Easy leads from time to time. I think they might let us do it. I just intend not to tell them about it until the last minute to prevent the news leaking to my mother.

Are you sneaking any fun moments into your wedding planning but trying to keep it from an important person within the event, such as the person footing the bill?

Next, I'll talk about the actual dishes and other food products for the e-party.

Finding Time For Non-Wedding Things, Well Not Really

2011-07-17T09:30:00.001-05:00

Having only 7 months left to plan a wedding for more than 300 people (did I mention that's a slight source of stress for me?) doesn't leave a lot of time for other things. But boy, do I try.

Picnics with my girls (also my bridesmaids, but we're not talking about that today) is something we've been talking about for months. It finally happened Saturday afternoon.

One of the biggest parks in the city is one block away from my new apartment. Washington Park is no place you want to be caught after dark. But around 1pm on Saturday, it's the perfect place for a picnic.

Even though I wanted this event to be completely un-related to the wedding, it was chock full of bridesmaids, so there was some wedding stuff. For instance, I had to wear my C-Ride/Bridezilla sash. I've really got to get a better picture of that thing so you all can see how great it is that they made it by hand.

Seriously, my bridesmaids are awesome. Okay, and now I'm officially talking about wedding stuff again. I realized that while talking about the dress shopping, I neglected to show the magical dress that managed to look good on every single one of my bridesmaids.

They have seriously different body types.

But there is a dress type that works well on literally everyone. It's the A-line of course. But the floor length was really the ticket, even though they all have great legs. The surprise to me was the empire waist. I figured a natural waist would be more universally flattering. I don't care about being wrong because this dress is just fabulous.

So without further ado. Bill Levkoff dress styl 537:

this dress is all over weddingbee, much like my wedding dress.

I don't care much about how many times this dress shows up in weddings. It's a great freaking dress. And it's super flattering no matter how big or small the bust, waist, or hips.
Now the key is to find it for the best price. I know we can find a better price. And with 8 women and 2 pre-teens buying a version of that dress, we should be able to get a darn good discount.

Our First Pre-Wedding Mailings

2011-07-16T09:30:00.001-05:00

The original STDs (hehe), moo cards, and engagement party invites that I designed are no more. The one benefit of not having all the addresses yet is that I've had a chance to incorporate our wedding monogram, change the colors (bridesmaid dresses, sigh), and re-format the layout.

It's been a lot of changes, but the final product was ordered and shipped. Do you want to see it? I know you do.

Here are our Moo Cards. Can anyone tell me why they're called Moo Card? Is it an acronym? Are there cows involved?

That lovely monogram you see there we got for free at Things Remembered for buying their set of champagne flutes and cake cutters. I'm currently very much in love with the included Christmas tree ornament. Christmas is always on mind, even in July. They have some amazing designs and we're getting them engraved with our monogram. Sorry I have so much stuff whited out.

Here are our Save The Dates.

I love the photo of us. And the darker colors represent the new darker color that our bridesmaid dresses will be. As you see, I still haven't blotted our my new last name. I love it so much, I want it to show. I couldn't bear to cover it up. I'm gonna be a McBride, lol! Get it? No? It's just me who watches too much Grey's Anatomy? That's fine. Moving on.

Here are our engagement party invites.

My mother and I worked way too hard on the wording for the engagement party invites. We are sending them out with our STDs because we're on such a time frame. And we're really messing up because these were supposed to go out July 2nd. But I believe it will be okay if I can just get them sent out Saturday. Cross your fingers for me.

I'm really proud of myself that I designed these all myself and they turned out to be exactly what I want our wedding to be: classic with a festive twist. Also, vistaprint is my new best friend. At least for the pre- and post-wedding paper products. I'll be seeking other options for our actual wedding invites.

Tracking Down Addresses for Save The Dates

2011-07-15T09:30:00.002-05:00

Every one says how important it is to get a guest list together before you get too deep into wedding planning.

Those people would be very correct. But they don't stress the important facets of that seemingly simple statement. You need names, number of kids, and addresses.

That last part, the addresses, are so elusive.

People move. They change their names. They co-habitate in a home with 4 people with 5 different names. It can make a person crazy.

crazy eyes are the purest expression of feeling crazy

So after I feel like going crazy, I have to stop and remember that I did this to myself. Easy and I were determined to have a short engagement. We maintained this determination even after our mothers informed us our wedding guest list would be upwards of 300 people.

So now we're tracking down addresses. A lot of addresses.

If only I could pull out a book and have all these addresses for 175 households...

We have most of them. But we don't have them all yet. We will. Soon.

Right not the goal is to send out our Save the Dates Saturday. Wish me luck that it happens.

In the next post, I'll talk about all we're sending out this weekend.

Bridezilla Pizza Party aka Birthday Do-Over

2011-07-14T09:30:00.002-05:00

My fiance Easy had a birthday last week. He just turned 27, yay!

I had a birthday gathering for him that ended up being a comparison of who's friends were more flaky between mine and his. Mine ended up winning, but then again, they've only known him for a year. It's still a toss up.

My girls who are my bridesmaids decided to come by for a birthday do-over. It was really a nice surprise because I was under the impression that only Michelle was coming. But her plus 4 others came carrying pizza, beer, and wine.

They came to make up for missing Easy's birthday as well as to make sure I was okay after the bridesmaid dress fiasco. And they brought me something to make me (hopefully) laugh.

The pictures are backwards because I took them in the mirror. The top one is the back-side of the sash. It says C-Ride. There is a ridiculous story associated with that nickname that I'll explain in a second. The bottom pic is the front-side of the sash. It says Bridezilla.

They were all looking very nervous when they handed me the sash until I laughed when I saw it. Then they felt relieved. I thought it was funny. I don't know that I acted very bridezilla-ish with the bridesmaid dresses. If Camille hadn't tried to help the issue by making it 1000 times worse, there would have been no drama to begin with. but that's neither here nor there.

Besides, I mentioned before that my friends make up rumorsjust to be funny. Also, Easy said I can't be called a bridezilla because I didn't let bird poop break me. Soooooo, I embraced my new sash and my new bridezilla rumor and we got back to celebrating Easy's birthday (a week late). Mmmm, pizza from Giordano's.

Back to how I got the nickname C-Ride. I was out with my girls, apparently laying all the bonding groundwork necessary to have the perfect bride-bridesmaid relationships. We stopped by a liquor store to load up for what was sure to be a fun night.

I paid for what I purchased and the guy behind the counter balked at the name on my license. "How the hell do you pronounce this name? You know what? It doesn't matter. You need a nickname. I'm gonna call you C-Ride."

We all began laughing because C-Ride is the type of round-the-way nickname you give to someone who's got many many street credentials to back up such a name. On me, it's just ridiculous.

And instead of letting the moment pass and laughing occasionally that some stranger we never saw again chose to nickname me, my girls (and their guys) embraced the nickname wholeheartedly. It's still used to be funny, but it definitely stuck.

I'm C-Ride. Don't judge me. Judge my silly friends. In fact, Gloria's boyfriend Gregory never calls me CeCe. He only calls me C-Ride. And when she mentions me to him by name he responds, "Who is CeCe? Oh, you mean C-Ride? I don't know who CeCe is."

Okay, as I wrap this post up, I'd like to apologize for the terrible quality of the photographs. I snapped them quickly on my blackberry before I headed off to work Wednesday night. I swear I know better than to take photos in mirrors of words with light behind me. I'll do better next time.

I Have A Wedding Twin

2011-07-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

Considering the weekend I'm getting married, I'm sure I'll have tons of wedding twins. There will be a ton of people who spontaneously decide getting married right before Valentine's Day is a good idea.

That's not why Easy and I chose our date, for us it's about beating Mardi Gras with our wedding anniversary every year. But I found my first wedding day twin in the most unusual place: my hair salon.

He is one of my favorite people in the salon. I go in there once a month to get my locs tightened.

That picture can be incredibly vague if you don't know what locs are. I will explain one of these days, but this story is about my wedding twin.

He overheard my talking to my stylist about her being available for my wedding day. He asked my date and told me his date was the same day.

At first I thought he was joking, but he was not. Then we began comparing stories and ideas. The only thing our weddings have in common are the number of guests and the date.

Their wedding date was chosen because it's close to Valentine's Day. Ours was picked in spite of the fact that it's close to Valentine's Day.

But I have to admit I was over the moon about having my first wedding twin.

I loved looking at his pictures, hearing the story of the engagement, and hearing about their wedding colors and florist and cake.

I think we drove everyone else in the shop crazy for about a half hour discussing this stuff. It was my first conversation in person with someone going through what I'm going through with this wedding literally at the same time I was going through it.

And it was awesome!!

Has anyone else had a lovely experience with a wedding twin?

Party Til You Puke (For An Extra Charge) Part Two

2011-07-12T09:30:00.002-05:00

In my last post, I talked about our search for the perfect venue for our engagement party. Because I'm a weirdo, I do things backwards. Or maybe, I'm just a rebel.

Either way, I don't do things as expected. The perfect example is this engagement party venue. We spent waaaaaay more time searching for a venue for this than we did for the wedding. We looked at three places for the wedding, and I chose almost immediately.

Be we agonized over the engagement party.

My mother and I looked online for a number of places. Then we decided to hit the pavement.

Her friends gave her suggestions. We went to 21st and State to a lovely restaurant that looked perfect but is closed. So no free publicity silly closed restaurant that looked perfect.

Next we went to 21st and Michigan to a club/museum that was supposed to be a great option for an outdoor venue. I'm sorry, but you're not an outdoor venue and shouldn't advertise yourself as such if 85% of your outdoor area is mulch and another 10% is ceramic pavement and the last 5% is bushes.

Moving on. A friend of my mother's mentioned the South Loop Hotel. We couldn't find it (ahem because she couldn't remember the address). So we gave up and headed south on State toward my apartment. Then we passed by it and did a quick u-turn to check it out.

I looked like my style, which I can't really explain. But it's a cross between classic and modern with an odd quirk thrown in.

think a combo between these two with something extra and quirky thrown in.

So, we went in to check out the grand ballroom my mother had been told about over the phone when she called earlier in the week. Except... there was no grand ballroom. There were only medium sized meeting rooms.

So we went strolling around the hotel just to see what they had to offer. We took note of their flower shop for later. I had finally saw an arch there I didn't hate with a visceral passion, so it was worth noting.

Then we stumbled across the restaurant in the hotel. And it was love at first sight.

kinda creepy, ya think?

We strolled around the restaurant the woman who happens to book private events there came out to talk to us. A hundred quick questions from my mother and I later and we were ready to put down money on the place.

I called Easy to check to see if he wanted to see the place first. When I told him what it was, he said he knew that place and actually had just gotten a gig there for the next night (well that's the sum total of what happened in short version).

I know you're dying to see/hear what the place is. So without further ado....

We're having our engagement party at the L26 Restaurant in their private room in the back. My mother and I stayed for dinner and the food is fantastic. Since then, we've been back twice for Eay's gigs. His birthday was one of those days so his parents and mine joined us and the food is really really really good. And the price really makes us happy.

I'm so excited for this location. Now if only we could get our guest list within the fire marshal's limit for how many the room holds. Speaking of calling in the authorities, I'll finally explain the title of the post. In our contract, it says the restaurant isn't liable for any damage caused. It specifically points to damage caused by intoxication.

For example, if someone gets so drunk they vomit, we're on the hook for the cleaning fees. The lady told us this covered vomiting, urination, and defecation. Yes, she indeed used those words. So, we could very well party until we puke, just as long as we pay for it after. Interesting way to talk about it. I was expecting more of a "don't puke in my restaurant", not "as long as you pay to have it cleaned". Good times.

Party Til You Puke (For An Extra Charge) Part One

2011-07-11T09:30:00.001-05:00

I promise I have a good reason for that title, which I'll explain later. But really, it's Google and Wikipedia's fault.

This song is seriously ridiculous. Do NOT click play on this video if you're at work, or around small children, or generally don't like your computer yelling at you.

But anyway... We finally have a location for our engagement party!!!

I think my mother and I made it more difficult on ourselves than we had too. We went through several idea before we settled on one that worked.

Plan: Sit-Down Dinner At a Restaurant; like Maggiano's in Chicago
Why It Seemed Great: Imagine that picture except for an engagement party instead of a wedding reception. All of our family gathered for the type of food Chicagoans constantly drool over.
Why It Didn't Work: The cost is ridiculous for just the appetizer of our wedding events. And the environment is a bit too... stuffy... for the type of party we wanted to have ultimately. We envisioned our people having a great time hanging out, not being forced to stay in their seats for a plated dinner.

Plan: Art Gallery or Outdoor Venue
Why It Seemed Great: Easy loves places that look "industrial", like the G.R. N'Namdi Gallery in Chicago. Plus we could use our own caterer and decorations and music...
Why It Didn't Work: and liquor license... and linens... and tables... and chairs... and the costs began too add up a bit too much. It seemed that we at least needed a place that already had a liquor license as well as tables and chairs to accommodate what is turning out to be a wedding full of intimate parties for 100-300 people. Sigh.

Plan: Jazz or Blues Club, like Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago
Why It Seemed Great: Easy is a jazz musician. My mother and I were dying to incorporate that into the wedding somehow. These places have tables and chairs and are setup for live music, which is perfect for what we were once envisioning.
Why It Didn't Work: The cost for these places had to cover them losing business for that day. And we weren't prepared to cover costs for that much money. We'd have to have the party on Wednesday afternoon to afford it.

So we finally ended up with.... drum roll please... I'll just explain in the next post, lol.

Bridesmaid Dress Stress

2011-07-09T09:30:00.002-05:00

I didn't want to make a bid production of finding bridesmaid dresses. I had my maid of honor and Easy's maid of honor look online for the last month or so. We found a couple of great options.

David's Bridal seemed to be the place to go to in order to fit into a certain price range and style selection. I made an appointment for this past Wednesday and all who could go went.

My maid of honor, Top, lives in NYC, so she wasn't available. But Easy's maid of honor, his sister was available. As were her twin daughters who are our flower girls.

Also available were all my bridesmaids except one. This included Michelle, Camille, and Gloria.
Our two junior bridesmaids were also there to try on dresses. Throw in my mother, Easy's mother and sister, and we have a group of 14 females, only 4 of whom weren't trying on a single dress.

It was so much more fun than you could imagine. I was going around ooh-ing and aah-ing at all the pretty dresses and taking pictures. The flower girls didn't want to take off their "princess dresses".

And then something magical happened.

Somehow, one dress looked good. No not good, great, on every single bridesmaid. And it just so happened that the only 2 who weren't there look good in literally everything they wear.

I was so excited. They didn't have my color swatch match though, so I asked for all the options in purple.

Our coordinator went to get the swatches and we picked this lovely color that looked like a rich purple but photographed kind of blue. That made me super excited because blue is the color I originally wanted.

And then...

Our happy parade came to a screeching halt. She informed us she was mistaken about the dress being available in that color. The only options were a horrific burgundy color and this other dusty de-saturated purple-y shade.

I was immediately ready to leave the store. She apologized too many times and I told her we were going down the street to Eva's Bridal. We will still be getting our flower girls' dresses from there though, since they would coordinate perfectly with my dress.

We went to another store where things only got worse. Suffice it to say, I am still looking for bridesmaid dresses, and I hope to find something soon so I can be past this situation that should be fun.

I thought the stressful part would be dressing so many different body types. But no, the stressful part was something else entirely.

Breadsticks and Bothersome Waitresses

2011-07-04T09:30:00.045-05:00

First let me say that Easy read yesterday's post about the cute redhead from the Whiffenpoofs and he is indeed judging me. Whatever, he doesn't know my life.

Moving on to today's topic. I went to dinner at Olive Garden with a friend of mine the other day that was very interesting for several reasons.

1. She's the younger sister of the Ex.
Even though he and I haven't spoken to in over 2 years, I have remained friends with some of his family members. I'm like a big sister to her, so we went out to dinner to catch up in person instead of always over the phone.

She and I haven't discussed the Ex in years because he never comes up. I don't care to ask and she doesn't offer any info. She did mention him though. She told me how she had been mad at him for literally years since he and I first broke up in 2008.

She said they had talked about how he regretted letting me go, but how he figured I would never take him back. I wasn't trying to hear that "one who got away" mess. I told her she didn't need to be upset any longer at her brother because I was very happy. And even though she and I were never going to be real sisters, I would always be there for her, just like I've been since the day we met.

She also gave me a heads up that he was moving back to Chicago next year and she was considering becoming roommates with him. That will be interesting because he and I are not going to be friends. I guess I'll just see her everywhere but at her own house, ha ha.

quite the understatement actually

2. Our waitress at Olive Garden was the oddest waitressing waitress I've had possibly ever.

When you think of a bad waitress, you think of being ignored, forced to suffer through a long lull between each meal portion, and possibly having your food spilled on you or an incorrect bill.

That's the opposite of what happened to us. You might think the opposite of those above horrors is a perfect waitress.

But it's not! It's a crazy attentive waitress. I mean CRAZY attentive. That woman must've come by our table to ask if we were okay 40 times in the hour we were there. I am not exaggerating. She was there literally every 1.5 minutes.

Each time she came, she tried to move us on to the next portion of our meals. She would take our food order before our drinks were up. So we had our soup and salad while we had our drinks. That seems like a great idea, but it was just the start of a disturbing trend.

When she brought our soup and salad, she took our food menu. Then she brought us our food before we were done and tried to take our soup and salad. We told her to just leave both.

Five minutes later, she took our dessert order. We were confused why she was ordering it then, but she said she wasn't going to put it right in. 2 table visits later (3 minutes), she brings our dessert.

So we're sitting there with a table full of food, becoming irritated that she's basically shoving us out the door. The manager comes by to see how we're doing and marvels that we chose to have all our food at once. We tell him that's not at all what happened.

Then she comes back to the table to apologize but that she thought we wanted our dessert before we finished our dinner. And our appetizers. She got this look.

And then, she began trying to clear our plates. We wouldn't let her take anything until we had finished. And of course, then she took 10 minutes to bring our check. I paid the bill and we high-tailed it out of there.

I've been to that Olive Garden soo many times over the years, but that was just weird.

3. The weather coming back was like something out of a horror movie.
It was pouring down raining when we left the restaurant. Seriously, there were comically large raindrops. And it was bright sunshine and at least 80 degrees.

When I dropped Melody off back home, the sky was scary looking, but the rain had stopped.

As I drove back home, there were huge lightning bolts that looked like they were 100 feet from the expressway. And right when I exited the expressway, hail started falling. I

There were huge chunks of hail blowing sideways in very strong wind. Then the rain started back up with the comically large raindrops. All while it was still over 80 degrees. But the sun had gone away. While it should still be bright outside, it was suddenly dark as night.

I've never been so glad to get home. That was science fiction movie weather. I blame it on Indiana. Every time myself or a friend goes to Indiana, something freaky or horrible happens. It's a proven (I'm making this up) fact.

I Develop The Most Random Crushes

2011-07-03T09:30:00.001-05:00

Don't worry, Easy is used to me talking about random ass crushes I have on people.

There is a show I love. It's on NBC. It's called The Sing-Off. If you get it, great. If you don't, this is not my time to defend or explain.

This show's second season has become an obsession of mine. I watch the DVR'd episodes a lot. Recently, I've taken to watching YouTube videos of certain perfomances.

And after watching the Whiffenpoofs sing "I Just Haven't Met You Yet", oh, say, 50 times, it's occured to me I have a crush on this one guy.

He's the red-head who looks like he was rather mischievious as a child. He's just so adorable to me. Don't judge me, Easy.

I must admit, the crush is mostly about his voice. And his smile. And his hair. And his voice. And I love a man in a suit. Ahem, moving on.

But he's the one guy in the group who actually has soul in his voice. I couldn't help but accidentally brainwash myself into being into him. But this is a college group, so I hope he's at least 21.

If you don't get it, watch this video. Listen to the whole thing, but around 1:11 and again around 1:55, I just go weak in the knees. Okay, I'm done talking about my latest crush.

Stop! Put Down The Laptop And Back Away Slowly

2011-07-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

I informed my girl Top of my ~~decline~~ ascendance into being a person who can't stop talking about her next purchase of an Apple product. I have plans to get a Macbook soon.

The question was how soon I'd be able to afford it (I didn't want to finance it) and if I'd be able to use Easy's educator discount. Turns out he can, but if we both want laptops this summer, we can't both use the discount. Fail.

But, Top had a great idea. She suggested that even if I could purchase the laptop this month, I should wait until at least August.

Why August? I'd be dealing with all those back-to-schoolers and have to fight for personalized attention.

I'd want this...

...but would surely get this in August.

Apparently, that's what I want. I didn't know it at first, but Top now has me convinced.

At the behest of her roommate, she waited until August-September-ish and got a great deal. They had a back-to-school promotion going with something like a $100 rebate. Also, she got her iPod Touch for free with her laptop. Winning!

I immediately decided to put money aside from the next three checks to cover the whole cost and start searching around the internet for when such a deal would begin.

And in hopefully 5-6 short weeks, I'll be the, gulp, proud new owner of a MacBook Pro, and maybe a new iPod Touch. Sigh. Boy how times have changed.

I Say It Will Be So, I Reeeallly Hope I'm Right

2011-07-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

Since the only internet access I have is during work hours, I'm writing this post in advance and hoping things will work out and I'm not forced to correct my assumptions with my tail between my legs.

But I have faith. I have picked a wedding venue. I had already picked it. If I were paying for my own wedding (which would mean I had the money to do so), I would have already put down the deposit.

My mother and Easy both make decisions slower than I do. So now, my mother and I have a plan that should have been enacted by the time this post publishes.

We have a meeting with the good people at Chateau Bu-sche to put down a deposit to hold a space for February 11, 2012. I'm so excited for this to finally be settled. Settled in my mind is one thing.

Settled in reality is quite different. The date was still available as of Monday afternoon. I hope it will still be available on Wednesday evening. Cross your fingers for me that it went well. I won't be back at work until Saturday, so you will be in suspense if I got my wedding venue secured or not.

Cause I know you all care soooo much. Narcissism fail.

So Sad, Not A Bee

2011-06-30T09:30:00.000-05:00

I sent out my application to be a Weddingbee. And I was rejected. It was one of the nicest rejection e-mails I've ever received.

I did, however, remind me of the "thanks but no thanks" e-mails I was receiving daily back when I was still searching for a job. But I bounced back rather quickly.

I forwarded the e-mail to Easy because he is also invested in me becoming a Bee. This is mostly because he's super supportive of my need to blog.

And now I am devising a way to make myself seem like an even more attractive blogger so when I re-apply, they will have to have me.

They seem to be accepting Bees with wedding that are still this year, but they accept applications for weddings up to 8 months away. I'm just hoping they will pick me next time.

Pretty Pretty Please!! Uploaded with ImageShack.us

But in the time before I can apply again (three more weeks now), you all will be inundated with what I'm taking care of in the wedding planning process.

I'm trying to think of non-wedding things to blog about, but I'm not as worried. I have to have more wedding happy content so they let me be a Bee. Send happy hive-tastic thoughts my way people!

Moving Into My First Nest

2011-06-29T09:30:00.000-05:00

Easy and I, along with 10 of our friends, moved our stuff into our lovely third floor Hyde Park apartment Saturday. I'm just not getting around to blogging about it because I was in mourning for my lamps.

I have grown attached to my lamps. They were lovely and really fit who I am. If you are at all into decorating, you'll understand why I was so sad. Not one single lamp made it without being broken. Out of 5 lamps. Five lamp!!

But it's okay. Well, it's not. Careless people. Easy's friends, not mine by the way. But those lamps made it from Florida to Chicago to Champaign to Rockford to Alsip. But they couldn't make it from 127th & Cicero to Hyde Park. Sigh.

I will just have fun picking out new lamps.

We were amazingly efficient in moving. We allotted several hours to make it happen, and only needed about half that time. I'm very impressed with our people. Plus, most of the people helping us move were wedding party people, so it was one of the first wedding party "events" we've had.

We bought everyone Giordano's Pizza and Harold's Chicken as a thank you for moving. Seriously, you must buy food for your friends who help you move. But waiting until the people leave who broke all your beloved lamps before you actually place the order wouldn't hurt.

My parents came later and hung out for a bit. They brought champagne, riesling, and Coronas. Great housewarming gifts I think.

One of Easy's exes who he's still friends with (don't even get me started on the fact that she still wants him) also stopped by. She brought us gifts too. The cookie jar she brought is my favorite.

I've always wanted a cookie jar. It just seems so home-y. I can't wait to get everything unpacked and bake those chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies Easy loves and load up our jar.

Even though I was in pain for two days after the move, it was totally worth it to do it ourselves. Now, if/when we go to NYC, we're definitely getting professional movers. I just have to pare down my stuff so there's less to take.

I don't know what that means for our wedding registry, but I will figure it out.

The Key To Happiness

2011-06-28T09:30:00.001-05:00

I could talk about some magical combination of love, family, friends, etc. But this isn't one of those types of posts where I wax philosophic about all the things in my life that make me happy.

Nope, this is a much simpler post.

The way to be happy is simply to want exactly what you want right at the moment you have it.

Case in point: At work I seem to be super happy it's quiet when it's not busy. And I seem to be extra glad to have a lot to do when it's busy.

I appreciate this trait I possess where I seem to want most at the moment what I have right in front of me. I'm not really a grass is greener kind of girl. I want what I have.

Living a life without much jealousy and with many feelings of being content is nice. It's better than nice. It's a good recipe for being happy.

How do you maintain your happiness?

I Can't Shop, But If I Could

2011-06-27T09:30:00.003-05:00

I have this new job and that should mean lots of new money to spend on myself in ways lovely and numerous.

But that is not my reality. I just got engaged and my fiance Easy and I decided it would be a good idea to move right into a new apartment. So I have no disposable income and I won't for at least a couple months.

I do feel like it's worth it though. Starting a new life has startup costs. And new clothes and yoga class will just have to wait.

But, oh, if I could shop.... Here are some things I would pick up.

1. Delia's Floral Print Dress 2. CB2 Chaise Couch 3. Time at my favorite spa in Chicago

Do you ever dream shop? What would you get if you could, but can't (I feel your pain!)?

Pandora Radio Is My New Best Friend

2011-06-26T09:30:00.001-05:00

I've recently started listening to Pandora Radio my entire shift at work. I only stop it when my phone rings and I'm taking/making phone calls. I take my work very seriously, but when I'm not working, I'm jamming to music.

My favorite channels are my Michael Jackson channel, Neil Diamond channel, and Tony!Toni!Tone! channel. It's having a personal DJ and it's awesome.

I don't know why I never used this so much before. Actually I do know.

Before, I had a laptop and therefore used iTunes. I had most of the music I liked to listen to regularly. But things are different now as I spend 12 hours a day in the office.

Also, we eat at our desks. That's a lot of chewing to listen to. And some of my co-workers like talking with food in their mouths. The music helps drown all that out.

But how do I love Pandora? Let me count the ways. Oh wait, I just did.

Do you love Pandora? What are your favorite channels?

And also, should I go ahead and get Pandora One? Are the commercials really that bad?

Adjusting to Work, aka, Lots O' Personality

2011-06-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

I've decided that I like my job. I like it a lot and I could make a career out of it. I use my degree, there's room for advancement. And depending on the direction I go, the salary cap is really really high (adopt 6 kids? sure I can afford it).

So, the only thing about this job is the adjustment to all these different personalities. I like most everyone at the job, but they all have really strong personalities. It's hard to find that balance of friendliness and professionalism.

Professionalism doesn't seem to be high on the list of priorities. That makes for some moments, like when we broke into a game of catch. But it also makes for awkward moments when personal business of co-workers is being discussed behind their backs.

I'm still trying to find the tone I want to set in terms of how friendly (aka gossipy) I'll be at work. I don't want to be the stick in the mud. But it's not really in my nature to engage in all this conversation with co-workers. When I worked at Forever 21, I was there for a year before I ever went out with the co-workers who hung out every weekend.

I think I expected more of a work-ier environment because this is my "first real job." Like I said, it's an adjustment.

Anyone have to get over reality being different than expectations of a new job?

This Is Not A Wedding-Related Post

2011-06-24T09:30:00.001-05:00

Yes, it is. I lied. Well, not really. Just a quick thing about the wedding, and then on to another topic.

I have personally designed our save the dates, engagement party invites, etc. And it only took me two nights of free time at work. This has given me the confidence to feel like I could save hundreds of dollars by designing our invitation suite myself. Want to see our STDs? I promise I'll stop with the immature jokes. After July. When our STDs are gone. Okay, I'm done now for real.

I think they're perfect. They're fun and casual, like an STD should be (lol, sorry), but they're also setting the tone for the rest of our wedding mailings. And they feature some of my favorites of our engagement photos.
Okay, moving on from wedding stuff. I read a new blog today that I want to plug. It's pretty awesome. It's called Colorful Rants of A Sista. It's written by thundercat. She's hilarious and irreverent. And you should read her blog. But not at work.

Thank God for Google reader so my supervisor doesn't have to see that day-glow blog covered in curse words on my screen at work. But I digress.

Tomorrow morning is when I begin moving my stuff into my new apartment. I'm super excited. Easy won't be there since he got a last minute gig at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival.

It was a great opportunity, so of course he had to go. I really encouraged it,even though it wasn't my decision to make. I'm marrying a may-an, not a puppet.

But he'll be back late Friday night and we'll spend our first night in our first apartment. It's a huge relationship first and I'm super excited. Really reeeeallly excited. Wish me luck that the move goes well.

Photos, Venues, and Presents, Oh My!

2011-06-23T09:30:00.031-05:00

Easy and I had our engagement shoot on Tuesday. We took our photos at my favorite spot on the planet. It's this little park in downtown Chicago right across the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Water Tower Place, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

I love this place because it's this lush green park with all these trees and lot of families and people just there doing park-y things, but right outside the gates, it's all bustling downtown metropolis. It's simply lovely for a city girl who likes quiet (ish) enclaves.

Our pictures turned out pretty great. Want to see my favorite one?

The Nu3 Buzz Photography

This shot is exactly what I was hoping for. It's an intimate moment between us two, caught in the sunlight streaming through the trees. On a tangential note, there should be some good wedding luck because during our shoot, a bird pooped on me.

Yes, I got pooped on, right on my skirt, while we were taking a photo. Easy says no can ever call me a bridezilla because I didn't freak out. I just had sad face until out photographer's girlfriend helped sort it out so we could keep taking pictures.

But enough about pictures, I want to talk more about gifts. Vistaprint had an amazing sale, so I had to hurry and pick our stores for registry so we could order Moo cards. We got 1000 for $25.00 including shipping and handling. I feel pretty good about that. Giving people our registry info will be the kick in the butt we need to actually get our registry done because right now there are only 1-2 things in each store's registry for us.

My mom also got me a pre-wedding gift. It's a nice wine glass that says Bridal Shower on it. I love it so much. If you Google bridal shower glasses, they have some nice ones, but the one she got me is really elaborate. I plan on putting it to good use starting in December!

Speaking of gifts, a really nice man in the park gave us money! For no reason at all except as congratulations on our engagement. A couple of people asked why we were taking photos in the park and we were happy to keep explaining that it was our engagement shoot. Easy and I decided we are going to use the money the man gave us as the money we'll start our joint checking account with. I think it's nice and sweet and sentimental, or something like that.

And lastly in this wedding info overloaded blog post, we have settled on our wedding venue! It will be at Chateau Bu-sche in Alsip, IL. That is unless someone swoops in and steals our date before we make our deposit. My mother is going to take my father to have a look at it and then they'll put down the deposit. Cross your fingers for me that we can get our date.

I'll try to think of something non-wedding related to post about tomorrow, but no promises!

Also, Check out Kirsty Girl's Link Party here.

Great Bridal Gifts Already

2011-06-22T09:30:00.001-05:00

Since I got engaged, there's been this unexpected bonus to it:

Credit: Engagement Greeting Cards

I get gifts just for being engaged! Not engagement party gifts, not early wedding present, nope. Just simply-because-I've-been-informed-he-put-a-ring-on-your-finger gifts.

My aunt sent us the most lovely card. I guess it may be a good time to start investing in thank you cards so I can thank these people properly. The card was sent to Easy and I, and it had the sweetest hand-written message inside.

A family friend bought me a gift set with these bridal themed bath accessories. That wasn't for Easy and me, it was just for me. Everything in it smells so good and I can't wait to try it out.

Anyone else ever received any unexpected gifts?

Still No Girl Time Yet

2011-06-21T09:30:00.000-05:00

Read the "Girl Time" post that preceded this one.

I miss my girls. I still haven't found time to hang out with them. I was supposed to spend time with them last Thursday, but Easy was sick and waited an extra day before going to St. Louis to pick up his things to move back to Chicago.

I stayed at his parents' house, took care of him, and did my first DIY bridal project. I was happy to spend more time with him... But I miss my girls!

Tonight, they were all hanging out with more of our friends. They were texting me at work so I'd be in on the new jokes they were making.

My friends have a lot of inside jokes. We've all been hanging out since we were children because we grew up in church together. While in youth group we spent an almost unhealthy amount of time together. So we have jokes that go back 10-15 years. It's great times.

Our new favorite thing is to start rumors about each other. Now don't think I mean anything like Rumor Has It or Jawbreaker. I just mean for inside jokes that we jokes with each other about (not in mixed company) for as long as we can remember the rumor.

They have one rumor about me telling a man to "scoot scoot" in a very snooty voice when he approached me in a bar. That never happened. Nothing like it has ever happened in fact. I'm very friendly to strangers who approach me for whatever reason. But it's absolutely hilarious when it's get brought up.

Whoever brings it up goes, "remember that time CeCe told that man to 'scoot scoot'?" Then someone else responds affirmatively and adds something even crazier to the story, such as throwing a drink at him, or demanding he perform tricks for my attention.

It's probably not funny if you're not there to witness it, but it cracks my friends and me up. Do you and your friends do anything crazy that you only do with each other?

Meeting My Future In-Laws And Being Late To Work

2011-06-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

Since my family had an early Father's Day, I was free to spend time with my fiance. I was worried about his family getting sick of me being around all the time and having no time with him without me there too.

Easy assured me that they weren't sick of me. Also, there were family members he was going to hang out with that I hadn't met yet. He felt it was essential that I accompany him to the family BBQ so that I could meet as many of them at once as possible.

I put on a cute dress and natural looking (but still super flattering) makeup and off we went. He drove to my house and I drove the BBQ so I could head to work after dinner.

When I arrived, his family was all hugs and greetings. He did have a girlfriend of 5 years who only went away last year, so I was a bit worried about their reception (but I didn't tell him that). Turns out I was worried for nothing. They were so sweet and kind.

One of his aunts is the one who's opinion is strong and important to Easy. He came up to me after we had been there a half hour or so and informed me that she loved me. I was excited because I had liked her too. Some people just give off a good vibe, you know? I'm glad she liked my vibe like I liked her.

Easy has a much larger family that he spends time around regularly than I do. I'm looking forward to getting to know them better over time. And I'm feeling much better about having to invite all 109 of them to our wedding.

I ate some lovely Latin food, and then headed to work. Did I mention half of his family is Hispanic (Honduran by blood plus Mexican by marriage)? So there were elements that only seem to come in abundance from certain ethnicities (shout out to Greeks, Hispanics, and Caribbean Islanders!): music, great food, lots of laughter, never-ending amounts of children running around. It was fantastic.

When I finally left for work, I had just enough time to get to work. When I was just 5 miles away (around 7 min), there was a train. The world's longest train. Seriously. Someone from Guinness World Records should have been there to witness the occasion. I sat there for a very long time, called into work to let them know I'd be late, and then began people watching.

All the motocyclists were de-biking and meeting each other and making new friends. People were not only putting their cars in park, but turning the engines off. A couple people fell asleep and started snoring. These people had time to reach deep sleep and probably begin dreaming.

After the 200+ car train finally passed, I sped down the road, going 60 in a 30 mph zone. I didn't want to be too late to work. I made up those 5 miles in under 5 minutes. Don't judge me, I hate being late to work for something that's not my fault.

I love having eventful days and it seems every day is like that these days. Yay!

Super Random

2011-06-20T04:39:00.000-05:00

I bought a fruit salad that has mango, kiwi, grapes, cantaloupe, pineapple and honeydew melon in it.

It's super yummy and I'm enjoying eating it while at work. It's a very healthy snack, you know.

But I'm noticing the weirdest thing as the flavors are melding. The grapes, mango, and pineapple have held onto their natural fruit flavors.

But for some reason, the cantaloupe tastes like mango. The kiwi tasted like grape. And the honeydew melon tastes like pineapple.

Remember, I said this is super random. But the scientist in me is dying to know why these particular fruits absorbed some flavors, but not others. A mystery that I can't (or won't) Google to solve.

Anyone ever have a totally random moment? You know, things that make you go "hmmmmm"?

Father's Day, Playing Catch, And Growing A Second Head

2011-06-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

Saturday wasn't a particularly eventful day, but three interesting things happened that I wanted to share with the blogosphere.

The first thing was my family celebrating Father's Day a day early. My family is all about holidays. All about them, okay? And my father spends the time the holidays focus on him saying things like, "you really really shouldn't have gotten me anything," the rest of us still enjoy celebrating in his honor.

We all gave him our gifts Saturday and had a great meal of jerk chicken, beans and rice, and cabbage. Then I had to rush off to work. Why did we do this a day early? My father leaves for Reno at 10:00 am to go to a bowling tournament.

Want to see what I got him as gifts? They're great gifts, if I do say so myself. What makes it even better is that I paid for these gifts with money I earned from work, without input or help from anyone (except payroll, bahaha).

Great Gift Idea: The Knot Wedding Shop

Lennox Tuscany Decanter at Macy's

I do love my Daddy so much. I was glad that my first gift purchases with my all-grown-up-and-working money went to him.

After I left for work, my second interesting thing happened. I found out that all my co-workers are just as incredibly silly as I am.

It started because one of my co-workers threw a ball of paper at another one. It quickly devolved into us throwing swag from previous employee meetings around the office. It was like this:

Well, except in an office not a pool. And with those little hackeysack balls, not water balloons. But it certainly felt that festive. We had fun and then the phone range and we got back to work. It felt like some flash mob that breaks into dance and then resumes life as if it hadn't just happened. Or any musical ever. It was awesome.

The third thing is actually two moments that feel like they are exactly indicative of my life right now in this point in time. Easy brought his stuff back from St. Louis (that means he's officially moved back!!!!) and put it into my storage unit. Nothing says all grown up and standing on your own like sharing a storage locker with your fiance.

The other thing is I got some snacks from Wal-Mart before work. I finally pulled out an apple to eat it because I was hungry for something sweet. That's when I noticed it was the hugest apple ever! I mean, genetically altered, gonna-grow-a-second-head-if-you-eat-that-growth-hormone-pumped-fruit, big as a baby's head apple. And of course I ate it. It was either that or a Snicker's bar.

imagine this but like three times the size

In conclusion, my Daddy's Father's Day was early (and awesome!), my co-workers are buckets of fun in downtime, and I'm quite the adult in this genetically altered 2011 summer!

Did anyone else have an interesting day?

My First Bridal DIY Project

2011-06-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

I decided that I was going to be a DIY bride. Our wedding isn't exactly on a tight budget, but I have a crafty side to me that I wanted to let shine.

If it were up to me, I would spend my most recent paycheck on a new laptop instead of rent, but that's not reality. I say that to say that I don't have pictures of what I've done because my work computer can't upload my digital camera photos, but trust that my projects came out great.

The two projects I've done are: 1) a Thank You wreath and 2) a Save-The-Date Banner.

If you are not currently immersed in the wedding world, I'll explain what these two lovely things are.

Easy and I have our engagement photo shoot coming up this Tuesday (thanks future cousin Buzzy for the great rate!) and I wanted to incorporate some cute ideas I've seen on wedding websites.

Couples take photos during their engagement shoot to be used specifically for other purposes throughout their wedding.

I want to use the Save-The-Date wreath for, duh, our save-the-date mailings. We're behind schedule on these, but seeing as how we are having a super-short engagement, people will forgive us. I think.

This banner is lovely (take my word for it until I post a picture). I will hold up one end and Easy will hold up the other and we will use that photo for our save the dates, which incidentally will be going out with the invitations to our engagement party. That way we'll save money on postage. Winning, duh!

The wreath is my own spin on the banner. I didn't want two banners, simply because I'm a rebel (or something like that). So in lieu of two banners, we'll have one banner and one wreath. I saw all these great photos around the internet of couples holding up banners that spelled out Thank You for use in their thank you cards after the wedding.

I love this idea because it shows that the couple was thinking ahead about their appreciation to everyone waaaay back when they took engagement shots. You know, well before the wedding. Everyone will see what gracious lovely people Easy and I are.

I bought a grapevine wreath and wooden letters, fake baby's breath, paint, and a glue gun. It turned out very well if I do say so myself.

Now all we have to figure out is what we will be wearing. We've got the date, the time, the location, and the props. We can't show up naked because that would not be winning. That would be a fail. And a reason to get arrested on the streets of downtown Chicago.

Girl Time

2011-06-17T09:30:00.000-05:00

I pride myself on being an individual. This is something I hope to stay true even as I work on building a life with my fiance. To that end, spending time with my girls (without him) is a fading commodity that's becoming ever more important.

Last weekend, Easy had a gig at Andy's Jazz Club downtown. It was kind of a big deal and lots of both of our friends and family came out for it. My girls Michelle, Gloria, and Camille were there.

It was a fun grown-up evening for us. We were out having a drink and listening to great live jazz music. I loved having that moment with my girls.

That moment was also shared with Easy. It was very romantic because our engagement was announced (more than once) and the trumpet player serenaded us in a song. I loved being there with him. Having my parents and my girls there made it only better.

But I miss being out with my girls just by ourselves. The last time we went out was Gloria's birthday, but that was last month before I was even engaged. Honestly, it wasn't that long ago in terms of the calendar. But in terms of the whirlwind that has been my life since then, it feels like a long time ago.

So I've got to figure out how to make some time for my girls. They all lead busy lives as well. Plus, I'm the only one who works nights. Something has got to give though. I want some girl time out with my chicas that is an activity other than attending one of Easy's gigs.

The best part about this problem is that Easy and I always encourage each other to have our own lives. We don't do jealousy or neediness (unless we're being dramatic). So it's really just a matter of when I can find mutual free time. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Wishing I Could Exercise

2011-06-16T09:30:00.001-05:00

I wouldn't change anything about the last few weeks of my life. A lot has happened.

I got engaged. I started a new job. I signed a lease for an apartment. All of that makes for a very busy CeCe.

I don't have a whole bunch of free time that isn't taken up by working/sleeping, wedding planning, supporting Easy's music, and making time for my amazing friends and family.

Not having free time means not exercising. Being healthy is a priority, but the mechanics of it are not. I'm worried because my job is sedentary. I have visions of myself waking up in 6 months to discover that I've gained 20 pounds back and therefore can't fit into my perfect wedding dress.

I had plans of working out in the facilities at my job, but I spend my breaks blogging and working out after a 12 hour shift just doesn't sit right with me emotionally. I know, I know, drama!

So I need a new plan. I've been dying to get back to yoga and rock climbing and ballroom dancing. Paying for those things in advance will guarantee that I'll make the time to go. But they aren't in the budget yet.

First, I have to get back on track with my student loans. And I have to make a budget with Easy for how we're going to coordinate all of our new bills.

Then I have to get a new laptop, and of course, lots of money needs to be saved for NYC. And then there's helping to pay for wedding stuff.

Basically, my plans for exercising aren't really coming together like I wish they could. But writing this post is giving me a kick in the butt because I hate identifying a problem and not fixing it.

I've just decided that once we move in, Easy and I will go running together like we used to when I would visit him in St. Louis. As long as we can find time in our schedules, I think it would be great for both of us to get more active again. I hope he likes the idea. And I hope my anxiety over this soon subsides.

Applying To Be A Weddingbee And Other Related Wedding TidBits

2011-06-15T09:30:00.001-05:00

Tonight I finally submitted my application to my favorite wedding blog to join up. I mentioned this waaay back in March. You can read the post here.

From what I hear, I won't know for a couple of weeks whether or not I'll get accepted. Until that time, you all will be forced to hear all about the planning details of my wedding.

Our wedding guest list is still still still not done. My family and Easy's family all sat down on Sunday afternoon. We managed to get the list down to 291 from 425. But that's not even close to where it needs to be.

I've long since given up on the hope of my small wedding. People keep telling me I shouldn't be surprised since our wedding party is so large. Kind of like this.

Image of Scottish wedding

But I think that's unfair. If it were up to me, it'd be that many people standing up with us and that many sitting in the audience. But now I've tried to be realistic and accept 250. I'd prefer 200 because I'm thinking of my parents' budget.

But there is good news from the weekend. I. Got. A. Wedding. Dress. And I love it! I will not be showing my dress here since my fiance Easy reads this blog all the time and he's not allowed to see the dress. But here were some major candidates.

These dresses are Anjolique, DaVinci Bridals, and Allure Bridals respectively. You can find them by just going to the websites of the three wedding dress designers.

Searching for a wedding dress taught me a lot about perceptions. I went in feeling more convinced of my pre-conceived notions about my dress should look, but my mother was convinced I was all wrong.

I didn't get a sweetheart neckline, but it was definitely the most flattering on me. I didn't want a white dress, and though I fell in love with one, I ultimately chose a taupe dress. A line was the most bridal-feeling to me even though mermaid was damn sexy. And I was, and still am, completely opposed to any type of train, no matter how beautiful.

Next, I'll be figuring out how to make time to do a DIY project for our engagement photo shoot that is now only 6 days away. Yikes!

Six Degrees of Separation

2011-06-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

Anyone ever found out their significant other dated someone you knew? How about someone you knew well? How about someone you knew really well?

Yeah, well that happened to Easy and I last weekend. We had already long ago discussed our past relationship history. Easy and I tend to over-share anyway, plus neither of us wanted the other to ever be in a situation to deal with surprises.

Easy has a friend from high school. They met up to hang out last weekend and Easy was telling this old friend from high school about his new fiancee. When he showed him a picture, the friend was surprised to find he knew the woman in the picture. He informed Easy that he knew me when I was in medical school.

Turns out I know this guy because I went on a couple of dates with one of his classmates in law school. When he and I discovered we had absolutely no chemistry and our involvement was going to go nowhere, I moved on... to another friend in their group. These guys weren't friends at all actually, but they moved in the same circle. I met the second guy through the first.

Moving on. This second guy is the one I dated for a number of months. He and I didn't work out because he had some habits I couldn't get over. We have remained friendly and Easy knew of this guy by name. I never mentioned his last name though. Apparently I should have because this guy went to high with Easy and the guy who recognized my picture.

Easy and I had a discussion about it on and off for a couple of days. He seemed pretty upset about finding out I dated someone he knew (years ago) and used to hang around (years ago). I got upset because I felt like it was his fault that it was a surprise. When he told me about his past relationships/dating folks, I asked follow up questions if there was a chance I knew them.

I ruled out names, professions, colleges, and ages. I know for a fact that I have a ton of degrees of separation between myself and these women. But he didn't do his due diligence. He recognized a name and college and just assumed it couldn't be the same guy.

We've settled the issue since then, but it was a lesson learned. Even with our over-sharing, it's possible to be surprised by information about our partner. He's fine that I'm still friendly with this guy because this guy know I'm engaged, and he's dating someone else now, so there's no torch-holding going on for me.

And this led to a discussion of our values about gender stereotypes and double standards. I won't get into it, but let's just say that there is some unequal judgement of pasts that was (is?) going on. Honestly, I'm just glad we're able to have these discussions no matter how uncomfortable because we know that there's nothing either of us could say to make us change our minds about spending the rest of our lives together.

Making Adjustments

2011-06-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

I've made a couple adjustments recently to handle all that's going on in my new life. They're all over the spectrum, so I have no great introduction. I'm just going to jump right in.

1. Missing sleep for various reasons
When I leave work at 7 am, I'd like nothing more than to go right to sleep. That almost never happens.

There's always something. Between Easy's mother, my mother, my friends, etc., there's always something to do. There's a conversation to be had or plans and obligations to fulfill.

Easy is starting to get really upset at people for not being considerate of my need to actually sleep during the day. I don't want him to worry, but I appreciate that he worries. Also, he gets the brunt of my crankiness when I'm sleepy, so he's also got the most vested interest in me getting rest, ha ha.

But I'm hoping to come up with a plan to get sleep and do favors after that. If anyone has suggestions short of asking people to stop needing me (which I don't want to do), let me know.

2. Thinking about more than just what I want
I am kind of indecisive and there are a lot of things that I don't have strong opinions on (okay not a lot, but there are some). The point is, I don't do so well with stressing what I want when it concerns more than me.

Easy really encourages me to focus on what I want and to not be over-accommodating. My friends Top and Bad have been encouraging that for a while.

Planning this wedding is starting to make that really sink in for me. I still have decisions to make that are heavily influenced by what others might want, but some decisions are all my own. Our wedding colors will be a group decision with my vote counting the least (even though I have the "final say"). But my wedding dress will be my choice even if everyone else hates what I pick.

Baby steps, CeCe, baby steps.

3. Adjusting diet to suit metabolic needs
My job is now a sedentary job. I spend 14 hours a day basically sitting down and moving only minimally. I work a 12 hour shift and it's an hour to and from work.

And when I get sleepy, the only thing that keeps me up is caffeine or food. I can't drink coffee all day because I will be completely on edge. So I eat. And I eat. I've magically not gained a single pound, but I'm only 3 weeks in.

I'm worried that one day I'm going to suddenly jump up 10 pounds. It doesn't happen that suddenly, but unexpected and unnoticeable-until-it's-already-happened weight gain has happened to me before.

We moved forward on getting our apartment sooner than expected, so the money I thought I'd have to get back on the exercise bandwagon won't be there until next month probably.

I could work out at my job's workout facility, but 7 am just doesn't work for me, plus being in this building an extra hour isn't really my thing. I want to go back to yoga and ballroom dancing and rock climbing. I want to not turn into a fat ass.

Basically, I have noticed some things about myself that are requiring adjustment as my life changes. I just hope I'm able to handle the adjustments because the last thing I want to do is be a capitulating sleepy fatty.

Hanging Out With My Groomsman

2011-06-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

Easy and I chose amazing people for our wedding party. Yup, all 32 of them are amazing.

Everyone we invited to be a part of our day in a special way means something to us. The bridesmaids, bridal attendants, and groomsman are all good friends of ours. They are people we regularly spend time with.

This makes me happy because that means that by the time our wedding events roll around, we'll all be very well acquainted and maybe even friends.

Take Wednesday night, for example. I went out with Easy and several of his musician friends. Two of these men are going to be groomsmen at our wedding.

We had so much fun laughing and talking and listening to music and eating good food (with extraordinarily terrible service).

I love that we have compatible personalities. A fun game has emerged from Easy and I spending so much time with each other's friends. It's called "Who Will Hook Up At Our Wedding?"

We mix and match the friends based on personality and physical preferences. It would be amazing if any of our friends hooked up at the wedding. Mostly because Easy and I met at a wedding, and we'd love to keep the cycle going.

I don't know how many weddings you all have been to, but most of the ones I've attended didn't really have a good mix of single 20- and 30-somethings. But my wedding will definitely have that. Somebody better hook up, that's all I'm saying.

Putting Together A Wedding Binder

2011-06-11T09:30:00.000-05:00

Seeing as how I don't want to pay money for a wedding planner, just a Day of Coordinator, it's imperative that I stay very organized while putting together the details of my wedding.

I'm not sure if anyone who reads this blog has planned a wedding, but it's no joke. Seriously, it's not funny at all.

The only details I have finalized seemed like big decisions at the time. I was so proud of myself for getting these thing accomplished.

Then five minutes later, I think about everything thing else left to do and that one item checked off seems like nothing. I feel this way every time.

The one thing still leaving me with a sense of accomplishment is putting together my wedding binder. Between Russel + Hazel and Office Depot, I'm able to keep a grasp on all the details and decisions to be made that are piling up daily.

Russel + Hazel has this wedding planner that will be my best friend (once it is delivered). Here it is.

Wedding Organizer

And from Office Depot, I got a calendar, page protectors, highlighters, colored gel pens, and a briefcase.

The briefcase has a dual purpose. This wedding binder will have to be carried with me everywhere I go from now until February 11th, so I wanted something to carry it in that wasn't my purse. Plus, I'd like some training materials from to be able to travel with me as well.

Keeping up with my work schedule, Easy's practice/gig schedule, plus appointments and meetings for this wedding is the biggest task with the binder, but with the highlighters, I have color coded our calendar.

Just writing this all out seems like soooooooo much to me. But it will be worth it to stay organized and on top of things. Or am I just crazy? Probably a little of column A and a little of column B.

Another Fast Forward For My Life

2011-06-10T09:30:00.000-05:00

After feeling like I was standing still for a year, it's really nice to have things move forward again so soon. But first, I will recap everything else.

One year ago, I made the decision to leave medical school and it was pretty much downhill from there.

I was looking for a job doing research and I couldn't find one.

I was dating a man I really like and the future of the relationship was always more promising than reality in the moment.

My parents were freaking out at the limbo I had thrown my life into.

My friends weren't sure what to make of the situation.

But then I met Easy and after a roller coaster, things settled out and suddenly my romantic life improved.

Once I settled into life without heading towards an MD (for the first time in over 10 years), I was a person that my friends wanted to spend more time around and my friendships grew.

My parents finally accepted I wasn't going back to medical school and that withdrawal was just a formality.

Then April-May happened and everything flew forward. I got this job that I love and has promise to turn into a rewarding career that lets me be in an industry I love in a capacity that suits me much better than practicing medicine.

My wonderful boyfriend Easy is now my wonderful fiance Easy. He proposed and now we're in full swing of planning our wedding for February 11, 2012.

But the latest fast forward? We got an apartment! It's in the Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago. I have to be honest, I never thought I'd live in Hyde Park and I kind of didn't want to.

It wasn't until Easy and I were looking at apartments Thursday afternoon that I suddenly decided that I absolutely definitely had to live in Hyde Park.

The second apartment we were shown was perfect and I was done looking. Easy made me look at one more, but my mind was made up. We filled out the paperwork Wednesday afternoon and signed our lease Thursday morning. By the time this posts, we'll be the proud renters of a lovely 2 bedroom apartment. And we'll be moving in in a couple weeks.

We have appointments Friday and Saturday to look at wedding venues and wedding gowns.

It's just amazing when I look back to the not-so-distant past where things were compared to now.

I have the most amazing fiance, job, friends, and family. I feel so blessed and I cannot even believe this is my life. Eventually, things will slow down and I'll have time to catch my breath, but I'm liking that for right now, everything just keeps getting better all at once.

The Story About My Ring

2011-06-09T09:30:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had to have my ring replaced less than a week after receiving it. To clarify, I just had to have the stone replaced. It's just a crazy crazy story.

So, I came home from work Saturday morning and both my parents are awake. They have to head over to our church for Bible Institute soon. My mother asks me to run to Dunkin Donuts to get coffee and donuts for the meeting before I go to sleep (this is what I mean by my fam/friends not helping me get rest).

I told her I would go and off I went. I get the coffee and the donuts and head back to the church. There are several meetings going on at once, and one of the church members is walking out while I'm trying to get my stuff together to go in. She sees me, tells me she's heard the good news of my engagement and asks to see my ring.

I love my ring and I think it is amazingly breathtakingly beautiful, so I held out my hand for her to see it in it's full glory sparkling in the sunshine. I promise I'll put up a picture of it the next time I'm blogging on a computer I can load photos onto. But as I hold my hand up for her to see, I notice a big gaping hole where the pink sapphire was.

All the diamond that encircle the sapphire were there, just no pink sapphire! I was freaking out only for a split second because my response was to come up with a solution rather than cry about it. I took the coffee and donuts inside, showed my mother the ring, informed her I was off to fix it and left.

Easy purchased the ring in St. Louis, but it was from Jared, so they are all over. I called the Orland Park store to make they were open. I told them I had a ring in need of repair and I was en route to the store. I was assured they could help me with a ring purchased in a different city.

I called Easy to tell him what happened and make sure he had gotten "the good insurance." He had because he's a very smart and wonderful man. I get to the store, they look up the ring info in the computer. And because we had the good insurance, they said they would replace the stone and I should come back in a few hours to pick it up.

I had to sleep before work, so I wanted to see if Easy could pick up the ring for me. When I called the store back to check, they informed me that only I or a designated person-- designated before I left the store-- could pick up the ring. I told them my fiance had purchased the ring and surely he would be able to pick it up for me since I had to be at work.

She said, "you'd be surprised how many people use repairs and cleanings as an excuse to take a ring back. For security purposes, only you can pick up the ring. I understand that he purchased it, but you'd really be surprised how often it happens that someone tries to take the ring back,"

I just cracked up laughing and told them my fiance wasn't going to do that, but I would just wait until the next day and pick it up. Easy and I went to the store the next day, picked up the ring. I dare say, it's even more brilliant. Pink sapphires come in many shades of pink, and I think I like this even better. It could just be my bias for things that are sparkly. I always think what's right in front of me is the best.

They said the stone should stay in this time. I don't even know how it fell out. I sit at a desk 12 hours a day and sleep in between. Literally, the most strenuous thing I'd done since receiving the ring was carrying a Dunkin Donut Box O Joe. But hopefully that was the only time such a thing would happen.

In The Full Swing Of This New Life

2011-06-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

I had been blogging during my breaks at work, but suddenly I didn't feel like it. I used my breaks to sleep. I was feeling pretty worn out. Getting adjusted to night would be much easier if it wasn't for my family and friends constantly requesting thing of me during the daytime.

So, let's see, what's been going on these last couple of days? I've been already in the full swing of wedding planning. We've got a list of venues and bridal salons to check out once me, my mother, and Easy can coordinate schedules. We set a tentative budget (concrete enough to pick a venue).

The hardest part so far? Coming up with a guest list. I have a list, Easy has a list, each of my parents made a list and Easy's parents made one list together. That's a lot of lists to reconcile. We're supposed to all sit down together on Sunday to whittle the list down to some manageable number (right now its 375 without Easy's parents' list).

We're flying pretty swiftly through training at work. It was supposed to take 8-9 weeks but it looks like we'll be done n 6 weeks. That's pretty exciting because then my schedule will be my own (at least more so) quicker.

I've really enjoyed spending time with Easy these last couple days. He takes such good care of me and makes sure I get enough sleep. This is the first night at work I actually felt rested enough to blog. I didn't need to nap during my break!

The one thing I have done with wedding planning is I have made formal invitations to all 32 members of our wedding party. That's right 32. We're freaking insane, I know.

2 Best Men, 2 Maids of Honor, 2 Bridal Attendants, 8 Groomsmen, 6 Bridesmaids, 2 Junior Bridesmaids, 2 Flower Girls, 2 Ring Bearers, 2 Hostesses, 2 Ushers, 2 Officiants.

That's a lot. That's all I have to say. I was party to this huge ass wedding party, so I can't complain...

Tomorrow, I'll post the story of how I had to get my engagement ring replaced less than one week after receiving it.

Gonna Get Married, But There's More To My Life, Part 3

2011-06-05T09:30:00.000-05:00

The first two posts (parts 1 and 2) covered the first two topics. This one is all about #3. 1. Men I used to date who still don't know I'm engaged yet. 2. Looking for an apartment. 3. Settling into this new job and the financial situation that goes along with it.

3. This job seems like it will be pretty amazing. Once I'm settled and doing the work, i.e, done with training, I will love it. At least I think so thus far.

That's a great thing, but there is this extra part to getting work done. Getting paid for it! Whoo! I still have to have my gainful employment party, and I can't wait for it.

But being gainfully employed means car insurance, rent, heating bills, cell phone, student loans, saving for the future, as well as supporting my own habits (more ballroom dancing than meth, what were you thinking?).

Coming up with a budget of how to cover all these expenses worries me a bit. This will be the first time in my life that I'm covering all my expenses. I have to say, I'm not looking forward to it. I'd like to set a goal of having my budget all ~~written~~ typed out by the end of the month. If I can accomplish that, I'll feel better.

The one thing I'm leaning on right now is that my work salary and life budget doesn't also have to include wedding costs. My wonderfully traditional parents and future in-laws are taking care of most of the wedding associated costs! Yay for them. Easy and I will be returning the favor in terms of helping with retirement and throwing awesome retirement or 50th year anniversary parties.

Why I Stayed Awake For Almost 36 Hours Straight

2011-06-04T09:30:00.001-05:00

I drove home from work early Thursday morning with full intentions of getting lots of good sleep so I could enjoy the rest of my time off before having to be back at work Friday evenings. I'm not sure if I explained that I work nights. 7pm to 7am.

While on the way home, I spoke with Easy about my concerns over informing exes about our engagement. The reason I love him so much is that I can talk to him about anything. With only a very few exceptions, he and I don't seem to possess the insecurity or jealousy genes.

He had already informed most of his exes that he was going to propose. That's right, he told them before he even did it. But his way of telling them seemed very successful, so I made plans to call up my people and let them know that very day.

I got home around 9 am with plans to make a quick few phone calls and then get some sleep. But then no one answered. And then I remembered I still hadn't spoken to my godmother or my pastor. And then I remembered I wanted to call some family members of one of my exes to tell them since we are still very friendly.

Long story short, I didn't get off the phone until 12:30 pm. At which point, I had to leave the house to go pickup one of my bridesmaids to take her to the doctor (car trouble). Then I realized I still haven't officially told the rest of my bridesmaids I was engaged.

I intended to tell them when I saw them. Once that plan was in place, I suddenly didn't see them for four days. Go figure. So I made plans to hang out with two of them and go to the movies with two more that night. I called the ones who were going to the movies and told them over the phone since the movies weren't til later. I finally informed them all, just in time to go to have coffee with PT.

He wanted to catch up and we did. I told him about the new job and about being engaged. I was so worried about the conversation and how it would go, but he didn't ask about timelines, so I didn't have to tell him he and Easy overlapped. But then PT began giving me how-to-avoid-getting-divorced advice, which I will be taking with a grain of salt seeing as how he is divorced.

I finally went to see Hangover 2 that night. And I was deliriously sleepy. I never fall asleep on movies, but I missed a whole 4 minutes of that movie. I finally crawled into bed and chatted with Easy until I fell asleep.

I was glad to get certain notifications out to the people. Since I'm not on Facebook, there was no other way for my exes to find out and I really am glad they heard from me early on. It's not like they're harboring torches for me, but it's just the principle. Plus, after what happened to my girl Michelle (another bridesmaid!) Friday night, I feel even more strongly that calling them was a good idea.

Speaking of notifications, I have to work on finding formal invitations to the wedding party to ask them to be a part. I have to have 24. Easy and I will both have a best man and maid of honor, we have two flower girls, two ring bearers, and he has 8 groomsmen, and I have 2 bridal attendant (males) and 6 bridesmaids. Crazy, right? Well, we do what we want cause we're rebels.

I have decided that I will still apply to be a Bee, but in the meantime, you all will have to listen to me yakkety yak yak about wedding stuff and I will also set up a classic wedding website. The classic site is for guests to go to to get info about the wedding, it won't be blogging. I may change my mind because I do that a lot. But thanks for the congratulations and please bear with me as I manage to put together a wedding in less than 9 months!

Gonna Get Married, But There's More To My Life, Part 2

2011-06-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

This post will be all about #2 since I've already covered #1. #3 will be covered tomorrow I think. 1. Men I used to date who still don't know I'm engaged yet. 2. Looking for an apartment. 3. Settling into this new job and the financial situation that goes along with it.

2. I need to find an apartment. Both my parents and Easy's parents have expressed that they are okay (more or less) with the idea of us living together even before we're officially husband and wife.

But where do we live? Hyde Park is more appealing than it's ever been before because my friends Bada and Jordan just moved there and I love their place. Easy would like to live in Hyde Park.

There's also Wicker Park, which I love and which we can afford. There are other neighborhoods, but there's a lot to consider.

Living somewhere that's convenient for me to travel to and from work is important, but also if it's near where Easy has most of his gigs.

Being close, but not too close, to our family and friends would also be nice. Both of our churches are far south as well, so that's a consideration.

Ranking importance between finance, friends, family, work, and religion isn't easy. Plus, we have slightly different priorities when finding an apartment. I want windows, in-unit laundry, and 2 bedrooms. Easy wants practice space, artsy neighbors, and affordability. Those are not in-sync priorities, though they're not necessarily out of sync either.

If we could just pick a leasing company or brokering company, we could start finding places and go from there. But finding the time to do that is easier said than done. I just feel like we're running out of time to find an apartment with a July 1st lease.

I will feel supremely better once we start looking at places and know we can find a place that we would love and afford.

Gonna Get Married, But There's More To My Life, Part 1

2011-06-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

I have only 8 1/2 months to plan a wedding! Yikes! What was I thinking?!?!

Well, I know what I was thinking. I love Easy so much, and I wanted to press fast forward on the process toward becoming his wife as much as possible. Still having a wedding that falls 1 year 7 months 9 days after we first met is pretty good timing I think. I'm just glad Easy agreed with me that moving forward at this speed is the best idea for the two of us.

That being said, there are other things going on in my life. 1. Men I used to date who still don't know I'm engaged yet. 2. Looking for an apartment. 3. Settling into this new job and the financial situation that goes along with it.

1. Yeah... so I didn't send out some sort of mass text to everyone I've ever talked to that may or may not pop back up again. I think that would just be odd. And since I'm not on Facebook, I don't have the benefit of spreading the news simply by changing my relationship status.

So what is my plan of action? I figure I'll tell them if and when they pop up. Except two got ahead of schedule; instead of popping up after the engagement, they popped up a few days before I was engaged.

One is my ex-boyfriend from college, who I have referred to as Light in my other blog, texted me to see how I was last week. I feel like I should tell him because we have so many mutual friends and I'm sure he will be offended if he doesn't hear it from me. But we only catch up every couple months or so.

Since we caught up last week, I'm wondering if I should call him up to tell him or wait until the next time it's reasonable to be back in contact and risk him hearing it from someone else? I only care because our break-up and subsequent roller coaster friendship cause quite a bit of hullabaloo amongst our college friends.

I don't want to once again be the asshole who didn't consider Light's feelings in the situation. Plus, if he were getting married, I'd like to know. Actually, I don't care, but I feel like I should care, you know?

Then there's PT. This is the guy I was still-sort-of-dating-but-definitely-still-liking when I met Easy. In fact, I wrote an interesting post comparing the two men that you can read here (sorry for bringing that back up Easy). PT popped up again right before I got engaged wanting to catch up.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that we planned on going for coffee but I have PT firmly in my unreliable category, so I didn't expect that we'd actually catch up. But he texted me again to set a specific time for Thursday evening to go have coffee. I feel like somewhere in there I should have mentioned the life changes, but all I mentioned was the new job. It just felt... weird... to bring it up via text. And when we first talked about meeting to catch up, there was no engagement.

Waiting to say, "I'm in a relationship now" makes sense. Waiting to say, "I'm engaged now" makes less sense. But the major concern is that I met Easy before PT and I were done. We were fizzling out, but weren't done yet.

When we fizzled out, I figured I'd never have to hear from him again except for the next time Cody Ross (google him, he's awesome) does something fantastic, and even then it wouldn't be to catch up, it would be a quick conversation that wouldn't include information about either of our lives.

If I'm lucky, he'll have a girlfriend and simply be interested in being one of those people who stays friends with all his old flames.

I wish Easy were the type of guy who was against staying friends with exes. But both he and I are pretty nonchalant about it. I'm nonchalant cause I mostly don't care to maintain those friendships myself, but I'm not the jealous type. He does in fact maintain those friendships, but he's also not jealous. So I have no reason not to try and make the best of these interesting situations.

I coffee tomorrow goes well and drama free, I may take the plunge and call up the ex from college before he hears it from someone else. And then I'll handle anyone else who pops up out of the woodwork as they arise. I guess that's what happens when I go through an.. abridged.. process towards the altar.

My friends who date people for like 5 years don't have these issues.

I Have Some Great News!

2011-06-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

I'm engaged!

Easy proposed to me on Sunday night! He managed to surprise me in spite of the fact that we've been talking about weddings and marriage and engagement for longer than we've even been officially boyfriend and girlfriend.

What can I say? We're rebels. We do what we want.

The ring is beautiful. It is a pink sapphire with diamonds around it and pave diamonds on the band. It's white gold and just fantastic. At some point, I'll put up pictures of it.

I'm contemplating whether I want to start a separate wedding blog or just write about it here. I would love to be a Bee for weddingbee.com, so if that happens, I'll just blog there and link to the posts here.

I'm sure you want to know the basics of our engagement, so I'll recap. Easy came home for Memorial Day weekend. He took my father out to brunch Sunday, seemingly obviously to ask for my hand in marriage.

We had plans to hang out the whole rest of the day. Easy told me he was too nervous to ask my father, but that they'd scheduled another time to go out and talk. I was disappointed, but not worried cause they have a great relationship and I figured that gave him more time to get the ring and not have too much pressure on him.

We went to a barbeque his cousin threw and then headed back to my parents' house. We were supposed to go out for drinks with friends, but I was so tired, I just wanted to go home. Plus I was sleepy and still a bit hungry.

For Easy and me, that means we're going to get into an argument. But even though I was sleepy and we were irritated with each other, before he drove off, I asked him to wait. I gathered my things and headed back to the car. I told him I was going to rally and we were going to go have drinks with our friends.

He hugged me and kissed me and told me how much he loved me and that he didn't want to fight anymore. While we were hugging, he asked me to marry him. His exact words were, "will you marry me?" I said, "yes I'll marry you baby."

I said it nonchalantly because Easy asks me to marry him about twice a month. But then he got down on one knee and pulled out a ring. I was flabbergasted and exclaimed, "Oh wow! You mean it this time!" Then he said a bunch more sweet things that I don't remember because I was so surprised and amazed and overwhelmed.

There was kissing and hugging and I-love-yous. He put the ring on my finger and it was gorgeous! It was exactly what I wanted. He had it made to look like a combo of three different rings that I loved. He did good.

We went to have drinks with our friends. These are the friends whose wedding we met at last July. They were the first people we told. Neither of us really wanted to spend time calling a whole bunch of people and have to talk about what just happened. We just wanted to enjoy the moment.

After we hung out with our friends, we came back home and woke up my parents to tell them. Then we went to his parents house and fell right asleep. We woke up in the morning and told his parents we were engaged. Everyone was so excited!

I know I've been using a lot of exclamation marks, I'm just so happy.

We've hammered out a couple of details so far, but we have so much to do in just 8 1/2 months. Yes, we've set a date. Saturday, February 11, 2012. We know our colors will basically be gray and blue, specifically cobalt blue, dove gray, and pewter. We know we want our rehearsal dinner at Quartino's on State Street in downtown Chicago.

We know who we want our wedding party to be. We know we want both of our pastors officiating the wedding. And I don't want to get married in a church, so I'm searching for venues around Chicago that I can have the ceremony and reception at all in one place.

That's all for now. I have a lot to do in not a lot of time, but aside from making calls to important people to tell them the news, I've been just basking in the joy of being engaged!